Imperialism: Debates & The Spanish-American War

Washington’s Farewell Address (1796)

• Avoid entangling alliances
  • Avoid perpetual war in Europe
• Advocated foreign policy based on good faith
• Advocated free trade
• Defense of the rights of American merchants

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

• Prohibit new European colonization
• Prevent European intervention in and infiltration of Central and South American newly independent republics
• United States will not interfere in current European-controlled areas and colonies

Perry Expedition (1853-1854)

• Commodore Matthew Perry
• Encourage trade and diplomatic relations with Japan
  • Gunboat diplomacy
• Convention of Kanagawa (1854)
  • Help shipwrecked soldiers
  • Open two ports for American ships
  • Appoint consuls for each port

Alaska Purchase (1867)

• Deal negotiated by Secretary of State William Seward
  • $7.2 million to Russia
  • $86,412 sq. miles
• Criticism
  • “Seward’s Folly”
  • Taxpayer dollars for a “polar bear garden”
• Support
  • Weakened British and Russian interests
  • Potential discovery of natural resources and trade network with East Asia
  • Potentially annex British Columbia
• Klondike gold strike (1896)

Hawaii

• Independent and sovereign kingdom
• Bayonet Constitution (1887)
  • Rebellion financed and led by Sanford Dole and white sugar plantation owners
  • Pressured King Kalakaua to sign a new constitution weakening the monarchy and limiting suffrage
• Queen Liliuokalani
  • Attempted to restore native authority and drive out foreigners
• Overthrow of Hawaii (1893)
  • U.S. State Minister to Hawaii, John L. Stevens
  • Republic of Hawaii (1894-1898)
  • Sanford Dole named president
  • Newlands Resolution (1898)
  • U.S. annexed Hawaii

Spanish American War

• Cuba
  • Jose Marti - Cuban nationalist, main agitator for Cuba’s independence
  • Latin American countries need to know their history
  • Re-concentration camps
• DeLome Letter
  • Spanish Ambassador’s unflattering remarks on McKinley’s diplomacy
• U.S.S. Maine
  • Exploded in Havana Harbor (Feb 15, 1898)
  • 250 out of 355 sailors killed
  • “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!”
• Yellow Journalism
  • William Randolph Hearst

Spanish-American War (1898)

• Declaration of War on April 21, 1898
• Caribbean Theater
  • Cuba
  • Battle of San Juan Hill on July 1
  • Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers
  • Battle of Santiago on July 3-17
  • Puerto Rico
• Pacific Theater
  • Commodore George Dewey and American Asiatic Squadron
  • Battle of Manila Bay on April 27
  • Battle of Manila on August 13
  • Emilio Aguinaldo

Treaty of Paris (1898)

• Secretary of State John Hay: “A splendid little war.”
• American acquisitions
  • Puerto Rico
  • Philippines
  • Guam

Cuba under the United Sates

• Teller Amendment (1898)
  • Prohibited American Occupation (1898-1902)
• American occupation (1898-1902)
  • Cuba became an American protectorate
  • Implemented policies beneficial to American business and commercial interests
• Platt Amendment (1901)
  • United States must approve any new treaties and foreign credit
  • United States may intervene to preserve Cuban independence
  • Guantanamo Bay

Imperialists and Anti-Imperialists

• Proponents
  • Most from GOP (the Republican Party)
  • Theodore Roosevelt (R)
  • John Hay (R)
  • James G. Blaine (R)
  • Elihu Root
  • William Randolph Hearst
  • Reasons
  • Economic expansion
  • Manifest destiny and American nationalism
  • Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan
  • The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890)
  • Expressed need for a strong navy to become a world power
  • Social Darwinism
  • Jingoism - extreme patriotism
  • “White Man’s Burden”
  • Prevent influence of “inferior races'“
  • Insular Cases (1901-1903)
  • Supreme Court ruled constitutional guarantees granted only by Congress to U.S. territories
• Opponents
  • Mostly from Democratic Party
  • Anti-Imperialist League
  • Grover Cleveland (D)
  • William Jennings Bryan (D)
  • Senator Ben Tillman (D-SC)
  • Samuel Gompers (AFL)
  • Mark Twain
  • Andrew Carnegie
  • Jane Addams
  • Reasons
  • Expensive to maintain
  • Must fix domestic issues first
  • Undemocratic
  • Violated republicanism - needs consent of the governed

