Download IMPERIALISM: The Path To Empire

Isabella Cuan
PEDLIGS:
People/Places:
William Seward (of NY)
 Leading Republican of the 1850’s and 60’s who served as Secretary of State under
Lincoln and Johnson (achieved more as secretary than anyone since John Quincy Adams
 Helped Lincoln prevent Great Britain and France from entering the Civil War on the side
of the south
 Achieved the annexation of Midway Island in the Pacific and gained rights to build a
canal in Nicaragua
Napoleon III
 Nephew of Napoleon I took advantage of U.S. involvement in the Civil War by sending
French troops to occupy Mexico; eventually withdrew because of Seward invoking the
Monroe Doctrine and threatening military action
Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Current Crisis
 Wrote that people of Anglo-Saxon stock were “the fittest to survive” and that Protestant
Americans had a Christian duty to colonize other lands for the purpose of spreading
Christianity and Western civilization
 Expressed the thinking of many Protestant congregations, believing that Christian
westerners’ duty was to bring the benefits of their “superior” civilization to less
fortunate people of the world
 Racial superiority and supremacy of whites
Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History
 Argued that a strong navy was crucial to a country’s ambitions of securing foreign
markets and becoming a world power
 Widely read by prominent American citizens and European and Japanese political
leaders
 The US naval strategists persuaded Congress to finance construction of modern steel
ships and encouraged acquisition of overseas islands (Samoa) to be used as coaling and
supply stations so that the new fleet would be a world power (on basis of book) by
1900, third largest navy in the world
James Blaine (Maine)
 Benjamin Harrison’s Secretary of State who played a principal role in extending the
tradition of assuming the role of protector of Latin America from European ambitions
Richard Olney
 Cleveland’s Secretary of State who insisted (with the President) that Great Britain agree
to arbitrate the dispute and argued that the Monroe Doctrine applied to the situation (if
British did not arbitrate, US stood ready to back up its argument with military force)
Valeriano Weyler
 Autocratic general sent by the Spanish along with 100,000 troops to suppress the Cuban
revolt
George Dewey
 US Commodore ordered by Roosevelt to command a fleet to the Philippines
 Captured the city of Manila on August 13
Theodore Roosevelt
 McKinley’s assistant Secretary of the Navy expansionist who was eager to show off
the power of his country’s new, all-steel navy
 Ordered a fleet commanded by Commodore Dewey to the Philippines successful
 Led the Rough Riders to victory
 Later became President after McKinley’s assassination
 Nobel Peace Prize in 1906
Rough Riders
 A regiment of volunteers led by Theodore Roosevelt their cavalry charge up San Juan
Hill in Cuba was the most celebrated event next to Dewey’s victory
Hawaii; Liliuokalani
 In 1893, American settlers aided in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarch, Queen
Liliuokalani
 President Cleveland rejected Republican efforts to annex Hawaii, but after the outbreak
of war and fight for the Philippines, President McKinley completed annexation in July
1898
 The Hawaiian islands became part of the US in 1900 and the fiftieth state of the Union in
August 1959
Emilio Aguinaldo
 Filipino nationalist leader who fought alongside U.S. troops during the Spanish-American
War
 After the US’s annexation of the Philippines, led bands of guerilla fighters in a war
against U.S. control and it took three years and cost thousands of lives on both sides
before the before the insurrection finally ended in 1902
John Hay
 President McKinley’s Secretary of State who was alarmed that the Chinese empire,
weakened by political corruption and failure to modernize, was falling under the control
of various outside powers
 Offered the Open Door policy
Spheres of influence
 1890’s Russia, Japan, Great Britain, France, and Germany established spheres of
influence in China
o They could dominate trade and investment within their sphere (a particular port
or region of China) and shut out competitors
George Goethals and William Gorgas
 Two army colonels
 George=chief engineer of the canal
 Efforts eliminated the mosquitoes that spread deadly yellow fever
William Howard Taft
 Succeeded Roosevelt (1909-1913)
 Mildly expansionist foreign policy, but depended more on investors’ dollars than on the
navy’ s battleships
Henry Cabot Lodge
 Republican senator from Massachusetts who alienated both Latin America and Japan
Woodrow Wilson
 Democratic President (First term: 1913-1917)


New Freedom theory of government moral approach to foreign affairs
