The Spanish American War

and Race

By: Cody Crow

This picture can be found at http://www.wheelerplantation.org/the.htm

              Racial ideologies and the experiences of race played critical roles in the Spanish American War. The racial ideology of white supremacy created justification for the United States to turn from the anti-imperialistic principles of the Monroe Doctrine to pursue an imperialist foreign policy in the Philippines. During the war, the experience of soldiering itself dealt with race. Though soldiers experienced the racial tensions, all Americans felt the presence of racial issues.

              In the years following the Civil War, racial identity dominated many Americans’ daily experience. African-Americans faced social and economic barriers to equality, particularly through the codification of racism through Jim Crow laws. Many states, mostly southern, passed these laws to enforce legal racial segregation.

This picture is located at:

http://www.balagan.org.uk/war/1898/images/Battle_of_Desmayo_the_Cuban_Balaklava.jpg

              While Jim Crow laws created boundaries of racial segregation in the country, U.S. troops experienced integration difficulties as well. In the Spanish American War, African-Americans for the first time fought for their country in large numbers. As historian Howard Zinn points out:

                                                       the reactions of black soldiers to the war were…mixed: there was the simple

                                                        need to get ahead in society where opportunities for success were denied the

                                                        black man, and the military life gave such possibilities.  There was a race pride,

                                                        the need to show that blacks were courageous, as patriotic, as anyone else. And

                                                        yet, there was with all this the consciousness of a brutal war, fought against

                                                        colored people, a counterpart of the violence committed against black people…*1

African-American soldiers also faced prejudice in the chain of command. Black soldiers could not hold positions of command, and white officers commanded all black troops.

             The experience of white soldiers in the war was very dissimilar to that of African-American soldiers. White soldiers were supposed to uphold the feelings of the nation while fighting alongside African-American Soldiers. White commanders of black troops felt pressures from both sides. According to a Spanish American War website, “For the regiments to continue in effectiveness, the senior officers had to maintain high morale, discipline, and dedication to service, while retaining the ponderous trappings of racial segregation…"*2  With both parties being part of an army fighting together at war, the whites’ treatment of African-American soldiers might have been slightly better than what African-Americans faced in civilian life.

This picture is located at:

http://www.nps.gov/prsf/history/buffalo_soldiers/images/liberators_of_cuba.jpg

               Just as the racial ideologies caused estranged feelings between whites and African-Americans, race was a huge factor when dealing with the natives of the Philippines at the end of the Spanish American War. The Filipinos endured harsh treatment because of their race as well. The United States government felt that the Filipinos were incapable of governing themselves. The Filipinos did not understand why African-American troops were helping the white troops from the U.S. when the African-Americans endured the same condescension that the Filipinos were experiencing. Howard Zinn gives the example of, “…a little Filipino boy asked… ‘Why does the American Negro come…to fight us where we are much a friend to him and have not done anything to him.  He is all the same as me…why don’t you fight those people in America who burn Negroes…?’”*3  Whether it was a sense of duty to one's country or a simple coincidence, it is hard to tell why the African American troops actively participated in the dominating of the Filipinos.

              The ideologies of race that were present in the Spanish American War were powerful enough to change the treatment of African-Americans, beginning with the treatment of the soldiers. Though Jim Crow laws placed many years of legal segregation on African Americans, overcoming them helped to further integrate United States society. Like the African-Americans, the Filipinos experienced great harshness in racism. Overcoming these obstacles in racial ideology has helped form the standards of society that we accept today.

Sources:

1.  Zinn, Howard.  The People’s History of the United States.  New York: Harper Collins Publishers 1999.  PP 294-313.

2.  Black Participation in the Spanish American War. http://www.spanamwar.com/AfroAmericans.htm

3.  Zinn, Howard.  p. 312.