by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Allen Allensworth (1842-1914) was in his mid-fifties and more than three decades removed from his service as a Navy steward for the Union during the Civil War when the Louisville native and Army chaplain with the 24th Infantry Regiment of “buffalo soldiers” comprising Black enlisted men and white officers at Fort Douglas near Salt Lake City, Utah (following service at Fort Supply in Oklahoma and Fort Bayard in New Mexico) when the United States declared war on Spain in late April 1898.
Just after this, briefly reported the Salt Lake Herald of 4 May, “Chaplain Allen Allensworth has been appointed recruiting officer, and he will have the duty of enlisting the men” and the paper added “the chaplain has also been placed in charge of the post gardens, and with his other duties this keeps him very busy.” Within a month, Allensworth was sent to other states, including Kansas and his native Kentucky to recruit African-American soldiers for the war effort.
The Kansas City Times of 5 June recorded that the 24th Infantry Regiment was “one of the best fighting regiments in the army,” while informing readers that “colored men who want to go to war now have an opportunity to join a regiment” (it should be noted that it was not until 1948 that the military was desegregated) and it was concluded that, while hitches were for three years, an enlistee could request “discharge when the war is over upon applying for it.”
Three days the Leavenworth [Kansas] Standard reported that Allensworth left for Louisville and he told the paper that,
Many of [potential Black recruits] are holding off because they are sore over the fact that no provision has yet been made for volunteer companies in which colored men will have a chance to become officers . . . The truth of it is they have expected to get something without much trouble and when they do not they feel disappointed . . . What they should do if they want colored officers, is to organize their [volunteer] companies and make application to the government for colored sergeant majors and other first class sergeants to command them. These officers have the knowledge. They have it better than white men for they have to have it better. If they did not they could not be advanced.
24th Infantry Regiment soldiers fought in Cuba at Santiago and San Juan Hill—this latter made famous with the Rough Riders of Theodore Roosevelt, who became president in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley. Allensworth, who was feted for recruiting 350 men more than the nine other officers sent out to do so, returned, along with the regiment, to Fort Douglas after hostilities ended in mid-August and the Herald of 30 November remarked that “hereafter the post is to have a school for enlisted men, under the direction of Chaplain Allen Allensworth” with an hour a day devoted each to arithmetic, geography, reading and writing.
His educational background was cited and it was asserted that he “will doubtless create an interest among the men productive of much good.” Space in the fort’s chapel was set aside for the school and it was noted that Allensworth planned on adding a study component for telegraphy, while regimental captain were to offer instruction on military tactics to non-commissioned officers.
In June 1899, the 24th was sent to the Philippines and did so through San Francisco, where that city’s Chronicle ran a lengthy feature by Mabel Clare Craft, who was with the paper for about a decade. She began by proclaiming that,
Sailing now to the Philippines goes one of the four regiments with the best right to the title of “American” of all the troops in the service of these United States—the Twenty-fourth Infantry, most distinguished of the negro regiments of the country and, possibly, the most renowned infantry regiment in the Army . . . The enlisted negro proclaims proudly the fact that he is the only Simon-pure American child of the soil for more generations than he can count. The only naturalization record in his family was written more than thirty years ago from Sumter to Appomattox [during the Civil War].
Remarking on their exploits on the battlefields of Cuba, Craft lamented that, when the 24th marched through the city on Decoration (Memorial) Day the prior month, “there was so little enthusiasm over them.” Moreover, she continued, it was “strange that any American should not know the inspiring story of how these dark-skinned, white-souled men fought up the stubborn hill of San Juan; how a color sergeant of the Twenty-fourth was the first to plant a flag on the heights of the hill.”
Referring to American soldiery generally as “a brawling, turbulent fellow,” Craft commented that the African-Americans of the 24th “behaved so well while they were among us that we scarcely knew they were here until they were gone and it was too late to honor them.” She also observed that for Black soldiers “to the flag he serves he bears an intense personal loyalty that is a passion” and, because “his bondage is too recent to be forgotten,” the African-American in the service “is the best American of us all.”
The journalist also noted that “it was to escape the conditions of his race in the South that many of these men enlisted” and that those in the 24th “are endeavoring to prove by their heroism in war and their good conduct in peace that the negro is a gentleman as well as a citizen.” Moreover, she informed readers,
The colored man enlists because in the Army, more than in any other place in all the Republic, he approaches an equality with white men, the equality of comradeship. In the Army one enlisted man is as good as another, and courage is not a matter of complexion. When the battle is fought and won the black man is as good as the white . . . The colored man thirsts for equality. He is not callous to the indignities still heaped upon him. He wants to escape from the accursed thing that follows him, and he comes nearer to the republican [lower case] ideal in the Army than anywhere else.
Referring to the point Allensworth made above, Craft observed that “they are not yet without grievances” in their military service, particularly in that “it is . . . a complaint of the soldiers of the Twenty-fourth and of all the colored men of the Army that their commissioned officers are not colored men also.” One told her that “you see we haven’t the political pull that is necessary,” but she also corrected the notion that African-Americans were “natural coward[s]” while adding that Blacks fought in every American war, but it was only the latest in which it was not the case that they were “under the flag that represented to them only stripes, with no gleam of stars.”
