In 1898, in an era of racial terror at home and imperial conquest abroad, the United States sent its troops to suppress the Filipino struggle for independence, including three regiments of the famed African American "Buffalo Soldiers." Among them was David Fagen, a twenty-year-old private in the Twenty-Fourth Infantry, who deserted to join the Filipino guerrillas. He led daring assaults and ambushes against his former comrades and commanders-who relentlessly pursued him without success-and his name became famous in the Philippines and in the African American community. The outlines of Fagen's legend have been known for more than a century, but the details of his military achievements, his personal history, and his ultimate fate have remained a mystery-until now. Michael Morey tracks Fagen's life from his youth in Tampa as a laborer in a phosphate camp through his troubled sixteen months in the army, and, most importantly, over his long-obscured career as a guerrilla officer. Morey places this history in its larger military, political, and social context to tell the story of the young renegade whose courage and defiance challenged the supremacist assumptions of the time.
Michael Morey is a writer and independent historian. He lives in Sonoma County, California.
List of Illustrations Preface Introduction Part One: The Young Man from Tampa 1 The Young Man from Tampa 2 Santiago 3 The Far Side of the World 4 Westward 5 The Waiting Game 6 Permissions to Hate 7 Benevolent Assimilation 8 Snowbound 9 "Fighting Fred" Funston 10 Slander 11 Stalemate 12 Sequoia 13 The White Man's Burden 14 Aguinaldo Adrift 15 Over the Hill Part Two: Renegade 16 Another Kind of War 17 Billet Doux 18 The Death of Captain Godfrey 19 "The Afro-American Traitor Called David" 20 Urbano Lacuna 21 Mount Corona 22 Alstaetter 23 Funston's Great Roundup 24 Sergeant Washington and Captain Fagen 25 Fall Offensive 26 Old Scores 27 "General Fagan" 28 "Negritos Soldados" 29 "The Courage of His Convictions" 30 Alstaetter Revisited 31 A Christmas Souvenir 32 The Revolution Falters 33 The Road to Palanan 34 Surrender Part Three: Ladrone 35 Ladrone 36 The Renegade Comes to Town 37 A People's War 38 "The Old Arch-Renegade Fagan" Afterword A Note on Sources Notes Index
"With dedicated sleuthing, informed speculation, and gifted storytelling style, Morey sheds new light on David Fagen, an African American insurgent against U.S. colonialism, who has long remained as elusive to historians as he was to the American soldiers that chased him through Philippine forests over a century ago." - Paul Kramer, author of The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines "A model for how to take a mythic figure, about whom very little documentation exists, and successfully transform him into a living, breathing man whose life is a window to understanding the meaning of race, war, and masculinity in American society." - Jennifer D. Keene, author of Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America
