Creating an Empire, 1865-1917

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:– 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

• Social Darwinism -- John Fiske

• Strategic Concerns--Alfred Thayer Mahan

• Macho Idiocy--Theodore Roosevelt

• Altruism

• Missionairies

Economic Reasons

• The US needs new markets to grow

• 1844--China

• 1854--Japan

• 1865-1900: Exports up by 900%

• Depression of the 1890s

Hawaii

• 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

• Cuba and Civil War

• Yellow Journalism

• US Neutrality

• 1897 Arbitration offer

• The Maine Explodes (Feb 15, 1898)

• Response

• Teller Amendment

Spanish-American War

• 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

• 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