HIST 221 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Expansionism, Ethnic Conflict, Teller Amendment
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Recap
An era of shifting ideologically fluid, issue-focused coalitions, all
competing for the reshaping of American society
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Increased activism, political mobilization and social issues, rhetoric of
democracy, improvement and uplift
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General trends:
Importance of organizing and forming coalitions around economic,
social and political issues
○
Laissez-faire gave way to ideals of increased government and
federal powers (and resistance to)
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Top-down uplift
Helped some achieve more power (ex: middle class women)
§
Made some hierarchies more ingrained
§
○
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19th Century Expansionism
Continental expansion/conquests in the US
Native American nations
Active warfare
§
Contested exercise of federal authority
Contested by indigenous nations and Spanish
speaking individuals who crossed over after the
Spanish-American war
□
§
○
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Emergence of moral empire
Foreign mission movement
Especially in Asia
§
By 1915, enrolled 3 million (most of them are deployed in
Asia where they are trying to convert people to Christianity)
§
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Commercial empire follows
Dramatic increase in foreign trade, investment, extraction
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Moral-commercial-military
Ex: Hawaii Missionaries 1830s
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Overthrow 1893
US planters and missionaries control large sections of
Hawaii
§
Planters bring over labourers from places like China
§
Planters are advocating for the USA to annex Hawaii due to
the high tariffs put on sugar
§
Planters overthrow the government in order to let the US
annex them but they refuse
§
○
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Foreign and Diplomatic Relations
Increasing overseas economic intergration
Migrant labour flows to AND from the US
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Other industrial powers intensified competition for overseas markets
and colonies
Landowners in Mexico and Cuba
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Don't see themselves as immigrants, they see themselves as
Americans who are opening outposts in other places
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Secretary of State John Hay - Open Door Notes (1899-1900)
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"Fate has written our policy for us; the trade f the world must and
shall be ours"
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- Senator Albert Beveridge
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Other nations had their own ideas and ambitions
Japanese military build up
○
Boxer rebellion in China
Rebellion against missionaries and foreigners so this causes
the US to build up their defenses so they can defend
themselves in places they are trying to expand their
influence like Shanghai
§
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Gendered concerns about national decline
Idea of "West" as "closed frontier"
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Spanish American War
1890s conflicts with Spanish in Cuba and Puerto Rico
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Rebellion and brutal repression in Cuba
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McKinley orders battleship Maine into Havana harbour to protect US
investments
Explodes Feb 15 1898
○
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Teller Amendment (1898) - "The US hereby disclaims any disposition of
intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island
except for pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that
is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its
people"
Spain responds with a war declaration on the US
○
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A Splendid Little War
Supported by both imperialists and anti-imperialists in the USA
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April - August, US naval superiority
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1 million men volunteered, less than 500 American were killed or
wounded in combat
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T.Roosevelt and "Rough Riders"
What is his next job?
○
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American Manliness
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Cross-racial cooperation
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Reality much more complicated
Required build-up, expansion of US military
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Tropical diseases killed more than 5,000 in Cuba
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Some soldiers were shocked to find Cuban rebels were "black"
Treatment of black US troops
§
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Pacific theater of Spanish American war
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US captures manila, takes prisoner 13,000 Spanish
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Treaty of Paris
Spanish relinquishes claim to Cuba, cedes Puerto Rico and Guam to US,
cedes Philippines to US
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Hotly debated by Congress and US public
Contrasts the Teller amendment
○
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Often seen as watershed event in US transition to world power
Ex: Cuba
Not permitted to make treaties with foreign powers
§
US broad authority to intervene in domestic affairs
§
Cuba required to sell or lease land to US for naval stations
§
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They get Guantanamo bay and decide to annex Hawaii
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Philippine-American War
Professed goal of benevolent assimilation
In US empire? As part of US? As citizens?
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1899 - long brutal war, US against Filipino rebels
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4 years, 4200 US deaths, total Filipino death est. 200,000
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Ruthless war and concessions to elites willing to compromise helped US
gain control of islands by 1902
Increasingly exterminist battle against the guerilla forces
○
Becomes a race war and racial rhetoric characterizes as people
who are not ready for citizenship due to the guerilla war that thay
are fighting
○
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Troubled Americans more than Western Hemisphere part of Spanish
American war
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American anti-imperialist league
Men who get together to oppose the war and publicize the
policies
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Media turns against government action in the Philippines
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Aftermath: Empire of Exception?
Ensuing historiographic debates over nature of US foreign relations. Was
the US empire exceptional?
US added much less "territory" than Great Britain, France,
Germany
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Rhetoric of "expanding democracy" through tutelage (schools),
investment
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Close ties with private (operated with private actors)
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Historical erasure and amnesia
Imperial moment??
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Lecture 11 - Exceptional Empire
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
9:26 AM
Document Summary
An era of shifting ideologically fluid, issue-focused coalitions, all competing for the reshaping of american society. Increased activism, political mobilization and social issues, rhetoric of democracy, improvement and uplift. Importance of organizing and forming coalitions around economic, social and political issues. Laissez-faire gave way to ideals of increased government and federal powers (and resistance to) Helped some achieve more power (ex: middle class women) Contested by indigenous nations and spanish speaking individuals who crossed over after the. By 1915, enrolled 3 million (most of them are deployed in. Asia where they are trying to convert people to christianity) Us planters and missionaries control large sections of. Planters bring over labourers from places like china. Planters are advocating for the usa to annex hawaii due to the high tariffs put on sugar. Planters overthrow the government in order to let the us annex them but they refuse. Migrant labour flows to and from the us.
