Echoes of Empire

By Geoffry Monteith

John C. Williams

 February 3, 1872-July 12, 1929

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Born February 3, 1872, in Nashville, Tennessee, John Calvin Williams would eventually find his way across the continent, and across the world, while fighting in the United States Army.[1] The son of Jason and Elizabeth Williams, John grew up, in part, under the care of his aunt, Elizabeth Humphreys, in Davidson, Tennessee.[2] By the 1890s, his way to settle in what was known as the Dakota Territory.[3] By 1898, he had found his way to Yankton, now part of South Dakota.[4] With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War that same year, Williams enlisted in the 1st Regiment of South Dakota Volunteer Infantry.[5] The regiment deployed to the Philippines aboard the transports Saint Paul and Rio de Janeiro.[6] Soldiers in the unit participated in operations in and around Manila, and acted as guards for headquarters and commanding officers.[7]

1st Regiment, South Dakota Volunteers. Image from the Albert Sidney Frost papers. [23]

After Commodore George Dewey’s decisive victory over the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, 35,000 Spanish troops remained garrisoning the city. The Eighth Army Corps, including the 1st South Dakota Infantry and Private Williams, deployed under the command of General Arthur MacArthur – father of World War II General Douglas MacArthur.[8] After two weeks of fighting, MacArthur’s troops dislodged the Spanish defenders and secured the city.[9] The 1st South Dakota remained in the Philippines long enough to see the beginning of the Philippine-American War, but the regiment, Williams included, returned to the United States later in 1899 and was mustered-out in San Francisco on October 5, 1899.[10] The Philippine-American War arose from the colonial transfer of power from Spain to the United States.[11] The American belief in Manifest Destiny – the need for an expansion of American territory and influence – and the time’s racial belief of non-whites as incapable of self-government led to the Philippine’s annexation instead of independence.[12] Many Filipinos desired independence similar to what Cuba received after the Spanish-American War, but simply came to know a new colonial government.[13] The ensuing conflict lasted from 1899 to 1902, and claimed more lives than the preceding Spanish-American War – 4,200 Americans and a staggering 220,000 Filipinos.[14]

Williams re-enlisted on December 28 of the same year, this time in the 2nd Regiment of Artillery, Company B.[15] Returning to the Philippines, Williams does not appear to have left until 1922.[16] This would have seen him through both the Philippine-American War, as well as the Moro Rebellion. While the Philippine-American War concerned primarily the Catholic-dominated northern islands and officially ended in 1902, the peace treaty under which it ended did not include the Moro peoples of the southern islands – a primarily Muslim population.[17] Flaring-up in increments between 1901 and 1913, the Moro Rebellion included insurgencies from the neighboring sultanate in the Sulu archipelago, and proved a much more taxing conflict for US troops.[18] The strong racial undertones of the colonial conflict only conflated with the religious conflict unfolding in the south. Eventually, under the leadership of military governor John “Black Jack” Pershing – who would later go on to command United States forces during the First World War – effectively quashed the resistance movement and brought the last pieces of the Philippine archipelago under American control.[19] In 1916, through the Jones Act, the United States promised eventual independence, which the islands received in 1946 after first achieving autonomy in 1935.

On June 5, 1922, Private Williams returned to the United States and arrived in San Francisco aboard the US Army Transport Sherman.[20] On July 12, 1929, Williams died at the U.S. Veterans Hospital in Prescott, Arizona.[21] He was laid to rest in the cemetery in Fort Whipple, later known as the Prescott National Cemetery.[22] However, in 1969, Williams was re-interred in the Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

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Footnotes ↓

[1] “1880 United States Federal Census.” Database, ancestry.com, (accessed July 11, 2019), entry for John Williams, Davidson, Tennessee.

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Spanish American War, 1st Regiment, SD Volunteer Infantry,” South Dakota State Historical Society, (accessed July 17, 2019), https://history.sd.gov/archives/docs/Company,%20Spanish%20American%20War.pdf.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] “A Brief History of the 1st South Dakota Volunteer Infantry,” The Spanish American War Centennial, (accessed July 11, 2019), http://www.spanamwar.com/1stSouthdakota.htm.

[7] Ibid.

[8] “The Spanish-American War in the Philippines and the Battle for Manila,” American Experience PBS, (accessed July 18, 2019), https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/macarthur-spanish-american-war-philippines-and-battle-for-manila/.

[9] Ibid.

[10] “A Brief History of the 1st South Dakota Volunteer Infantry,” The Spanish American War Centennial, (accessed July 11, 2019), http://www.spanamwar.com/1stSouthdakota.htm.

[11] “The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902,” Office of the Historian, (accessed July 12, 2019), https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war.

[12] Paul A. Kramer, “Race-Making and Colonial Violence in the U.S. Empire: The Philippine-American War as Race War,” Diplomatic History, Volume 30, Issue 2, (2006): Pages 169–210.

[13] “The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902,” Office of the Historian, (accessed July 12, 2019), https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war.

[14] Ibid.

[15] “U.S. Army Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914,” database, ancestry.com, (accessed July 17, 2019), entry for John C Williams, Tennessee, 1899.

[16] “California, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959,” database, ancestry.com, (accessed July 18, 2019), entry for John Williams, US Army Transport Sherman.

[17] “Moro Rebellion,” Theodore Roosevelt Center, (accessed July 19, 2019), https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-Encyclopedia/War-and-Military-Affairs/The-Moro-Rebellion.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] “California, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959,” database, ancestry.com, (accessed July 18, 2019), entry for John Williams, US Army Transport Sherman.

[21] “Arizona Death Records, 1887-1960,” database, ancestry.com, (accessed July 18, 2019), entry for John Calvin Williams.

[22] Ibid.

[23] "South Dakota Volunteers," Archives and Special Collections, (accessed March 22, 2020), https://archivesandspecialcollections.wordpress.com/tag/south-dakota-volunteers/.

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