IMPERIALISM

• The policy or practice of extending the power and domination of one nation by direct territorial acquisitions or by control over the political or economic life of other areas.

A Growing Support

• After Civil War most Americans were focused on rebuilding America, industries and the West.

• After Reconstruction feelings started to shift toward becoming a world power.

• Economic and military competition from European countries.

• Sense of cultural superiority• Willing to go to war to protect

American interest overseas

Powerful Navy

• Alfred T. Mahan, naval officer who saw the need of a large navy with overseas bases.

• Protect the interest of Americans overseas and defend its right to trade with other countries.

European Expansion of Power

• High tariffs reduced trade between countries

• Investment growth had slowed due to the built out infrastructure (railroads, factories, mines…)

• Started looking to other countries to sell product

• Needed to protect their interest (protectorate)

Anglo-Saxonism

• Feeling of superiority by English speaking nations (Josiah Strong)

• Felt is was part of the idea of Manifest Destiny

IMPERIALISM

• Extending military, political, or economic influence over a foreign country

• Technological changes of the late 19th Century had made the world smaller, more accessible (cross-Atlantic cable, faster ocean travel)

• The powers of Europe had been extending their influence into Africa and Asia during the 19th century

Pacific Ocean

• Perry’s expedition to Japan in hope of forcing Japan to trade with the United States

• Japan begins to Westernize (building of a strong and modern navy)

• Hawaii was a stopping point between US and Asia

• Settlers soon discovered Hawaii was fertile and profitable

Expansion of power

• Hawaii – overthrowing the Queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani.

• John L. Stevens (American Minister to Hawaii) wanted Hawaii part of the USA

• Hawaii had profitable sugarcane plantations

• “The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it.”

Pan-Americanism

• United States and Latin America should work together

• Keep European influence out of the Western hemisphere

Causes of the Spanish-American War 1898

Cuban Rebellion

against Spain

Yellow Journalism

Spanish brutality against Cubans

de Lome letter

the Maine U.S. declares war

•1868 Cubans declare indep. against Spain

•Guerilla war fails

•Many flee to U.S. to plan new attack

•Jose Marti-writer/poet-trained troops for new invasion of Cuba-rebellion of 1895 seized control of E. Cuba-Republic of Cuba

•New York Journal and William Randolph Hearst

•New York World and Joseph Pulitizer

•Competed for circulation through sensationalist stories

•Exaggerated stories

•“Weyler the Butcher”-sent Cubans to reconcentration camps-caused 1,000s of deaths

•Spanish ambassador Enrique de Lome

•Writes private letter describing McKinley as weak

•NY Journal prints letter

•Feb. 1898

•Maine explodes in Havana Harbor

•266 U.S. officers/sailors die

•Spain blamed for explosion

•Jingoism: aggressive nationalism

•Teller Amendment

•April 1898-Congress declares Cuba independent-Congress declares war on Spain

Results of the Spanish American War

• Treaty of Paris 1898 – Cuba becomes a free nation and the United States acquire Puerto Rico and Guam while also paying Spain $20 million for the Philippines.

• “The White Man’s Burden” – written by Rudyard Kipling explaining how the United States was responsible for uplifting the other races to the white man’s level.

• Puerto Rico – Foraker Act, makes Puerto Rico an unincorporated territory and today continues as a commonwealth, or part of, the United States

• Platt Amendment – Outlined the conditions for Cuban Independence including not allowing any foreign nation to take over and allowing the U.S. to keep naval bases on the island.

The Open Door Policy/ Boxer Rebellion

• The Boxers, also known as the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, were members of a secret society opposed to foreign influence in China.

• The “last straw” before the rebellion broke out may have been a reaction to a made up story from a Denver, Colorado newspaper that reported that China had contracted an American company to demolish the Great Wall of China as a demonstration of their commitment to open up to world trade.

• The story made its way to the east coast and then to China, and once the Boxers got hold of it they felt it was an insult for a Western firm to be hired to destroy something that represented the past glory of China.

IMPERIALISM

• What follows is the story of the U.S. emergence as a world power

• Did the actions of the United States during this time conflict with or promote the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence?

