Transcript Spanish American War Imperialism

Spanish American War
Imperialism
 Frontier declared
‘closed’ in 1890…
 How would
Capitalism influence
policy?
 What does Capitalism
need?
Imperialism
 What is Imperialism in 1898?
 New era
 Goal  expand territory
 Why?
 American tradition = Isolation
 How could gov’t justify expansion?
 Places imperialism within cultural understanding
 Social Darwinsim
 Military might
 Policy (Doctrine)
Social Darwinism & Empire
 Viewed certain
peoples as savage…

White Man’s Burden (1899)
- Rudyard Kipling
“…Take up the White Man's
 What would ‘savages’ burden-Send forth the best ye breedGo bind your sons to exile
require
To serve your captives' need;
Belief: US leadership To wait in heavy harness,
would be beneficial On fluttered folk and wild-Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
for the US, but also Half-devil and half-child….”
for the ‘savage’
Militarism
 Foreign defense also justified imperialism…
 Alfred T. Mahan –The Influence of Sea Power upon
History
 Theodore Roosevelt – Assistant Sec. of the
Navy
Expansion by Doctrine
Bush Doctrine – 2001 policy
of preemptive/
Roosevelt
Corollary
Truman
Doctrine
– 1947
Monroe Doctrine
– (1823)
preventative
Monroe
Doctrine
war
(dispose
1904
–
A
further
"the
policy
of the
United
- Closes western
of
potential
orCorollary
perceived
development
of
the
States
to support
free
hemisphere
Roosevelt
to further
threats,
even
ifarethat
threat
Monroe
Doctrine.
peoples
who
resisting
expansion
byDoctrine
European
wasTruman
not immediate).
Also
attempted
subjugation
by
powers
Emphasized the right of
policy
of
spreading
aarmed
Bushminorities
Doctrine
or byin
the US to intervene
democracy
around the
outside
pressures
the affairs of Central &
world, especially in the
South America
Middle East
Underlying Causes of the SpanishAmerican War
1. Cuban Revolution – Cuba Libre


Jose Marti- Cuba’s George Washington
General Weyler- Spaniard in control of Cuba;
portrayed as a “butcher”
Yellow Journalism

 Joseph Pulitzer: New York World
William Randolph Hearst: New York Journal
Underlying Causes of the
Spanish-American War
2. Yellow Journalism - sensational writing
used to sell newspapers
William Hearst (NY Journal);Joseph Pulitzer
(NY World)
• exploit Weyler’s actions
• Americans gain sympathy for the Cuban
cause
Underlying Causes of the SpanishAmerican War
3. The de Lôme Letter
• Private letter by Spanish
minister Enrique Dupuy de
Lôme
• published by Yellow
Journalists
• Called McKinley weak
• Spain apologizes, de Lôme
resigns:
• America angry
USS Maine
“Remember the Maine”
Us battle ship explodes in Havana Harbor
January 25, 1898
WAR!
•Spain declared war on April
23, 1898; the U.S. Congress
on April 25 declared the
official opening as April 21.
Admiral George Dewey
attacks Manila Bay
Teller Amendment: The
US would NOT annex
Cuba.
Cubans could retain
"control of the island to
its people."
Soldiers
prepared to
fight in
Cuba
Teddy Roosevelt’s
Rough Riders
War Ends
 Four months of war
 60,000 Casualties (dead, missing, wounded) for
the Spanish, Cuban, Filipino forces
 6,000 American Casualties (3,289 Americans
deaths of which approximately 400 died in
battle).
Treaty of Paris
December 10, 1898
 Ends the war, but marked the beginning of America’s
colonial age.
PROVISIONS:
 Spain…
 Gave up all rights to Cuba
 Teller Amendment:
 Platt Amendment.
 Gave the West Indies including Puerto Rico
 Guam to the United States
 Philippines to the United States (for twenty million
dollars)
Philippine American War (1899-1902)
Up to 200,000 Filipinos killed
4,300 Americans
Roosevelt, Empire and Panama
 Panama Canal –
 1903 –Columbia wont ratify treaty for canal
 President Roosevelt angry…
 US supports Panama's separatist movement
 Within three days of independence Panama gave the
US rights to build and control the Panama Canal.
Taft & Dollar Diplomacy
 New foreign policy
 Dollar Diplomacy –US capital investment in
foreign nations thus expanding US policy interests
 GOAL? Make the US a commercial and financial world power.
 HOW? Protected American businesses as they expanded
investment and trade
 WHY? US can expand into foreign nations without the use of
military force
Wilsonianism
 Wilson had an idealistic internationalism
 Called for the US to fight for and to spread
democracy
America Becomes an Empire