An examination of United States Indian policy during the nmeteenth century reveals a clear pattem of colonialism toward Native Americans This essay will suggest that this policy served as a precedent for imperialist domination over the Philippines and other islands occupied during the Spamsh-American War. Historians are divided over the origins of United States imperialist sentiment--whether the nation "stumbled" into empire, followed manifest destiny policies from the Mexican War, or annexed islands in a search for commercial markets. However, there seems to be a mistaken consensus, at least among many diplomatic historians, that the United States did not have a tradition of holding alien peoples as colonial subjects before 1898.
That the Indian precedent has been ignored is perhaps testimony to the treatment Native Americans have received from historians. Rather than being considered as independent peoples, Indians have been so closely associated with the early frontier that they have been largely ignored as a factor in later American diplomatic history. There has been a tendency to stereotype Indians as a "vanishing race," especially after the passing of the frontier. 1 On the contrary, the demographic reality is that Amencan Indian population has continued to grow during every decade since 1890 and in specific ethnic groups the population rebound occurred even earlier. 2 This fact perplexed American policy-makers, who were supposed to oversee the continual decline of their "vanishing" charges and who had to decide what status these peoples would hold within the United States political system. That decision was not immediate, but was only gradually formed through the nineteenth century.
United States treatment of Indian groups after the passage of the frontier slowly evolved from the initial status of "nation," as represented by the treaty system. This form of intemational agreement implicitly recognized native sovereignty and nationhood. After white settlement had surrounded a native group, however, their status was seen by whites as something less than mdependent. Since the Constitution did not deal with the legal status of individual Indians, the earliest comprehensive attempt to define this status was by Chief Justice John Marshall. In Cherokee Nation v Georgia (1831) Marshall admitted that the treaties did recognize the Cherokees as "a state," but he asserted that they were not a foreign state:
The condition of the Indians in relation to the Umted States is perhaps unlike that of any other two people in existence....They acknowledge themselves in their treaties to be under the protection of the Umted States [and] under the sovereignty and domination of the United States....They may, more correctly, perhaps, be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will....they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian. 3
In what was to become the most quoted case relating to indians in the nineteenth century, Marshall had established a de facto protectorate status for Indian "domestic dependent nations. "
The status of individual natives was summarized by Marshall's use of the paternalistic term "ward " What he meant was clearly something less than the status of citizenship. As early as 1823 Marshall had spoken of Indians as "subjects" and "conquered inhabitants," who could either be "blended with the conquerers"--i.e., given citizenship--"or safely governed as a distinct people." He denied that Indians would be oppressed without citizenship rights, because they would be protected by "feelings of humanity" of government officials. 4 Thus, Marshall had decided that the constitution allowed the governing of alien peoples without granting them citizenship. Even though he later qualified the doctrine in Worcester v Georgia (1832), and protected Indians from state jurisdiction, his earlier terms were the ones that were most quoted in nineteenth-century court cases. He had provided the United States with a model for governing colonial subjects.
For purposes of definition, we must distinguish between expansion and colonialism. Most nation-states have been to some extent expansionist, have spread into neighboring areas, and have taken political control over the inhabitants. Because they share many basic similarities with neighboring societies, this expansionist process usually results in the incorporation of the inhabitants into the body politic. Examples of expansion would include the British over the Scots, the Prussians over the Bavarians, the Russians over the Kievans, and the United States over the French Cajuns in Louisiana. Another type of expansion involves pushing a people out of a particular piece of land; examples would include Iroquois, Cherokee, Sioux, and Navajo actions against other Native Amencans. Colonialism involves the conquest and control of culturally different peoples, who are so dissimilar that they cannot be easily incorporated but must be ruled as subjects outside the political process. In the case of transplanted settler nations like the Umted States, native occupants of adjoinmg lands were vastly different. These peoples were not merely pushed aside as expansion occurred, they were enveloped under United States control without being given citizenship status. If we define colonialism in this way, to distinguish it from land ownersmp expansion, we might well conclude that Marshall's decisions approached a conception of Indian "wards" as colonial subjects as early as the 1830s.
Over the next decades colonial control tightened. Later treaties with Indians took a more stringent tone and insisted that tribal laws should not be inconsistent with United States laws. This stipulation, as contained in the 1835 treaty with the Cherokees, was used by Chief Justice Roger Taney as a basis for deciding in 1845 that Native Americans were "held to be, and treated as, subject" to the government's "dominion and control." 5 By 1856 Attorney General Caleb Cushing ruled that "Indians are domestic subjects of this Government ... who are not therefore citizens." 6
The major hindrance to this evolving interpretation of Indians as subjects was the existence of the treaties--with their guarantees of tribal self-rule. During the last three decades of the century policy-makers moved gradually to restrict native nghts and sovereignty. By 1871 Congress had stopped making new treaties with Indians,7 and the Supreme Court had ruled that Congress could override the promises in an old treaty simply by passmg a statute (without native consent). 8 Still, the treaties were inconsistent with attempts to enforce federal control over internal reservation matters, and so in 1873 Commissioner of Indian Affairs Edward P Smith called for the abrogation of all Indian treaties and the end of sovereignty. "All recognitions of Indians in any other relation than strictly as subjects of the Government should cease." 9
Congress did not directly abrogate the treaties, but in 1885 it did extend federal jurisdiction over major crimes on reservations. No agreement to this change was sought from Indians, even though it violated the terms of numerous treaties. The Supreme Court upheld the change and decided that Indians "were not a State or nation" but were only "local dependent communities "10 This new definition was a significant demotion from the sovereignty implied in the treaties, or even from Marshall's protectorate status of ' 'domestic dependent nations."
Furthermore, the Court declared that Indians born on reservations were not granted citizenship by the Fourteenth Amendment They could not become citizens unless by naturalization or by explicit provisions of a treaty or statute. 11 They were instead defined as "'nationals,' or persons owing allegiance to the United States but without those privileges which go only with citizenship." Precisely the same status was conferred upon Island subjects after the Spanish-American War. 12 By 1898, while the United States was conquering overseas territories, the Court was characterizing Indians as dependent wards under the "paramount authority" of Congress, which could alter or abolish tribal governments without regard to treaty promises.13 The way was opened for Congress to ignore tribal governments in Indian Territory, in favor of a white-dominated Oklahoma Territory. This process was remarkably similar to the process by which the native government of Hawaii went unrecognized in favor of a white man's territorial government there. 14 Likewise, a United States district court in Alaska decided that whites, even of Russian and foreign extraction, were automatically recognized as naturalized citizens, while Indians were not granted citizenship but were "subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may from time to time adopt." 15
The United States did not make the "mistake" of recognizing native governments in the Philippines through treaties, as it had done earlier with Indians, but the Insular Cases provided that Congress should have the same amount of unrestricted freedom of action that it had earlier decided to apply over Native Americans. 16 By the end of the century the federal government held virtually unlimited power over American Indians This power was locally applied by the agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but its reality to Indians was attested in 1899 by anthropologist George Bird Grinnell.. He wrote "An Indian agent has absolute control of affairs on his reservation .. more nearly absolute than anything else that we in this country know of. The courts protect citizens, but the Indian is not a citizen, and nothing protects him. Congress has the sole power to order how he shall live, and where." 17 No longer were Native Americans independent nations capable of making treaties with the United States; no longer were they even accorded the protectorate status of "domestic dependent nations." They were not nations at all, only powerless subjects without any treaty guarantees that the government was bound to respect this condition had not come about as suddenly as the establishment of United States authority over Its Filipino and other Island subjects, but Indians lived under a control as thoroughly colonial as any Inhabitants of American overseas territories.
