Expansionism/imperialism
• Very general overview of U.S. Expansion in 1890s
• US world economic power by 1890s
• Big Question - would US expand geographically?
– Some claim it is economically and militarily necessary given the
changes brought on by industrialization and European
colonization in Africa, the Far East, etc.
• US tradition: isolation – no expansion beyond continent
– US already imperialistic (conquering of indigenous people)?
• Changing ideas in the 1880s/1890s
– Social Darwinism
• Some intellectuals/theorists and politicians applied Darwinian
ideas to the social, political, and economic world
– Manifest Destiny
• Some thinkers believed that the notion of America’s God
given right to expand westward on the continent extended to
the Pacific and the Atlantic regions
– Frederick Jackson Turner
• “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” – he
gave this essay in 1893 at the Columbian Exposition
– In this essay he argues that it was through westward
expansion that Americans became Americans rather the
Europeans, and also suggests that American expansion
will undoubtedly continue, that it is part of the American
people’s nature…
– Alfred Mahan
• The Influence of Sea Power Upon History – Mahan was the
leading naval theorist of the time and this book had a major
impact on many thinkers, including Theodore Roosevelt
• Annexation of Hawaii (read first two pages)
– Detailed timeline (scroll down on this web page for key events
indicated below in this outline)
– Sugar planters
– 1876 treaty
– 1887 treaty
– 1887 Constitution (“Bayonet Constitution”) – Wealthy/literate
Hawaiian, European, American’s vote
– McKinley tariff of 1890
– Queen Liliuokalani – ascends to throne (1891) – rejects
“Bayonet Constitution”
– Following picture – Queen Liliuokalani
– Committee of Safety formed
– U.S. Minister to Hawaii, John Stevens recommends intervention
– Coup, Liliuokalani deposed (1893) – U.S. Navy and Marines
present
– Grover Cleveland
• investigates coup, apologizes to queen
• opposes annexation
– Sanford Dole – becomes president of Republic of Hawaii (1894)
– Hawaii annexed (1898)
– Dole – first governor
– Same year – Cuba…