African Americans, Military Service, and the Cause of Cuba Libre, 1868-1920

THE FRUITS OF CITIZENSHIP: AFRICAN AMERICANS, MILITARY SERVICE, AND THE CAUSE OF CUBA LIBRE, 1868-1920 by Sherri Ann Charleston A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in The University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Professor Rebecca J. Scott, Co-Chair Associate Professor Michele Mitchell, Co-Chair, New York University Professor Martin S. Pernick Associate Professor Martha S. Jones Assistant Professor Hannah Rosen © Sherri Ann Charleston 2009 In memory of MARY LOUISE HEMPHILL Psalm 23 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the course of the many years that have passed since I began this project, I have incurred a considerable debt to all of those who so willingly offered their support and assistance with this project. I must thank the Department of History and the Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan (UM) for providing not only a supportive learning environment, but also the funding for exploratory and final stage travel, research, and writing; the Law in Slavery and Freedom Project at UM for providing a myriad of support and exposing me to a dynamic community of scholars who willingly commented on various sections of the project; the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the American Philosophical Society, and Marquette University who provided generous dissertation completion fellowships to support travel, writing, and research in the concluding stages of the project; and finally, the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin- Madison for providing me with visiting faculty privileges while I conducted research at the Wisconsin State Historical Society. The archivists and staff of the various repositories who have assisted me with this endeavor have made the process of research an immeasurably enjoyable iii process. I am grateful to the archivists and staff at the United States National Archives I & II, the American Philosophical Society, and the New Orleans Public Library. And finally, I am thankful to Marie Windell, formerly of the Earl K. Long Collection at the University of New Orleans, for her kindness and untiring support of historical research. I owe an awesome debt of gratitude to my dissertation co-chairs, Rebecca Scott and Michele Mitchell, for their continual support, patience, and encouragement throughout the process. Rebecca Scott displayed unwavering commitment from the project’s conception; I have no words to express the depth of my appreciation for her concern, careful commenting, and vigilant attention to all manner of detail. Likewise, I am profoundly grateful to Michele Mitchell for continuing to serve faithfully as my co- chair even after her departure to New York University; she never failed to provide insightful and thoughtful comments throughout the process. I consider myself blessed to have benefited from such a dedicated committee of scholars and mentors. I am thankful to dissertation committee members Martin Pernick, Martha Jones, and Hannah Rosen who have provided personal and professional guidance along with insightful and careful comments at all stages throughout the process. I am also grateful to several colleagues, including Kidada Williams, Melissa Stuckey, Tamara Walker, Sara First, LaKisha Simmons, and LaVar J. Charleston, who read drafts of various chapters and provided unwavering support throughout the process. And lastly, I owe my family more than it is possible to ever repay. I am indebted to my mother and grandmother who have sacrificed more for me than I am sure I will ever know. Though my grandmother did not live to see its end, I know she would be the proudest of all to see what “we” have accomplished. My mother has iv proven to be my biggest cheerleader, and I am immeasurably grateful for her unfailing love and encouragement to finish. And finally, to the one who is last but who is really first. Thank you to my husband, LaVar, who often put his own work aside to help provide feedback on mine, and shared his wife with a laptop and the library for the first three years of marriage. I am truly happy to say: this is only the beginning. v TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF APPENDICES viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix ABSTRACT x INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. “THE REAL AND FORCED RESPONSIBILITIES OF AN 21 UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP”: AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND THE POLITICS OF MILITARY ORGANIZATION II. EXCHANGES OF EMPIRE: AFRICAN AMERICANS, 83 INSURGENTS, AND THE “NEW BIRTH” OF CUBAN FREEDOM III. WHEN IMMUNITY GOES ABROAD, DISEASE COMES HOME 147 IV. THE TERMS OF CITIZENSHIP: AFRICAN AMERICAN 201 WOMEN AND CLAIMS‐MAKING AFTER THE WAR V. “PROPERTY BY CITIZENSHIP”: AFRICAN AMERICAN 242 POLITICAL ACTIVISM, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY