CHAPTER ONE — New Jerusalem

Colonial and Religious Imaginaries

  • Puritan/Protestant view of Spanish Americao

    • Spain’s conquests (≈100 yrs before Plymouth) seen by 17th-c.​ English Non-conformists as a warning of “Catholic corruption,” aristocratic decadence, and superstition.

    • Latin America imagined simultaneously as corrupt (needing reform) and innocent (needing guidance)—a classic utopian duality.

  • “New Jerusalem” in Mexico

    • Cotton Mather began studying Spanish to evangelize Mexico’s “dreamers in Israel.”

    • Samuel Sewall (Salem‐witch-trial judge) predicted: “Americana Mexicana\text{Americana Mexicana} will be the New Jerusalem.”

    • Motif of Latin America as malleable clay for God’s will; sets precedent for later U.S. crusading.

Early U.S. Trade & Investment Expansion (late 18th – early 20th c.)

  • Post-Revolution commerce

    • U.S. merchants out-competed Britain in Spanish colonies.

    • Venezuela: swapped indigo, coffee, cacao, hides for U.S. flour, cloth, tobacco, muskets.

    • Cuba: 3rd-largest U.S. partner (after Britain & France); conduit for contraband slaves after 18081808 U.S. ban.

  • Maritime routes: New Orleans ↔ Havana ↔ Rio/Buenos Aires/Montevideo → Cape Horn → Pacific → Hawai‘i, Philippines, China, India.

  • Corporate beachhead

    • W. R. Grace\text{W. R. Grace}: Peru sugar.

    • Guggenheim’s ASARCO: Mexico (pre-Congo diamonds).

    • Bethlehem Steel (Charles Schwab) used Chilean ore to break U.S. Steel\text{U.S. Steel} monopoly.

    • Rockefellers leveraged Latin ops vs. J.P. Morgan.

  • Mexico as flagship investment site

    • >25%25\% of total U.S. FDI by ≈1900\approx1900.

    • Over 1 billion USD1\text{ billion USD} in mining, ranching, agriculture, utilities by 1910.

    • >20\% of Mexican land foreign-owned; U.S. currency circulated more than pesos.

    • Oil: U.S. held most of 3rd-largest global supply; prospected into Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil.

Ideological Justifications

  • Josiah Strong, Our Country (1885)

    • Mission: Christianize & “civilize”; commerce follows the missionary.

    • Social Darwinism: “Anglo-Saxon” race prepped for “final competition of races.”

    • Road map: “move down upon Mexico… Central & South America… Africa & beyond.”

  • Manifest Destiny lineage: from Puritans → Strong → Mahan & T. Roosevelt; racial superiority merges with economic expansion.

Corporate & Cultural Export Mechanisms

  • YMCA & similar NGOs taught virtues deemed necessary for capitalism: individualism, competitiveness, property respect, self-discipline, consumerism.

  • Rockefeller network:

    • Secular: Rockefeller Foundation (public-health & tech aid).

    • Religious: Panama Congress on Christian Work, Commission on Indians in Latin America, Committee on Cooperation.

  • Company Towns

    • By early 1900s dominated Caribbean & Latin America; aimed to “Americanize” labor.

    • Phelps Dodge engineer: “44 years to complete the Americanization of the Mexican.”

Gunboat Diplomacy & Riverine Reach

  • Early 1800s Caribbean patrols: guard trade vs. French pirates.

  • “Flying-fish’s leap” (J.Q. Adams, 18421842): U.S. naval push to Rio/Plate estuary.

  • Shallow-draft gunboats sailed Amazon & Paraná, enforcing “free navigation.”

  • Examples

    • 18541854: U.S.S. Cyane shells & burns San Juan (Nicaragua) to aid Cornelius Vanderbilt’s transit empire; looting followed. Pres. Pierce: town = “pretended community… blacks & mixed blood.”

    • 18551855: Paraguayan battery fires on U.S.S Water Witch → Buchanan sends 2121-ship squadron; Paraguay apologizes, pays, signs nav treaty.

Private Military Expeditions & Mercenaries

  • Filibustering tradition (1790s-1850s)

    • Hamilton (Venezuela), Burr (Mexico) envisioned private armies to “revolutionize” Spain’s colonies.

    • Andrew Jackson: hated “dons,” delighted at Mexico’s reduction.

  • William Walker (1855-1860)

    • Invades Nicaragua, re-instates slavery, becomes president; later executed. U.S. originally recognized his regime.

  • Banana Wars prequel

    • 19091909: Taft foments civil war vs. José S. Zelaya, lands Marines.

