Abstract
The big troopship Edmund B. Alexander arrived in Newfoundland waters on January 25, 1941 where it waited for weather conditions to improve before entering St. John’s harbor. It squeezed through the narrows four days later, with only fifteen feet to spare on either side and dropped anchor opposite its pier on the Southside. The city was be-flagged in welcome, whistles blasted from other vessels, and crowds gathered along the harbor front and on the surrounding hills to watch this historic moment. The 21,329-ton vessel, said to be the largest ship to ever enter the port, carried one thousand U.S. soldiers. Colonel Welty, the officer in command of the arriving troops, expressed his happiness to serve in Newfoundland: “We consider it a signal honour to be the first American troops to garrison one of the newly acquired bases granted to the United States by his Majesty’s Government.”1 For the next four months, the vessel would become a familiar sight in St. John’s as it acted as a floating barracks during the initial phase of base construction.2
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Notes
Eric Williams, Inward Hunger (London: Andre Deutsch, 1981), 209.
Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 23. See also Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, eds., Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), vii; 1
Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 27.
The United States of course acquired a formal empire with the conquest of the West and overseas expansion to Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. Yet its informal empire reached far beyond. The British Empire, by contrast, occupied one quarter of the earth’s land mass after the scramble for Africa. This distinction between formal and informal empire can be found in Stuart Creighton Miller, “Benevolent Assimilation”: The AmericanConquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 13–14. See also Editors, “United States Bases and Empire,” Monthly Review 53, 10 (March 2002), 13.
British Overseas Planning Committee. Plan of Propaganda to the West Indies. 12 January 1943. File 5404–5–40C Part 1. Volume 3217. RG 25. National Archives of Canada (NAC). “Contact zones” are not geographic places with “stable significations” but sites of negotiation, borrowing and exchange. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992).
The notion of “friendly invasion” later prevailed in wartime Great Britain, Australia, and other allied countries that hosted United States forces in great numbers. There is a rich and varied literature relating to each. For Great Britain, see John Reynolds, Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942–45 (New York: Random House, 1995); and Sonya O. Rose, “Sex, Citizenship and the Nation in World War II Britain,” American Historical Review 103, 4 (October 1998), 1147–1176. Australia is explored in Marilyn Lake, “Desire for a Yank,” International History Review 19, 1 (February 1997), 34–60; Kay Saunders, “Conflict between the American and Australian Governments over the Introduction of Black American Servicemen into Australia during WWII,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 33, 2 (1987), 39–46; Kay Saunders and Helen Taylor, “The Reception of American Servicemen in Australia during WWII: The Resilience of White Australia,” Journal of Black Studies (June 1988), 331–348; as well as E. Daniel Potts and Annette Potts, Yanks Down Under 1941–1945: The American Impact on Australia (Oxford University Press, 1985). The key works on mainland Canada include William R. Morrison and Kenneth A. Coates, Working the North: Labor and the Northwest Defense Projects, 1942–46 (Alaska: University of Alaska, 1994); and Kenneth Coates and William R. Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II: The US Army of Occupation in Canada’s Northwest (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992). The meaning of the “friendly invasion” for women in Newfoundland is explored in Cecelia Benoit, “Urbanizing Women Military Fashion: The Case of Stephenville Women,” in McGrath, Barbara Neis and Marilyn Porter, eds., Their Lives and Times, Women in Newfoundland and Labrador: A Collage (St. John’s: Killick Press, 1995); Peter Neary, “Venereal Disease and Public Health Administration in Newfoundland in the 1930s and 1940s,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 15 (1998), 129–151; and Katherine Anne Ling, “‘Share of the Sacrifice’: Newfoundland Servicewives in the Second World War” (Ph.D. thesis, St. John’s: Memorial University, 2001).
Stephen Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy, 1914–1940 (London: Frank Cass, 1984), 288.
Sir John Campbell quoted in Stephen Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy, 1914–1940 (London: Frank Cass, 1984), 235.
J.M. Lee, Colonial Development and Good Government: A Study of the Ideas Expressed by the British Official Classes in Planning Decolonization, 1939–1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 21–22.
Beth Bailey and David Farber, The First Strange Place: The Alchemy of Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii (New York: Free Press, 1992). Somewhat related are those studies of the peacetime occupation of former enemy countries. Studies of postwar Germany and Japan (especially Okinawa), for example, have concentrated on the issues of race, gender and national identity: John Willoughby, “The Sexual Behavior of American GIs during the Early Years of the Occupation of Germany,” Journal of Military History 62 (January 1998), 155–174; Laura Hein and Mark Selden, eds., Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); and Michael S. Molasky, TheAmerican Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature and Memory (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Sonya Rose, “Sex, Citizenship and the Nation in World War II Britain,” American Historical Review 103, 4 (October 1998), 1147–1176; Marilyn Lake, “Desire for a Yank,” International History Review 19, 1 (February 1997), 34–60. See also Sonya O. Rose, “Race, Empire and British Wartime National Identity, 1939–45,” Historical Research 74, 184 (May 2001), 220–237.