AFTER THE FINAL WAR FOR CUBAN INDEPENDENCE CONCLUSION 312 APPENDICES 317 BIBLIOGRAPHY 320 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1 The Sugarhouse on the Norma Plantation 115 2 Affidavit of Louisa Coleman 208 3 Photograph, Pierre L. Carmouche 285 4 Map of New Orleans pensioners and supporters 290 vii LIST OF APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 Percentage of Applicants Receiving Pensions By Category………………318 2 Number of Successful Applications Pre and Post 1914…………………...319 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Archival Abbreviations AGO Adjutant General’s Office ARC Amistad Research Center NONA New Orleans Notorial Archive NOPL New Orleans Public Library USNA United States National Archives UNO University of New Orleans Other Abbreviations App. Application RG Record Group USV United States Volunteer Wid. Widow Cert. Certificate No. Number ix ABSTRACT The Fruits of Citizenship examines the multiple links between African American political activism and the United States' involvement in the War for Cuban Independence. It explores the overlapping and entangled histories of two regiments that emanated from hubs of African American political activism—Illinois and Louisiana— and situates them within the history of the intervention. In the preceding months, Illinois had maintained its vibrant Republican party with a strong black political constituency, whereas in Louisiana, the longstanding history of black political activism was being challenged by the ascendant white supremacy. In 1898, when the United States intervened, it seemed to offer black Americans the opportunity to use military service as a means to buttress their calls for full recognition as citizens. Some men enlisted with hopes of taking up the cause of Antonio Maceo, the slain Cuban Revolutionary leader. However, charged with disarming the revolutionary forces and restoring peace, black soldiers found themselves at the center of a conflict over how to govern the Cuban island and to protect American interests in the post- colonial era. Environmental conditions and diseases proved to be the greatest challenge for the soldiers, however. Though, when they returned home, they found their pension claims largely rejected by the Veterans Bureau. I approach the question of how black men—and women— attempted to translate military service into concrete gains by embedding their efforts within a history of x African American politics surrounding the intervention. I begin with studies of New Orleans and Illinois politics, and then explore how local activists engaged with the ongoing work of securing political, social, and economic freedoms, including what the 1868 Louisiana Constitution had referred to as public rights. I subsequently examine how their battles drew upon specific notions of manhood and womanhood, not to mention morals and sexual propriety. Drawing on pension files, military records, newspapers, and Cuban secondary sources, I use microhistorical techniques to demonstrate the multiple links between African Americans’ political activism and the War in Cuba. This dissertation reveals a new dimension of the claims-making that developed around the question of the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. xi INTRODUCTION In June of 1874, Professor John Mercer Langston, prominent Republican, founding member and past President of the Equal Rights League, and professor of law at Howard University, delivered a speech at Oberlin College on the issue of “Cuban Freedom.” Langston argued that, “with freedom established in our own country and equality before the law promised… we may well consider our duty with regard to the abolition of slavery.” Linking the situation of Africans brought to the United States to that of those who were enslaved elsewhere, Langston argued, “there can be no peace upon our continent; there can be no harmony among its people till slavery is everywhere abolished. Every nation, whether its home be an island or upon a continent of oppressed, ought to have, like our own, a new birth of freedom.”1 By the time the United States government began formally considering intervening in the Cuban War for Independence in 1898, African Americans had been watching the Cuban crisis unfold for over a quarter of a century. But in 1874, black Americans could not have predicted that they would lose their new birth of freedom in the decades that followed. By 1896, the New Orleans Citizens’ Committee, led by Louis Martinet and Rodolph Desdunes, which had organized to challenge the Louisiana Separate Car Law, had suffered an irreparable 1 “The Colored Men of the United States and Cuban Freedom,” New Orleans Republican, June 18, 1874, Cuba file, Marcus Christian Papers, University of New Orleans Archives. 1 defeat when the Supreme Court handed down its famed decision in Plessy

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