Handout 8
Imperialism - Intrapersonal

Dear Sir:

I take the pleasure to write you to tell you I am well at present. I thought I would give you a sketch for your paper....I am now at the above named place. It is the greatest country I was ever in for climate but I find the natives very poor. They are almost without shelter and without food. They crowd around our camp all day long.

Children are lying naked about the streets, women and men are in a starving condition although they are very clean. The city is under the United States martial laws. They live on fruits, cocoanuts, mangoes, bananas and saps. They have nothing to cook on. They value a meat can very highly. Everyone dresses in white, and the females go bare-headed. They crave for an English school, and also a minister to hear the Word of God. The church bell has not rung in four years. Provisions are very dear and luxuries are cheap. They do not eat beef at all and have no use for a butcher. They say, "a butcher kills beef, he kills man."

The troops got here in time to save the natives of this place. The Spaniards had a meeting a couple of days before we arrived and laid the law down that any man or woman who rebelled against them would be punished in this manner: Corset jackets with nails in them for women and children and gloves the same for men. This was to have been put into effect July 29 but we arrived July 28, and the executers flew to the mountains in the inland. Flour is worth $32.00 per lb., rice $0.20 per lb., condensed milk $0.50 per can, [and] bacon $0.30 per lb. This is the place for some merchant to make a fortune selling goods reasonable. A fifty cents pair of shoes in America is worth $2.00 here.

This is the first place in my life that I have been and found no distinction in color.

I slept very comfortable last night on the hard ground. Our corral is in the midst of coffee, cocoanut, date and mango trees.

There are mountains all along the coast, as fine a sight as a man could dream of. There is room enough between the mountains and sea coast for large cities....What suits me best of all, the island is covered with beautiful women and girls and they fairly worship an American.

Your sincere friend,

James Miller

Source: Savannah Tribune, 10 September 1898, in William B. Gatewood, Jr.,"Smoked Yankees" and the Struggle for Empire: Letters from Negro Soldiers, 1898-1902 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1987).