The American imperial project of the 1890s changed previous U.S. foreign policies in order to rapidly expand its power through territorial possessions. In the 1840s, Americans justified their expansion to the west coast with the ideology of the Manifest Destiny. By the late 1800s, the United States had acquired most Native American and Spanish land out to the western frontier in California. The influence of the Manifest Destiny combined with the belief of social Darwinism--that the U.S. had a duty to spread its power to reform less powerful societies by spreading liberty and implementing its democratic values--previously only applied to territorial expansion within the North American continent, but now justified an imperial project in the Pacific …show more content…
government initiated its economic and industrial developments out to the Western frontier, it began to expand overseas in the Pacific Ocean with new foreign policies to increase economic power. The factors that drove U.S. imperialism followed the same line of reasoning as the Manifest Destiny and social Darwinism beliefs when spreading political, social, and economic influence over Native Americans. However, its methods and goals on the global scale were quite different; they involved forming spheres of influence and protectorates for naval bases overseas. For example, the U.S. navy set up naval bases in the islands of Midway and Samoa on their way to trade with Asian countries. In addition, the U.S. built naval bases and coaling stations in their closest Pacific nation: the Hawaiian Islands. Eventually, U.S. global investors and traders recognized the influx of financial gains from taking full control of Hawaii and its trade, so it was annexed in 1989. Meanwhile, in China, the U.S. government realized that in order to maintain trade between China while other European countries had already chosen their spheres of influence within the country, it had to introduce the Open Door Policy. This policy essentially gave all nations--especially America--equal access to trading with China and signified a major change in U.S. foreign policy as it began to negotiate with other European countries for a share of China’s wealth. After Japan ended its isolation from trading …show more content…
To restore order in Cuba, President McKinley set up a military government and eventually turned Cuba into a protectorate with a naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Puerto Rico, however, was turned into a commonwealth of the United States, and its citizens were granted U.S. citizenship. After McKinley was assassinated, Theodore Roosevelt became president and took control of the Panama Canal in Central America from Colombia to form a faster route for Pacific trading. President Roosevelt further changed U.S. foreign policy by adding on the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine; it stated that the U.S. would use military forces to stop any European country from conquering territory in the Dominican Republic. Therefore, the U.S. maintained exclusive authority over the Dominican Republic during its expansion into the Caribbean. Roosevelt’s policy of expansionism in Latin American countries was aggressive because they flourished with raw materials, laborers, and consumers that could greatly extend the power of the U.S. His successor, Taft, decided to increase U.S. power even further by financially investing in Latin American countries with his dollar diplomacy policy. To limit European countries from military and economic intervention in Latin
After temporarily resolving the problems of Reconstruction and Industrialization, Americans began to resume the course of expansion. The horrors of the Civil War had interrupted the original Manifest Destiny that began in the 1840s. Now, as pioneers settled the last western frontiers, expansionists looked yet farther to the west -- toward Asia and the Pacific. American ships had long been active in the Pacific. The New England whaling fleets scoured the ocean in search of their prey. As ships crossed the vast ocean to trade in Asia, islands in the Pacific became important stops for coal, provisions, and repairs. In the South Pacific, the American navy negotiated with awestruck natives for the rights to build bases on the islands of Midway and Samoa. This practice had been going on for a while. The Hawaiian Islands, which lie closest to the American mainland, had long been an important stop for the Pacific fleet.
Roosevelt's corollary to the Monroe Doctrine set up the U.S. as a policeman in the western hemisphere. Under TR, the U.S. empire extended to include the Philippines, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. He also oversaw the building of the Panama Canal, a tremendous feat that enhanced U.S. commerce immeasurably. On the other side, Wilson was determined to revise the imperialist practices of earlier administrations, promising independence to the Philippines and making Puerto Ricans American citizens. But Wilson's own policies could sometimes be high-handed.
