Import of the Archive: U.S. Colonial Rule of the Philippines and the Making of American Archival History

168 Pages·2013·1.159 MB·English

by  Cheryl Beredo

Import of the Archive
This book is number five in the Series on Archives, Archivists, and Society,
Richard J. Cox, series editor.
Also in the series:
Archival Anxiety and the Vocational Calling, by Richard J. Cox
From Polders to Postmodernism: A History of Archival Theory, by John Ridener
Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling: Readings, Reflections, and Ruminations,
by Richard J. Cox
Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries
in France, 1820–1870, by Lara Jennifer Moore
Import of the Archive
U.S. Colonial Rule of the Philippines
and the Making of American Archival History
Cheryl Beredo
Litwin Books, LLC
Sacramento, CA
Copyright 2013 Cheryl Beredo
Published by Litwin Books, LLC
PO Box 188784
Sacramento, CA 95818
http://litwinbooks.com/
Layout by Christopher Hagen
This book is printed on acid-free, sustainably-sourced paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beredo, Cheryl.
Import of the archive : U.S. colonial rule of the Philippines and the making of Ameri-
can archival history / Cheryl Beredo.
pages cm. -- (Series on archives, archivists and society ; number. 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “Examines the role of archives in the United States’ colonization of the
Philippines between 1898 and 1916”--Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-936117-72-7 (alk. paper)
1. Archives--Philippines--History. 2. Archives--United States--History. 3. United
States. Philippine Commission (1900-1916) 4. Philippines--History--1898-1946. I.
Philippines. Bureau of Archives II. Title.
CD2213.B47 2013
025.3’414--dc23
2013006911
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Archives And War 15
Archives And Anti-Imperialism 43
Archives And Land 63
Conclusion 89
Endnotes 105
Bibliography 137
Index 151

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people and institutions have helped to make this book happen, and
I owe a debt of gratitude to all of them.
Several institutions supported the dissertation research that made the writ-
ing of this book possible. The East-West Center, Smithsonian Institution, Mas-
sachusetts Historical Society, and Bentley Historical Library provided fellowships
that allowed me the time and other resources to conduct the research for this book.
Grants from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa supported my travel to archives
and libraries in College Park and Manila. The archivists and librarians at the
National Archives, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Archives, Massachusetts Historical Society, Bentley Historical Library, Special
Collections at the University of Michigan, Philippine National Library, American
Historical Collections at Ateneo de Manila, and the Division of Rare and Manu-
script Collections at Cornell University made doing this research a special treat.
Professors at Cornell University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have taught me much over the years and guided
me along the way. Jacqueline Goldsby helped me to learn the joys of archival
research. Elizabeth DeLoughrey encouraged me to think about the Philippines
in the context of the Pacific and gave me the nudge to move to Hawai‘i. Richard
Cox taught me to think like an archivist. At the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa,
I owe thanks to the faculty of the Department of American Studies, Ruth Ma-
banglo, Haunani-Kay Trask, and Katerina Teaiwa. I owe special thanks to my
dissertation committee: Vernadette Gonzalez, Karen Kosasa, Vina Lanzona,
Robert Perkinson, and Mari Yoshihara.
Friends and family have been my greatest pleasure, and they have helped me
through this process in many ways. Special thanks to K-Sue Park, Matt Tierney,
Kate Rubin, Susannah Mira, and Anthony Reed for their friendship. Liz Muller
has been so wonderfully, unbelievably supportive through this process. I dedicate
this book to my family—Elisa, Pedro, and Chris—whose patience and goodwill
have made all the difference. A heartfelt thanks to all.

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Between 1898 and 1916, the United States ruled the Philippines with true
gusto. Having successfully suppressed the Philippine Revolution and started the
American occupation of the islands, the United States was poised to establish its
influence far beyond its continental borders. The United States Philippine Com-
mission, composed of Americans and headed by William Howard Taft, worked
in earnest to establish a robust colonial government that would exploit the islands’
natural resources and expand its modest economy. To this end, the commission
passed dozens of laws within weeks of assuming authority in the islands, concern-
ing itself with the construction of roads and bridges, improvement to ports and
harbors, establishment of universal education, and promotion of sanitary and
public health initiatives. In the first two decades of the United States’ occupation
of the Philippines, Americans made their presence definitively known.
It would have been impossible, for example, to live in Manila and not no-
tice the United States forces hunkered down in the city’s various administrative
buildings, which had formerly housed the Spanish colonial regime. The arrival
of schoolteachers from the United States was heralded in the media with great
enthusiasm. In short, some aspects of the United States colonial rule were inces-
santly touted, evidence of Americans dutifully bearing, in the parlance of Rudyard
Kipling, the “White Man’s Burden.” American administrators bemoaned Filipinos’
“misunderstanding” of the United States’ good intentions in the Philippines.
At first blush, this episode in American political history seems unrelated
to American archival history. The United States’ activities in Asia appear to have
little to do with the establishment of archives at home, and it has become a truism
in American archival history that archival principles in the United States were
adapted from those established in Europe. However, this book suggests that,
upon closer examination, American empire-building and archive-building are not
unrelated historical phenomenon. Rather, each was critical to the other, helping
to create a cultural logic that made both important for that historic moment. By
thinking of archival history within the frame of colonial history, archivists can
better understand our roles in the societies that we document and more critically
2 IMPORT OF THE ARCHIVE
evaluate the historical record that we steward.
***
On the eve of the twentieth century, the United States ruled over more
people and land than ever before. The influx of European immigrants, the
phenomenal growth of cities, and the country’s expanding industrial economy
changed American life. As for land, through wars of conquest, land treaties, and
purchase–namely, the Louisiana Purchase (1803), Adams-Onis Treaty (1819),
Texas annexation (1845), Oregon Treaty (1846), Mexican cession (1848), Gadsen
Purchase (1853), and the Alaska Purchase (1867)—the continental United States
had grown significantly in the nineteenth century. For some, overseas expansion
was antithetical to the country’s republican tradition and detrimental to American
life. Such American luminaries as Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and Samuel
Gompers weighed in on this issue, publicly, cogently, and repeatedly arguing
against establishing sovereignty in faraway lands.
For others, the United States’ constant growth and expansion in the nine-
teenth century was itself significant and formative. It prompted historian Frederick
Jackson Turner to go so far as to posit that America’s national identity was actually
defined by the country’s relationship to the western frontier. In his influential
1893 essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” he argued,
“Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the
colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous
recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American
development.”1 Thus at the end of the nineteenth century, questions that emerged
were: More? And if so, where next?
At roughly the same moment that the United States was pondering these
questions, the Philippines, which had been under Spanish colonial rule for roughly
three hundred years, was also poised for change. The Spanish state had been both
evangelistic and despotic, establishing churches throughout the islands but also
ruling with a harshness that earned the islanders’ animosity. In 1887, Jose Rizal
depicted the harshness of Spanish rule in Noli Me Tangere, the first of two novels
that skewered the colonial state, and for his critique, the state rewarded him first
with exile and ultimately with execution. In 1896, Rizal’s death, decades of spo-
radic peasant uprisings, and growing discontent among the society’s elites erupted
into the Philippine Revolution.
In 1898, when the U.S.S. Maine exploded off the shores of Cuba and the
United States suspected that Spain was responsible, the United States involved
itself in the revolution to oust the Spanish colonial state in Cuba. With these