African American Soldiers in the Philippine War PDF Download

Author: Christopher M. Redgraves
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African American soldiers
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
During the Philippine War, 1899-1902, America attempted to quell an uprising from the Filipino people. Four regular army regiments of black soldiers, the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, and the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Infantry served in this conflict. Alongside the regular army regiments, two volunteer regiments of black soldiers, the Forty-Eighth and Forty-Ninth, also served. During and after the war these regiments received little attention from the press, public, or even historians. These black regiments served in a variety of duties in the Philippines, primarily these regiments served on the islands of Luzon and Samar. The main role of these regiments focused on garrisoning sections of the Philippines and helping to end the insurrection. To carry out this mission, the regiments undertook a variety of duties including scouting, fighting insurgents and ladrones (bandits), creating local civil governments, and improving infrastructure. The regiments challenged racist notions in America in three ways. They undertook the same duties as white soldiers. They interacted with local "brown" Filipino populations without fraternizing, particularly with women, as whites assumed they would. And, they served effectively at the company and platoon level under black officers. Despite the important contributions of these soldiers, both socially and militarily, little research focuses on their experiences in the Philippines. This dissertation will discover and examine those experiences. To do this, each regiment is discussed individually and their experiences used to examine the role these men played in the Philippine War. Also addressed is the role ideas about race played in these experiences. This dissertation looks to answer whether or not notions on race played a major role in the activities of these regiments. This dissertation will be an important addition to the study of the Philippine War, the segregated U. S. Army, and African American history in the modern period.