During the years surrounding James K. Polk's presidency, the United States of America grew economically, socially, and most noticeably geographically. In this time period, the western boundaries of the Untied States would be expanded all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Many Americans in the 19th century believed that the acquisition of this territory to the west was their right and embraced the concept of "Manifest Destiny". This concept was the belief that America should stretch from sea to shining sea and it was all but inevitable. Under the cover of "Manifest Destiny", President Polk imposed his views of an aggressive imperialistic nation. Imperialism is the practice of extending the power and dominion of a nation by direct territorial acquisitions over others, and clearly America took much of this land by force rather than peaceful negotiations with other nations. Polk acquired three huge areas of land to include: the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico under the Mexican Cession.
Behind the scenes of Manifest Destiny, what really transformed the country was the ability to move products across great distances and the Erie Canal was a huge turning point for economic growth in America. Opened in 1825, the Erie Canal was the engineering breakthrough of the nineteenth century: Its four waterways would connect manufacturing and eastern ports with the rest of the country. Farmers could now ship their goods, they could move out, come down the Hudson River and this way of commuting became a part of a global economy. This Moment would bring about the thought of expansion which will become the fuse to enormous economic growth that will ultimately in the next century, become the belief of manifest destiny. The nation that both reflected the pride which reflected American nationalism, and the idealistic image of social perfection through God and the Church caused the nation to separate.
John L. O’Sullivan, an editor, coined the term “Manifest Destiny” and gave the expansionist movement its name in 1845. The “Manifest Destiny” was the belief that Americans had the divine right to occupy North America. The Americans believed they were culturally and racially superior over other nations and other races such as the Native American Indians and Mexicans. The notion of the ‘Manifest Destiny’ was that the Americans were morally superior and therefore morally obligated to try to spread enlighten and civilization to the less civilized societies. According to World History Group, “The closest America came to making ‘Manifest Destiny’ an official policy was The Monroe Doctrine, adopted in 1823, it put European nations on notice that the U.S. would defend other nations of the Western Hemisphere from further colonization” (World History, 2015). This divine American mission caused Anglo-Saxon Americans to believe they had the natural right to move west and bring blessings of self-government and religion, more specifically-
Primarily, the United States foreign policy behind the Monroe Doctrine was introduced by President James Monroe in the midst of many Latin American countries gaining their independence from Spain. The doctrine stated that attempts by European countries to colonize or interfere with states in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as acts of aggression and U.S. intervention would be necessary. The Monroe Doctrine set the precedent for various foreign policies that would result in U.S. involvement in Latin America. Moreover, the Roosevelt Corollary was passed by President Theodore Roosevelt and affirmed that the United States has the right to intervene in Latin America in order to alleviate the economies of Latin American countries that were unable to pay their international debts. The Roosevelt Corollary resulted in U.S. involvement in various countries throughout Latin America, explicitly the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
From western expansion to foreign imperialism the United States has always been an expansionist country. Early America’s focus was to conquer the natives and obtain western land within North America, but in the latter of America’s history, specifically in the nineteenth and twentieth century, foreign imperialism became the new focus. America’s activity in foreign imperialism was a continuation and departure of the United States’ early expansionism. It was a continuation in terms of manifest destiny, the spread of Christianity, and by the concept of “the city on a hill” and a departure in terms of foreign involvement.
The departure from previous expansionism (up to 1880) developed alongside the tremendous changes and amplifications of United States power (in government, economics, and military.) The growth in strength and size of the United States' navy gave the country many more opportunities to grow, explore, and expand both in size and money. The better range and build of ships allowed the U.S. to enter the far-east "trade and money" lands of the Philippines (eventually a territory) and China. Because of the huge production of agricultural goods and the need for outputs and markets for these goods, the United States needed to find other places for shipping, trading, buying, ...