The reality of this subject status, and its similarity to that of the inhabitants of the new Island territories, was not lost on those whites who were most concerned about United States Indian policy. Former Senator Henry L Dawes, long identified with the policy of breaking up communal landholding among Indians in favor of individual allotments, wrote an article in 1899 justifying this policy. He felt that Indian policy should be used as a precedent in dealing with "other alien races whose future had been put in our keeping" by the Spanish war. Favoring colonial retention of the Philippines, Dawes wrote, "When the public mind is directed to a discussion of the wisest and safest attitude toward {the insulars) our policy with the Indians becomes an object lesson worthy of careful and candid study "18
The most influential advisory group on Indian policy was the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indians. This annual meeting of missionaries, educators, and philanthropists tried to protect Indians from exploitation by whites; but they had no respect for native cultures and believed that Indians should abandon their traditional ways of life and merge onto the American melting pot 19 The conference speakers by and large supported imperialism abroad and encouraged similar feelings toward Indians and insulars. At the 1898 meeting one of the opening speeches suggested that the conference should turn its attention to the newly acquired territories. By the 1900 meeting the organizer announced that the conference leaders thought it advisable "to include other dependent races." One-third of the meeting's sessions were devoted to insular topics. 20 Over the next few years almost half of the conference sessions dealt with overseas territories, and the 1903 platform stated that the same principles they had applied to Indians "should govern us m all our dealings with other dependent people "21 To reflect this expanded interest, the official title was changed at the 1904 meeting to the Lake Mohonk Conference of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples. A report on the 1904 meeting in Missionary Review of the World evidenced similar feelings on Native American and insular natives; "the quite unanimous testimony" of the speakers was that both groups could not "be abandoned to themselves. . . . To cast them upon their own resources would be disastrous." 22
Speakers at the conferences often made comparisons between Indians and insulars, particularly regarding the role of education. Several teachers who had long experience in Indian schools, and who were currently introducing schools in Puerto Rico, spoke at the 1900 conference and brought some Puerto Rican students who were enrolled at Carlisle Indian School. 23 A speech at the 1901 conference, "The Relation of the Government to Its Dependent Classes," stated that experience in teaching Indians would be of "untold use in providing education for the Porto Ricans and the Filipinos. "24
The 1901 platform recommended that the government hold lands in trust for the natives, appoint officials by qualification rather than by political patronage, and promote education and "Christian civilization."25 It recommended these guidelines equally for Indians and insular territories: ''The experience of the past (with Indians) indicates the errors which we should avoid. . . and the ends which we should seek in our relations with all dependent races under American sovereignty. Capacity for self-government in dependent and inexperienced races, is a result to be achieved by patient and persistent endeavor; it is not to be assumed that they already possess it. "26 Thus, this influential group of Indian policy advocates recognized the colonial-subject status of Native Americans and proposed that the experience gained should be applied to the alien subject peoples of the new territories beyond the seas.
This perspective was shared by the leading imperialist spokesmen, both inside and outside of government. Not all expansionists favored American retention of island colonies, but all imperialists were strong believers in the correctness of past American expansion. In this great drama. of western expansion, Native Americans were assigned the role of opposers of progress. While Henry Cabot Lodge, for example, held sympathetic views of Afro-Americans, he expressed nothing positive about the Indian except for the dubious compliment that he was "one of the most remarkable savage warriors" in the world. Otherwise, Lodge portrayed Indians as "cunning, treacherous, and cruel" and complained of "false sentimentality about the noble and injured red man." 27 In his biography of George Washington, Lodge argued that the first president was right to crush native resistance to western expansion, even in opposition to anti-expansionists who "took the sentimental view and considered the government barbarous to make causeless war." 28 Likewise, John Hay spoke of pioneer victory over Indians as "the righteous victory of light over darkness...the fight of civilization against barbarism." 29 In 1900 Secretary of War Elihu Root complimented the United States Army for having "rescued from savage foes" generations of frontier settlers. 30
The imperialist who wrote most about Indians was Theodore Roosevelt, and his feelings were as strong on one subject as on the other. His multivolume The Winning of the West was filled with accounts of gory atrocities by Indians, while similar actions by whites were excused as having been inevitable and due mainly to justifiable revenge. Roosevelt's basic claim was that Indians did not own their homelands, and thus had no right to oppose white expansion. He wrote
the Indians never had any real title to the soil, they had not half as good a claim to it, for instance, as the cattlemen now have to all of eastern Montana, yet no one would assert that the cattlemen have a right to keep immigrants off...this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages....the man who puts the soil to use must of right dispossess the man who does not, or the world will come to a standstill. 31
In an 1893 report on reservation administration, Roosevelt declared that any claims about Indians owning their lands were "nonsense." Agriculture, he felt, was the only thing that entitled people to own land (this argument ignored the many Indian groups that were agricultural). Although there were some exceptions, Roosevelt felt that the government had generally treated the original Americans "with great justice and fairness." 32 The future president held a strong belief that a clash between savagism and Civilization was inevitable. That civilization would ultimately triumph he had no doubt, and in the process many of the Indians would be exterminated. But he warned his readers not to be overcome with sympathy for the "decay" of the Indians because "the survivors will come out American citizens" and be amalgamated into Western culture. 33 For those who did not survive in this Darwinian process, and for those native cultures subjected to genocide, Roosevelt had no sympathy.
The imperialists believed that imperialism abroad was similar to past United States expansion over North America. The tone of this argument was set in American thought even before the Spanish-American War and reflected in the writings of influential historians. John Finke wrote in Harper's in 1885 that "the work which the English race began when it colonized North America is destined to go on "until every uncivilized land became Anglo-Saxon in culture." 34 . Frederick Jackson Turner wrote in 1896 that the most prominent feature of America's past was expansion, which came to a check with the end of the western frontier. But, he noted, "demands for a vigorous foreign policy....and for the extension of American influence to outlying islands and adjoining countries, are indications that the movement will continue. The stronghold of these demands lies west of the Alleghennies."35 Turner's idea of the need for a new frontier abroad to replace the old one in the West had much impact on Roosevelt and Brooks Adams, who both exerted considerable influence on the McKinley administration. 36
The stage was set for imperialists to argue that their program was one of continuity from the past. In a speech before Congress, favoring the retention of the Philippines, Lodge stated that "the record of American expansions which closes with Alaska has been a long one, and to-day we do but continue the same movement. The same policy runs through them all." 31 An 1899 article in Atlantic Monthly concluded that "the question is not whether we shall enter upon a career of colonization or not, but whether we shall shift into other channels the colonization which has lasted as long as our national existence." 38 Another article asserted that the American was "a colonizer" throughout its history and asked, "Why should he lose his enterprise on reaching the bold shores of the Pacific....This trained experience in conquest of new lands has equipped and qualified the American of today, above all others, to successfully colonize."39 Given these facts, Whitelaw Reid asked, "Why mourn over our present course as a departure from the policy of the fathers? For a hundred years the uniform policy which they began and their sons continued has been acquisition, expansion....The precedent was established before we were born." 40
Historians arguing that 1898 was a new departure have seen the annexation of distant noncontiguous islands as different from the addition of contiguous territory destined for statehood. The imperialists did not see things in that light. In the first place, Alaska was noncontiguous, and neither that territory, Indian Territory, nor New Mexico Territory were seen as destined to become states unless more Anglo-Saxons populated them. Some imperialists even viewed the Philippines as a source of more free land for settlement, a view that was considered no more ridiculous than settlement of the "Great American Desert" had seemed in the early nineteenth century. 41 In the second place, imperialists did not see the distance of the Philippines from the United States as a problem. Since even anti-imperialists admitted the right of the United States to govern the North American territories, Albert Beveridge argued, how could they deny the same right for the islands. He asked, "Is there a geographical interpretation to the Constitution? . . . Does a thousand miles of ocean diminish constitutional power more than a thousand miles of land? The ocean does not separate us . . . it joins us.' '42 Imperialists were fond of pointing out that when California was annexed in 1848, it was more inaccessible, and took more time to reach from the nation's capital, than it took to get to the Philippines fifty years later. On account of technological advances in steamships and submarine telegraph cables, imperialists looked forward to even closer ties with the Philippines. 43
Furthermore, the imperialists argued that the western territories were in fact "colonies" and no different from overseas territories.44 Essays in influential magazines like Forum and Review of Reviews instructed Americans that the Constitution gave Congress supreme and total power over the territories, to rule as they pleased without granting citizenship or constitutional rights to the inhabitants. Or, they emphasized, Congress could grant rights to some of the inhabitants without granting rights to them all. 45 Congressional imperialists took up this idea, arguing that the right to govern subject peoples in territories "is full and plenary, "46 and that "there may be no difference between the form of government of a Territory and that of a colony."47 Lodge made the comparison explicit between congressional power over Indians and over Filipinos: "When our great Chief Justice John Marshall . . . declared in the Cherokee case that the United States could have under its control, exercised by treaty or the laws of Congress, a 'domestic and dependent nation,' I think he solved the question of our constitutional relations to the Philippines.' '48
When anti-imperialists claimed that annexing the Philippines would automatically admit Filipinos to United States citizenship, the Imperialists replied that it was not so, because of the Indian precedent. Senator Jonathan Ross quoted the Alaskan purchase treaty and several Supreme Court cases on Indians to prove that American sovereignty over an area did not automatically confer citizenship over subject inhabitants. 49 Senator Lodge, in explaining that Filipinos would become subjects, not citizens, just as Indians were, said.
