HIST 2112 Imperialism The advocacy practice of extending your country s power over other places outside your borders o Direct control At the point of a gun o A colony is the most firm example An army eliminates a government and replaces it with your own o Relationship goal Make the colonizers wealthy Colony is created for resources to be sent back to the home country Colonies are economically motivated o US is first major British colony also first to rebel Height of European imperialism 1880 1920 For much of this time most of the world was under some sort of European control British imperially dominated at one time many countries o The sun never set on the British empire Generally America is anti imperialists o We were colonized o We hated it Western history Manifest Destiny can be viewed as internal imperialism o Argued that it was a part of Manifest Destiny so it was not the same thing We want to become more like the British o Need colonies o Colonies are a place for industries to offload their leftover products Philippines would lead to China as well o Could also get resources from this as well Had the idea that we could assimilate the citizens of our colonies with American culture Close to the idea of spreading democracy Some felt consumerism and economic success made us soft and weak o Felt we needed an imperial adventure to make us men again o Crisis of masculinity created by economic success 1898 o Great Spanish imperialism experiment is dwindling down o Only a few colonies left o Most are rebelling Cuban rebellion Spanish respond with ruthlessly suppressing them Killed them Kept order Letter stolen by a Cuban spy and given to America o Basically said Americans were weak and cowards o Shouldn t worry about them o We don t pay much attention to it One week later February 15th U S Maine explodes in Cuban harbor o It was there to send a political message o Exploded from a boiler fire o Many thought it was a terrorist attack though o Triggered a declaration of war We had our war Takes Americans 5 days to land on Cuba o Not under fire o Just not very good o Small army on purpose Felt this would be the muscle if a tyrant took over Anti imperialists o Mark Twain Andrew Carnegie o Got the Teller Amendment passed Said that in the event we go to war to Spain we will give their colonies their freedom immediately to the end of the war o Platt Amendment Said Cuba was free Foreign policies were decided by the United States If Cuba shows insufficient progress the US has the right to remove the government with one they have more confidence in o Learned we had no intention of letting them be free o They saw us as the new Spain o Started fighting Pilipino gorillas About 4 000 Americans died
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