The United States of America has never been content with stagnation. The landmass of the Thirteen Colonies was enough to rival that of the Mother country from which they separated. The forefathers believed that it was the manifest destiny of this nation to eventually claim the expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. By 1890, nearly a hundred years following the original claim of Manifest Destiny, the land that was once open, was now under American control. But no sooner was the Great American Frontier closed, than was the door to East Asian expansion opened with the great gold key of American diplomacy. In a world where imperialism was contagious, and cartographers had to work around the clock to keep up with an ever-changing geopolitical landscape, the United States seized the opportunity to establish herself as a significant world power. With great expansionist minds at her helm, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Howard Taft the United States began to grow beyond her border to claim stake in this wide-open world. This new expansionism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a different institution than its early to mid nineteenth century counterpart. Still, the drive to exercise the sovereignty of the United State and to propel itself over the world’s stage was the same then as it was in the time of Thomas Jefferson. In order to understand this assertion, attention must be given to three levels of analysis. First, the similarities that exist between the drive and purpose of old and new expansion must be taken into account. Second, the differences in the global political scene must be considered. Finally, there exits differences in the means by which expansion occurred.
Expansionism in America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century shared many similarities and differences to that of previous American expansionist ideals. In both cases of American expansionism, the Americans believed that we must expand our borders in order to keep the country running upright. Also, the Americans believed that the United States was the strongest of nations, and that they could take any land they pleased. This is shown in the "manifest destiny" of the 1840's and the "Darwinism" of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Apart from the similarities, there were also several differences that included the American attempt to stretch their empire across the seas and into other parts of the world.
The U.S. got a late start in the race for trading rights with China, and with the U.S. now in the Philippines, the race became economically crucial for America. By this time, Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan claimed exclusive trading rights with China within their sphere of influence. Some, like Japan, even claimed parts of China as their own. In order to level out the playing field Secretary of State John Hay sent diplomatic dispatches to these nations, urging an Open Door Policy, in which there would be equal trading rights with China. All the dispatches came back to Hay with their corresponding nations endorsing the proposal. However, before the policy was enacted, the Chinese tried to expel the “foreign devils” from their homeland in what was to be called the Boxer Rebellion. This nationalist rebellion was put down by an international police force including 2,500 U.S. troops. These actions of intervention in Latin America and China were part of American imperialism.
Many Americans packed few belongings and headed west during the middle to the late nineteenth century. It was during this time period that the idea of manifest destiny became rooted in American customs and ideals. Manifest Destiny is the idea that supported and justified expansionist policies, it declared that expansion was both necessary and right. America’s expansionist attitudes were prominent during the debate over the territorial rights of the Oregon territory. America wanted to claim the Oregon territory as its own, but Great Britain would not allow that. Eventually the two nations came to an agreement and a compromise was reached, as seen in document B. The first major party of settlers that traveled to the west settled in Oregon.
Manifest Destiny! This simple phrase enraptured the United States during the late 1800’s, and came to symbolize an era of westward expansion through numerous powerful entities. The expansion can be inspected though many different contextual lenses, but if examined among the larger histories of the United States, this movement can be classified as one of the most influential developments of the post-Civil War period. While very influential to the larger part of American history, the seemingly barbaric methods that were used conquer the western lands and their peoples took physical and economical forms that proved to be a plague upon the West.
Immediately following the war with Spain, the United States had both the political will to pursue imperial policies and the geopolitical circumstances conducive to doing so. But the way in which these policies would manifest was an open question; was the impulse to actively remake the world in America’s Anglo-Saxon image justified? Hence, there were several models of American imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. In the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Samoa, the United States asserted unwavering political control. In Cuba, and later throughout most of the Caribbean basin, the economic and political domination of customarily sovereign governments became the policy. Ultimately, the United States was able to expand its territory
The invasion of Panama to depose Manuel Noriega was the root of Gunboat Diplomacy. Before the Panama Canal was constructed, the country of Panama was a province of Columbia. The Federal Government of the United States used the Monroe Doctrine to construct an imperial diplomacy, which initially staked out a sphere-of-influence that warned Old World powers not to attempt any further colonial adventures in the New World: the New World was to be dominated by the United States. The drive to build the canal as a short-cut between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans came about largely from the interests of the United States Navy, which recognized that the strategic control of the continent would devolve on anyone who had control of a canal at the narrowest point in the land: and there was the geo-political aspect of control of the Pacific Ocean. The British Navy had already proven the necessity of controlling the ocean as a supply line for colonial expansion.