Whereas the Spanish Kingdom transferred to the United States sovereignty over Puerto Rico, the Philippine Islands, and Guam pursuant to the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which put an end to the so-called Spanish-American War; Whereas the newly acquired territories were non-contiguous archipelagos separated by thousands of miles from the United States continental mainland and inhabited by distinct nationalities made up by peoples whose races, languages, cultures, and religious beliefs set them apart from the dominant Anglo-Saxon societal structure then in place in the United States; Whereas the constitutional question of whether the United States Constitution followed the United States flag into these new lands was answered by the United States Supreme Court in a series of decisions announced in 1901 commonly known as the Insular Cases; Whereas the same Fuller Court that rendered the discredited Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 also resolved the Insular Cases; Whereas a fractured United States Supreme Court found that the United States Constitution did not follow the United States flag into these new far-flung possessions; Whereas the United States Supreme Court held that the Caribbean and Pacific possessions were now unincorporated territories belonging to the United States but not a part of the United States as that phrase is used in the Uniformity Clause of the United States Constitution; Whereas under the Insular Cases only those rights deemed to be fundamental apply to the unincorporated territories; Whereas notions of Anglo-Saxon racial and imperialist supremacy, together with the perceived racial and cultural inferiority of non-White peoples, drove the outcome of the Insular Cases; Whereas in 1900, the Eastern Samoan Islands, now known as American Samoa, transferred its sovereignty to the United States; Whereas in 1917, Denmark transferred to the United States sovereignty of the Danish West Indies, now known as the Virgin Islands of the United States