On three striking sides to one of America’s most
insignificant victories.
The first thing that stands out about the January 1815
Battle of New Orleans is that it was entirely unnecessary. Not in the “War:
what is it good for?” sense, but quite literally unnecessary: the War of 1812
had been ended by the Treaty of
Ghent in December 1814, but the various signatories were still in the process
of ratifying the treaty and word had not reached the British troops who were
trying to take the city and with it the rest of the Louisiana Purchase
territory. So the attack continued, the
American troops led by Major General Andrew Jackson fought back, and the
U.S. won its clearest military victory of the war after that conflict had
officially ceased.
If the victory was thus officially meaningless, however, the
composition of those American forces was far more significant. I’ve written elsewhere
in this space about the uniquely multicultural,
-national, and –lingual identify of New Orleans, and the army fighting to
protect the city reflected that identity very fully: the relatively small force
(it numbered around 8000, noticeably fewer than the British forces) included
French Creole troops from New Orleans (some commanded by the former pirate Jean Lafitte), both
free African American residents of the city (colloquially
known as fmcs, “free men of color”) and slaves who had been freed
specifically to aid in the battle, and Choctaw
Native Americans, among other communities.
Moreover, one particular such community is even more striking
and unremembered in our national narratives. Since the mid-18th
century, a group of Filipino immigrants had settled in a Louisiana town
known as Manila Village, comprising what seems likely to be the oldest (and
certainly the most enduring) Asian American community. Men from the village joined Lafitte’s forces for
the battle, helping to create the truly multicultural fighting unit known
as the “Batarians.” It’s difficult for me to overstate how much would change in
our understanding of American history and community if we acknowledged at all,
much less engaged at length with, this fact: that in one of our earliest
military efforts, our forces included French Creole and Filipino Americans,
fighting side by side to defend the city and nation that were and remain their
home.
The week’s final remembering tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
I've been teaching the US survey for years and always discuss Jackson's multicultural force at the Battle of New Orleans. But I had never heard the story of Filipino participation! I am intrigued and fascinated by this. One of your two links dates Manila town post battle of NO (mid 19th century), but the other indicates Filipino arrival in Louisiana as early as 1763. Given the range of he Spanish empire, and the proclivity of imperial Navies to make use of colonial labor, it does not surprise me that Filipinos would have arrived in the Americas that early. I am eager to learn more. So much of the historiography in recent decades has focussed on studying American History from a wider "Atlantic World Perspective," which has been useful, but I suspect as the Pacific World becomes increasingly important to the US in this century, scholars will be uncovering more stories like this one, and eventually these will filter into the way we teach the US History survey. Thanks for the nice post.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments! I'm pretty sure that at least one of those Filipino settlements does indeed date to around the 1760s, and I agree that the trans-pacific American connections are and will be of increasing interest and relevance (and I don't just say that 'cause of my upcoming book on the Chinese Exclusion Act, although, yeah, that too!).
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