The Filipino War (1899-1902)

• The U.S. chose not to grant independence to the Filipinos

• What followed was a brutal three year war in the Philippines (1899-1902)

• The war brought to question American ideals and whether our government was upholding or betraying these ideals

President McKinley

• “When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. . . And one night late it came to me this way. . .1) That we could not give them back to Spain- that would be cowardly and dishonorable;

President McKinley

• 2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany-our commercial rivals in the Orient-that would be bad business and discreditable;

President McKinley

•3) that we not leave them to themselves-they are unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's wars; and

President McKinley

• 4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.”

William Jennings Bryan

• “Imperialism is the policy of an empire. And an empire is a nation composed of different races, living under varying forms of government. A republic cannot be an empire, for a republic rests upon the theory that the government derive their powers from the consent of the government and colonialism violates this theory.

William Jennings Bryan

• We do not want the Filipinos for citizens. They cannot, without danger to us, share in the government of our nation and moreover, we cannot afford to add another race question to the race questions which we already have. Neither can we hold the Filipinos as subjects even if we could benefit them by so doing. . . .

William Jennings Bryan

• Our experiment in colonialism has been unfortunate. Instead of profit, it has brought loss. Instead of strength, it has brought weakness. Instead of glory, it has brought humiliation.”

Emilio Aguinaldo (President of the Independent

Philippine Republic)

• “I published the grievances suffered by the Philippine forces at the hand of the [U.S] army of occupation. The constant outrages and taunts, which have caused misery of the people of Manila, and, finally, the useless conferences and the contempt shown the Philippine government prove the premeditated transgression of justice and liberty. . . .

Emilio Aguinaldo (President of the Independent Philippine Republic)

• I have tried to avoid, as far as it has been possible for me to do so, armed conflict, in my endeavors to assure our independence by pacific means and to avoid more costly sacrifices. But all my efforts have been useless against the measureless pride of the American government. . .”

Senator Albert Beveridge (R)

• “. . . [J]ust beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets. . . We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee of God, of the civilization of the world. . . Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus?. . . China is our natural customer. . . [England, Germany and Russia] have moved nearer to China by securing permanent bases on her borders. The Philippines gives us a base at the door of all the East. . .

Senator Albert Beveridge (R)

• They [the Filipinos] are a barbarous race, modified by three centuries of contact with a decadent race [the Spanish]. . . It is barely possible that 1,000 men in all the archipelago are capable of self-government in the Anglo-Saxon sense. . . The Declaration [of Independence] applies only to people capable of self-government.

Senator Albert Beveridge (R)

• How dare any man prostitute this expression of the very elect of self-government peoples to a race of Malay children of barbarism, schooled in Spanish methods and ideas? And you, who say the Declaration applies to all men, how dare you deny its application to the American Indian? And if you deny it to the Indian at home, how dare you grant it to the Malay abroad.”

• Resolved, That the colored people of Boston in meeting assembled desire to enter their solemn protest against the present unjustified invasion by American soldiers in the Philippines Islands.

• Resolved, That, while the rights of colored citizens in the South, sacredly guaranteed them by the amendment of the Constitution, are shamefully disregarded; and, while frequent lynchings of Negroes who are denied a civilized trial are a reproach to Republican government,

• the duty of the President and country is to reform these crying domestic wrongs and not attempt the civilization of alien peoples by powder and shot.

Mark Twain (Anti-Imperialist League)

• “It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”

Mark Twain (Anti-Imperialist League)

• “[The Filipino War is] a stain upon our flag that can never be effaced. Yet today in our public schools we teach our children to salute the flag, and this is our idea of instilling patriotism…but if there is a stain on that flag it ought not to be honored, even if it is our flag.

Mark Twain (Anti-Imperialist League)

• The true citizenship is to protect the flag from dishonor—to make it an emblem of a nation that is known to all nations as true and honest and honorable. And we should forever forget that old phrase – ‘My country, right or wrong, my country!”

The Big Question!

•Did the actions of the United States during this time conflict with or promote the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence?

AMERICAN IDEALS

• “…That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

• The right of SELF-DETERMINATION• The right of a people to determine their

own form of government

The Philippines

• Video Clip 1900

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal

Roosevelt Corollary

• Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine stated that the United States would intervene in Latin American affairs when necessary to maintain stability in the Western Hemisphere.