Ricardo Punzalan

Revisiting the Colonial Photographs of Dean C. Worcester

The first time I saw Dean C. Worcester’s colonial photographs was when one of my professors at the University of the Philippines shared the CD-ROM, Imperial Imaginings: The Dean C. Worcester Photographic Collection of the Philippines, 1890-1913. Huddled around a computer with fellow students in the class, we examined the photographs and read Worcester’s problematic descriptions of Indigenous Filipinos. Produced by the University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology (as it was called then) in commemoration of the 1998 centennial of Philippine independence, the disc contained a selection of Worcester's images that had never been reproduced for the public. This digital access project made us aware of the extent of the collection, inspired critical conversations, and facilitated our critique of the colonial gaze. But its use was limited to the digital infrastructure that we had on the university campus in the late 1990s. 

I always understood that the gulf between colonial collections held in US institutions could not simply be bridged through digital surrogacy and electronic access. This is why, many years after that initial encounter, I wrote a dissertation that examined the ethical complexities of digitizing and reuniting the dispersed Worcester image collections. My long engagement with this subject has made me acutely aware that we lacked a framework for building relationships between US institutions, the cultural materials they hold, and the Philippine source communities reflected in those collections. So when the opportunity came in 2020 to collaborate with students, faculty, librarians, archivists, and collections managers, and for us to consult with Filipino community members in the US and in the Philippines, I did not hesitate. This project, ReConnect/ReCollect: Reparative Connections to Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan [1], allowed us to develop a sense of what constitutes meaningful and responsible access to Philippine archives and artifacts at the University. Through this engagement, I learned the value of dialogue, multidisciplinary exchange, and most importantly, seeking community perspectives.  

It is hard to ignore the influence of Worcester in the extraction of Philippine cultural items and documentation to US archives and museums. Worcester (1866–1924), an American natural scientist, colonial official, and entrepreneur, occupied several key positions in the US colonial government of the Philippines. A zoologist by training, Worcester traveled to the Philippines as a student even before it became a US territory, and later as an academic and colonial administrator, to conduct ethnological surveys, collect material culture, and gather specimens of flora and fauna. During many of these trips, he coordinated the photographic documentation of many Indigenous groups throughout the islands.  

Worcester circulated many of those photographs in the books and articles he published. He also sold them to collectors or donated them to natural history museums. The set of images at Harvard's Peabody Museum has a layered history that reflects the ownership of the Worcester images and the colonial networks at play in their (re)circulation. In 1912, Cameron Forbes, Governor-General of the Philippines from 1908 to 1913 and a Harvard alumnus, donated his personal Philippine ethnographic collection to the Peabody Museum, including Forbes’ own copies of the Worcester photographs. This museum is currently in possession of 5,175 prints, with the original accompanying two-volume catalog (see image) supplied by Worcester himself. Forbes’ collection was related to another set created slightly earlier. In a 1905 letter to business magnate Edward Ayer, a fellow avid collector, Worcester relayed Forbes’ interest in the photos while assembling a set for Ayer. The Ayer copies were eventually donated to the Newberry Library in Chicago, which continues to hold those copies.  

I have grappled with the legacies of Worcester and his colonial photographs of the Philippines over the years. The image above, which shows Worcester at the center, is one complex case in point. Depending on the audience, Worcester depicted the four Kalinga chiefs surrounding him as savages needing American tutelage to bolster the case for the US annexation of the Philippines. But he also openly admitted relying on their protection to navigate not only the rough terrain of the Cordillera mountains, but also through the region’s complex political structure. What about the two women peering at the door on the left corner of the photograph? Clearly, they were part of the image composition but Worcester never mentioned who they were.  

As a Filipino scholar, I believe that the content, context, circulation, as well the past and current uses of those photographs have much to reveal about colonialism. Indeed, they continue to be an important resource in interrogating the histories and legacies of the American colonial and empire-building aspirations. Reusing them, however, no matter how critical and nuanced, can reanimate the very colonial logics of their creation and valorize Worcester.  

As we revisit these photographs, how can we avoid making Worcester the center of our discussion, and not be co-opted by the narratives he constructed and the ideologies he represented? 

I find myself unsettled by this question and remain challenged to respond. I am certain that one response could be to allow Filipinos more meaningful access and engagement with the image, an act that could help in profound ways. When it comes to studying the colonial photographs of the Philippines, positionality, perspectives, and point of view are crucial points of reflection. Prominent studies conducted around the Worcester images were done by non-Filipino scholars or Filipinos based in academic institutions, primarily reflecting our privileged access to these images. These types of projects often result in valuable academic conversations, but they rarely get beyond the academic sphere to be heard in source communities or even descendant communities. These conversations, however, must be extended beyond academics and holding institutions. What do we need to do more of to make these sorts of community connections useful and ethical for everyone? How do we make this a more standard part of these sorts of projects? How can we move museum practice in a decolonial direction?   

In spring/summer 2023, I witnessed the power of community dialogue and access when we invited Indigenous cultural bearers to interact with collection items in our campus and returned copies of the Worcester photographs to Philippine institutions and descendant communities. Institutions that hold copies of these images must engage in reciprocal and reparative actions anchored in the slow work of community-relationship building. The literal and symbolic distance between the images, the holding institutions, and the communities can be bridged through open consultation and knowledge sharing. More and more, North American archives and museums are developing policies and practices around shared stewardship, knowledge repatriation, and access protocols for their Native American collections. It is now easier to explore what might be appropriate and possible for Philippine items and to develop projects that “return the gaze.” I hope that this work serves as a starting point for reconfiguring the ways that we think about these colonial relationships and collections, not an endpoint, and that we can build more reciprocal connections in the future.