Opposed imperialism and big-stick and dollar-diplomacy policies of his Republican
predecessors
Pancho Villa
 He and a band of revolutionaries challenged the new democratic regime (led by
Venustiano Carranza) by leading raids across the U.S.-Mexican border and murdering a
number of people in Texas and New Mexico
John J. Pershing
 General who was ordered by President Wilson to pursue Villa into Mexico
 January 1917 Pershing’s troops withdrew as WWI approached
Mexico
 Where Napoleon III and his French troops occupied until they backed down and left in
response to Seward
 Potential for U.S. territorial expansion applied not just to NA but to all parts of the world
Cuba
 Expansionists from the South had coveted Cuba as early as the 1850’s
 In the 1890’s, large American investments in Cuban sugar, Spanish misrule of Cuba, and
Monroe Doctrine justification for US intervention in the Caribbean’s largest island
Anti-Imperialist League
 Led by William Jennings Bryan and rallied opposition to further acts of expansion in the
Pacific
Philippines
 Large group of islands under Spanish control ever since the 1500’s
 Roosevelt ordered a fleet commanded by Commodore George Dewey to the Philippines
where they opened fire on Spanish ships in Manila Bay
Puerto Rico; Guam
 The Treaty of Peace provided for the US acquisition of two Spanish islands Puerto Rico
in the Caribbean and Guam in the Pacific
Panama Canal
 1904-1914
 Canal through Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
 Hundreds of laborers lost lives due to this effort
Santo Domingo
 The Dominican Republic
 In 1904, European powers stood ready to intervene in Santo Domingo because they
could not pay their debts to European creditors Roosevelt Corollary
Nicaragua
 U.S. intervened in Nicaragua’s financial affairs to protect American investments sent
in marines when a civil war broke out in 1912 and remained there until 1933
ABC (Argentina, Brazil, Chile powers)
 South America’s ABC powers offered to mediate the dispute between Mexico and the
United States
Expeditionary force
 March 1916 U.S. military force in northern Mexico for months without being able to
capture Villa (as the President ordered)
 President Carranza eventually protested the American presence in Mexico
Events:
Pan-American Conference (1889)
 Representatives from various nations of the Western Hemisphere decided to create a
permanent organization for international cooperation on trade and other issues
 Blaine hoped to bring reductions in tariff rates, but not achieved
 Continues today as part of the Organization of American States (1948)
Venezuela boundary dispute
 Boundary dispute between Venezuela and a neighboring territory-the British colony of
Guiana
 Arbitrators ruled in favor of Britain, not Venezuela
 Latin American nations appreciated US efforts to protect them from European
domination
 Turning point in US-British relations (from 1895 on, Britain would favor US friendship
over continuing former hostility)
Alaska Purchase (1867)
 Congress agreed in 1867 (after Seward’s lobbying and Russian support during Civil War)
to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million, but it would take many years for Americans to
realize its value
Spanish-American War
 The first shots were fired in Manila Bay in the Philippines, thousands of miles from Cuba
 “A splendid little war” (the US victory of the war was so swift)
De Lome Letter (1898)
 A Spanish minister/diplomat wrote a letter to the US that was highly critical of President
McKinley
 Printed on front page of Hearst’s New York Journal and many considered it an official
Spanish insult against the US national honor
Maine
 February 5, 1898 the U.S. battleship Maine was at anchor in the harbor at Havana, Cuba,
and suddenly exploded, killing 260 Americans on board
 Yellow press accused Spain of deliberately blowing up the ship, even though experts
later concluded that the explosion was probably an accident
Philippine annexation
 Controversy over Philippine annexation; divided between imperialists who favored
annexing and anti-imperialists who opposed it
 Argued that the US would be taking possession of a heavily populated area whose
people were of a different race and culture for the first time
 Imperialists prevailed and Treaty of Paris (Philippine annexation) was ratified by an
extremely close vote of 57 to 27
Boxer Rebellion (1900)
 When the secret society of Chinese nationalists (Society of Harmonious Fists/Boxers)
attacked foreign settlements and murdered dozens of Christian missionaries
 U.S. troops crushed rebellion; China forced to pay huge sum (weakened regime)
Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
 Imperialist rivalry between Russia and Japan ignited the war Japan winning
Great white fleet (1907-1909)
 Roosevelt sent fleet of battleships to an around-the-world cruise to demonstrate U.S.
