Creating an Empire, 1865-1917
• The USS Maine, sunk in Havana, 1898
Opening Moves
• Monroe Doctrine
• Guano Islands Act (1856)
• France and Mexico
Seward’s Folly
Seward’s Ambitions
• Alaska: $7.2 million
• Midway
• Failures:
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Caribbean
Canada
Greenland
Panama Canal Zone
Further Steps
• Samoa (1878)
• James G. Blaine
– First International American Conference (1889)
– Pan American Union
• Naval Growth
Motives for Imperialism
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Social Darwinism -- John Fiske
Strategic Concerns--Alfred Thayer Mahan
Macho Idiocy--Theodore Roosevelt
Altruism
Missionairies
Economic Reasons
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The US needs new markets to grow
1844--China
1854--Japan
1865-1900: Exports up by 900%
Depression of the 1890s
Hawaii
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1875: Free Trade and Sugar
1887: Pearl Harbor
1890: End of Sugar Tariff
1891: New Queen
1893: Sugar Interest American Coup
Cleveland
1898
Venezuela
• Venezuela-British Guiana Boundary
Dispute
• 1895--Sec. Of State Richard Olney
• 1897--Arbitration
Spanish American War
Spanish American War: Lead-Up
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Cuba and Civil War
Yellow Journalism
US Neutrality
1897 Arbitration offer
The Maine Explodes (Feb 15, 1898)
Response
Teller Amendment
Spanish-American War
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Manila Bay -- May 1, 1898
Recruitment
Invasion
July 1-3
Treaty of Paris
The Phillipines
• Mark Twain
• Phillipine Revolt (1899-1913)
• Phillipine Self-Government
Caribbean Aftermath
• Puerto Rico
– Insular Cases
• Cuba
– Platt Amendment
• Protectorate
– 1906-1917: 3 Interventions
China, Japan, Russia
• The Open Door
• The Russo-Japanese War (1905)
– Treaty of Portsmouth (1905)
• Trouble with Japan
Walk Softly and Carry a Big
Stick
Roosevelt and Panama
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Canal Plans
Purchase Fails
The Coup
Construction: 1904-14
End of Yellow Feaver
Roosevelt Corollary (1904)
Dollar Diplomacy
Dollar Diplomacy
• Lodge Corollary
• China
• Caribbean
– Nicaragua
– Haiti
– Dominican Republic
Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911)
Mexico and Civil War
• Porfirio Diaz (1876-1910)
• President Francisco Madero (1911-3)
• US Intervention (Henry Cabot Lodge and
Victoriano Huerta)
• Veracruz
• Pancho Villa
• Black Jack Pershing’s Raid--1916
• “I can never be anything else but an American, and I must
think of the United States first, and when I think of the
United States first in an arrangement like this I am thinking
of what is best for the world, for if the United States fails,
the best hopes of mankind fail with it.” -- Henry Cabot
Lodge