Reviewing the stellar record of African-American soldiers in prior conflicts, Craft continued that “with such progenitors it is not to be wondered at that the Twenty-fourth Infantry should distinguish itself in the war with Spain by conspicuous gallantry.” These Black soldiers were sons or grandsons of slaves, “but the men of African blood put the white ones to the blush” as they rushed San Juan Hill and a white officer remarked “they went along, not looking to right or left as their comrades [eleven African-Americans] fell dead at their feet.”
As to Allensworth, of whom it was said that “he is a great wag . . . with the most whimsical smile and a gift for epigram,” the journalist recorded that he did not go to Cuba because, he told her, “my boys didn’t want me to go” as “it wasn’t necessary.” So, he went on, “I made storage batteries of them and charged them with enough spirituality to last two months, and when they came back they still had some left.” He added,
While they were getting killed in Cuba I was out in the South as a recruiting officer getting men to fill their ranks . . . I don’t paint the bright side to them, I tell them of the hard side, for I know that if a man is willing to accept the dark side he can make it brighter. I hold the Army out to the colored man as an opportunity to save sufficient capital to go into business. It is a good chance for our folks—a better chance than they have almost anywhere, much better than they have in the South.
The chaplain acknowledged that his fellow soldiers were not saints, but he noted that they were largely raised with nothing to counterbalance religion, this being “a relic from the old days when masters were unwilling that the slave should receive any sort of instruction except religious instruction” and he noted, “even yet in the South the church is about the only place the negro has to go.” Remarkably, he told Craft that he “used to be a Baptist before I went into the Army” but was more concerned with Christian principles than theology.
While white soldiers drank a good deal more, Black troops “take out their hilarity in music,” while also loved to gamble, of which Allensworth pragmatically remarked “I have no substitute to offer.” He added “they’re pretty good boys” and that they “expect me to walk a chalked line” and avoid “wine dinners” and rounds of cards. Importantly, he was a keeper of their bank books and Craft turned to an appraisal of the chaplain, who professed a hope of teaching in Southern colleges after his retirement from the service:
The power of this earnest, white-haired preacher over his men is little short of marvelous. He is their father confessor . . . the surgeons frequently call on him for assistance . . .
Through it all, war time or peace time, goes the humorous chaplain preaching every day that dignity of labor which makes his men throw back their shoulders and behave as though the most menial service were [sic] ennobled for them . . . Perhaps it is the secret of Captain Allensworth’s great success that he has been the common man himself, having served in the Navy as a petty officer before he took to preaching his way into the hearts of men.
Shortly afterward, Allensworth was sent to the Phillipines, where 24th Infantry Regiment units were stationed and he remained there for much of 1899-1900. The federal census of that latter year enumerated him at San Francisco’s Presidio, following his return, and his wife and two late teen-aged daughters were there, as well. He remained stationed at the historic post for about two years and then was sent to Fort Harrison, outside Helena, Montana.
There was a brief feature in the Montana Record-Herald of 13 August 1902, shortly after the 24th arrived at the fort and it was remarked that Allensworth was “one of the eight colored commissioned officers in the United States army” and “is the first chaplain ever stationed at Fort Harrison.” The paper erred, however, in stating that he was a graduate of West Point and that he joined the regiment following his matriculation, though it correctly noted that he served during the Civil War.
The 23 February 1903 edition of the Record-Herald cited Allensworth’s opposition to the staging of such plays as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Pudd’nhead Wilson, telling the paper, “I think Uncle Tom has served his day and generation, and ought to be retired from service.” He continued,
The negro[es] do not care to be reminded, by exhibitions of the treatment he received during the antebellum days, by a continual presentation of this treatment, as he is not encouraged to become the patient Uncle Tom or the lovely Angelic Eva.
On the other hand, our Southern friends do not care to be reminded of the internal working of the institution of slavery . . .
[With regard to Pudd’nhead Wilson and its central characters being a slave with 1/32 African ancestry switched by his mother with the master’s son, who looked identical to the former] The Southerner should be against this play as well as the negro, because its moral teaching is against both.
In late spring 1904, Allensworth was promoted to major and he submitted an application for full retirement, though this was not approved, though he was approaching both 20 years of service with combined Civil War Navy service and 19 years with the Army, and the mandatory retirement age. He remained at Fort Harrison for about another year, at which time, in June 1905, he was “relieved from duty with his regiment and ordered to proceed home and await retirement from active service.”
Home, however, was a new place: Los Angeles. The Record-Herald of 17 July praised Allensworth and remarked that, when a law was passed allowing for chaplains to become majors, he “was among the first to be selected on his record for ‘exceptional efficiency.” It was added that, “he will carry with him the best wishes of the men and officers of the post” at Fort Harrison, and, once officially retired, was eligible to become a lieutenant colonel “as a fitting reward for honorable civil war [?] service.
