WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO CORPORAL DAVID FAGEN

& THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS DURING THE PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR

PART 2By Charity Bagatsing Doyl

The Spanish-American War was an 1898 conflict between the United States and Spain.

Spain ceded its longstanding colony of the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris on February 4,

1899, which triggered The Philippine–American War that lasted from February 4, 1899, to July 2, 1902.

IMAGES: THE BATTLE OF MANILA 1899

While Filipino nationalists viewed the conflict as a continuation of the struggle for independence with the Philippine Revolution, the U.S. government regarded it as an insurrection. The war officially ended on July 2, 1902, with a victory for the United States.

CASUALTIES, February 4, 1899 - July 4, 1902:

◦ Filipinos : 20,000 soldiers killed in action; 200,000 civilians died

◦ Americans : 4,390 dead (1,053 killed in action; 3,337 other deaths)

The legendary exploits of the Buffalo Soldiers are well known among historians and the African/American community, but the general public has heard little of their role in U.S. history. Even less is known about the role of the Black troops in the Philippine War of Independence.

The so-called Buffalo Soldiers, made up of African American army units, were organized in 1866. They were led by white officers because it was believed that Blacks were not capable of leadership positions.

In the Spanish-American war of 1898, Black troops distinguished themselves in Cuba, taking part in the famous charge up San Juan Hill that also included future President Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. It was errantly assumed that the Black soldiers would be more resistant to the tropical diseases which they would encounter. By 1899, 18 Black soldiers had been awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for bravery and gallantry above and beyond the call of duty.

During the 1899-1902 American-Filipino war the United States Army dispatched four Black regiments to the Philippines. Some sources indicate that 7,000 Black soldiers served in this conflict. Here the Black soldiers found themselves in the position of fighting against oppressed islanders who were seeking independence from foreign rule.

Perhaps the reason that the Buffalo Soldiers’ time in the Philippines is not so well recorded in U.S. history books is because of the relatively high number of desertions, which may besmirch the Buffalo Soldiers’ heralded exploits. Best estimates put the number of desertions of Black soldiers to number 15 to 30.

Within the Black community in the United States there was considerable opposition to intervention in the Philippines.

Boehringer writes about Black infantryman William Fulbright, in a 1901 letter to the editor of an Indianapolis newspaper, summarized the conflict: “This struggle on the islands has been naught but a gigantic scheme of robbery and oppression.”

The Filipino situation created among Blacks in the United States a militant opposition to the war. Henry M. Turner, the senior bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church called the war ‘an unholy war of conquest.’”

M.W. Saddler, one of the members of the 25th Infantry cites, “We are now arrayed to meet a common foe, men of our own hue and color. Whether it is right to reduce these people to submission is not a question for a soldier to decide. Our oaths of allegiance know neither race, color, nor nation.”

Another soldier wrote in 1899, “Our racial sympathies would naturally be with the Filipinos. They are fighting manfully for what they conceive to be their best interests. But we cannot for the sake of sentiment turn our back upon our own country.

One Black infantryman described his duty with resignation, “We’re only regulars and Black ones at that, and I expect that when the Philippine question is settled, they’ll detail us to garrison the islands. Most of us will find our graves there.”

The black soldiers’ dilemma only deepened as they arrived in the islands. Just days before he was killed in action in Corregidor, Sgt. Patrick Mason of the 24th wrote home to a black newspaper:

“I feel sorry for these people and all those that have come under the control of the U.S. The first thing in the morning is ‘nigger’ and the last thing at night is ‘nigger.’ You have no idea the way these people are treated by the Americans here, I must not say much, as I am a soldier. The natives are a patient, burden-bearing people.”

Many African American soldiers in the Philippines were treated as second-class citizens. The officers often ordered them to carry out the “dirty jobs” that no one wanted to do. Or they served as expendable shock troops in the frontline, where their lives were most at risk, while the White commanders stayed back at a safer distance from the enemy.

In their propaganda war, the insurgents used posters addressed to “The Colored American Soldier” in which they reminded the Black soldiers of the lynching's back in the U.S. and asked them not to serve the White imperialists against other people of color. The supposed "turncoats" of the 24th Infantry only proved one thing: that the systematic racism and oppression of the White Americans was enough to unite even the unlikeliest of allies.

Guerilla propagandists, one of whose flyers read:“To the Colored American Soldier: It is without honor that you shed your precious blood. Your masters have thrown you in the most iniquitous fight with double purpose—to make you the instrument of their ambition, and also your hard work will soon make the extinction of your race. Your friends, the Filipinos, give you this good warning. You must consider your situation and your history and take charge that the blood of… Sam Hose [a young farm hand lynched in Newton, Georgia earlier that year] proclaims vengeance.”

