This short excerpt is from ASHP/CML's 30-minute documentary Savage Acts: Wars, Fairs, and Empire 1898-1904. Savage Acts links the pageantry of world's fairs to the story of the Philippine War, America’s first attempt to claim an overseas colony and a turning point in U.S. foreign policy. Philippine diplomats and fighters as well as U.S. politicians and soldiers tell their experiences of the conflict and the opposition it sparked. This documentary is available for purchase.
Students will be able to define and provide examples of imperialism, nationalism, national interests, and World's Fairs during the period 1898-1904.Â
Students will identify different multiple perspectives on U.S. expansion at the turn of the twentieth century.Â
Step 1: Introduce the documentary Savage Acts and pass out copies of the Active Viewing of Savage Acts worksheet.Â
Prepare students by explaining that there is some graphic imagery of battlefield scenes from the long war between the Philippines and the United States.Â
Divide students into four groups. Assign each group one vocabulary term (Imperialism, National interests, Nationalism, World's Fairs) to listen for examples of and find images of as they watch the film. Before viewing, make sure that students understand the basic meaning of each term.Â
Step 2: Play the first three chapters of Savage Acts: The Culture of Imperialism, The Forgotten War, and World's Fairs (0:00--6:13). After viewing, ask each group to share out what images they saw of their term.Â
Step 3: Introduce the next set of clips: Philippines gains independence from Spain and the U.S. goes to war to annex them. Identify the Philippines on a map, making sure to note the relative distance between the United States, the Philippines, and Spain. Then, ask students to listen for who participated in the debates about U.S. overseas expansion. Also, warn students that the next section will have graphic battlefield images. Play the following chapters of Savage Acts: Conquest of the Philippines, Imperialist Debate, Update on the War (6:14-17:10).
Step 4: To each group, pass out the three text documents and the three images, each of which represents a different viewpoint on U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Tell students that they are to match each image to the text document that is most similar in viewpoint. Then ask students to circle one sentence from the text to use as a caption for the image to best represent the viewpoint of the pair.Â
Step 5: Have students share out their pairs of image and text and what captions they chose and why. (It may be helpful to project images and texts as they are discussed.) Lead a discussion of national interests and nationalism as evidenced by the documents and cartoons.
Step 6: Play the last four chapters of Savage Acts: The Midway, Civil Rights and Empire, End of the War? (17:10--end of documentary). As students watch, they should listen for answers to the following question:
What was the U.S. trying to show off at the World's Fair of 1893?
Step 7: After viewing, ask students to respond to the listening prompt, then discuss:
What was the U.S. trying to show off at the World's Fair in 1893? Give examples from the film.
If the U.S. had a World's Fair today, what national achievements would it show off?Â
FILIPINOS ARE PREPOSTEROUSLY MISREPRESENTED – Senor NepomucenoÂ
“The Moros, Negritos and Igorrotes No More Represent the Filipinos Than the Dying Indian Represents the People of the United States.â€Â
FRAGMENTARY TRIBES SHOWN FOR POLITICAL PURPOSESÂ
Honorary Commissioner Declares Mass Meetings Were Held in Manila to Protest Against This Slander of “7,000,000 Civilized Christians.â€Â
Senor Vicente Nepomuceno, a member of the Philipine [sic] honorary commission, now in St. Louis, declares that the so-called Philippine village at the Fair is nothing more than a coup of Machiavelism on the part of the Republican administration.Â
He protests that the exhibition does not reveal the condition of the Filipino, nor was it ever intended that their true state of advancement should be disclosed.Â
He asserts that the exhibition is but a foil seeking to justify in the public mind the administration’s insincerity toward the Filipino.Â
“There are 8,000,000 people in the Philippines,†said Senor Nepomuceno, through an interpreter, to the Post-Dispatch, “and of these 7,000,000 are civilized Christians, orderly, peace-loving and law-abiding.Â
“The remaining 1,000,000 are made up from among the Moros, Negritos, and Igorrotes, and the anthropoids, who live in the mountains in an uncivilized state, and who, like all backward and non-progressive races, are rapidly dying out.Â
These Are Only Fragmentary TribesÂ
“The Moros, Negritos and Igorrtes no more represent the people of the Philippines than the dying Indian represents the American people, and the Americans would resent such an exhibition for more vigorously than we have.Â
“When the Filipinos learned that these fragmentary tribes were being brought to this country to represent the islands at the Fair a mass meeting was held and a protest was sent to Gov. Taft.Â
“It was of no avail, but as a sort of sop the Philippine honorary commission was appointed and 50 representative citizens were named to tour the United States. Of course, the damage had been done; the impression has gone abroad that we are barbarians; that we eat dog and all that sort of thing; and no matter how long we stay here we cannot convince the public to the contrary.Â
“The Filipino people are being preposterously misrepresented at the Fair.Â
“We are entirely ready for self-government and we were not prepared for it by the United States, but the administration does not seem to want to let it go.Â
“In furtherance of this determination to hold our reins of government they have gone into the remotest corners of the islands, gathered the lowest types of the inhabitants and brought them to this country to exhibit in an attempt to justify their paternal grip on the islands. . . .
...[J]ust beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets... We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee of God, of the civilization of the world... Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus?... China is our natural customer... [England, Germany and Russia] have moved nearer to China by securing permanent bases on her borders. The Philippines gives us a base at the door of all the East... They [the Filipinos] are a barbarous race, modified by three centuries of contact with a decadent race [the Spanish]... It is barely possible that 1,000 men in all the archipelago are capable of self-government in the Anglo-Saxon sense... The Declaration [of Independence] applies only to people capable of self-government. How dare any man prostitute this expression of the very elect of self-government peoples to a race of Malay children of barbarism, schooled in Spanish methods and ideas? And 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?