1. The Rise of American Imperialism
Alaska, Hawaii, Cuba
and Latin America

2. Anti-Imperial Sentiment
From the Civil War until the 1890s, most Americans had little interest in territorial expansion:
Imperial rule seemed inconsistent with America's republican principles.
The US did not welcome people with different cultures, languages, and religions.

3. Acquisition of Alaska
The exception to the rule was Alaska. In 1867, Sec. of State William Steward arranged to buy Alaska from the Russians for $7.2 million. Rich in natural resources (timber, minerals, and oil), Alaska was a bargain at two cents per acre.

4. European Imperialism
By the mid-1890s, a shift had taken place in American attitudes toward expansion. Why? Between 1870 and 1900, the European powers seized 10 million square miles of territory in Africa and Asia. About 150 million people were subjected to colonial rule.

5. Fear of Competition
In the United States, a growing number of policy makers, bankers, manufacturers, and trade unions grew fearful that the country might be closed out in the struggle for global markets and raw materials.

6. Belief in Darwinian Struggle
A belief that the world's nations were engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival and that countries that failed to compete were doomed to decline also contributed to a new assertiveness on the part of the United States.

7. Dependency on Foreign Trade
By the 1890s, the American economy was increasingly dependent on foreign trade. A quarter of the nation's farm products and half its petroleum were sold overseas.

8. A Desire for Sea Power
Alfred Thayer Mahan, a naval strategist and the author of The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, argued that national prosperity and power depended on control of the world's sea-lanes. "Whoever rules the waves rules the world," Mahan wrote.

9. The White Man’s Burden
During the late 19th century, the idea that the United States had a special mission to uplift "backward" people around the world also commanded growing support.

10. The Annexation of Hawaii
In 1890, the United States placed a protective tariff on imported sugar, including that from Hawaii, in order to protect sugar producers in the United States.
This meant that Americans would be more likely to buy domestic sugar rather than Hawaiian sugar, and American planters in Hawaii would lose money.

11. The Annexation of Hawaii
In 1893, a small group of sugar and pineapple-growing businessmen, backed by the U.S. military, deposed Hawaii's queen, seized 1.75 million acres of land, and conspired for U.S. annexation of the islands, which was achieved in Hawaii became a state in 1959.

12. The Annexation of Hawaii
Once Hawaii was annexed, it became important to the United States as a military and commercial link to the Philippines and the rest of East Asia.

13. Origins of Spanish American War: Economic Concerns
In the 1890s, Spain had imposed increased taxes on Cuba
In addition, the U.S. altered their sugar tariffs again in 1894, which put restrictions on sugar imports to the U.S., severely hurting the economy of Cuba.
Previously, Cuban sugar had entered the U.S. duty-free.
Resulting economic chaos led to revolution and a demand for U.S. intervention.
Angry nationalists began a revolt against the Spanish colonial regime.

14. Origins of Spanish American War: Economic Concerns
Cubans provoked U.S. involvement by destroying American sugar-plantations and mills in Cuba.

15. Cuban Revolutionaries
The struggle for Cuban independence had been going on for nearly 100 years by the time of the Spanish American War
Major ideals included an end of slavery and total racial equality
Jose Marti, Antonio Maceo and others formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party in 1890

16. Humanitarian Concerns
Many Americans sympathized with the Cuban revolution and were appalled by the tactics of the Spanish military commander, Valeriano Weyler.
Imprisoned over 300,000 Cuban civilians in concentration camps, where about 30% died of disease and starvation.

17. Expansionism
American expansionists such as Theodore Roosevelt recognized that war offered an opportunity to seize territory from Spain.

18. Immediate Causes USS Maine sinking
“Yellow Journalism” – “Journalism based on sensationalism and crude exaggeration”
Jingoism – “Super-patriotism and demand for aggressive action”

19. The USS Maine
The US, which had many businessmen with investment interests in Cuba, became concerned and dispatched the USS Maine to rescue US citizens who might be endangered by the conflict.

20. YELLOW JOURNALISM
In the late 1890s, two of the most famous American publishers, William Randolph Hearst of the New York Morning Journal and Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World, were battling for readers in a circulation war.

21. Both newspapers printed the most sensational stories and pictures they could find about the horrors of the Cuban revolution.
The stories often exaggerated and distorted events for emotional effect.

22. Sinking of the Maine
To add to the tension already growing between the United States and Spain over the Cuban revolution…
The U.S. battleship Maine unexpectedly exploded and sank in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing 266 Americans.

23. The public blamed Spain and demanded immediate action, thanks in part to the “yellow journalism” engaged in by Hearst and Pulitzer.
A naval investigation unit later concluded as late as 1976 that the explosion was most likely caused by an accidental fire that ignited the ship’s ammunition stocks.

24. The Effects of Yellow Journalism
On February 15, 1898 the Maine mysteriously blew up and the US blamed a Spanish mine. When the American public was stirred into an anti-Spain frenzy by the yellow journalism of men like Hearst and Pulitzer, President McKinley gave the OK for war – despite Spain’s agreement to an armistice with Cuba.

25. Teller Amendment
Congress agreed, but only after adopting the Teller Amendment that made it clear that the United States did not harbor imperialist ambitions and would not acquire Cuba.

26. The Platt Amendment
After the US defeated Spain, it passed the Platt Amendment which gave the US the right to intervene in Cuba to protect "life, property, and individual liberties." The 144-day war also resulted in the US taking control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

27. The Roosevelt Corollary
In 1904, when Germany demanded a port in the Dominican Republic as compensation for an unpaid loan, Theodore Roosevelt announced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine, declaring that the United States would be the policeman of the Caribbean and Central America.

28. Interventions in Western Hemisphere
To enforce order, forestall foreign intervention, and protect economic interests, the United States intervened in the Caribbean and Central America some twenty times over the next quarter century -- in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama.

29. American Support of Dictators
Each intervention put into power a dictator supportive of American interests (Somoza in Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, and Duvalier in Haiti).
Somoza
Trujillo
Duvalier

30. Protection of American Interests
On the whole, the United States’ actions in Latin America protected US commercial and strategic interests, but the goal of spreading democracy went mostly unfulfilled. The frequent use of military force also engendered widespread resentment in the region.