American Carthage

Carthage, Tunisia

There are many Americans in Carthage, and most are dead. Buried in the North Africa American Cemetery, on the outskirts of this storied suburb of Tunis, they lie in the same mixture of clay and limestone granules that received the remains of Hannibal’s Carthaginians during the Punic Wars, some 2,000 years ago. Unlike the Romans (rivals to the ancient Carthaginians) and the French (whose conquest of Tunisia began in 1881), we Americans didn’t take this parcel of Africa by force. It was given to us by the French after World War II as a resting place for our military dead. But in 1956, before the cemetery could be completed, French colonial rule ended and there was some question as to whether the new Tunisian regime would honor the bequest of the former colonizer. After some hesitation, it decided that America could still have the land—but only as a gift of the Tunisian people. We were given the land twice.

Today, the cemetery lawn looks as if it had been picked up from a Carolina golf course and laid down on the dry, beige ground like a rug—the unlikely green rendered brighter by the whiteness of the marble crosses that pin it in place. Like an artifact on display in a museum, the cemetery feels finished. Nothing more will happen here, nothing to disturb the sleep of the dead apart from the soft scrapings of landscapers and visitors’ footsteps made heavy by patriotism or the heat. The Latin crosses (and some Stars of David) are hugged tightly from below by Americans who will neither be moved nor joined by anyone else. If ever a place was permanently possessed, this is it.

Of the soldier in Plot F, Row 8, Grave 14, the official record indicates his name, state of origin, rank, unit, and date of death. The unit was the all-Black 92nd Infantry, nicknamed the Buffalo Soldiers Division, so it can be assumed that the surname, Williams, can be traced to the owner of an enslaved ancestor. The U.S. Army considered Black soldiers inferior and did not allow them to fight alongside their white counterparts. In the North African campaign, Black soldiers served in support roles only, but that changed when the invasion of Italy began. The Buffalo Soldiers were now given the privilege of fighting, although not side by side with white soldiers. Williams would not be side by side with them until he was laid to rest, destined to spend eternity in the place where Hannibal was born.

Williams died in a modern Punic War. The Nazis made a point of likening themselves to the heroic Romans and associating the business-oriented, money-grubbing Americans with the sharp-dealing, mercantile Carthaginians. Buried alongside Williams are soldiers who served in Tunisia under General George S. Patton in 1943. Patton believed in reincarnation, and he claimed to have fought near Carthage in ancient times. The following verse is his:

So as through a glass and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises
Many names, but always me.

Fellow believers have judged him to be the reincarnation of Hannibal. Indeed, Patton bears an uncanny resemblance to an ancient bust said to be of Hannibal. Others contend that although the bust may have been carved to honor the Carthaginian general, its likeness is that of a generic hero. A more accurate portrait, they say, can be found on a coin minted in 217 BCE in Etruria by people anticipating that Hannibal would invade Italy and liberate them from Rome. On the obverse of this coin is the head of a Black African and on the reverse an Indian elephant, presumably Hannibal’s famous war elephant, Surus. From this, some scholars say that Hannibal was Black. Patton did say he fought in many guises.

Along the wall of the North Africa American Cemetery stand three stone statues of women dressed in classical garb. Their names are recollection, honor, and memory, and they are here to help visitors like me organize our feelings. In Roman fashion, recollection holds an open book on which is engraved pro patria, and honor prepares to bestow a wreath of laurel. memory stands with her eyes closed in contemplation—as if to prevent external input distracting her from visualizing the past. But what is memory visualizing that is neither the sacrifice of these soldiers nor their reward? What they looked like, perhaps. The color of their skin. Who they were. For the citizen soldiers of Rome who battled Carthage, only recollection and honor would have mattered. The individualistic culture of America required the additional company of memory.

By now, those who knew Williams are themselves most likely gone. If a person is the product of interactions with others, then so long as those interactions are remembered, that person has presence. There are 240 graves of unknown soldiers at the cemetery, but really, nearly all of the 2,841 buried here are unknown. The official record exists, but what sort of presence is that? memory stands, eyes shut, near Williams’s grave, but with the story of his life long forgotten, she sleeps at her post.