ABSTRACT
The Buffalo Soldiers of the Ninth and Tenth cavalries and the 24th and 25th infantries also saw service in the Spanish-American War, a conflict that established the United States as an imperial power. Amid chaos, black and white troops intermingled in the charge up the hill, which was successful. Militia regiments from Illinois and Kansas, composed of African Americans from the colonel in command to the lowliest private, helped garrison Cuba and the island of Puerto Rico. Some African Americans questioned whether black citizens, whose own rights were being whittled away by Jim Crow laws, should support a war to bring American-style 'freedom' to Cuba and its significant black population. Black troops also participated in the naval assault of Manila Bay in the Philippines, a Spanish colony in the Pacific. John Jordan, a black gunner's mate, was in charge of the crew that fired the first shot in the short and successful battle.
