American imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th century was driven by four main factors:
1) Business interests seeking new markets and raw materials as industrial capacity grew.
2) A belief in social Darwinism and the white man's burden to civilize other races.
3) The closing of the American frontier increasing the focus outward.
4) Growing military and strategic interests to secure new naval bases and protect business investments abroad.
This led the U.S. to aggressively expand its influence and territory through wars in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as well as political and economic dominance in Latin America and Asia through the early 1900s.
8. U. S. Foreign Investments: 1869-1908
2. Business Interests
9. • Alfred Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power
on History: 1660-1783
• Overseas markets essential for industrial
surpluses
• Large, strong navy needed
• 1889: Navy Sec. Benjamin Tracy naval
construction
• U.S. gained offensive capability at sea
3. Military/Strategic Interests
13. Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
14. Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
15. Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
16. Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
…
17. Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
18. Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
31. 1875: no tariff on
Hawaiian sugar
1893: American settlers
overthrew Liliuokalani
1894: Sanford Ballard
Dole proclaims Rep. of
Hawaii
1898: US annexation
36. Lodge Corollary to the
Monroe Doctrine: 1912
Sen. Henry Cabot
Lodge (R-MA)
Non-European
powers (ie - Japan)
excluded from
owning territory in
W. Hemisphere
37.
38. Cuban Revolution
1895: Jose Marti leads
revolution against Spain
• Some oppose: American
businessmen fear
disruption of sugar
income
• Some support: followed
the ideals of American
revolution
46. Theodore Roosevelt
Ass’t Sec of Navy
Imperialist and
American nationalist.
McKinley has “the
backbone of a
chocolate éclair!”
Resigns to fight in
Cuba.
50. War in Cuba
US fleet blockades
Havana
Naval battle destroys
Spanish fleet near
Santiago
Kettle Hill (San Juan) =
Rough Rider victory to
take Santiago
51. The Treaty of Paris: 1898
Cuba freed from Spanish rule
US gains Puerto Rico, Guam, and the
Philippines; becomes an empire!
55. Did the US conduct genocide?
Scorched earth policy
Concentration camps
Water-board torture of prisoners
200,000-1,500,000 Filipino civilian dead
Philippine Insurrection, 1899-1913
56. “The town … surrendered to us a few
days ago … Last night one of our boys
was found shot and his stomach cut
open. Immediately orders were
received from General Wheaton to
burn the town and kill every native
in sight; which was done to a finish.
About 1,000 men, women and children
were reported killed. I am probably
growing hard-hearted, for I am in my
glory when I can sight my gun on
some dark skin and pull the trigger.”
- NY soldier
57. William H. Taft, 1st
Gov.-General of the Philippines
Great administrator.
59. American Anti-Imperialist
League, 1899
Mark Twain,
Andrew Carnegie,
William James, and
William J. Bryan, et al.
Against annexation of
the Philippines and
other imperialist acts
60. Platt Amendment (1903)
1. Cuba not to enter foreign
treaties
2. U.S. to intervene in Cuba
as necessary
3. Guantanamo Bay =
U.S. naval base.
Cuban Independence?
Senator
Orville Platt
63. The Roosevelt Corollary
to the Monroe Doctrine, 1905
… [A]dherence of the
United States to the
Monroe Doctrine may
force the United States,
however reluctantly, in
flagrant cases of
[chronic] wrongdoing or
impotence, to the exercise
of an international
police power .