God's Arbiters: Americans and the Philippines, 1898-1902 (Imagining the Americas)

286 Pages·2011·3.13 MB·English

by  Susan K. Harris

God’s Arbiters
IMAGINING THE AMERICAS
Caroline F. Levander and Anthony B. Pinn, Series Editors
Imagining the Americas is a new interdisciplinary series that explores the cross-fertilization
among cultures and forms in the American hemisphere. The series targets the intersections
between literary, religious and cultural studies that materialize once the idea of nation is
understood as fl uid and multi-form. Extending from the northernmost regions of Canada to
Cape Horn, books in this series will move beyond a simple extension of U.S.-based Ameri-
can studies approaches and engage the American hemisphere directly.
Millennial Literatures of the Americas, 1492–2002
Thomas O. Beebee
The Plantation in the Postslavery Imagination
Elizabeth Christine Russ
The Interethnic Imagination
Caroline Rody
Religious Liberties
Elizabeth Fenton
Between the Lines
Monique-Adelle Callahan
God’s Arbiters
Susan K. Harris
God’s Arbiters
Americans and the Philippines,
1898–1902
Susan K. Harris
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Copyright © 2011 by Susan K. Harris
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harris, Susan K., 1945–
God’s arbiters : Americans and the Philippines, 1898–1902 / by Susan K. Harris.
p. cm. — (Imagining the Americas)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-974010-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. United States—Foreign relations—Philippines. 2. Philippines—Foreign relations—United States.
3. Philippines—Annexation to the United States. 4. Philippines—Foreign public opinion, American.
5. Racism—Political aspects—United States—History. 6. United States—Colonial question.
7. United States—Territorial expansion. 8. Political messianism—United States—History.
9. Christianity and politics—United States—History. 10. Imperialism—History. I. Title.
E183.8.P5H37 2011
327.730599—dc22 2010035133
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
The founders of the nation were not provincial. Theirs was the geography of the world.
They . . . knew that where our ships should go our fl ag might follow. They had the logic of
progress, and they knew that the Republic they were planting must, in obedience to the laws
of our expanding race, necessarily develop into the greater Republic which the world will
fi nally acknowledge as the arbiter, under God, of the destinies of mankind.
—Senator Albert Beveridge, January 9, 1900
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When I . . . realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know
what to do with them. . . . I walked the fl oor of the White House night after night until
midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees
and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance. . . . And one night late it came to me
this way . . . (1) That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and
dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany—our com-
mercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we
could not leave them to themselves—they were unfi t for self-government—and they would
soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was
nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and
civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as
our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.
—President William McKinley, “Interview,” circa 1900, Reported by General James
Rusling, 1903
I bring you the stately matron called CHRISTENDOM—returning bedraggled, besmirched
and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiaochow, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines;
with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of pious hypocri-
sies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass.
—Mark Twain, “A Salutation to the Twentieth Century,” December 31, 1900
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: A Christian Nation 3
Section I : American Narratives
1 . Citizenship and the Philippines Debates: The Religious Factor 41
2 . Citizenship and the Philippines Debates: The Racial Factor 62
Section II : Creating Citizens
3 . A Connecticut Yankee in the Philippines 85
4 . The National Christian 104
Section III : The Eyes of the World
5 . “The White Man’s Burden,” the Philippines, and the
Anglo-American Alliance 129
6 . Saxon Eyes and Barbaric Souls: Responses to the American
Annexation of the Philippines in Europe and Latin America 154
7 . Noli Me Tangere: Filipino Responses to Annexation 178
Epilogue 197
Notes 205
Bibliography 235
Index 249