Post-Spanish War U.S. Occupied Caribbean & Pacific Ethnographic Series, Our Islands and Their People in Two Volumes, First Edition, 1899

José de Olivares

First Edition

Olivares, José de. Our Islands and Their People as Seen on Camera & Pencil. St. Louis / New York / Chicago / Atlanta: N.D. Thompson Publishing Co., 1899. Two volumes, complete. Profusely illustrated with hundreds of color lithographs, black and white photographs, and illustrations. Folio. Publisher’s original teal-blue cloth stamped in gilt, marbled edges, and floral-patterned endpapers. No dust jackets, as issued. A monumental photographic and textual record of the United States’ newly acquired imperial holdings following the Spanish-American War, documenting Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawai‘i, Guam, and the Philippines at the very moment they transitioned from Spanish control to U.S. occupation. Produced as an explicitly patriotic justification for annexation, it remains one of the most extensive visual archives of turn-of-the-century Indigenous, Afro-Caribbean, and Pacific Islander life created for an American audience.

Volume I and II contain extensive ethnographic descriptions and colonialist narratives paired with images of the people and landscapes of each island group, alongside depictions of U.S. military campaigns, civic processions, rural labor, and daily life. The work opens with an introduction by Major-General Joseph Wheeler, who praises the “heroic achievements of our soldiers and sailors,” and it includes striking portraits such as the heavily decorated royal figure identified as “King of Samoa,” Hawaiian ali‘i, Afro-Cuban laborers, Filipino villagers, rural Puerto Rican agricultural workers, and Indigenous groups. Many images, such as the scene of U.S. troops advancing in formation beneath trees in Cuba, operate as visual propaganda celebrating America’s “civilizing mission.” The publisher’s preface boasts that the volumes offer “the most complete presentation of the peoples of our new possessions ever printed,” promising to show them “in their homes, in their villages, and in their daily life,” and explaining that the object of the series is to “give the reader accurate knowledge of the resources, productions, climate, history, and people of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands.” Identity-focused content is threaded throughout, with text describing Afro-Caribbean communities, Pacific Islander monarchy, Indigenous Filipino agricultural systems, and the racialized language of U.S. imperial justification. Representative passages include discussions of “the Filipino farmer and his primitive methods,” commentary on the “picturesque life of the Cuban peasantry,” and a photograph caption referring to “a typical scene of village people carrying burdens to market.” The volumes thus function as both a repository of early ethnographic photography and a document of U.S. expansionist ideology at the height of the imperial era.

Edges and corners rubbed, with wear and fraying to spine ends and cloth boards. Occasional marginal tears and creases; scattered water staining clearly visible on several early leaves, mainly to the fore-edge margin of Volume I,; additional damp-staining present at the lower gutter of Volume II preliminaries. Some leaves show age toning and minor foxing. Hinges fragile but in tact. Complete set with binding strong and most pages clean, plates intact and images strong. Overall good condition.

A highly significant visual record of early U.S. imperialism, valued by institutional collections for its documentation of Pacific Islander, Filipino, Afro-Caribbean, and Indigenous life at the turn of the twentieth century; its extraordinary folio plates remain indispensable primary sources for studying race, empire, and nationalism in the post–Spanish-American War era.

Item #22794

Price: $385.00