naval power to Japan and other nations Japan warmly welcomed arrival in Tokyo Bay
Mexican civil war
 Wilson wanted democracy to triumph in Mexico refused to recognize the military
dictatorship of General Victoriano Huerta, who had seized power in Mexico in 1913 by
arranging to assassinate the democratically elected president
Tampico incident
 Wilson asked for an arms embargo against the Mexican government and sent a fleet to
blockade the port of Vera Cruz
 In 1914 several American seamen went ashore at Tampico and were arrested by
Mexican authorities and soon released
 Huerta refused to apologize and Wilson retaliated by ordering the U.S. navy to occupy
Vera Cruz
Algeciras Conference (1906)
 Conference in Spain (arranged by Roosevelt) which succeeded in settling a conflict
between France and Germany over claims to Morocco
Documents:
Root-Takahira Agreement (1908)
 Secretary of State Elihu Root and Japanese Ambassador Takahira exchanged notes
pledging 1) mutual respect for each nation’s Pacific possessions and 2) support for the
Open Door policy in China
Treaty of Portsmouth (1905)
 Roosevelt arranged diplomatic conference between representatives of the two
countries (Russia/Japan) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
 Both agreed to treaty, but Japanese nationalists blamed U.S. for not giving their country
all that they wanted from Russia
Gentlemen’s agreement (1908)
 Result of controversial laws of California regarding Japanese American discrimination
 Roosevelt arranged a compromise by means of an informal understanding Japanese
gov’t secretly agreed to restrict emigration of Japanese workers to U.S. in return for
Roosevelt persuading CA to repeal its discriminatory laws
Teller Amendment
 In response to the president’s ultimatum, Congress passed a joint resolution on April 20
authorizing war
 The resolution declared that the US had no intention of taking political control of Cuba
and that, once peace restored to the island, the Cuban people would control their own
government
Platt Amendment (1901)
 Required Cuba to agree
o Never to sign a treaty with a foreign power that impaired its independence
o Never to build up an excessive public debt
o
To permit the US to intervene in Cuba’s affairs to preserve its independence and
maintain law and order
o To allow the US to maintain naval bases in Cuba, including one at Guantanamo
Bay
 Made Cuba a US protectorate (its foreign policy would be subject to US oversight and
control for many years)
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901)
 The British agreed to abrogate, or cancel, an earlier treaty of 1850 in which any canal in
Central America was to be under joint British-U.S. control
Roosevelt Corollary
 Part of the Monroe Doctrine
 The United States would send gunboats to a Latin American country that was delinquent
in paying its debts U.S. sailors and marines would occupy the country’s major ports to
manage the collection of customs taxes until European debts were satisfied
 Roosevelt used this to justify sending U.S. forces into Haiti, Honduras, D. Republic, and
Nicaragua
 Long-term result: poor U.S. relations with the entire region of Latin America
Lodge Corollary
 Senate passed the Lodge Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that stated that nonEuropean powers (such as Japan) would be excluded from owning territory in the
Western Hemisphere
 Taft opposed Corollary that offended Japanese and angered Latin American countries
Jones Act (1916)
 Granted full territorial status to the Philippines, guaranteed a bill of rights and universal
male suffrage to Filipino citizens, and promised Philippine independence as soon as
stable government was established
Ideas:
“New imperialism”
 The US intensified its foreign involvement due to a need for worldwide markets for its
growing industrial and agricultural surpluses and sources of raw materials for
manufacturing
 Other conservatives hoped that overseas territories might offer an outlet and safety
valve for unhappiness at home
 Advocates of an expansionist policy hoped to achieve their ends by economic and
diplomatic means, not by military action
International Darwinism
 Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest was applied not only to competition in the
business world but also to competition among nations
 According to this theory, only the strongest survived so the US had to be strong
religiously, militarily, and politically and demonstrate its strength by acquiring overseas
territories
 Expansionists of the late 19th century extended the idea of manifest destiny so the
Jingoism
 An intense form of nationalism calling for an aggressive foreign policy

Expansionists demanded that US take its place with the imperialist nations of Europe as
a world power
Yellow journalism
 Type of newspaper reporting that actively promoted war fever in the US through
sensationalism and bold and lurid headlines of crime, disaster, and scandal
Open Door policy
 Policy (offered by Hay) by which all nations would have equal trading privileges in China
Xenophobia
 Hatred and fear of foreigners
 Along with nationalism rising in China
Big-stick policy
 Theodore Roosevelt (new president) described his foreign policy by the motto “speak
softly and carry a big stick” the press applied the label “big stick” to his aggressive
foreign policy
Dollar diplomacy
 Taft’s policy of trying to promote U.S. trade by supporting American enterprises abroad
was given this name
New Freedom
 Wilson called for New Freedom in government, promising moral approach to foreign
affairs
 Opposed imperialism and big-stick and dollar-diplomacy policies of his Republican
predecessors
Moral diplomacy
 Wilson had limited success in applying a high moral standard to foreign relations
 He and Jennings Bryan hoped to demonstrate that the US respected other nations’
rights and would support the spread of democracy; wanted to show he was opposed to
self-interested imperialism
Supreme Court Cases
Insular cases
 A series of Supreme Court cases (1901-1903)
 Ruled that constitutional rights were not automatically extended to territorial
possessions and that the power to decide whether or not to grant such rights belonged
to Congress (in favor of imperialists)
2.