Harvey Neptune, Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the US Occupation (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), introduction. The quotation comes from Neptune’s dissertation, “Forging Trinidad, Facing America: Colonial Trinidad and the United States Occupation, 1930–1947” (Ph.D., New York: New York University, 2002), 7.
The unfolding economic and political situation in Newfoundland has similarly been explored in Peter Neary. Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929–1949 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988); and his “‘A Mortgaged Property’: The Impact of the United States on Newfoundland, 1940–49,” in Jim Hiller and Peter Neary, eds., Twentieth-Century Newfoundland: Explorations (St. John’s: Breakwater, 1994). See also Jeff A. Webb, “VOUS—Voice of the United States: The Armed Forces Radio Service in Newfoundland,” Journal of Radio Studies 11,1 (2004); Malcolm Macleod, Peace of the Continent: The Impact of Second World War American Bases in Newfoundland (St. John’s: Harry Cuff Publications, 1986); and David MacKenzie, “A North Atlantic Outpost: The American Military in Newfoundland, 1941–1945,” War & Society 22, 2 (October 2002), 51–73.
The Caribbean historiography includes Fitzroy Andre Baptiste in War, Cooperation and Conflict: The European Possessions in the Caribbean, 1939–45 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), O. Nigel Bolland, The Politics of Labour in the British Caribbean (Princeton: Markus Wien Publishers, 2004), and Cary Fraser, Ambivalent Anti-colonialism: The United States and the Genesis of West Indian Independence (New York: Greenwood Press, 1994) as well as a number of articles including Howard Johnson, “The Anglo-American Caribbean Commission and the Extension of American Influence in the British Caribbean, 1942–45,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative History 22, 2 (1984), 180–203.
Stetson Conn and Byron Fairchild’s The Western Hemisphere: The Framework of Hemispheric Defense (Washington, DC: Center of Military History of the U.S. Army, 1958) and in Stetson Conn, Fairchild and Rose C. Engleman’s The Western Hemisphere: Guarding the United States and Its Outposts (Washington, DC: Center of Military History of the U.S. Army, 1964). Another useful study produced by official U.S. Army historians is Colonel Stanley W. Dziuban, Military Relations between the United States and Canada, 1939–45 ( Washington, DC: Center of Military History of the U.S. Army, 1959).
Charlie Whitham, “On Dealing with Gangsters: The Limits of British ‘Generosity’ in the Leasing of Bases to the United States, 1940–41,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 7, 3 (November 1996), 589–630.
Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 21.
Stephen Frenkel, “Geographical Representations of the ‘Other’: The Landscape of the Panama Canal Zone,” Journal of Historical Geography 28, 1 (2002), 85–99.
The story of the 99th Anti-Aircraft Artillery unit is told in Annette Palmer, “The Politics of Race and War: Black American Soldiers in the Caribbean Theatre during the Second World War,” Military Affairs 47, 2 (April 1983).
David Brody, “Building Empire: Architecture and American Imperialism in the Philippines,” JAAS (2001), 123–145.
Unlike the original exchange of notes, negotiations of the leased bases agreement included representatives from the base colonies. The territorial delegations included J.H. Penson and L.E. Emerson from Newfoundland; W.J.H. Trott, H. J. Tucker, and J.W. Cox from Bermuda; Sir Arthur Richards from Jamaica, as well as Sir Hubert Young, governor of Trinidad; and Sir Gordon Lethem, governor of the Leeward Islands.
The colonial delegations to the London conference vigorously protested the clause that granted an exemption to the United States from customs duty. No duties for imported goods (Clause xiv) meant a loss of revenue and the prospect of smuggling. All of the base colonies relied on these import duties to finance the colonial administration. Income and property taxes were negligible or non-existent. The Bermuda delegation also spoke strongly against the presence of the U.S. Post Office in the leased areas, regarding it as a matter of sovereignty (and another source of lost revenue). William H. Beck, U.S. consul general, “Report of Bermuda Delegates to London Conference in Connection with United States Bases,” April 4, 1941, File Bermuda 1941, RG 84: Bermuda Records Re. Bases Leased by the United States in Bermuda (1941). National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). College Park, MD. The Bermuda delegation, more than any other, dreaded agreeing to anything for fear of the reaction back home where the proposed army and navy bases were thought to be incompatible with the island’s tourist industry. See Johnson, State Department, to Secretary of State, February 22, 1941, Box 3790, RG 59 Decimal File 1940–44, 811.34544. NARA.
Charlie Whitham, “On Dealing with Gangsters: The Limits of British ‘Generosity’ in the Leasing of Bases to the United States, 1940–41,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 7, 3 (November 1996), 589–591.
Foreign Office to Viscount Halifax (Washington), 19 February 1941, File: HQ S 15–1–458, Volume 5178, RG 24, NAC.
John G. Winant to Secretary ofState. March 27,1941. Box 3790. 811.34544. RG 59. NARA.
“Old Glory Flies on Bermuda Isle,” New York Times (March 2, 1941), 25.