The Richmond Planet quoted a Nueva Ejica physician named Teodorico Santos thus: “The white troops… began to tell of the inferiority of the American blacks–of your brutal natures, your cannibal tendencies, how you would rape our señoritas, etc. Of course, we were a little shy of you… but we studied you, as results have shown. The affinity of complexion between you and me tells, and you exercise your duty much kindlier in dealing with us. Between you and him, we look upon you as the angel and him as the devil.”

The Filipinos subjected Black soldiers to psychological warfare. Posters and leaflets addressed to "The Colored American Soldier" described the lynching and discrimination against Blacks in the US and discouraged them from being the instrument of their white masters' ambitions to oppress another "people of color." Blacks who deserted to the Filipino nationalist cause would be welcomed.

On November 17, Company I packed up for its new post in Cabanatuan. Using the confusion of the move as cover, Fagen gathered as many pistols as he could safely conceal and calmly walked out of his barracks. He had somehow sent word to the guerillas a few days before; a saddled horse was waiting for him. Fagen’s escape was effortless. He rode into the jungle, toward the headquarters of the rebels in the densely foliaged slopes of Mt. Arayat to his new life as an “insurrecto.”

Fagen led the way for more than 20 other black deserters to what military historian Anthony Powell calls a “higher morality.” About 12 of them joined Fagen in active service with the Filipinos, an unprecedented episode in black military history. “It was the first time that a large number of black soldiers defected to fight on the other side. “

Fagen fought “like a wildcat” as a first lieutenant in the Brigada Lacuña, the feared battalion under the command of General Urbano Lacuña. His first year with the Filipino forces went by largely unrecorded until September 6, 1900, when he was promoted to captain.

Journalists in the Philippines and the U.S. became fascinated with the mysterious rebel leader. In a New York Times headline story on October 29, 1900, they described Fagen as a “cunning and highly skilled guerrilla officer who harassed and evaded large conventional American units.” There were eight reported incidents of Fagen-led operations, the most famous of which was the daring raid of a supply barge on the Pampanga River.

Guerilla fighters now addressed him as “Heneral” Fagen, who became one of Aguinaldo’s most valued officers, becoming a media sensation and a fugitive with a $600 bounty on his head.

Fagen enjoyed a good time. He was a master of stud poker, having regularly relieved his fellow soldiers of several hundred dollars on payday. He was fond of carousals, played a guitar, and lived in camp with his Filipino wife. He was “often amusing” and voluble, supremely confident, and a natural leader.

The other defectors were also reported to have strengthened the Filipino cause as marksmanship instructors. White officers warned of the added danger in confronting native riflemen trained by the black soldiers.

The U.S. Army’s famed “guerilla catcher,” Col. Frederick Funston, became obsessed with the capture of the renegade and decried a missed opportunity: “I got a fairly good look at the notorious Fagen at a distance of 100 yards, but unfortunately, had already emptied my carbine. This wretched man had on two occasions written me impudent and badly spelled letters. Fagen is ‘entitled to the same treatment as a mad dog’.”

Funston captured Aguinaldo instead—through an elaborate ploy—on March 23. Two weeks later, the Filipino leader swore allegiance to the United States and ordered his forces to surrender immediately. In Nueva Ecija, General Lacuñaand other guerilla leaders obeyed their leader. Lacuña, however, refused to surrender Fagen, and came down from the hills with his officers after releasing the American from his command. Funston now embarked on an all-out hunt for “the head of the American Negro.”

On the afternoon of December 6, 1901, it appeared that the wily Funston finally bagged his quarry. Anastacio Bartolome, a former guerilla, who now earned a living as a deer hunter, entered the Army barracks in Bongabong, Nueva Ecija, under Lt. R.C. Corliss. He laid a canvas sack on the floor and recited certain events of the previous days, which the American officer recorded as an affidavit.

The hunter claimed he was fishing with two companions in the Umiray River one morning, when Fagen arrived with two Negrito friends and his native wife. He invited Fagen and his party to share a lunch of fish and rice. The affidavit reads: “While all were eating, Anastacio and his party suddenly turned on Fagen and his men with bolos. Fagen was mortally wounded and ran about 100 yards and dropped dead. The two Negritos escaped badly wounded. Fagen’s wife ran for the ocean, jumped in and drowned herself.”

Bartolome said he buried Fagen’s body on the riverbank, after cutting off his head. He opened his sack to reveal the evidence, a “badly decomposed head, with Negroid characteristics.” As further proof, Bartolome submitted a worn photograph of Urbano Lacuña found in Fagen’s breast pocket and Lt. Alstaetter’s West Point class ring. The U.S. Army closed the book on Pvt. David Fagen.

