L5: American Involvement the Latin AmericaAmerican Foreign Policy

AgendaObjective:1. To evaluate three

competing interpretations for why the United States was involved in Latin America.

Schedule: 2. Group Work

Homework:1. Consult Unit

Schedule for Background Reading.

2. Work on Civic Literacy Assignment. First assignment due L8 (Tan = Fri 5/10; Red = Wed 5/15; Blue = Tues 5/14)

What Were American Policies in Latin America?

• Summarize Each with Your Group:

–Monroe Doctrine 1823

–Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine 1904

–Dollar Diplomacy 1909-1913

How American Involvement Played Out in Three Different Countries

• With your group, briefly read about how Latin American involvement played out in three different countries:– Panama– Nicaragua– The Dominican Republic

Three Different Interpretations of Latin American Policy

• With your group you will discuss three different interpretations of why the United States became involved in Latin America in the ways you just summarized.

• For each:– Discuss the interpretation for 10 minutes or

so– Write:

• Agree/Disagree & Why• 2-3 Pieces of from our country case-studies to

support your conclusion

Interpretation One: Hemisphere Defense

• Historian Samuel Flagg Bemis:

“Dollar diplomacy was not designated to profit private interests. It was intended rather to support the foreign

policy of the United States; in the instance of Latin America to support the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Taft was following the instincts and traditions of continental

security. Nicaragua, like the Dominican Republic, like Panama, like Haiti was one of the states in the entire world

where least American capital was invested. It is a well-known fact that it was only with difficultly that the

Department of State was able to persuade bankers to invest their funds for political purposes.”

Interpretation Two: Profits

• U.S. Marine Smedley Butler:

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service as a member of the country’s most agile military force—the Marine corps. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big

Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. Thus I helped make Mexico

safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-

1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make

Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903.”

Interpretation Three: Idealism

• U.S. Secretary of State under President Theodore Roosevelt, Eli Root:

“We believe that the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest members of the human family of nations are entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest. We deem the observance of that respect the chief guarantee of the weak against the oppression by the strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights, nor

privileges, nor powers that we do not freely give to every American Republic. We wish to help all friends in Latin

America to a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all become greater and stronger together.”