Building an American

EmpireFrom Isolationism to

Interventionism

Isolationism pre-1870

• Physical Separation

• “Common Sense”• Washington’s

Farewell Address• Monroe Doctrine• Manifest Destiny• Internal Conflicts

Shift toward EXPANSION• Same people that pushed

development of the machine age pushed expansion.

• Ideologies of nationalism, capitalism, and Social Darwinism.

• Economically US started to export more than it imported, so the industrial growth of the U.S. was tied to other countries.

Race Thinking and Expansion

Race issues in US• Burlingame Treaty had

allowed open immigration, but protest and riots led to Chinese Exclusion Act (1882).

• Gentleman’s Agreement with Japan (1906) to limit immigration.

Seward’s Expansion• Bought the Virgin

Islands and Alaska, also annexed Alaska.

• U.S. forced French troops out of Mexico.

Mahan and the Navy• Alfred Mahan

pushed the importance of a navy in a world where foreign trade was essential.

Annexation of Hawaii• US had increased its

influence on the island going back to the 1850s.

• Queen Lili’uokalani (1891) tried to decrease the power of whites - but wealthy American conspired to have her arrested.

• Later in the context of war Pres. McKinley pushed annexation.

Cause of War• Cuba had been fighting a

Civil War against Spain from the 1860s that many Americans supported - for moral and economic reasons.

• Battleship Maine exploded in 1898.

• “Cause of humanity…protection of American life and property…serious injury to commerce…menace to our peace”

Yellow Journalism

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Spanish American Cuban Filipino War

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are needed to see this picture.

American Empire

Open Door Policy• 1899 China was

weakened by war and could not resist foreign powers.

• U.S. wanted an “open door” for its trade.

• Boxer Rebellion.

Big Stick Diplomacy

• President should take charge of foreign policy, the goal should be to expand US interests.

• Roosevelt Corollary - US would be an international police power - step in to stabilize Latin American nations.

Platt Amendment

• U.S. did not annex Cuba, but did not allow Cuba to make treaties with other nations, and U.S. had the “right to intervene” to preserve order.

Panama Canal

• US encouraged Panamanian rebellion, and then signed a treaty to lease the land for the canal (1903).

Dollar Diplomacy and Moral Diplomacy• Dollar Diplomacy - to promote

American business interests abroad (largely by Taft administration). Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua

• Moral Diplomacy - pursue human interest in diplomacy (Sec. of State Bryan and “cooling off treaties” and apologizing to Colombia).

• However Wilson never really followed Moral Diplomacy, he really continued with the Roosevelt/Taft ideology - Mexico.