the other day....a great Democratic thinker announced that a republic could have no subjects. He seems to have forgotten that this Republic not only has held subjects from the beginning, inthe persons of those whom we euphemistically call the "wards of the nation," but that....we not only hold subjects, but have acquired them by purchase. This Alaskan treaty....denied to the Indian tribes even the right to choose their allegiance, or to become citizens. 50
A University of Chicago political scientist argued in 1899 that "uncivilized nations under tribal relations [in the Philippines) would occupy the same status precisely as our own Indians. They are, in fact, 'Indians'--and the fourteenth amendment does not make citizens of Indians."51
The other main argument of the anti-imperialists was that the American form of government was based on the doctrine of the "consent of the governed" in the Declaration of Independence. Here again the imperialists used the Indian precedent with devastating accuracy. Beveridge used this analogy as a standard part of his speeches on the Philippines, asking the anti-Imperialists "you, who say the Declaration applies to all men, how dare you deny its application to the American Indian? And if you deny it to the Indian at home, how dare you grant it to the Malay abroad?....there are people in the world who do not understand any form of government (and) must be governed....And so the authors of the Declaration themselves governed the Indian without his consent."52 In his acceptance speech to the Repubhcan nomination for the vice-presidency in 1900, Roosevelt stated that on Indian reservations "the army officers and the civilian agents still exercise authority without asking the 'consent of the governed.' We must proceed in the Phthppines with the same wise caution "53 Imperialists liked to note that Thomas Jefferson himself, who authored the consent doctrine, later proceeded to govern Indians in the Louisiana Purchase without their consent. These Indians, Senator William Stewart pointed out, were "equally entitled to consideration with the savages in the Philippines. It never occurred to Mr Jefferson that it was necessary for him to consult [them]." Every acquisition of territory, he continued, contained savages "that will require military force to keep in subjection," and the Philippines were no different. 54 Lodge even introduced a resolution to govern the Philippines that was written in the exact wording by which Jefferson governed Indians in Louisiana Territory. 55
Imperialist arguments were unapologetic about violating the consent doctrine with Native Americans, because they were held to be "savage and barbarous tribes." Even though Indians were "rightful owners of the soil [who were}. .. practically exterminated,"' whites were justified in conquering them "in flagrant disregard of the principle of consent. "56 The reason given for this rather contradictory flouting of Amencan ideology was that Jefferson's doctrine applied "only to our own race, and to those people whom we can assimilate rapidly." Indians "are not men, within the meaning of the theory" that all men are created equal. 57 The Review of Reviews in 1900 concluded that the consent doctrine was not applicable to "races of people adjudged incompetent for self-government "58 This view was held especially strongly in the West. A western correspondent wrote to The Nation in 1899 that Filipinos were no better than Indians, and that the average westerner had "no scruples in allowing a denial of rights to such cattle. The average Amencan to-day believes in the Immortal principles of the Immortal Declaration of Independence if carefully enclosed....strictly to our own [white] people."59 This policy "has from first to last been sanctioned by our ablest statesmen and by the people. Congress has the precedents of a century for governing them (Filipinos) until they shall be fitted for self-government "60
Imperialists never questioned the rightness of expanding over Indian lands without their consent, and because this feeling was almost universal among Amencans, impenalist rhetoric was heavy with comparisons. Senator Knute Nelson, for example, referred to the annexation of Florida and Louisiana, which were populated mainly by "savage" Indians. "If we had applied the rule in those days that (anti-imperialist) Senators seek to apply now--that we have no nght to annex any territory unless it was fit to become a state--there would have been no ground or justification for the annexation."61 Senator Orville Platt suggested that the anti-imperialist position "would have turned back the Mayflower from our coast and would have prevented our expansion westward....We found here a continent in the hands of the Indians....who did not want to be governed by us....we have, nevertheless, gone on and legislated for them and governed them "62 Lodge concluded that if the anti-imperialists were right, "then our whole past record of expansion is a crime "63 Because the imperialists, and white Americans generally, did not believe that their past was criminal, they accepted the rightness of their actions in the Philippines.
Most anti-imperialists agreed with this consensus about Indians, and so their only alternatives were to deny the analogy or ignore Indians entirely. Senator George Hoar, a leader of the movement against Phillippine annexation, objected to comparisons of American western expansion to imperialism. He wrote that in the West, "the few dwellers in those sparsely settled and generally uninhabited regions were entirely content to come to us....How idle to cite those cases as indicating our right to conquer a reluctant people, to be held....as subjects "64. Only by grossly underestimating Native American population and distorting over two centuries of Indian warfare could Hoar dismiss the analogy. In congressional debates, anti-imperialists either ignored comparisons, or quickly changed the subject if confronted by imperialists. For example, Senator Horace Chilton, when asked point-blank how government relations with Indians and Filipinos were different, replied stormily that "Indians occupy a peculiar situation" and no comparison "is worth anything whatever." 65 By not specifying what the peculiar situation of Indians was, or how it was different, Chilton begged the question. He rapidly moved to another topic.
