History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of InterestJohnson, Edward A. (Edward Austin)
History
History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest
Johnson, Edward A. (Edward Austin)
Spanish-American War, 1898 -- Participation, African American
The highest civilization exists in the island of Luzon but in some
of the remote islands the people are not more than "enlightened." The
population embraced in Anguinaldo's dominion is 10,000,000, scattered
over a territory in area approaching 200,000 square miles. The
Americans up to this time have conquered only about 143 square miles
of this territory.
What takes place in the South concerning the treatment of Negroes is
known in the Philippines. The Philipino government on the 27th of
February, 1899, issued from Hong Kong the following decree warning the
Philipino people as follows:
"Manila has witnessed the most horrible outrages, the confiscation of
the properties and savings of the people at the point of the bayonet,
the shooting of the defenseless, accompanied by odious acts of
abomination repugnant barbarism and social hatred, worse than the
doings in the Carolinas."
They are told of America's treatment of the black population, and are
made to feel that it is better to die fighting than become subject
to a nation where, as they are made to believe, the colored man is
lynched and burned alive indiscriminately. The outrages in this
country is giving America a bad name among the savage people of the
world, and they seem to prefer savagery to American civilization, such
as is meted out to her dark-skinned people.
CHAPTER X.
RESUME.
Should the question be asked "how did the American Negroes act in the
Spanish-American war?" the foregoing brief account of their conduct
would furnish a satisfactory answer to any fair mind. In testimony of
their valiant conduct we have the evidence first, of competent eye
witnesses; second, of men of the white race; and third, not only white
race, but men of the Southern white race, in America, whose antipathy
to the Negro "with a gun" is well known, it being related of the great
George Washington, who, withal, was a slave owner, but mild in his
views as to the harshness of that system--that on his dying bed he
called out to his good wife: "Martha, Martha, let me charge you, dear,
never to trust a 'nigger' with a gun." Again we have the testimony of
men high in authority, competent to judge, and whose evidence ought to
be received. Such men as General Joseph Wheeler, Colonel Roosevelt,
General Miles, President McKinley. If on the testimony of such
witnesses as these we have not "established our case," there must
be something wrong with the jury. A good case has been established,
however, for the colored soldier, out of the mouth of many witnesses.
The colored troopers just did so well that praise could not be
withheld from them even by those whose education and training had bred
in them prejudice against Negroes. It can no longer be doubted that
the Negro soldier will fight. In fact such has been their record in
past wars that no scruples should have been entertained on this point,
but the (late) war was a fresh test, the result of which should be
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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