Download AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

American Imperialism
The Spanish American
War and Defending
the New Empire
1898-1914
Imperialism
 Exerting influence or control on other
nations.
 What are some examples of Imperialism?
 National Darwinism.
Mahan’s Concept of Sea Power
. Geopolitical principles underlie national
greatness:
• Geographical position
• Physical conformation
• Extent of territory
• # in population
• Character of people
• Character of government
Mahan’s Concept of Sea Power
3. Colonies Valuable Locations
4. Potential of Isthmus Passage
• Choke Point
• Two Ocean Navy
5. Essence of Mahan:
• Great Navy = Great Nation
• Great Navy = Strong Fleet
Causes of the Spanish-American
War
 Cuban revolution (1895-1898) - U.S.
Economic interests threatened
 Yellow journalism - Spanish atrocities and
lack of humanitarianism
 USS Maine- public outcry following loss of
ship
Remember the Maine
Wreck of the U.S.S. Maine, June 21st, 1911
Photographed 13 years after her
sinking in Havana Harbor
Yellow Journalism
Josef Pulitzer
(New York World )
William Randolph Hearst
(New York Journal )
Congress hurriedly appropriated $50 million
Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt
President McKinley: cease-fire?
Got authority to use military force
Battle for Cuba
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Search for Cervera
Blockade of Santiago
Amphibious landing at Daiquiri
Destruction of Cervera’s fleet
– Command controversy
– Naval results
• Spanish home fleet
recalled
• Control of Caribbean
• Overwhelming technological
superiority
USS Olympia
led the battle at Manila Bay
"It's been a splendid little war,"
Only 460 soldiers killed in battle
Emilio Aguinaldo
Philippine American War Recap
 In the United States public opinion was divided over the annexation
of the Philippines. Many felt it was important to keep the Philippines
so that America might "civilize" them. Others argued that
imperialism was inconsistent with the American system of
government and Americans' fundamental belief in self-government.
 The United States negotiated the surrender of the Philippines for a
payment of $20 million dollars to Spain. However, the Filipinos did
not recognize any American right of possession and were prepared to
fight for their freedom. It took three years for America to win the
Philippine-American war. It cost the Americans 10,000 casualties
and $600 million. 16,000 soldiers were killed, and about 200,000
civilians died of pestilence, disease, and accident.
Few Americans, however, rejoiced at the victory
This war seemed to contradict
some basic American values
Arthur Minkler, of the Kansas Regiment,
wrote in a letter back home, "We take no prisoners.
At least the Twentieth Kansas do not."
"You seem to have
about finished your
work of civilizing the
Filipinos. About 8,000
of them have been
civilized and sent to
Heaven. I hope you
like it.”
-Andrew Carnegie, American
industrialist and antiimperialist, 1899
Filipino war dead (photo National Archives)
Mark Twain Home, An Anti-Imperialist, New York Herald
[New York, 10/15/1900]
I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to
go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with
the Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? And I
thought it would be a real good thing to do.
I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make
them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a
miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to
take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which
we had addressed ourselves.
But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris,
and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the
Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.
We have also pledged the power of this country to maintain and protect the abominable
system established in the Philippines by the Friars.
It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let
them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an antiquestions:
imperialist. I am opposed toDiscussion
having the eagle
put its talons on any other land.
How have Twains views changed?
Why do you think Twains views
Results of the War
 U.S. Empire: more trouble than it’s worth?
 U.S. Navy
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Battleship entrenched as principle warship
Vindication of Mahan’s fleet tactics
Global empire yields bases and obligations
Renewed desire for Isthmian canal (USS
Oregon)
Territorial Expansion
– 1867 Purchase of Alaska
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1867 Secured the rights to Midway Island
1893 Overthrow Queen Liliuokalani in Hawaii
1898 Spanish-American War
1898 Annexation of Hawaii
1899 Open Door Policy in China
1904 construction of the Panama Canal began
1904 issuing the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine
 1910s Mexican Revolution
Why?
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Commercial /Business Interests
Military or Strategic Interests
Religious or Missionary Interests
Ideas of Social Darwinism
Closing of the American Frontier
Hawaii
 Descendants of New England Missionaries to Hawaii
in the 1820s greatly influenced native monarchs and
their policies.
 Hawaii became a protectorate of the US in1849 by
virtue of economic treaties
 A successful revolt led by a white minority in 1893
resulted in the removal of the native monarch, Queen
Liliuokalani .
 Hawaii, annexed in 1898 by joint resolution of
Congress, was used as a naval deposit during the
Spanish American War.
Queen Lydia
Liliuokalani
Sanford
Ballard Dole
Japan
Abe Masahiro, head of the Roju
(governing council) under
Shogun Ieyoshi
Toda Izu, governor of Uraga
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Japan
 Captain Alfred T. Mahan, cautioned that the
Pacific could “be entered and controlled only by
a vigorous contest”
 Japan had effectively closed its doors to
outsiders, and it restricted foreign ships to a small
part of Nagasaki
 Admiral Matthew Perry steamed into Japan and
demanded a treaty
 The Japanese reluctantly agreed to trade with the
U.S.
Open Door Policy
 China had a weak central government in 1900
 Japan and several European nations had carved
China into spheres of influence
 Secretary of State John Hay sent diplomatic
dispatches to these nations, asking that they
guarantee two things
– Give all nations equal access to trade in China
– the political takeover of China by any one
foreign power
Boxer Rebellion
A "Boxer" in 1900
A Chinese
nationalist
rebellion was
put down by
the combined
forces of Great
Britain,
Russia,
France, Japan
and the US,
which
furnished
2,500 troops
John Hay