In the few times that they did mention Native Americans, the argument that was usually made by anti-Imperialists involved the Indians' small population size of "a few hundred or thousand men" (ignoring the fact that even the low estimates of the 1980 census reported 248,253 western Indians) 66 Others saw Indians as an "insignificant exception,"67 or else as "wild tribes" who did not deserve independence as did the "civilized Christian" Filipinos. 68
A minority of anti-imperialists took the challenge and accepted the analogy to show that further expansion was a mistake. They attacked the consensus on Indian policy, and in the process acknowledged the comparisons that most anti-imperialists attempted to deny. Charles Francis Adams was scornful of imperialist rhetoric about "uplifting savages," because of the "unchristian, brutal, exterminating" treatment to which Indians were subjected. 69 A 1900 article in Overland Monthly asked why imperialists believed American relations with Filipinos would be any better than past experience with culturally different people "with whom we have already come into contact....We did not succeed in teaching the Indians self-government, and we failed to govern them either wisely or efficiently."70 Likewise, E L. Godkin in The Nation argued that before imperialists could claim that Americans were capable of governing inferior races abroad, they must provide evidence that they bad done well in the past. But, he wrote, "such evidence is not forthcoming. No one pretends that our Government has dealt well with the Indians....[Imperialists] declare that we have responsibilities in Asia that we must not shirk. We had responsibilitIes here which we did shirk....and it is a shameless proceeding to ignore our past in imagining our future." 71 Moorfield Storey, president of the Anti-Imperialist League, believed as firmly in self-government for Indians as for Filipinos. In a speech as early as June 15, 1898, he warned budding impenahsts, "When we undertake to govern subject peoples separated from us by half the world, let us remember how we despoiled the Indians." Storey was one of a very few Amencans of his time who applied the ideals of the Declaration of Independence to all races. 72 His views were reflected in a declaration by the Anti-Imperialist League opposing an acceptance of the imperialist "analogy" between United States conduct in the Philippines and in the West: "our treatment of the Indians cannot be dignified and made a precedent or a defense for like policy in foreign lands." 73 Those anti-imperialists who went so far as to criticize the treatment of Indian subjects thus provide further evidence of similarities in the ways in which Amencans thought of Native Americans and Filipinos.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the concept of the world being divided between civilization and barbarism was especially strong in western thought. To those who believed in the superiority of their own form of civilization, it logically followed that this superior form should be spread to others. Imperialists believed that such an expansion would be of ultimate benefit to mankind. The ethnocentric bias of this belief was overshadowed by a loudly proclaimed concern for saving the heathen. This thought pattern manifested itself in both religious and political expansionism. Intervention was not only a right, but a solemn duty, of "civilized man over the savage races" of the world. 74 This sense of duty was expressed forcefully by President William McKinley. Speaking in 1898, he asserted that American control over any land and people "is always for the sake of humanity and the advancement of civilization,"75 and he applied this philosophy to Indians as well as Filipinos. In fact, in his official instructions to the Philippine Commission in 1900, the president wrote: "In dealing with the uncivilized tribes of the islands the commission should adopt the same course followed by Congress in permitting the tribes of our North American Indians to maintain their tribal organization. . Such tribal governments should, however, be subjected to wise and firm regulation; and active effort should be exercised to prevent barbarous practices and introduce civilized customs." 76
This belief in the need to govern Filipinos and other "barbarous" peoples similarly to Native Americans was also held by congressmen. A quantitative analysis of roll call voting substantiates this conclusion about the close relationship between imperialism and Indian policy. The first requirement was to calculate voting cohesion scores on Indian policy roll calls, by finding all those senators who had mean agreement scores over 50 percent and who were also on the winning side of Indian votes. All Indian-related roll calls between 1895 and 1903, in which there was over 50 percent participation of the Senate, were used. By this process ten senators were located, who can be said to be the most successful leaders on Indian policy during those years. 77 The next step was to see how these most influential senators on Indian affairs stood on imperialism. To do that, it was necessary to tabulate all the votes on the Philippines, which were not unanimous, had over 50 percent participation, and in which a clear stand was taken to support or oppose the annexation of the islands. Seventeen roll calls were found in the Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, and Fifty-seventh Senates that, by the nature of the topic and of the debates, clearly distinguished imperialists from non-imperialists.78 All senators were coded into an "imperialist" score, and those who voted at least 70 percent of the time on the pro-imperialist side were considered to be imperialist leaders. 79 When comparing this group with the group of Indian policy leaders, it was found that, with only one exception, all of the Indian policy leaders were strong supporters of imperialism. The single exception was Colorado Senator Henry Teller, and even he consistently voted imperialist in the Fifty-fifth Congress before turning anti-imperialist later. To put it in statistical terms, the average senator voted the imperialist position 39.9 percent of the time, whereas the Indian policy leaders voted the imperialist position 77.6 percent of the time. 80 Such overlapping between the two issues in voting was not coincidental, but represented to some degree a similar worldview.
Congressional debates also presented much evidence of comparisons between Filipinos and Native Americans which not every imperialist speaker in Congress made an analogy with Indians, most did, and in the course of reading all the debates on the Philippines (1898 through 1900), not one single instance was found in which an imperialist speaker denied the analogy. Comparisons were made repeatedly on the floor of Congress. For example, while admittmg that nearly one-fourth of the Filipinos were "semi-civilized," Senator Samuel McEnery expressed the widely held view that "the rest of the population was as ignorant and savage as the aboriginal Indians." 81 Senator Ross, in arguing against a simple protectorate status for the Philippines, saw valuable lessons in the past. Civilization and liberty were slow to develop, he said, under a protectorate, as was shown by United States Indian policy under the "domestic dependent nations" concept, he concluded, "this nation exercised, in fact, a protectorate over the (Indian) tribes, and allowed the natives of the country to manage their tribal and other relations in their own way. The advancement in civilization was very slow....During the comparatively few years that Congress has, by direct legislation, controlled their relations to each other and to the reservations, the advancement in Civilization has been tenfold more rapid....The untaught cannot become acquainted with the difficult problems of government....without skillful guides." 82
Imperialists were much more comfortable seeing Native Americans as "wards," and they attempted to apply this concept to Filipinos. Whitelaw Reid spoke of the island inhabitants as "our wards, objects of our duty and our care," as did Albert Shaw in Review of Reviews and Walter Hines Page in The World's Work. 83 The Nation, in complimenting McKinley for protecting Native American wards, stated that his plans for Indians were "peculiarly timely when we are taking on so many more 'wards of the Government' in different parts of the world." 84
Not only did imperialists see Indians and island subjects as having a similar legal relation to the United States, but they saw behavioral similarities as well. A journalist who visited the Philippines characterized the natives as the same as the "sleepy, forgetful, servile Indian." 85 The' imperialist who made the most comparisons was Roosevelt, who habitually employed words like "wild and ignorant," "savages," "Apaches," and "Sioux" to Filipinos. 86 He saw the American position in the Philippines as exactly like the expansion over Indians, and he wrote that if whites were "morally bound to abandon the Philippines, we were also morally bound to abandon Arizona to the Apaches." 87 Such a suggestion was ridiculous to Roosevelt, who never questioned the rightness of expansion over Native Americans. Respondmg to a charge of atrocities by United States troops in the Philippines, Roosevelt admitted that such incidents "happened hundreds of times in our warfare against the Indians," and were no reason to question the "righteousness" of imperialism. Expansion was, he wrote, "precisely parallel between the Philippines and the Apaches and Sioux. My doctrine is what I preached in my Winning of the West....to withdraw from the contest for civilization because of the fact that there are attendant cruelties, is, in my opinion, utterly unworthy of a great people." 88
Ultimately, Roosevelt contended, the civilization of the Philippines under American domination would be of benefit to the Filipinos. As it had occurred with Indians, peace and order could only come about after subjugation to civilization, "for the barbarian will yield only to force." Indian-white warfare "had to continue until we expanded over the country....The same will be true of the Philippines....so that one more fair spot of the world's surface shall have been snatched from the forces of darkness." 89 Once this civilizing process had occurred, and Indians had become "fit for self-government," they should be granted equality; but until then, "There would be no justification whatever in treating this fact as a reason for abandoning the wild tribes to work out their own destruction. Exactly the same reasoning applies in the case of the Philippines. To turn over the islands to Aguinaldo and his followers [would bring]...tyrannical oppression." 90
Given this philosophy of the savagery of Filipinos, with its analogies to Indians, the imperialists were not surprised at the beginning of military resistance. In fact, Murat Halstead even predicted in1898 that the proud and impudent Filipinos would follow the course of Indians who fought all comers." While Halstead admired this nonservile quality, he felt that it was inevitable that civilization advance. 91 When fighting broke out in the Philippines in early 1899, anti-imperialists compared the rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo with George Washington. Imperialist Senator William Stewart criticized that comparison, saying that Aguinaldo would be better compared with "Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, Old Cochise, or some other celebrated Indian warrior." 92 He asked: "How does the insurrection and guerilla warfare practiced by Aguinaldo differ in character from the numerous Indian wars?....tribes of the far West have earned on an irregular warfare of the most destructive kind for nearly a century. . . . still, no one doubts the validity or the propriety of the acquisition of these vast territories." 93 Stewart's statement underscores why the imperialists were able to use the Indian analogy so effectively: there was an almost solid consensus among white Americans of the time that expansion over Indians was unquestionably right. To admit doubt would have undercut the whole history of the nation. Why did the United States not turn over Florida to the Seminoles in the 1830s, Reid asked, "instead of sending Andrew Jackson to protect the settlements and subdue the savages." Why was not the Southwest turned over to the Apaches, he continued, or the northern plains to the Sioux? He did not answer these questions, but regarded them "as too unworthy to be entertained by self-respecting citizens of a powerful and self-respecting nation." 94 Imperialists posed these questions only to demonstrate the absurdity of the anti-imperialist argument.
