Spanish-American War

1
Spanish-American War

• American Neo-Imperialism
• And American Foreign Policy

2
Platt Amendment (1901)

• U.S.-Cuban Agreement
• Never to sign a treaty with foreign power that
  impairs independence.
• Never to build up an excessive public debt
• To permit the U.S. to intervene in Cubas affairs
  to preserve its independence and maintain law and
  order
• To allow the U.S. to maintain naval bases in
  Cuba, including one at Guantanamo Bay.

3
Open Door Policy with China

• John Hay spheres of influence
• Boxer Rebellion
• Hays Second Note
• Preserve Chinas territorial integrity
• Safeguard equal and impartial trade with all
  parts of the Chinese empire.

4
Panama Canal

• Rationale for Canal
• Revolution in Panama Columbian Influence
• U.S. connection from Pacific to Atlantic
• Military
• Imperialism and trade / spheres of influence
• Future income from use
• Limit availability and control/persuade other
  nations for use agreements.

5
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901)

• Great Britain agreed to abrogate an earlier 1850
  agreement in which a Central American canal would
  be U.S. and British. Abrogate cancel
• U.S. can now build canal without British control.

6
Building the Canal

• Started in 1904 completed in 1914
• George Goethals and Dr.William Gorgas
• Goethals Chief engineer and canal zone
  administrator
• Gorgas Minimizes yellow fever do to mosquitoes

7
Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

• Latin American financial debt to Europe.
• 1902 British war ships dispatched to Venezuela
  for repayment of debt.
• 1904 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
  European repayment of debt and land disputes.
• Dec. 1904 U.S. will intervene instead.
  (Roosevelt Corollary) U.S. would occupy major
  ports collection of taxes to satisfy foreign
  debt.
• 1912 - Lodge Corollary

8
Roosevelt Corollary in Use

• Over the next 20yrs
• Haiti
• Honduras
• Dominican Republic
• Nicaragua
• Long-term result is U.S. negative (resented)
  relationship with Latin America.

9
Presidency in Trouble

• Latin America angered at T.R.s role in Panama
  Revolution.
• Teller Amendment U.S. limited imperialists
• Philippine and Cuban Annexation are contended and
  quite different. The U.S. has an Interventionist
  motive.
• In 1921, U.S. will pay Columbia 25 million for
  its loss of Panama.

10
Tafts message to Congress

• On December 3, 1912, President Taft looked back
  at the foreign policy followed by the United
  States during his administration and noted
• "The diplomacy of the present administration has
  sought to respond to modern ideas of commercial
  intercourse. This policy has been characterized
  as substituting dollars for bullets. It is one
  that appeals alike to idealistic humanitarian
  sentiments, to the dictates of sound policy and
  strategy, and to legitimate commercial aims."

11
RootTakahira Agreement

• An agreement between the United States and the
  Empire of Japan negotiated between U.S. Secretary
  of State Elihu Root and Japanese Ambassador to
  the United States Takahira.
• Signed in November of 1908, the agreement
  consisted of an official recognition of the
  territorial status quo as of November 1908,
  affirmation of the independence and territorial
  integrity of China. (i.e. the "Open Door Policy"
  as proposed by John Hay), maintenance of free
  trade and equal commercial opportunities.

12
Wilsons Moral Diplomacy

• Wilson abandoned the imperialist policy and
  brought to the White House a new way of looking
  at America's relations with the outside world.
• The U.S. was the most politically enlightened
  nation under God, he felt that all peoples
  throughout the world had the right to
  
• self-determination that the people in
  every country should have the right to
  choose their own governments.
• Secretary of State Bryan, felt that it was
  America's duty to protect democracy and free
  peoples in other countries rather than to spread
  it throughout the globe.

13
Moral Diplomacy

• Moral Diplomacy??
• He persuaded Congress to repeal the 1912 Panama
  Canal Act which exempted many American ships from
  paying the required toll for passage through the
  canal. He signed a treaty with the South American
  country of Colombia to apologize for Roosevelt's
  acts of aggression during the American- driven
  Panama Revolution in 1903.
• Wilson's attempt to help Nicaraguan rebels
  eventually required him to occupy the country by
  force in 1914. The same blunder occurred in Haiti
  in 1915 and the Dominican Republic in 1916, when
  Wilson eventually sent in American troops to
  occupy the islands. During Wilson's Presidency,
  the United States also purchased the Virgin
  Islands from Denmark. It is ironic that despite
  his loathing of imperialism and his deep belief
  in self-determination, Wilson resorted to
  military action in Latin America just as his
  predecessors had.

14
Progressive Imperialism

• Big Stick Policy
• speak softly and carry a big stick
• Strong Military but use diplomacy
• Dollar Diplomacy
• Using foreign aid to () manipulate other
  nations. - Builds dependency
• Moral Diplomacy
• Right past wrongs.
• US to expand the Constitution and Progressive
  Reforms.

15
Wilson and Mexico

• Although Wilson had problems in the Caribbean,
  his greatest challenge came from Mexico. In 1913,
  Mexico fell into a bloody revolution when Mexican
  general Victoriano Huerta overthrew the nation's
  government and declared himself its military
  dictator. Wilson immediately denounced Huerta,
  Wilson permitted Huerta's enemies, the
  Constitutionalists, to purchase military
  equipment and arms in the U.S. in order to stage
  a counterrevolution.
• When the dictator's army seized a small group of
  American sailors on shore leave in Mexico, Wilson
  demanded an apology. He also demanded that Huerta
  publicly salute the American flag in Mexico,
  which Huerta naturally refused to do. Wilson
  responded with force in April 1914, he sent
  American Marines to take and occupy Veracruz,
  Mexico's primary seaport. Veracruz was taken, but
  eighteen Americans were killed in the battle. Not
  wanting to commit the U.S. to war, Wilson also
  requested the ABC powersArgentina, Brazil, and
  Chileto mediate the dispute. With their
  arbitration, the conflict was eventually
  resolved. Huerta fled the country, and a new
  government was established in 1915 under the
  leadership of Constitutionalist President
  Venustiano Carranza.
• Despite the settlement, Wilson's Mexican troubles
  were not yet over. Soon after Carranza was
  instated as Mexico's new president, one of his
  chief generals, Pancho Villa, led a second
  revolution to depose Carranza. A second bloody
  civil war erupted in Mexico barely after the
  first had ended. To encourage the American
  military to enter the conflict, Villa sent his
  forces into the U.S., where they destroyed the
  town of Columbus, New Mexico, and killed nineteen
  Americans. This produced the reaction Villa
  sought within days of the raid on Columbus,
  Wilson sent the Punitive Expedition of 5,000 U.S.
  Army regulars, led by General John J. Pershing,
  into Mexico to find Villa.
• Within a month, Pershing and his men had traveled
  over 300 miles south into the heart of Mexico in
  an unsuccessful pursuit of Villa. Wilson ignored
  President Carranza's threats of war, and the two
  armies eventually clashed on April 12, 1916, and
  again on June 21, 1916. Both countries prepared
  for war Wilson mustered 100,000 troops on the
  border in Texas. Fortunately, however, war was
  averted when Carranza petitioned for mediation.
  An agreement was reached in early January 1917
  when Wilson recalled Pershing and officially
  recognized Carranza's government.