Moreover, concluded the paper,
His devotion to duty and loyalty to the service have won for him very favorable comment among the officers at Fort Harrison. He is credit with being a man of surpassing tact and prudence which have won him no little success.
That fall, Allensworth and his family moved into a home that is now the site of a University of Southern California student residential complex. The Los Angeles Express of 29 September reported that his retirement was due to poor health and that he saw “hard service” in the Philippines, so he may have contracted an illness there to led him to our balmy climate. In detailing his military service, the paper commented that he was promoted for “exceptional efficiency” and “now ranks as the senior chaplain in the army,” while concluding that, when he attained the rank of lieutenant colonel, he would be “the first colored officer ever to attain” that distinction.
The Los Angeles Times of the same day called Allensworth “one of the most distinguished colored men of this country” and added that he was to be officially placed on the retired list in April 1906, two decades after he joined the Army. Otherwise, the account was identical to that of the Express, though this one included a portrait of the chaplain in his uniform with his medals and ribbons prominently displayed.
Allensworth quickly made his mark in the Black community, as well as generally, joining the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, working with African-American Sunday schools, taking part in Republican Party politics, preaching at churches and forming a Western Baptist Association, giving his “Five Manly Virtues” talks, and more. He became best known, however, for his leading role in a colonization effort for Black settlers, the earliest located report of which was from the Times of 26 September 1907.
The first site considered amounted to some 80,000 acres in Riverside and San Diego counties “not far from Murietta,” this appearing to be somewhere in the vicinity of Aguanga (which is in Riverside County) and Oak Grove (situated in San Diego County). While it was reported that “prominent negroes, whose wealth is said to aggregate several millions of dollars” were involved, the paper also alluded to the assumption that a “storm will break out among those who do not relish an invasion.” While Allensworth referred to the leaked information as premature, he remarked,
A number of us have been working on a colonization scheme for years [perhaps dating to his return to California from the Philippines seven years prior] . . . We have assurances from many of our race all over the country that the plan meets with their approval. We hope to found a colony with a town in its center . . . It will not be a communistic scheme, but a simple business proposition. The promoters do not expect to create impossible or unreal conditions. We shall simply offer the land in small tracts at terms that nearly any person can meet.
Additionally, Allensworth emphasized that “the community will be open to whites as well as blacks,” though the underlying sentiment was for a colony where African-Americans “will have an opportunity to work under favoring conditions” and not be “ostracized in a political and social sense and are handicapped in the daily struggle for existence.” He noted that there were thousands of Black people “who have acquired a competence” and would happily leave the poorer climates of eastern states “for the balmy air of Southern California.”
Observing that most African-Americans were farmers, Allensworth told the Times that the colony would focus on agriculture and livestock raising, while the project was being developed quietly so that Blacks in the South could sell their property without scrutiny as to why they were leaving for California. Moreover, there was a desire to avoid the boasting boosting that often doomed such schemes, though the Times repeated that, “it is certain that a plan of this kind will arouse intense opposition among the whites of any California county where such a large number of blacks might seek to locate.”
In June 1908, the colony was reconstituted with the acquisition of land in Tulare County, roughly halfway between Bakersfield and Visalia. The Times of the 22nd reported that “Booker T. Washington is much interested in the matter, and graduates of his institute at Tuskegee will form a large part of the advance guard, which will be the backbone of the settlement.” It was added that “negroes all over the country look upon California as their Mecca, and are anxious to become members of the projected community.”
Some 500 persons were said to be ready to join, though Allensworth cautioned that a purchase was not guaranteed, though he asserted that there was no desire to bring African-Americans to California cities. Instead, the goal was for migrants to “reclaim” arid lands because “there is enough territory of that sort in the State to provide homes for the masses in the South that are now without opportunities and without hope.”
Under the auspices of the California Colony and Home Promoting Association, which had its headquarters in Los Angeles with Allensworth and four other Black men as officers and which was to share administration with the landowner, Pacific Farming Company, the Tulare County land was purchased and the Times of 2 August informed readers,
The town to be laid out will be called Allensworth and its streets will be named after historical negroes and white people who were friendly to them, such as Douglas[s], Lincoln, Bruce and Brown. A park will be named after Booker T. Washington. Substantial buildings are proposed.
Notably, Allensworth was said to want to “incorporate some of the features of a military post,” while the white owners of Pacific Land were to donate 100 acres for an agricultural and horticultural park and the Pacific School of Agriculture. One of the Pacific principals was William Loftus, who made a fortune in oil in the north Orange County fields of modern Brea. The article ended with Allensworth’s admonition that Black settlers “must work out their own destiny and that they will never encourage their friends to disarm their enemies so long as they are satisfied with the lower conditions of life.”
A half-year later came Allensworth’s essay in the special edition on Black Angelenos in the Times on African-Americans and the military history of the United States. We’ll return with part eight and delve into that article, so check back for that.