Again, the most explicit comparison between American Indian and Filipino resistance was made by Roosevelt. His acceptance of the Republican vice-presidential nomination in 1900 was filled with analogies between the two peoples. He began by drawing a parallel between the purchase of the Philippines and past territorial purchases. In the case of Florida, "the Seminoles, who had not been consulted in the sale, rebelled and waged war exactly as some of the Tagals have rebelled and waged war m the Philippines." 95 These parallels were so "exact," Roosevelt concluded, that "we are making no new departure." 96 The reasoning that justified warfare against Sitting Bull also justified warfare against Aguinaldo, because to Roosevelt a grant of self-government to the Philippines "would be like granting self-government to an Apache reservation under some local chief." 91 He felt that tribal peoples did not deserve independence, because they were divided into disunified warring tribes. White conquest had brought peace to Indians, Roosevelt believed, and it would do likewise for Filipinos by rescuing them from "the anarchy of the corrupt and bloody insurgent chiefs" whose cruelty was supposedly "equal to the sort inflicted by our Indians in their worst days." 98 Every effort was made to picture the Filipino insurgents as divided, unrepresentative, and despotic. 99 If this conception of Filipino resistance could be placed in the familiar context of Indian warfare, then the insurgents were sure to have less support from Americans.
The impact of imperialist rhetoric on actual events in the Philippines, especially during the 1899-1902 insurrection, influenced the feeling among United States troops that this was merely another Indian war. In the first place, most of the regiments in the islands were from the western states, where memories of Indian wars were strongest. 100 Those troops who did not already accept the analogy were taught upon arrival "that the Filipinos were savages no better than our Indians." One veteran remembered that the insurgents "might injun up on me" at night, utter a "war cry," and inflict torture on a par with Apaches. 101 Another soldier described the Moros, in the southern Philippines, as "divided into tribes like the Indians "101 These comparisons were not limited to the common soldiers, because the upper-level officers in the Philippines" have seen much service in fighting Indians on the western frontier. Many of them do not regard the military problem as one of any great difficulty "103 This gave the army a sense of confidence that they would be able to handle the insurgents m an accustomed style. 104 Because of their experience fighting Indians, United States Army leaders in 1900 were probably better equipped to fight a guerrilla war than at any subsequent time in the twentieth century. By compiling biographical data on the thirty generals in service in the Philippines between 1898 and 1902, it was found that twenty-six (87 percent) had experience with Indians in the West.105 Moreover, of the remaining four generals, three were westerners and the fourth had some experience in the West 106 In general, there was a remarkably high exposure to the military ramifications of United States Indian policy among the army leadership in the Philippines.
The similarity in the administration of the Philippines to Indian affairs was reflected not only in military continuities, but in civil government as well. A Division of Insular Affairs was established in the War Department in December 1898, its name was changed to the Bureau of Insular Affairs in 1902. The governing body in charge of all United States territories abroad remained in the War Department until 1939, when it was transferred to the Department of the Interior.101 This process of administrative transfer from War to Interior occurred in exactly the same manner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs ninety years earlier. Even the bureau names were similar. Yet the War Department kept its insular operations separated from the Indian office during the era of imperialism. No doubt part of this separation was organizational jealousy, since War and Interior had been at odds for the previous half century over which department would control Indian affairs. 108 Another reason had to do with the low reputation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Its posts were largely filled by political patronage rather than qualified, trained civil service personnel, and it was noted as one of the most corrupt agencies of the government. Imperialists argued for a nonpatronage colonial administrative service, similar in training to military officers. They saw the army as the best model, and wished to avoid the "painful examples" of corrupt Indian agents. 109 Therefore, direct connections between the two bureaus were not encouraged by the War Department.
The lack of ties with the Indian office did not mean that the Bureau of Insular Affairs operated under different assumptions from other imperialists Root, the secretary of war who supervised the insular bureau, shared the imperialist idea that consent of the governed did not apply to "barbarous" peoples. In a 1902 address he justified this policy for Filipinos by the Indian analogy. 110 Especially for the tribal populations of the Philippines, Root felt that the government should follow a policy "very similar to that which it has long performed inrelation to the Indian tribes." He quoted extensively from the Supreme Court decision Cherokee Nation v Georgia and pointed out that Indian legal status had only gradually emerged from the Court's decisions. He predicted that "a similar process of judicial decision" would emerge for the Philippines and that "in the meantime the close general analogy to the relations of the North American Indians indicates a duty, for the present at least, of limited supervision and control. In the performance of this duty we find ourselves exercising powers and following methods plainly contemplated by the Constitution, and sanctioned by the judicial decisions." 111
In its actual operation the Bureau of Insular Affairs drew upon the background of its leaders in Indian affairs. Both Major John J. Pershing, who set up and headed the bureau in 1899, and General Clarence R Edwards, who directed it from 1900 to 1912, had military backgrounds in the West with Indians. 112 All of the four military governors of the Philippines between 1898 and 1902 (Wesley Merritt, Ewell Otis, Arthur MacArthur, and Adna Chaffee) had seen extensive Indian service. 113 Given this situation, Philippine civil governor WillIam Howard Taft represents an exception, because he had no previous experience with Indians. Yet Taft received instructions from McKinley and Root to follow a policy based "by analogy to the statutes m the United States dealing with the Indian tribes." 114 Taft shared the standard imperalist view that any of the "uncivilized races" needed a major power to assist "in the maintenance of a government which shall secure law and right," as he was doing in the Philippines. 115 He spoke of the Filipinos as "in the condition of children" and "in a state of tutelage," terms that were used to describe Indians as well 116
Taft's subordinate David Barrows, who established the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes in the islands and who later headed the Philippine school system, was an anthropologist who focused his research on the Cahuilla Indians. He favored the same approach as the Lake Mohonk Conference did toward Indians 117 Another subordinate, the law officer of the Division of Insular Affairs, quoted Supreme Court decisions on Indians as precedents for policies in the new overseas territories. In addition, he compared Indian outbreaks in the Southwest in 1847 with the Filipino insurrection. Both groups, he concluded, occupied similar status as subjects of the United States 118 The essential unity of purpose of the government with regard to both Native Americans and insular natives was plainly stated by the assistant to the chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, W L Pepperman. Speaking to the Lake Mohonk Conference in 1904, he informed them that "'what your body is interested in seeing should be done and well done in the case of the Indians, the Insular Government in the Philippines is interested in seeing should be done and well done among the Filipinos….the idea is the same." 119
In conclusion, an analysis of the comparisons between American Indians and inhabitants of the overseas territories can help to clarify the nature of United States government policy in two distinct areas. First, the evolving legal status of Indians by the late nineteenth century was a "subject" status that was similar to the status imposed on other colonial peoples. To be an Indian "ward" was in fact to be a colonial subject, and this condition was recognized both by Indian policy-makers and by imperialists. This attitude was held so strongly by both federal and nongovernmental spokespersons, that it reached a level of near consensus among white Americans of the time. As Albert Bushnell Hart summarized in 1899, the United States had many "colonies" in its Indian reservations: "our Indian agents have a status very like that of British residents in the native states of India" and the western Indian Territory was most comparable to the British colonia system in its empire. Accordingly, Hart felt that America's Indian wars should be seen as colonial insurrections and its Indians as subjects 120 Exactly what Indian policy-makers meant when they referred to Native Americans as "wards" is not clear until investigated from the different perspective of foreign affairs.
