Seizing an American Empire

Chapter 22 Guiding Questions• What motivated America’s “new imperialism”?• What was the role of religion as a motive for

American territorial expansion?• What were the causes of the War of 1898?• What did the United States gain from the War of

1898?• What were the main achievements of President

Roosevelt’s foreign policy?

Imperialist Theory

• Many proponents for expansion used the concept of Social Darwinism to bolster their claims on foreign lands, citing the superiority of the English-speaking races over the colonies’ inhabitants.

American Expansion In a critical comment on William H. Seward’s 1867 purchase of Alaska, this cartoon represents the territory as a block of ice labeled “Russian America.”

Queen Liliuokalani

• American planters flooded Hawaii due to a boom in the production of sugar.

• These planters then requested territory status.

• The Hawaiian queen sought to preserve her nation’s independence.

The sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor

• The uproar created by the incident and its coverage in the “yellow press” helped to push President William McKinley to declare war.

Yellow Journalism• The actions of the Spanish would be luridly

portrayed by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal newspapers, then locked in a competition for the most readers.

• The newspapers engaged in sensationalist stories about Cuba that were dubbed “yellow journalism.”

Manila and The Cuban Campaign

The Debate over Annexation

McKinley – Page 912 (Tindall)

American motivation for imperialism:

1. National Glory“dishonorable” to give them back to Spain

2. Commerce

“bad business” to turn them over to France or Germany

3. Racial Superiority

“unfit for self-government”

4. Evangelism”uplift and civilize and Christianize them”

“Well, I Hardly Know Which to Take First!” At the end of the nineteenth century, it seemed that Uncle Sam had developed a considerable appetite for foreign territory.

“The Open Door” • Germany, France, Russia,

and Great Britain began dividing China up into markets for their expansion.

• Unwilling to accept a China that was divided so many ways, the United States issued the Open Door Note, which proposed leaving China open to trade by all nations.

U.S. troops marching in Beijing after quelling the Boxer Rebellion.

• A group of Chinese nationalists known as the Boxers would rebel against the foreign encroachments into their country.

• They were eventually put down by intervention from a joint assault of British, German, Russian, Japanese, and American forces.

Digging the Canal President Theodore Roosevelt operating a steam shovel during his 1906 visit to the Panama Canal.

• The Spanish American War revealed the need for a canal between the two seas.

• The United States now set out to build one through Panama.

• The canal would eventually open in 1914.