Overnight the term “rebel” changed from a compliment to the worst of accusations.
We had given military aid to the Filipinos fighting for independence from Spain and then, that independence having been won, we left our army in place and deceitfully provoked our own war. Twain was an anti-imperialist of the first water, and he expressed revulsion at the dishonest game America was playing in the Pacific.
But then he gets around to the real target of his wrath: the American campaign to conquer the Philippines. The countries are forced to pay millions of dollars in compensation for each missionary, and sometimes are forced to return an equal number of heads. He is especially critical of the retribution visited on these countries when missionaries are killed. His real targets are those proponents of Western Civilization who are forcing their values on those people at the point of a gunboat. And in case there’s any question about it, Twain’s use of the phrase is dripping with irony. The “person sitting in darkness” in Twain’s blistering essay is one of those poor, benighted souls in Africa and Asia who haven’t experienced the blessings of European civilization.
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