Becoming a World Power
1898-1917
U.S. Looks Outward
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Protestant Missionaries
Businessmen
Imperialists
Protestant Missionaries
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Focused mainly on China
Christian duty
“Civilizing”
Businessmen
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Exports of American manufactured
goods rise after 1880
• American tobacco sold 1 billion
cigarettes to China
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James J. Hill
Frederick Jackson Turner
• “The Significance of the Frontier in
American History"
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Senator Albert Beveridge
Imperialists
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U.S. should be imperial nation like Britain,
France, Germany, and Russia
Alfred Thayer Mahan
• The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890)
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“Big navy” policy
Samoa and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Hawaii
• Queen Liliuokalani
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“Jingoism“
War and imperialism attempt to revive frontier
The Spanish-American War
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Cuban Revolution (1895)
• Valeriano Weyler
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“Yellow journalism"
• William Randolph Hearst
• Joseph Pulitzer
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de Lôme letter
Maine
Teller Amendment
“A Splendid Little War”
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Main reason for U.S. victory was naval superiority
American soldiers were racist towards Cubans
and refused to work with them
George Dewey
• Manila
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Theodore Roosevelt and the "Rough Riders"
• Kettle Hill and Negro Infantry
• San Juan Hill
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Spanish Atlantic fleet destroyed, Spain
surrenders
Treaty of Paris, 1898
• U.S. gets Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines
• U.S. pays $20 million
The United States Becomes a
World Power
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McKinley casts his lot with
imperialists
Hawaiian annexation (1898)
Lands gained from Spain colonies not
territories
Philippines
• Emilio Aguinaldo
The Debate over the Treaty of
Paris
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Anti-Imperialist League
William Jennings Bryan and southern and
western democrats
• Against proposed acquisition of Philippines
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An assault on Filipinos’ rights
Businessmen and laborers feared competition from
Philippines
Maintaining outposts more expensive than economic
benefit
Racist motives not to contaminate America
Filipinos revolt, Anti-Imperialists lose
The American-Filipino War
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4 years of fighting between U.S.
soldiers and Filipino rebels
Were American actions in Philippines
any different than those of Spain in
Cuba?
Controlling Cuba and Puerto Rico
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Platt Amendment
Foraker Act (1900)
• Unincorporated territory
• Insular cases: "Does the Constitution
follow the flag?"
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Caribbean becoming an “American
Mediterranean”
China and the “Open Door”
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Other countries controlled China’s
trade through spheres of influence
John Hay
• “Open Door" policy
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Boxer Rebellion (1900)
2nd Open Door notes
Theodore Roosevelt, Geopolitician
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Driving force in U.S. foreign policy
Roosevelt believed the nation, like an
individual, must strive for greatness
• Americans were racially superior and destined
for supremacy in economic and political affairs
• Shrewd analyst of international affairs
• No patience for small countries’ claims to
sovereignty or human rights of weak peoples
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Latin America, Africa, Asia (except Japan) were
inferior
The Roosevelt Corollary
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Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine
Venezuela
Dominican Republic
Roosevelt’s interventions concerned
with stability not democratic
institutions or social justice
The Panama Canal
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Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901): gave U.S. right to
build and fortify a canal
Philippe Bunau-Varilla: engineer
Panamanian revolt and the U.S.S. Nashville
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903)
• “The treaty which no Panamanian signed”
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Building canal impressive test of American
ingenuity and willpower
Strategic importance of canal increased U.S.
determination to preserve order in Central
America
Keeping the Peace in East Asia
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Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
• Treaty of Portsmouth, New Hampshire
(1905)
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Root-Takahira Agreement (1908);
Japan and U.S. would respect each
other’s holdings and the Open Door
Policy
“Gentlemen's Agreement" (1907)
“Great White Fleet
William Howard Taft, Dollar
Diplomat
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“Dollar diplomacy”
• Substitute “dollars for bullets”
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Nicaragua
U.S. Global Investments and
Investments in Latin America, 1914
Woodrow Wilson, Struggling
Idealist
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Wilson intervened in Caribbean more
than any President before
Wilson more concerned with morality
and justice than Taft or Roosevelt
Mexican Revolution: Wilson hopes for
democracy
• Victoriano Huerta
• Venustiano Carranza and Francisco
"Pancho" Villa
• John Pershing
Conclusion
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Dramatic turns in U.S. foreign policy
• Control of Western Hemisphere
• Moved military and economic power into
Asia
• Peoples of Philippines, Puerto Rico,
Guam, and Cuba were regarded as
inferior and denied right to govern
themselves