American Imperialism Dbq

The last quarter of the nineteenth century is known as the age of imperialism and for most of this period, the United States remained a second-rate power. After 1870, the “new imperialism” was dominated by Japan and European powers. Countries such as Great Britain, France, and Belgium consolidated their hold on their colonies in Africa, and then Germany acquired colonies there also. By the early twentieth century, most of the Middle East, Asia and Africa had been divided among these empires. In the 1890s, America had a major turning point with its relationship with the rest of the world. The United States emerged as an imperial power by the postwar attainment of overseas empire, such as Hawaii being annexed, the United States also acquire the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Guam. Not only did the United States acquired these territories but they also spread racial views to the new colonial possessions.

Americans were well aware that they were emerging world power, Henry Watterson, an influential newspaper editor, proclaimed that “[Americans] are a great imperial Republic designated to exercise a controlling influence upon the actions of mankind and to affect the future of the world”.

(Foner, v. 2, p. 534). In 1867, William H. Seward purchased the last territorial acquisition from Russian, which was Alaska, which costed $7.2 million and occupied the Midway Islands in the Pacific.From the Civil War until the 1890s, Americans had little interest in territorial expansion. Most Americans who looked over seas were just interested in expanding trade, not territorial possessions. The United States’ agricultural and industrial production could not longer be absorbed completely at home. Business leaders insisted on the necessity of a great access to foreign countries, “companies like Singer Sewing Machines and John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company aggressively marketed their products abroad (Foner, v. 2, p.

534).

Hawaii was closely tied to the United States “through treaties that exempted imports of its sugar from tariff duties and provided establishment of an American naval base at Pearl Harbor. Hawaii’s economy was dominated by American-owned sugar plantations that employed a workforce of native islanders and Chinese, Japanese and Filipino laborers under long-term contracts” (Foner v. 2, p. 535). And in July of 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii, in the middle of the Spanish-American War. By Hawaii being annexed, the United States extended “territory into the Pacific and highlighted resulted from economic integration and the rise of the the United States as a Pacific power” (U.S Department of State). Hawaii was made territory in 1900 and Dole became its first governor. Hawaii and Alaska, both became states in 1959.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 ended Spain’s colonial empire in Western Hemisphere and secured the position of the United States as a Pacific power. The origins of this war, the United States against Spain was preceded because Cuban revolutionaries wanted to gain independence from the Spanish colonial rule. On April 20th, 1898 the United States congress “passed a joint resolution that acknowledged Cuban independence, demanded that the Spanish government give up control of the island, foreswore any intention on the part of the United States to annex Cuba, and authorized Mckinley to use whatever military measures he deemed necessary to guarantee Cuba’s independence” (U.S Department of State). But Spain rejected this ultimatum and immediately severed diplomatic relations with the United States.

The religious missionaries, was one of the groups of Americans who spread the nation’s influences overseas. In the late nineteenth century, thousands of these missionaries traveled abroad to preach Christianity, to uplift the poor and to prepare the world of Christ’s second coming. A Methodist evangelist inspired the “Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions [who] sent more than 8,000 missionaries to ‘bring light to heathen worlds’ across the globe” (Foner, v. 2, p. 534).