An Imperial Air

Abstract

In December of 1900, Theophilus Gould Steward, the chaplain of the 25th Infantry, a Black regiment stationed in the Philippines, was inspecting schools in Zambales Province. At one school, the teacher prompted some little boys to sing an “American song.” The boys immediately launched into “Hello Ma Baby” while performing a “lively minstrel dance.” This, Steward noted, was “their idea of American song and music.” He continued that he had also seen an elite Spanish woman in Manila singing “A Hot Time in the Old Town,” believing it to be the U.S. national anthem.1 As this story illustrates, music was a primary point of contact between Americans and Filipinos from the earliest days of U.S. colonialism in the Philippines. Indeed, music was viewed as a key conductor of civilization and culture, notions freighted with racial meaning. As notions of a civilizing mission were a central justification for U.S. Empire, Americans saw it as vital to the colonial project that Filipinos be exposed to and spread the right kind of American music.