Reframing the Colonial Dead: Resistance in Photographs of the Philippine-American War, 1899–1913

Continuing the panel’s theme of “Slavery and Mortality” from a broader transnational perspective that considers colonial subjugation, this paper argues that reframing photographs of marginalized subjects can help reverse social death. Slavery and segregation informed Americans’ reactions in the Philippine Islands in the 1890s, leading anti-imperialist politicians in Congress to claim that paying “about $2 per head for the Negroes and Malays now occupying” the Philippines “amply vindicated the South.” Zahid Chaudhary observes in Afterimage of Empire: “at certain moments in history, populations are in fact subjugated and victimized,” and they therefore leave few sources from their perspective. As a result, re-situating photographs of the marginalized can provide an invaluable source for the resistance of enslaved or colonized subjects.

As the practice of lynching peaked, the United States fought to subdue the Philippines, exporting and then adapting domestic ideas of race in what Professor Peter Schmidt described as “Jim Crow colonialism.” However there have been few articles or books that pursued this idea further. Systems of marginalization employed domestically initially shaped American visions of Filipinos, although Paul A. Kramer’s Blood of Government effectively describes how new understandings of race emerged over time. This paper does a close reading of one “trophy” photograph or wartime “souvenir” from 1899, presented at the time as representative of the Philippine American War (1899 – 1913), arguing that it reveals more than the photographers and publishers at the time intended.

Moving beyond traditional analyses of how gazes racialize, this paper argues that re-contextualizing photographs can reverse colonial gazes and can demonstrate marginalized figures’ resistance. Despite photographers’ intentions and the original use for images, photographs also record subjects looking back, judging, and resisting. As a result, this paper argues that re-framing photographs of racialized violence can reveal alternative meanings and help return subjects from social death.