AP U.S. History
Chapter 27: Empire and Expansion: 1890-1909
Focus Question
To what extent was late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century United States
expansionism a continuation of past United States expansionism and to what extent was it a
departure?
Learning Objectives
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What were the main reasons for America turning outward (i.e., becoming an international
or global power)?
Describe the biggest challenges facing the United States with the acquisition of its island
territories?
Explain the main issues in the election of 1900. What change in focus occurred from the
previous election?
What were the main features of Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Stick policy and the Roosevelt
Corollary?
In what ways did the events in China and Japan force America to take on a more
international or global attitude?
Questions
America Turns Outward (608)
1. For what reasons did the Reverend Josiah Strong advocate American expansion in his book,
Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis? What were the major factors in the
shift in American foreign policy toward imperialism in the late nineteenth century?
2. What did Alfred Thayer Mahan argue about the need for a large navy? What were four small
but dangerous international crises the United States experienced in the 1890s?
3. What was the result of the clash between Germany and America over the Samoan islands?
What change did the numerous near-wars and diplomatic crises of the United States in the
late 1880s and 1890s demonstrate?
4. How did Secretary of State Olney justify American intervention in the Venezuela boundary
dispute with Britain? What was the initial American diplomatic position in the boundary
dispute?
5. Why did the British agree to submit their border dispute with Venezuela to arbitration? How
did the near-war between the United States and Britain over the Venezuela boundary crisis
ultimately result in a growing diplomatic reconciliation between the two English-speaking
countries?
Spurning the Hawaiian Pear (610)
6. Why did the American sugar lords try annex the Hawaiian Islands to the United States? Why
was Queen Liliuokalani forced from power in 1893?
7. What were the views and actions of Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, Alfred
Thayer Mahan, and William McKinley regarding American overseas expansion? Why did
Benjamin Harrison's treaty annexing Hawaii to the United States fail?
8. Why did President Grover Cleveland reject the effort to annex Hawaii? For what is Queen
Liliuokalani remembered for in addition to serving as the last reigning monarch of Hawaii?
Cubans Rise in Revolt (612)
9. Why did the Cuban insurrectos adopt a scorched-earth policy of burning cane fields and
sugar mills? For what reasons did Americans favor providing aid to the Cuban
revolutionaries?
10. What was the purpose of the battleship Maine's visit to Cuba? How was the Maine sunk?
11. Why did President William McKinley ultimately ask Congress to declare war on Spain?
Why did the United States declare war on Spain even though the Spanish had already agreed
to end the reconcentration camps and sign an armistice with the Cuban rebels?
12. What did the Teller Amendment promise?
Dewey's May Day Victory in Manila (614)
13. Which of America's armed forces conducted the most successful actions during the SpanishAmerican War? How did the capture of the Philippines lead to the annexation of Hawaii?
The Confused Invasion of Cuba (614)
14. Characterize the United States Army's performance in Cuba. What caused the greatest loss
of life for American fighting men during the Spanish-American War?
15. What sort of men made up the Rough Riders? How did they become an effective fighting
force?
16. What naval battle signaled the end of the Cuban War? What happened when the United
States invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War?
America's Course (Curse?) of Empire (616)
17. What former Spanish colonies became possessions of the United States under the provisions
of the Treaty of Paris? What was the greatest controversy emerging from the SpanishAmerican War?
18. How did President McKinley justify American acquisition of the Philippines? What
arguments did American imperialists who advocated acquisition of the Philippines stress?
19. What arguments did anti-imperialists present against acquiring the Philippine Islands?
Makers of America (618)
20. Why did many Puerto Ricans come to the mainland United States starting in 1917? When
they first arrived in the US, in what places did many Puerto Ricans work?
Perplexities in Puerto Rico and Cuba (620)
21. What did the Supreme Court rule in the Insular Cases? What rights did the United States
assert in the Platt Amendment?
New Horizons in Two Hemispheres (621)
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22. What difficulties and complexities did the United States take unto itself by acquiring the
Philippine Islands?
"Little Brown Brothers" in the Philippines (622)
23. What was the role of Emilio Aguinaldo during and after the Spanish-American War? Why
did guerrilla warfare break out in the Philippines in 1899?
24. Characterize the American war against the Philippine insurrectionists. How was the
Philippine insurrection finally broken in 1901?
25. How did President McKinley's policy of "benevolent assimilation" fare in the Philippines?
What actions did the U.S. take as part of the program?
Hinging the Open Door in China (623)
26. Why did many Americans become concerned about the increasing foreign intervention in
China? What policy was America attempting to promote with the Open Door notes of 1899?
27. What were the leaders of the Boxer Rebellion attempting to accomplish? How was
America's response to the Boxer Rebellion a change in its general foreign-policy principles?
28. How did the United States use the indemnity that China was forced to pay in the aftermath of
the Boxer uprising?
29. How was the extended Open Door policy advocated in Secretary John Hay's second note to
all the great powers a change from the initial Open Door provisions?
Makers of America (624)
30. What sort of work did Filipinos perform when they first came to the United States?
Imperialism or Bryanism in 1900? (626)
31. Why did Theodore Roosevelt receive the Republican vice-presidential nomination in 1900?
What issue did the Democratic party and its candidate, William Jennings Bryan, insist was
paramount in the 1900 presidential election?
32. How did Theodore Roosevelt, as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 1900, counter
William Jennings Bryan's popular appeal? On what major issues did the Republicans win the
1900 election?
The Brandisher of the Big Stick (627)
33. In temperament and personality, what sort of man was Theodore Roosevelt? What views did
Roosevelt hold regarding the duties and powers of the presidency?
Building the Panama Canal (627)
34. What were the motivations behind the American desire to construct a canal across Central
America? Why did the British gave up their opposition to an American-controlled isthmian
canal?
35. What major alternative route to Panama was seriously considered as the location for a canal
between the oceans? What was the long-term benefit of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty to the
United States?
36. Why did Theodore Roosevelt practically encourage the Panamanians to revolt against
Colombia? What was Roosevelt's role in the Panamanian Revolution?
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37. What was the international effect of Theodore Roosevelt's aggressive involvement in the
Panamanian revolt?
TR's Perversion of the Monroe Doctrine (629)
38. What factor most often led to American involvement in the affairs of Latin American nations
at the turn of the century? How did Theodore Roosevelt's policies frequently lead to the
intervention of the U.S. Marines in Central America?
39. What was the Roosevelt Corollary designed to accomplish? What was the effect within the
region of the United States' frequent intervention in the affairs of Latin American countries in
the early twentieth century?
Roosevelt on the World Stage (630)
40. Why were Japan's victories in the early stages of the Russo-Japanese War especially
stunning? Why did President Roosevelt organize the 1905 conference in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, to work out the peace settlement for the war?
41. What were the primary diplomatic results of Roosevelt's diplomatic ending of the RussoJapanese War?
Japanese Laborers in California (630)
42. What were the unhappy consequences of the relatively small Japanese immigration into
California in the early 1900s?
43. What were the terms of the secret Gentlemen's Agreement that President Theodore Roosevelt
worked out with the Japanese in 1907-1908? What were the terms of the Root-Takahira
agreement of 1908?
Varying Viewpoints (634)
44. How did the historians known as the New Left revisionists explain the United States' burst of
overseas expansion? Why do some historians argue that race and gender were important in
justifications for imperialism?
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