Likewise, this essay suggests a new perspective on United States diplomatic history, viewed from an Indian perspective. Historians would do well to reexamine and accept at face value the argument of the imperialists themselves that they were not making a new departure by holding colonial subjects. To quote Hart further, the United States "for more than a hundred years has been a great colonial power" by governing Indians. "Whatever is done in the future will be based on the habits of the past." Consequently, he concluded, the Spanish-American War annexations were "not signs of a new policy, but the enlargement of a policy long pursued" over Indians. 121 Holding culturally different peoples as subjects was as old as the republic itself, and "uncivilized" groups were given little access to the ideas of citizenship and self-government. Even though imperialists made references to Afro-Americans and to Chinese, they concentrated on Indians because of the clear parallels in land dispossession based on a dichotomy between savagism and civilization. They used the Indian analogy effectively, and anti-imperialists could not challenge the white consensus on Indians. Anti-imperialist attempts to cite imperialism as a dangerous new departure thus fell on deaf ears.
Instead of seeing 1898 as a new departure, historians might view Philippine annexation as the last episode of a nineteenth-century pattern of territorial acquisition and direct political rule of subject peoples.122 The American empire of the twentieth century has moved in a different direction, more concerned with commercial dominance than political annexation. But for the expansionists of 1898, the precedents to govern colonial subjects were clear and exact, based on the long road from independence to wardship for American Indians.
Walter L Williams is assistant professor of history at the University of Cincinnati. The author expresses appreciation to the Newberry Library, the University of Cincinnati, and the Taft Fund for financial assistance in this study.
Footnotes
1. Henry Dobyns, "Estimating Aboriginal Amencan Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate," Current Anthropology, 7. (0ct 1966) 395-414, Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill, 1975), 15-31. These studies demonstrate that aboriginal populations of the area that is now the United States were about ten times the previously accepted figure of one million, and that scholars have persistently underestimated native populations since the coming of whites.
2. Henry F. Dobyns, Native American Historical Demography: A Critical Bibliography (Bloomington, Ind , 1976), 42-59.
3. Cherokee Nation v Georgia, 30 U S 1 (1831) at 15-16
4. Johnson and Graham's Lessee v William McIntosh, 21 U S 543 (1823) at 589-90.
5. United States v William Rogers, 45 US 567 (1846) at 572. In the twentieth century, the same stipulation about inconsistency of laws has been applied to United States territories in the Pacific, see US Code Annotated, Title 48, sec 1421 (1950).
6. Official Opinions of the Attorneys General of the United States, (Washington, 1856), VII, 749.
7. "An Act Making Appropriations for the Current and Contmgent Expenses of the Indian Department, and for Fulfilling Treaty Stipulations With Various Indian Tribes, for the Yeal Ending June Thirty, Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-two, and for Other Purposes," US Statutes at Large, XVI, 544, 566, US Revised Statutes, see 2079, 366.
8. Cherokee Tobacco Case, 78 US 616 (1870) at 621-22.
9. Lyman Tyler, A History of Indian Policy {Washington, 1973}, 84-85.
10. United States v. Kagama, 118 U S 375 (1885) at 379-82.
11. Elk v Wilkins 112 U S 94(1884) at 99-103.
12. Frederic Coudert, "The Evolution of the Doctrine of Territorial Incorporation," Columbia Law Review, XXVI (Nov 1926), 844, Gonzales v Williams, 192 US 1 (1903).
13. Stephens v Cherokee Nation, 174 U S 445 (I898) at 483-88.
14. Ralph S Kuykendall and A Grove Day, Hawaii: A History from Polynesian Kingdom to American State (Englewood Cliffs, 1961).
15. In re Burton, 1 Alaska 111 (1900).
16. Coudert, "Evolution," 850 Explicit comparisons with Indians were not made by the Supreme Court opinions in the Insular Cases, even though these opinions were directly parallel to Indian cases. One plausible explanation for this omission is that the Justices recognized the extreme complexity of Indian case histories and did not wish to complicate the Insular Cases by bringing in decisions relating to Native Americans.
17. George Bird Grinnell, "The Indian on the Reservation," Atlantic Monthly, LXXXIII (Feb 1899), 256, 260.
18. H L Dawes, "Have We Failed With the Indian?" Atlantic Monthly LXXXIV (Aug 1899), 280
19. Larry Burgess, "The Lake Mohonk Conferences on the Indians, 1883-1916" (Ph. D. diss, Claremont Graduate School, 1972), III, IV, 141.
20. Phllip Garrett speech, Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian, 1898 (n. p., 1898}, 11; A K Smiley speech, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian, 1900 (n. p., 1900}, 9.
20. "Platform of the Twenty-first .Annual Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian," Proceedings of the Twenty First Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian, 1903 (n. p., 1904},113
22. Missionary Review of the World, xxvii (Dec. 1904}, 940. See also ibid., XXIV (Sept. 1901), 641; ibid., XXIV (Dec. 1901) ,932; ibid., XXIX (Dec. 1906), 967.
23. Ruth Shaffner Etnier speech, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 44-45, 47.
24. Thomas Morgan, "The Relation of the Government to Its Dependent Classes," Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian, 1901 (n.p., 1902). 23.
25. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference, vii.
26. Ibid., vi.
27. Henry Cabot Lodge, George Washington (2 vols., Boston, 1889), II, 85, 87.
28. Ibid, II, 102-03.
29. John Hay, "The Pioneers of Ohio," Magazine of History, CIII (1924), 211.
30. Elihu Root, The Military and Colonial Policy of the United States: Addresses and Reports (Cambridge, 1916), 61
31. Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West (4 vols., New York, 1889-96), I, 90, 92
32. Theodore Roosevelt, Report of Hon. Theodore Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, upon a Visit to Certain Indian Reservations and Indian Schools in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas (Philadelphia, 1893), 18-19.
33. Ibid, 18
34. [John Fiske] "Manifest Destiny," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, LXX (March 1885), 578-90, quotation in Julius Pratt, Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (Gloucester, Mass, 1959), 4-5.
35 Fredenck J Turner, "The Problem of the West," Atlantic Monthly, LXXVIII {Sept 1896), 289-97
36. Walter LaFeber, The New Empire An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898 (Ithaca, 1963), 71, 83-85.
37. Congressional Record, 56 Cong, 1 sess, March 7,1900, p.2620
38. A Lawrence Lowell, "The Colonial Expansion of the United States," Atlantic Monthly, LXXXIII (Feb 1899), 147.
39. N P Chipman, "Territorial Expanslon--II; I The Philippines-the Oriental Problem," Overland Monthly, XXXV (Jan 1900), 28
40. Whitelaw Reid, Problems of Expansion as Considered in Papers and Addresses (New York, 1900), 184-85.
41. Mark Sullivan, Our Times: The United States, 1900-1925, [6 vols., New York, 1928-1932], I, 535.
42. Congressional Record, 56 Cong., 1 sess., Jan. 9, 1900, p. 710.
43. Among many examples see Chipman, "Territorial Expansion," 26; Joseph Sibley speech, Congressional Record, 56 Cong., 1 sess., Feb. 1, 1900, p. 1407; Whitelaw Reid, Our New Interests (Berkeley, 1900), 14; Reid, Problems of Expansion, 185; Albert Beveridge, The Meaning of the Times (Indianapolis, 1908), 49, 80.