The Philippines

• Philippine-American War (1899-1902)
  • Atrocities
  • Torture by both sides
  • Concentration camps
  • Casualties
  • 12,000 - 20,000 Filipinos
  • 4,165 American
  • 200,000 - 1,000,000 Filipino citizens
  • Americanization
  • Freedom of religion
  • English as official language

Open Door Policy in China

• Spheres of influence
  • European and Japanese powers in exclusive control of particular Chinese regions and ports
• Secretary of State John Hay’s Open Door notes
  • Propose equal trading policies between imperial powers
  • Preserve China’s territorial integrity and sovereignty

Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901)

• Society of Harmonious Fists aka “Boxers”
  • Xenophobic nationalists to restore Qing sovereignty
  • Targeted Chinese missionaries, railroads
• Eight-Nation Alliance
  • U.S. joined Europeans and Japanese to quash the rebellion
• Qing Dynasty further weakened and subjugated
  • Qing paid indemnity of $330 million
  • Falls in 1911 and China becomes a republic in 1912

Roosevelt’s Big Stick Policy

• “Speak softly and carry a big stick”
• Alfred T. Mahan
  • Powerful naval fleet to dominate the sea, exert full might in diplomacy, defend borders
• Gunboat diplomacy
• Roosevelt Corollary
  • American intervention in financially unstable nations in Central and South America indebted to European creditors
  • Dominican Republic
• FDR
  • Good neighbor policy

Panama Canal

• Initial treatties
  • Clayton-Bulwer (1850)
  • Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901)
• Panamanian Revolution (1903)
  • Roosevelt encouraged Panamanian separation from Colombia
  • Use of U.S. gunboats to thwart further Colombian incursion into Panama
  • U.S. recognized Panamanian independence
• Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903)
  • Granted U.S. full rights to Panama Canal Zone
• Construction of the canal
  • Cost U.S. $375 million
  • Saved 7,800 miles from New York to San Francisco
  • American engineers and planning in Panamanian workforce
  • Yellow fever and exhaustion plagued and delayed construction
  • Opened on August 1914

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) Big Stick Policy

• International diplomat
  • Treaty of Portsmouth (1904)
  • Mediated peace of Russo-Japanese War
  • Nobel Peace Prize
  • Algeciras Conference (1906)
  • Contributed to efforts between France and Germany
• Gentleman’s Agreement (1907)
  • Negotiated reduction of Japanese unskilled labor immigration to U.S.
  • Desegregation of U.S. schools for Japanese
• Great White Fleet (1907-1908)
  • Demonstrate American international goodwill
  • Display American navy

William Howard Taft (1909-1913) Dollar Diplomacy

• Encouraged American investment in foreign nations
  • Economic coercion to achieve American interests
• Guarantee and protect American foreign commercial and financial investments and interests
• Threat or use of military to achieve goals in Central and South America
• Influence
  • Nicaragua
  • Overthrew government after Nicaragua refused to pay loans in U.S. dollars
  • China
  • Fostered investment in railroad construction

“Banana Republics”

• Coined by American writer O. Henry in 1901
• Central/South American nations exploited by American corporations
  • Exploit impoverished working class under a typical plantation agricultural system
  • Ruling-class oligarchy made of business, political, and military elites
• United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit Company in Honduras

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) Moral Diplomacy

• Missionary diplomacy
  • Support nations who share democratic beliefs
• Promote democracy and peace
  • Opposed imperialism
  • Self-determination

American Interventions under Wilson

• Nicaragua becomes a U.S. protectorate (1914)
• Mexican revolution
• Haiti (1915-1934)
• Dominican Republic (1916-1924)
• Cuba (1917)
• Panama (1918)

Moral Diplomacy: Mexican Revolution and the Border War (1910-1919)

• Porfirio Diaz
  • Established close economic relations with U.S.
  • Defeated by Madero in 1910 election
• Francisco Madero
  • U.S. ambassador conspired to overthrow Madero
• Victoriano Huerta
  • Wilson refused to recognize Huerta’s government
• Tampico Affair (April 1914)
  • Mexico arrested U.S. naval offices
  • Wilson sent naval force to occupy Veracruz
• Venustiano Carranza
  • Wilson recognized Carranza
• Pancho Villa
  • Raid of Columbus, New Mexico
  • General John J. Pershing