AMERICAN IMPERIALISM
1890-1913
“The New Manifest Destiny”
Causes of American Imperialism
 End of the frontier, 1890
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Expand or explode
Natural resources
Panic of 1893
Labor violence and agricultural discontent
 Foreign trade important to economy
– Expansion of markets
 Competition with European powers
– International prestige
– Europeans = 1/5 land, 1/10 population of the globe
– “Place in the Sun” for Germany and Italy
Proponents of American Imperialism
 Alfred Mahan
– “The Influence of Sea Power on History”
 Canal Zone
 Josiah Strong
– “Our Country”
 Superiority of Anglo-Saxon
 TR and Henry Cabot Lodge
– Social Darwinism
 Albert Beveridge
– “Ordained by God”
 “Yellow Journalism”
– Hearst and Pulitzer
Pan-Americanism
 James G. Blaine
– “Big Brother” policy
– Pan American Conference, 1889
 Rejected “inter-American” customs
 Fear of US dominance
Samoan Islands Crisis
 Pago Pago
– US versus the Germans (and British)
 Naval skirmish, 1889
 American Samoa, included Pago Pago
– “coaling stations”
Venezuelan Boundary Dispute,
1895-1896
 Gold between British Guiana and Venezuela
– Disputed territory
 Violation of Monroe Doctrine?
– Cleveland mediation rejected
 Boer War forces Great Britain to arbitration
– South Africa
Acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands,
1898
 Biggest imperialist debate in Congress
– American planters vs. Queen Liliukalani, 1893
 Sugar Tariffs
– Cleveland opposes
 Use force to unseat Americans?
 Public opinion against Cleveland
– Need harbor for Spanish American War
Cuban Insurrectos, 1890s
 Atrocities in Cuba by Spanish
– Cuban workers bore the brunt of Wilson –Gorman Tariff, 1894
 Reconcentrado camps
– 100,000 dead between 1896-1898
– “Butcher” Wyler
 Yellow Journalism
– Hearst and Pulitzer
 “You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the war”
 Battleship USS Maine
– de Lome letter
– Explosion of Maine in Havana Harbor
– “To Hell with Spain, remember the Maine”!
Spanish-American War, 1898
 McKinley reluctant to go to war
– Pushed by public opinion (Yellow Journalism)
– Spain agrees to Cuban independence
– Teller Amendment
 Admiral Dewey victorious at Manila Bay
– TR involved as Secretary of Navy
– Spanish fleet “hollow”
– Emilio Aguinaldo, freedom fighter
 Pearl Harbor needed for military use
– Annexation of Hawaiian islands
 Treaty of Paris, 1898
– Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Platt Amendment in Cuba
– Insular Cases ****
American Imperialism in Asia
 Open Door Policy in China, 1899
– “spheres of influence”
– Open trade between European powers
 Box Rebellion, 1900
– “Foreign Devils”
– American indemnity
 Russo-Japanese War, 1905
– TR receives Nobel Prize (Treaty of Portsmouth)
 San Francisco Schoolboard Incident
– Gentlemen’s Agreement
 American-Japanese Relations
– Root-Takahira Agreement, 1908
– “Great White Fleet”
– Lansing-Ishii Agreement, 1917
 “Dollar Diplomacy” (Taft)
The Great War Begins!!!!
1914
 What do ya know about The Great War?
– Remember your World History…?