44. Lowell, "Colonial Expansion," 145-47.
45. J. B. McMaster, "Annexation and Universal Suffrage," Forum, XXVI (Dec. 1898), 394-96; Harry Pratt Judson, "Our Federal Constitution and the Government of Tropical Territories," Review of Reviews, XIX (Jan.1899), 67-73.
46. Orville Platt speech, Congressional Record, 55 Cong., 3 sess., Dec. 12, 1898, p. 96. See also Platt speech, ibid., Dec. 19, 1898, p. 294.
47. Shelby Cullom speech, ibid., March 1, 1899, p. 2616
48. Ibid., 56 Cong., I sess., March 7, 1900, p. 2618.
49. Ibid , Jan 23, 1900, pp 1057, 1060, 1061.
50. Ibid , March 7, 1900, p. 2620.
51. Judson, "Our Federal Constitution," 74
52. Congressional Record, 56 Cong , 1 sess , Jan 9, 1900, p 710.
53. Theodore Roosevelt, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, ed Hermann Hagedorn (20 vols, New York, 1926), XIV, 366.
54. Congressional Record, 56 Cong , 1 sess , Feb. 16, 1900, P 1866; See also Reid, Problems of Expansion, 45, 46, and Whitelaw Reid, American and English Studies (2 vols , New York, 1913), 142-43.
55. Congressional Record, 56 Cong , 1 sess , March 7, 1900, pp 2617, 2619
56. Chipman, "Territorial Expansion, " 29, 30.
57. Lowell, "Colonial Expansion," 150, 152.
58. "The Consent of the Governed," Review of Reviews, XXI (Feb 1900), 219-20
59. Nation, March 16, 1899, p. 201
60. Irving M Scott, "Philippine Annexation Justified by Our History, Constitution, and Laws," Overland Monthly, XXXIV (Oct 1899), 311, 317.
61. Congressional Record, 55 Cong , 3 sess , Jan 20, 1899, p 831.
62. Ibid, Jan 9, 1899, P 502.
63. Ibid , 56 Cong , 1 sess, March 7, 1900, p. 2620.
64 George F Hoar, "Our Duty to the Philippines," Independent, LI (Nov 9, 1899), 2996-97.
65. Congressional Record, 55 Cong , 3 sess, Feb 4, 1899, p 1447.
66. Ibid, George Hoar speech, Jan 9, 1899, p. 503, IbId , Stephen White speech, Jan 23, 1899, p. 927, Report of Indians Taxed and Indians Not Taxed in the United States at the Eleventh Census 1890 (Washington,1894).
67. James Bryce, "Some Thoughts on the Policy of the United States," Harper's, XCVII (Sept 1898), 616. See also Ibid, 615, for contradictory statements that, at least in military matters, Indians were not insignificant.
65. James H Blount, The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912 (New York, 1912), 523, 529, 567, 572, 577. See also Marion Leonidas, Private Smith at the Philippines (Hammond, Ind , 1899), 53, 153, 161.
69. Robert Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900 (New York, 1968), 235.
70. George A Richardson, "The Subjugation of Inferior Races," Overland Monthly, XXXV (Jan 1900), 52-53.
71. "Governing Infenor Races," Nation, LXVII (Aug 11, 1898), 104. For similar comparisons, see ibid, editorial (Oct 13,1898), 267, ibid, editorial (Nov 17,1898), 362, and ibid , editorial, LXIX (Aug 17,1899), 137
72. Quoted in Maria C. Lanzar, "The Anti-Imperialist League," Philippine Social Science Review, III (Aug 1930), 9. See also M A DeWolfe Howe, Portrait of an Independent: Moorfleld Storey, 1845-1929 (Boston, 1932), 224, 251, 238-39.
73. "Declaration of the Anti-Imperialist League, Aug 15, 1899" The Anti-Imperialist, I (Aug 20, 1899), 30.
74. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898, 6-11, David Healy, US Expansionism: The Imperialist Urge In the 1890s (Madison, 1970), 129.
75. Healy, US Expansionism, 128.
76. Root, Military and Colonial Policy of the United States, 293.
77. These senators (all of whom are Repubhcans), in order of "success score" adjusted for time in Congress are Porter McCumber (North Dakota), George Perkins (California), Jacob Gallinger (New Hampslure), Henry Teller (Colorado), Henry Burnham (New Hampshire), Alfred Kittredge {South Dakota), Fred DuBoiS (Idaho), William Stewart (Nevada}, Robert Gamble (South Dakota), and Clarence Clark (Wyoming). The mean agreement scores were adapted from Frederick Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery: The Campaign to Assimilate the Amencan Indians, 1880-1920" (Ph D diss. Brandeis Unversity, 1977), 350.
78. These seventeen roll calls on the Philippines are reported in the Congressional
Record as follows Congressional Record, 55 Cong, 3 sess, Feb 6, 1899,
p.1488. To table an amendment declaring the purpose of the United States to
set up an independent government inthe Philippines. Y=45, N=34 (Y=imperialist)
Ibid To table an amendment providing that the United States will not
force a government on the Filipinos against their will Y=46, N=30 (Y=imperialist)
Ibid, Feb 14, 1899, p. 1846. To have the Umted States disclaim any intention
of retaining permanent sovereignty over the Philippines Y=29, N=29 (N=imperialist)
Ibid, 56 Cong , 1 sess , Dec. 14, 1899, p 379. To table an inquiry whether
the United States Navy ever officially recognized the flag of the Philippine
Repubhc Y=41, N = 20 (Y = Imperialist) Ibid, 2 sess, Jan 11, 1901, p.
854. To table an amendment for an amnesty and armistice in the Philippines Y=32,
N=19 (Y=Imperialist) Ibid, Jan 18, 1901, p. 1176. To revoke the president's
authority to maintain the Army in the Philippines Y=26, N=42 (N=imperialist)
Ibid, p 1177. To disclaim control over the Philippines, and to leave
control with Filipinos Y=22, N=43 (N=imperialist) Ibid, Feb 27, 1901,
p. 3136-37. To make all acts of United States Officials in the Philippines subject
to Constitutional Limitations Y=25, N=45 (N=Imperialist) Ibid, p. 3137.
To assert that the United States will remain in the Philippines only long enough
to assist in establishing a stable government by its people Y=24, N=45 (N=Imperialist)
Ibid. To stipulate about two years as the maximum time that the United
States shall govern the Philippines Y-26, N = 43 (N=imperialist) Ibid,
p 3138. To provide that every United States official in the Philippines take
an oath to support Constitutional rights toward the inhabitants Y=25, N= 41
(N=imperialist) Ibid, p 3144. To provide for separation of powers by
United States officials in the Philippines Y=26, N=43 (N = Imperialist) Ibid,
57 Cong, 1 sess , Feb 24, 1902, p. 2133. To declare it is not the intent of
the United States to annex the Philippines permanently, but to provide eventual
independence Y=20, N=44 (N = Imperialist) Ibid. To relinquish sovereignty
to the Philippines Y=25, N=46 (N=Imperialist) Ibid, p 2134. To disavow
any United States intention to retain the Philippines Y=24, N = 43 (N=imperialist),
Ibid, June 3, 1902, p. 6229. To declare the purpose of the United States
is not to oppress the Filipinos, but to give them independence Y=30, N= 47 (N=Imperialist)
Ibid, p. 6230. To relinquish all claims of sovereignty over the Philippins
Y=28, N=48 (N=imperialist).