Sally F. Moore and Barbara G. Myerhoff, eds., Secular Ritual (Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1977), 24.
Elwell Reid, “U.S. Observes Independence Day in Fight to Maintain Liberty,” Trinidad Guardian (July 5, 1942), 1.
The Folklore Archives at Memorial University in St. John’s has several recordings of former residents who recalled the removal first hand.
Several anonymous oral history interviews held at the Folklore Archives made this point explicitly.
James Healey, Constable to P.J. O’Neill, Chief of Police. June 28, 1941. File 17. U.S. Naval Air Station, Argentia, Police Patrol. Box 34. GN 13/1/B. Public Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador (PANL). St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Newfoundland Constable E. Carroll to Chief of Police, October 13, 1942. File 17. U.S. Naval Air Station, Argentia, Police Patrol. Box 34. GN 13/1/B. PANL.
“Trinidad to Start Total War against V.D. From Next Month,” Trinidad Guardian (March 7, 1943).
The leased bases constituted a landscape of power. According to Sharon Zukin, a landscape is composed of three main elements: physical surroundings, social practices and representations. Sharon Zukin, Landscapes of Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 16–18. D.W. Meinig’s definition of landscape as symbolic expressions “of cultural values, social behavior and individual action” is useful. D.W. Meinig, The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 6.
“Concert and Dance at Chaguaramas,” Trinidad Guardian (September 22, 1942), 3.
Arthur Goodfriend, “New Vistas on Isles of Play,” New York Times (December 28, 1941), xxi.
Sylvia P. Martin, “Old Forts of Empire,” New York Times (September 8, 1940), 137.
“Naval Base Contractors Win Excellence Award,” Trinidad Guardian (March 13, 1942), 4.
“Bermuda Base Toil Halted for Fourth,” New York Times (July 5, 1941), 24.
John O’Reilly, “Long Tranquil Bermuda Amazed to Find Itself a Defence Bastion,” Royal Gazette and Daily Colonist 27 (December 1940), 8.
The classic study of the myth is Sayed Hussein Alatas, The Myth of the Lazy Native (London: Frank Cass, 1977), 2. For Edward Said, the myth is synonymous with domination: Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 255. The “lazy native” influenced the labor policies of colonial governments around the world in the Second World War. The scholarship on wartime Africa is particularly strong. See, David Killingray and Richard Rathbone, eds., Africa and the Second World War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986); David Johnson, World War II and the Scramble for Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1939–43 (Harare: University of Zimbabwe, 2000); Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Kenneth P. Vickery, “The Second World War Revival of Forced Labor in the Rhodesias,” International journal of African Historical Studies 22 (1989), 423–437; Carolyn Brown, “The Dialectic of Colonial Labour Control: Class Struggle in the Nigerian Coal Industry, 1941–49,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 23 (1988), 32–59.
H.A. Winter, Commissioner for Justice and Defense. Draft Dispatch to the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. October 6, 1945. Volume 8: American Bases in Newfoundland. Box 11. GN 4/1/D. PANL.
E.C. Bergquist, Captain, Infantry. Memorandum to all members of Newfoundland Base Command. February 11, 1941. File: U.S. Army. Box 401. GN 13/2/A. PANL.
Lieutenant Colonel Leon A. Fox, Medical Corps. “Sanitary Survey of Newfoundland.” March 29-April 8, 1941. File: Sanitary Reports. Box 19. RG 338 Newfoundland Base Command. NARA.
Daniel J. Berry, Major, Medical Corps to Commanding Officer. “Special Sanitary Report.” March 17, 1941. File: Sanitary Reports. Box 19. RG 338. NARA.
Charles W. Barton, Captain. “Inspection of Gadens Aerated Water Works, St. John’s, Newfoundland.” March 29,1944. File: Sanitary Reports. Box 46. RG 338. NARA.
Lieutenant Colonel W. A. Hardenbergh. November 2-November 17, 1940. “Sanitary Survey of Newfoundland.” File: Sanitary Reports. Box 19. RG 338. NARA.
U.S. Consul General. “Political Developments during the Quarter ended March 31, 194L” March 31, 1941. Box 41. RG 84. St. John’s Consulate. General Records, 1936–49. NARA.
Daniel J. Berry, Major, Medical Corps. December 30, 1941. File: Sanitary Reports. Box 19. RG 338. NARA.
Daniel J. Berry, Major, Medical Corps. March 17, 1941. File: Sanitary Reports. Box 19. RG 338. NARA.
George D. Hopper, U.S. Consul General. “Annual Economic Review—Newfoundland.” Box 47 (1942). RG 84. St. John’s Consulate, General Records, 1936–1949. NARA.
Commissioner of Finance to Commissioner for Justice and Defense. September 11, 1945. File 19: U.S. Effect of Agreements on Colonies. Box 365. GN 13/1/B. PANL. 1 The United States and Hemispheric Defense
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© 2009 Steven High
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High, S. (2009). Introduction. In: Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere, 1940–1967. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230618046_1
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