THE UNITED STATES AND LATIN
AMERICA
18.4
OBJECTIVES
Examine what happened to Puerto Rico and
Cuba after the Spanish American War.
 Analyze the effects of Roosevelt’s “big stick”
diplomacy.
 Compare Wilson’s “moral diplomacy” with the
foreign policies of his predecessors.

KEY PARTS
U.S. Policy in Puerto Rico and Cuba
 Roosevelt Pursues “Big Stick” Diplomacy
 Wilson Pursues Moral Diplomacy

INTRODUCTION
Read Section 18.4
 Answer critical thinking questions 4&6

U.S. POLICY IN PUERTO RICO AND CUBA
William Howard Taft stressed the need to assert
American power around the world.
 America’s victory over Spain liberated the Puerto
Rican and Cuban people from Spanish rule.
 Puerto Rico remained under direct U.S. military
rule. In 1900, Congress passed the Foraker Act,
which established a civil government in Puerto
Rico.

CONT.
This allowed the President to elect a governor
and part of the Puerto Rican legislature. (similar
to the Philippines)
 The Insular Cases in the Supreme Court
determined the rights of Puerto Ricans.
 In 1917 President Woodrow Wilson signed the
Jones-Shafroth Act, it gave the islanders greater
control of their own government and more
citizenship rights.

CONT..
The Treaty of Paris granted Cuban
independence, however the US Army did not
withdraw until 1902.
 Congress instructed Cuba to add the Platt
Amendment to its constitution.
 This allowed US leases to have Naval Stations,
also prevented Cuba from making treaties with
anyone.
 Also gave the United States the right to
intervene to preserve order in Cuba.

ROOSEVELT PURSUES “BIG STICK”
DIPLOMACY
Roosevelt developed a broader policy for U.S.
action in Latin America.
 He believed that he needed a strong military to
achieve America’s goals.
 This view came form his ideas of balance of
power principles and his view of the United
States as a special nation with a moral
responsibility to “civilize” or uplift weaker
nations.

CONT.
Roosevelt did not originate the idea of the
Panama Canal, however, he was a major part of
it.
 In the late 1800s the French tried to link the
Atlantic to the Pacific oceans across the Isthmus
of Panama but failed.
 In 1903 the United States bought the claim for
$40,000,000.

CONT..
To make this happen Roosevelt had to help
liberate Panama from Columbia, and he was
successful at it.
 More than 35,000 workers helped dig the
Panama Canal.
 The Completion of the canal depended on
scientific breakthroughs in medicine.
 Doctors had to find a way to combat the tropical
diseases that were killing so many canal workers.

CONT…
5,000 canal workers died from disease or
accidents while building the canal.
 The canal opened in 1914 and it cut roughly
8,000 nautical miles off the trip from the west
coast to the east coast of the United States.
 Once Taft took over as President he and
Roosevelts views of Open Door Policy and
maintain stability in Latin America were
identical, the only difference was instead of the
big stick approach, Taft believed in “Dollar
Diplomacy”

CONT….
In 1912 Taft looked to substitute dollars for
bullets.
 The policy aimed to increase American
investments in business and banks in Central
American and the Caribbean.
 Americans began investing in plantations, mines,
oil wells, railways and other ventures.

WILSON PURSUES MORAL DIPLOMACY
Wilson takes over as president and criticized he
foreign policies of his predecessors Theodore
Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.
 He and his Secretary of State William Jennings
Bryan were considered anti-imperialists.
 The new president intended to take U.S. foreign
policy in a different direction.
 He promised that the United States would “never
again seek one additional foot of territory by
conquest”

CONT.
He would instead work to promote “human
rights, national integrity, and opportunity.”
 He called this “moral diplomacy”
 He tried this moral diplomacy tactic in Mexico
and it went well initially. However rebels began
to rise up against Carranza (who Wilson helped
to put into power)

CONT..
The Rebels were under the leadership of
Francisco “Pancho” Villa.
 After the United States left out of Mexico, Villa’s
men crossed into New Mexico and raided the
town of Columbus leaving 18 Americans dead.
 President Wilson responded by sending General
John J. Pershing and more than 10,000 troops to
take care of Villa’s men.

CONT…
Pershing’s forces chased Villa for several months
but failed to capture the rebel leader. Wilson
withdrew his troops from Mexico in 1917.
 This was due to the concerns about World War I
raging in Europe.
 Not long after the United States declared war on
Germany, and Pershing took command of the
American Expeditionary Force in France.