79. This group, which represented the top 29 percent of all senators voting on imperialism, included, in alphabetical order: Nelson Aldrich (Rhode Island), William Allison {Iowa), Thomas Bard (California), Albert Beveridge (Indiana}, Henry Burnham (New Hampshire), Julius Burrows (Michigan), Joseph Burton {Kansas)., Thomas Carter (Montana), William Chandler {New Hampshire), Clarence Clark (Wyoming), Shelby Cullom (Illinois), Fred DuBois (Idaho}, Charles Dietrich (Nebraska), Jonathan Dolliver (Iowa), Charles Fairbanks (Indiana), Joseph Foraker (Ohio), Addison Foster (Washington}, William Frye (Maine), Jacob Gallinger (New Hampshire), Robert Gamble (South Dakota), George Gray (Delaware}, Marcus Hanna (Ohio), Henry Hansbrough {North Dakota), Joseph Hawley (Connecticut), John Kean (New Jersey), Thomas Kearns {Utah}, Alfred Kittredge (South Dakota), Henry Cabot Lodge (Massachusetts), Lee Mantle (Montana), Louis McComas (Maryland}, Porter McCumber (North Dakota), James McMillan (Michigan), Joseph Millard (Nebraska), John H Mitchell (Oregon), Knute Nelson (Minnesota), George Perkins (California), Orvllle Platt (Connecticut), Jeter Pritchard (North Carolina) , Redfield Proctor (Vermont), Joseph Quarles (Wisconsin), Nathan Scott (West Virginia), George Shoup (Idaho), Joseph Simon (Oregon), John Spooner (Wisconsin), William Stewart (Nevada), John Thurston {Nebraska}, Francis Warren (Wyoming), and Edward Wolcott (Colorado). To these forty-eight names should be added three others Cushman Davis (Minnesota), John Morgan (Alabama), and Jonathan Ross (Vermont), who did not vote frequently enough to scale, but who spoke in favor of Philippine retention. All were Republicans except Democrats Gray and Morgan.
80 The mean score of the top ten Indian policy leaders on imperialist votes was 7.765, compared to the mean score for all senators of 3.996 Using the standard error of 1.176, the t value equals 3.20, indicating that such an extreme difference in means could have occurred randomly only 1 in 1,000 times (Significance .001)
81. Congressional Record, 56 Cong , 1 sess, Feb 16, 1900, p. 1862. All the imperialist debates in Congress between December 1897 and June 1900 (Fifty-fifth Congress, second and third sessions, and Fifty-sixth Congress, first session) were searched for references to Indians or Indian policy.
82. Ibid , Jan 23, 1900, p. 1061.
83. Reid, Our New Interests, 16, "Our Mohammedan Wards," Review of Reviews, XXI (April 1900), 482, "Our Island Wards," World's Work, I (Nov 1900), 10.
84. Editorial, Nation, May l0, 1900, p. 350.
85. Phelps Whitmarsh, "The Philippine Native," Outlook, LXV (June 16, 1900), 389.
86. Roosevelt as quoted in Edward Carmack speech, Congressional Record, 57 Cong, 1 sess, April 25, 1902, p 4673
87. Roosevelt to Charles Joseph Bonaparte, March 30, 1901, in Theodore Roosevelt, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting Morrison (8 vols, Cambridge, 1951-54), III, 36-37.
88. Roosevelt to William Bayard Cutting, April 18, 1899, in ibid ,II, 990-91.
89. Theodore Roosevelt, "Expansion and Peace," Independent, LI (Dec. 21, 1899), 3403-04.
90. Roosevelt to Wolcott, Sept 15, 1900, in Works of Theodore Roosevelt, XIV, 372 In this acceptance letter, Roosevelt repeatedly switched back and forth in making comparisons between Indians and Filipinos.
91. Murat Halstead, The Story of the Philippines: The Eldorado of the Orient (Chicago, 1898), 38-39.
92. Congressional Record, 56 Cong, 1 sess, June 2, 1900, p 6470.
93. Ibid , 6469.
94. Reid, Problems of Expansion, 139.
95. Roosevelt to Wolcott, Sept 15, 1900, in Works of Theodore Roosevelt, XIV, 367
96. Ibid, 366, 368
97. Ibid, 369, 371
98. Roosevelt speech, Sept 7, 1900, Ibid, 354, 356
99. Henry Cabot Lodge speech, Congressional Record, 56 Cong, 1 sess , March 7, 1900, p 2621
100. "The Makeup of Our Philippine Army," Review of Reviews, XIX {March 1899}, 259-60, Blount, Amencan Occupation of the Philippines, 186
101. Letter to Hoar from a United States enlisted man in the Philippines, Congressional Record, 56 Cong , 1 sess , Jan 9,1900, p. 714, Jack Ganyhorn, I've Killed Men (New York, 1959), l30, 140, 187.
102. Walter L Wllhams, "A Southerner m the Philippines, 1901-1903," Research Studies, XXXIX (June 1971), 162.
103. Albert G Robinson, The Philippines: The War and the People (New York, 1901), 72, 77.
104. Goldwin Smith, "The Moral of the Cuban War," Forum, XXVI (Nov 1898), 289, Thomas C Leonard, Above the Battle: War-Making in America from Appomattox to Versailles (New York, 1978), 65-69.
105. Unned States generals in the Philippines who had seen Indian service included Henry T. Allen, Thomas Anderson, Thomas Barry, John C Bates, J Franklin Bell, James M Bell, William H Carter, Adna R Chaffee, George W Davis, Robert H Hall, Robert P Hughes, Charles King, William Kobbe, Henry Lawton, Arthur MacArthur, Wesley Merritt, Nelson Miles, Marcus Miller, Ewell S Otis, Samuel Ovenshine, Theodore Schwan, Samuel S Sumner, Jacob H Smith, Lloyd Wheaton, Joseph Wheeler, and Samuel Young. This information was gathered from George W Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the Umted States Military Academy (7 vols , Boston, 1891-1930), William Powell, Powell's Records of Living Offficers of the United States Army (Philadelphia,1890), Who's Who in America, 1900-1901, (Chicago, 1900)
106. Ibid. The four generals for whom no record of Indian Service was found include Frederick Funston, Francis V Greene, Irving Hale, and James P Smith.
107. Richard Maxwell, Records of the Bureau of Insular Affairs (Washington, 1971), 1.
108. There is surprisingly little correspondence between the War Department and the Indian Affairs Office, 1898-1902. See the General Index of the Records of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, RG 350 (National Archives).
109. Lowell, "Colonial Expansion of the United States," 153-54.
110. Root, Military and Colonial Policy of the United States, 88. See also ibid, 39, for another comparison of Filipinos and Indians.
111. Ibid, 320-21.
112. Who Was Who in America (2 vols, Chicago, 1942-1950), I, 360, II, 420.
113. See note 105.
114. Philip C Jessup, Elihu Root (2 vols, New York, 1938), I, 364, Raymond Patterson, "Govenor Taft and Our Philippine Policy," Review of Reviews, XXIV (Aug 1901), 183, 185.
115. William H Taft, Present Day Problems: A Collection of Addresses Delivered on Various Occasions (New York, 1908), 233.
116. William H Taft, Special Report of William H Taft. Secretary of War to the President on the Philippines (Washington, 1908), 26.
117. Kenton J Clymer, "Humanitarian Imperialsm: David Prescott Barrows and the White Man's Burden in the Philippines," Pacific Historical Review, XLV (Nov 1976), 495-517.
118. Charles E Magoon, Reports on the Law of Civil Government in Territory Subject to Military Occupation by the Military Forces of the United States (Washington, 1902), 54, 87, 119, 689-730.
119. W Leon Pepperman, "What the Government Has Done in the Philippines," Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples, 1904 (n p , 1904), 67.
120. Albert Bushnell Hart, "Brother Jonathan's Colonies: A Historical Account," Harper's, XCVIII (Jan 1899), 320, 324-25.
121. Ibid , 319, 320, 327.
122. Ironically, by the 1902 Organic Act Filipinos got more self-govemment (by electing the lower house of their legislature and filling many bureaucratic posts) than Native Amencans would receive for another three decades. George E Taylor, The Philippines and the United States: Problems of Partnership (New York, 1964), 61.