"GERARD" BLACK IN THE PHILIPPINES THE TRUTH African American Fought for Filipino Liberation, Snoop

How Filipinos found allies in black American soldiers during the Philippine-American war
Roots run deep between Filipinos and black Americans, and it all started here. The history of Filipinos and black Americans overlap in surprising ways. Contemporary discourse has drawn comparisons between incidents of police brutality here and in the US, and are a point of solidarity. But the roots of this solidarity run deeper than that. Filipinos and Black Americans have before found themselves crossing paths in another violent time—specifically the Philippine-American War of 1899 and 1902. Here is where the conflict of conscience comes in. Black soldiers enlisted in the US Army, who participated in the occupation of the country, were firsthand witnesses to how Americans subjugated Filipinos. These black soldiers saw Filipinos as fellow dark-skinned brothers and sisters, subject to the forms of oppression and violence they faced in the heartland. Both Filipino and black people were called the n-word slur. This prompted an internal conflict among the black soldiers—should they fight the war? Or could they possibly side with these strangers in a strange land, oceans away from the life they used to know? A letter from a buffalo soldier stationed in the Philippines expresses this personal inner battle. It read: “Every colored soldier who goes to the Philippine Islands to fight the brave men there who are fighting and dying for their freedom… is fighting to curse the country with color-phobia, lynchings, Jim Crow (train)cars, and everything else that white prejudice can do to blight the darker races… and since the Filipinos belong to the darker human variety, it is the Negro fighting against himself.” The infantryman who wrote this letter died three weeks later. We have a long history with the country I hope now you understand it Take care and God bless

During the war in the Philippines, fifteen U.S. soldiers, six of them Black, would defect to Aguinaldo. One of the Black deserters, Private David Fagen became notorious as a "Insurecto Captain," and was apparently so successful fighting American soldiers that a price of $600 was placed on his head. Take care and God bless