The official military file on Fagen’s death was titled “The Supposed Killing of David Fagen.” It seems the American officers who had received the mutilated, decomposed head were not convinced but had ended the manhunt anyway.

While this has remained the official account, historians Michael Robinson and David Schubert published in 1974 an article questioning its veracity. In a war where every dime, nickel and mule was meticulously accounted for by the U.S. Army, there remains no record of a $600 bounty awarded to Bartolome. The historians also discovered several credible reported sightings of Fagen by Army soldiers' months after his reported demise.

Could the deer hunter’s account have been a well-conceived plot hatched by Lacuña and Bartolome to keep the black defector alive? Could he have lived in the jungles of Luzon free from Jim Crow and Frederick Funston, long after the cessation of hostilities?

As for the rest of Fagen’s comrades who remained loyal to the American flag, more than a thousand opted to remain in the islands upon their discharge at the war’s official end on July 4, 1902. Citing their “racial affinity” with the natives, many intermarried with Filipino women and settled all over Central Luzon. They became clerks, teachers, small farmers and storeowners.

Almost a hundred years later, their African American descendants can be found all across the Philippine diaspora, from Pangsinan to Pennsylvania—and San Francisco, where they began their historic journey and where a young black man sailed toward his unique place in Philippine history.

Captain Frank Steward became the provost judge of

San Pablo, Laguna

W.C. Warmsley, a military surgeon,

amassed a small fortune in tobacco in Cagayan

To this day, it remains unclear what exactly became of David Fagen. His life after

the war continued to be as mysterious as his existence before it. But his actions,

largely forgotten in the United States, continue to be remembered in the

Philippines as that of an African American man who heroically cast his lot with the

Filipino revolutionaries to resist the injustice of American imperial designs.

This is what I think happened to David Fagen. In 1901, American forces

captured key Filipino leaders including Alejandrino and by March, Aguinaldo

himself. Filipino leaders tried to secure amnesty for Fagen, but the Americans

refused, insisting that he would be court-martialed and most likely executed.

Hearing of this, Fagen, by now married to a Filipina, refused to surrender and

sought refuge in the mountains of Nueva Ecija in Central Luzon.

I would speculate that the Filipino guerillas/comrades chose to hide him in plain sight in Manila where there were no “Wanted dead or Alive” posters. And it was common to see “American” soldiers, builders, contractors, social workers, and artists arriving in the Capitol.

By the time the Americans took over in 1898, Malacañan Palace was a rambling Spanish colonial period complex of buildings, built of wood, with sliding capizwindows, patios and azoteas. The American Governors General abandoned the plan to reconstruct the old Palacio at Intramuros. Instead, they continued to improve and enlarge Malacañan Palace, buying up more land, reclaiming more of the Pasig River, raising the ground level (to keep above flood waters), changing wood to concrete, and beautifying the interiors with hardwood panelling and magnificent chandeliers.

Fagen’s comrades chose to exploit the Filipinos belief in the kapre, a Philippine mythical creature described as a black, tall, hairy male who always smokes big tobacco pipe. In the grounds of MalacanangPalace was a balete tree – believed to attract supernatural spirits.

They encouraged Fagan to climb the balete tree at night and smoke cigars to scare the natives away.

Fagan’s ghosts a.k.a Mr. Brown can still be strongly felt under a baletetree. He is a benevolent ghost who is helpful in finding lost things but also “mischievous” and is known to play pranks on Palace officials and guests. Sometimes, you could see smoke wafting from the tree.

The tree, according to historians, has stood witness to the unfolding of the country’s history from the Spanish-American War & the American Occupation and President Aquino has officially proclaimed the aforementioned balete tree as a Heritage Tree.

Regardless of what really happened to David Fagen whether he is really the famous Mr. Brown or spent his remaining life in the mountains of Nueva Ecija, I chose to believe that this hero spent the rest of his life in peace with his beloved Filipina wife.

Research Notes:

https://asamnews.com/2019/02/02/black-history-month-the-role-of-buffalo-soldiers-in-the-philippines/

http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/2013/2/a-black-mans-burden

https://www.filipinoamericanwar18991902.com/

https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/david-fagen-a2502-20200316-lfrm

https://www.academia.edu/242727/A_HOMAGE_TO_DAVID_FAGEN_AFRICAN-AMERICAN_SOLDIER_IN_THE_PHILIPPINE_REVOLUTION

This presentation was prepared for the Spokane Public Library in honor of

Philippine Independence Day.

THANK YOU!For questions and comments:

Charitydoyl@yahoo.com