American Imperialism

Open Door Policy

The idea that all nations have a right to trade in China. Most clearly applied in the Boxer Rebellion, but applied at various points and beyond China.

Monroe Doctrine

The idea that Europe could no longer interfere in North and South America.

Roosevelt Corollory

The 1904 extension of the Monroe Doctrine, stating that while Europe cannot intervene in North and South America, the United States can.

Big Stick Diplomacy

Teddy Roosevelt's approach to foreign policy based on a "West African proverb," requiring both a willingness to negotiate and sign treaties (speaking softly) and the threat or use of military force (carrying a big stick).

Gunboat Diplomacy

"Negotiation" with battleships, or the use of military force to threaten another country into agreeing to your demands. Most clearly used in the Perry Expedition to Japan.

White Man’s Burden

The idea that all white people, but especially America, had a moral obligation to help "civilize" other countries, and dominating those countries would help the US keep evolving.

Perry Expedition

An American expedition to Japan in 1853, in which Commodore Perry demanded an end to Japanese isolationism, using gunboat diplomacy to issue an ultimatum that Japan eventually agreed to.

Hawaiian Annexation

Initially protected by Great Britain, this territory's American population slowly grew due to the profitability of sugar. Despite Constitutional similarities, it was eventually colonized by the United States with the help of a revolution led by American-descended sugar planters due to its strategic location for protecting a planned Panama Canal.

Spanish-American War

1898, a war largely fought around Cuban independence, and began in earnest when the USS Maine exploded in Cuba. The United States won, securing territory in Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and continued to intervene in Cuba afterward due to the Platt Amendment.

Philippine-American War

Conflict between Filipino revolutionaries and the new American government after the Spanish American War. American General Shafter said that half of the Filipinos needed to be killed to save the other half. Filipino civilians were put into detention camps. Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo used American ideals against American intervention.

Boxer Rebellion

1899, started when a secret society rose up in revolt against Christianity and foreign influence in China. Eventually crushed by the Eight Nation Alliance (Europe + US + Japan), which forced reparations and occupation on China.

Yellow Journalism

Popular in the buildup the Spanish-American War, it involved publishing exaggerated and misleading stories to try to sell as many newspapers as possible, generally in favor of American imperialism.

Anti-Imperialism

Belief that the United States should not expand its territories overseas. The American media argued that it was a betrayal of American ideals, African Americans argued that it would only spread racism, Native Americans accused to the US of regularly breaking promises, and members of the US military argued war was a scam that benefitted the rich at the cost to the poor.

Treaty of Fort Laramie

Agreement between the Lakota Sioux and the US government, which withdrew US Army forts, promised to stop white settlers, and significant land rights in and around a Great Sioux Reservation. But the written version of the treaty undermined most of these rights, and tied those land rights to the buffalo population.

Buffalo Extermination

The US government policy of actively killing and encouraging the massacre of the most important animal population of the Great Plains, bringing it down from millions in the early 1800s to mere thousands by the 1880s, in large part to undermine Lakota land rights.

The Ghost Dance Movement

The apocalyptic religious movement popular among Great Plains Native American tribes in 1889 - 1890, based on the belief that the buffalo and dead ancestors would return while white people would disappear. Culminated in the Wounded Knee Massacre of a band of followers in 1890.

Sinking of the Lusitania

Due to the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, the British passenger ship was accused of carrying ammunition (true) and sunk, killing over 1000 people, including over 100 Americans. Caused American public opinion to shift against Germany.

Zimmerman Telegram

A telegram Germany sent to Mexico to convince Mexico to attack the U.S. Ultimately convinced the United States to join the allies in WWI.

WW1 Homefront and Civil Liberties

The US passed a series of laws to limit opposition to the war effort, most infamously restriction of 1st Amendment freedom of speech with the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which were upheld as Constitutional.

Wilsons 14 Points

President Woodrow Wilson proposed a 14-point program for world peace at the Treaty of Versailles. Mostly failed to be enacted, with the possible exception of the creation of a League of Nations, although the United States did not join it.