a. The political cartoon, or the “Imperial Menu” on page 627 depicts Uncle Sam in a
restaurant setting “ordering” new territories from the waiter, President McKinley. Uncle Sam
represents the American nation/government in general and further expresses McKinley’s lack of
leadership as President. This exemplifies McKinley as a weak leader who follows what others
think is right, rather than what he himself believes in. However, I do agree with the
cartoon/message because it accurately embodies American foreign policy under the McKinley
administration and the actually correct accusations made against McKinley in the De Lome
letters.
b. On page 637, the political cartoon expresses the millions of people of color under the
American nation after the acquisition of countries like Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, and
other Pacific islands. The cartoonist is depicting the philosophy of Social Darwinism as Uncle
Sam is represented as a leader rightfully superior to the inferior, or lesser, people.
c. This passage illustrates the conflicts faced by Puerto Ricans throughout their entire
history. It is interesting how the author incorporates the United States involvement in the
Puerto Ricans and their prevalent hypocrisy during the 1900’s. They took control of the island
yet they subject the Puerto Rican people to arduous and low-paying labor. Additionally, the
illustration of the Spanish cruelty towards the Taino people in Puerto Rico was disturbing in that
multiple countries treated the Puerto Ricans with such hostility and brutality.
d. Similar to the passage about the Puerto Ricans, this passage accurately discloses the
realities foreigners, in this case, Filipinos, faced in their own country as well as the United States.
Furthermore, it once again captures the irony behind the American imperialistic motives to
create independence in the Philippines yet covertly keep it under their control. It describes their
way of life, the atrocious and unjust laws in California targeted at them, and interestingly, their
overwhelmingly male dominant society
George Dewey
George Dewey (1837-1917) was a commodore of the United States
Navy, best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay in the
Philippines during the Spanish-American War. In 1897, he was
assigned to the U.S. Asiatic squadron. His squadron opened fire on
the Spanish fleet and the U.S. acquired the Philippines. As a result,
he was rewarded admiral of the navy and since, he has been
considered an American hero in this war.
John J. Pershing
John J. Pershing (1860-1948) distinguished himself with in Indian
campaigns and in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, where he
was in the 10th U.S. Cavalry, the African-American unit known as the
Buffalo Soldiers. He commanded forces in the Philippines under the
presidency of Roosevelt and later, Wilson sent Pershing after
Mexican general Pancho Villa. Eventually appointed commander of
the American Expeditionary Force, he was sent to France to guide
American armies in World War I. He is still remembered today as
one of the most celebrated soldiers in United States history.
Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo (1869-1964) was a Filipino general, politician, and
independence leader. He became the Philippines’ first, youngest,
and longest-lived President in 1897. He first fought alongside the
American nation during the Spanish-American war, but after the
U.S’s annexation of the Philippines, he led bands of guerilla
fighters in a war against U.S. control. Also unhappy with the peace
treaty that finalized the Spanish-American war, the rebellion
against U.S. occupying forces lasted from 1899 until his capture in
1901.
Liliuokalani
Liliuokalani (1838-1917) was the last reigning monarch of the
Kingdom of Hawaii and a strong voice for the native Hawaiians
whose power had been limited by the increasing influence of
U.S. settlers in Hawaii. In 1893, U.S. troops forced her to
surrender her throne and following her case, the American
annexation of Hawaii in 1898 ended the possibility of Hawaiian
self-rule.
Rough Riders
The Rough Riders was the nickname for the 1st Regiment of
the U.S. Cavalry Volunteers, organized and led primarily by
Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Mostly composed of ranchers and cowboys from the West
with few Eastern blue bloods, the group took part in many
battles throughout the war. Most importantly, the cavalry
charged up San Juan Hill (where they are seen in left
picture) in Cuba, marking it as the most celebrated victory
aside from Dewey’s in the Philippines.