    • 19101910: Samuel Zemurray (Cuyamel Fruit) hires Lee Christmas, Guy Molony, New Orleans mercenaries to overthrow Honduras → tax & land concessions → evolves into United Fruit.

  • Pattern: Private capital + federal muscle = hemispheric reach.

Legal Foundations for Executive War Powers

  • Constitution’s vagueness (Art. II “Commander in Chief”) exploited: early Latin actions became precedents for global war.

  • Andrew Jackson in Spanish Florida (1818) → Eugene Rostow (1972): legitimized reprisal “in time of peace.”

  • Winfield Scott’s martial-law courts (Mexico City 1847) → model for Bush-era Guantánamo tribunals.

  • Cyane ruling: N.Y. judge held president may act abroad sans Congress to protect U.S. lives/property; cited post-9/11.

  • John Yoo praised “constitutionally energetic executive” rooted in Jackson; lamented any “modest” presidential view.

Constraints & Racial Calculus in Territorial Annexation

  • All-Mexico debate (1848)

    • Some, e.g.

    • Commodore R. Stockton: uplift “wretched” Mexicans via Republicanism.

    • John O’Sullivan: “More! More! More!” wanted Canada & Mexico.

    • But dense, urbanized, racially diverse population deemed ungovernable; could not be “removed” like Native tribes.

    • NY Herald’s J.G. Bennett: hoped Mexicans would “melt away… as snow before a southern sun.”

  • Yucatán Petition (1847-48)

    • Planter elites fled Mayan Caste War, asked U.S. annexation.

    • Jefferson Davis: Yucatán & Cuba natural U.S. dominion; Gulf = “basin of water belonging to U.S.”

    • Senator J. Underwood invoked Haiti’s “horrible butcheries” → warned interracial republic impossible → annexation rejected; U.S. satisfied with land “without the people.”

Frontier Logic Abroad (Post-Civil War)

  • Civil War & Western genocide intertwined: while Union broke plantations, Army finished subduing Plains & California tribes; 18901890 Wounded Knee marks “closing” of frontier.

  • Transfer to Latin America

    • 18931893: U.S. backs Hawaii sugar coup → eventual annexation.

    • Same year: naval intervention in Brazil (depression remedy): protect Standard Oil, Macy’s interests; secure commerce treaty.

    • Consul in Maracaibo (1894) proposes no-quarter war on Barí: “treat as beasts of prey,” uproot plantations; area soon yields oil.

    • Cooperation with Mexico to deport/kill Yaqui resisting agribusiness.

War of 1898 & Imperial Soul-Searching

  • Spain vs. U.S.: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines battlefields.

  • Post-victory quandary: what to do with “conquered islands.”

    • Pres. McKinley prays → receives 4-point divine mandate: cannot return to Spain (dishonor), cannot cede to rivals (bad business), cannot leave to self-rule (anarchy), must “educate, uplift, civilize, Christianize.”

    • Conclusion: “nothing left… but to take them all.”

Philippine-American War Atrocities

  • Fierce resistance → U.S. counterinsurgency.

  • Col. Jacob Smith’s order: turn Samar into “howling wilderness,” no prisoners, mass burnings; described by Briton as “murderous butchery.”

  • Cultural backlash: Mark Twain proposes U.S. flag variant for Philippines with black stripes & skull-and-crossbones in lieu of stars.

Key Numerical / Statistical References

  • ≈1800s\approx1800s: U.S.–Latin trade valued at millions of dollars.

  • >1\text{ billion USD} U.S. investment in Mexico by 1910.

  • >25\% of total U.S. FDI concentrated in Mexico (early 20th c.).

  • 20%20\% of Mexican territory foreign-owned; U.S. currency > pesos in circulation.

  • 2121‐ship squadron vs. Paraguay (1858-59).

  • 500,000500{,}000 sq mi seized from Mexico (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).

  • Wounded Knee deaths: ≈300\approx300 Lakota.

Ethical, Philosophical & Practical Implications

  • Civilizing mission masked economic motives; intertwined evangelical eschatology with corporate profit.

  • Race as policy limiter: imagined incapacity for multi-racial democracy justified selective annexation & unequal citizenship.

  • Legal precedents set in Latin America normalize modern executive overreach (Vietnam, War on Terror, torture memos).

  • Frontier violence logic exported: indigenous “howling wilderness” rhetoric recurs in Philippines and later counterinsurgencies.

  • Private-public symbiosis shows flexible imperial toolkit: from missionaries & NGOs to gunboats and filibusters.