U.S. Imperialism and the Spanish-American War

Hi everybody. This lecture is gonna be focused on the topic of US imperialism in the kind of late 1890s, early 1900s of the US kind of extending its influence abroad outside of the borders of the US, often using its military to extend the power of the United States abroad. This is kind of the first time in the late 1890s that the US really begins to go outside of its borders, to, um, have influence over different countries and different lands. Prior to this point, remember the Civil War ended in 1865, the US was a bit more isolated. A lot of these other European countries were colonizing all of these other countries and continents all over the world, and the US was kind of contained. That begins to change here in the late 1800s, late 1890s.

So we'll start off here with just kind of a definition of what is imperialism? What is that referring to? Imperialism is when a country expands its power and influence through either using the military, diplomatic means, spreading its culture, or creating favorable economic arrangements that benefit the United States more so than the other countries. Are there differences between this term of imperialism, colonization and empire? Certainly historians have kind of gotten themselves tied into knots trying to explain what exactly is the United States at this time. Are they acting imperialistically? Are they expanding an empire? Are they colonizing other countries?

If you think of the word empire, you might often think of something like the Roman Empire where, and of all this power was emanating from Rome, but they were kind of using local indigenous rulers to rule over places in North Africa and throughout Eastern Europe and into kind of the Middle East, but they were still under the control of Rome. Colonization—you can think of from the founding of the United States, the original 13 colonies on the eastern seaboard that were a part of Britain. Although Americans were living here, they weren't American yet. They were British subjects. And that's where this, you know, whole phrase of no taxation without representation came from of Americans, then British at the time, believing that they ought to have representation in government because they're being ruled by some island way across the ocean.

Imperialism is kind of this catch all definition. So, I've kind of chosen to use this. Some people don't like using the term empire. They think this is kind of a pejorative term or something negative. Same thing with maybe colonization. Certainly the US during this time period, I would say didn't colonize quite as much. Uh, they weren't sending over Americans to live in all of these kind of various countries, particularly throughout South America that they were sending the military to. But I'll leave it up to you. You can use whatever term you'd like to describe us actions during this time period. If they were colonizing countries, ex expanding an empire, acting imperialistically. Doesn't really matter to me. Which term you decide on.

This slide here is kind of discussing how and why did America justify its expansion prior to the late 1890s in terms of how did the United States explain its expansion across the continental United States, kind of the contiguous 48 states from East coast to West coast. What were some of the reasons given by, you know, various Americans? One of the kind of earliest articulations of the US having a right to expand throughout the western hemisphere of North and South America was given by President James Monroe in 1823, in an annual presidential address. A part of his speech became known as the Monroe Doctrine, and this was during the speech he had stated that the United States would oppose any further efforts at colonization by European powers throughout North and South America. Essentially, he's saying to Europe, do not come back over here. Do not colonize any other parts of North and South America. This is for America only. There's a fear that maybe Spain might try to regain some of its former colonies that it had lost, throughout South America or that other European countries might, you know, try to colonize throughout the two continents. And he kind of stated this to the American public, but also more so as to the world at large and the European powers to stay out of the West.

Meanwhile, the United States had been continually moving westward across the continent, acquiring Native American lands by force many times to clear the ways for new railways that were being constructed to kind of create this trade network all across the country. A lot of the reasons, or some of the reasons anyway, that were given for expansion across the United States at this time—one of them was this idea of Manifest Destiny. This is a term coined by a New York journalist named John L. O’Sullivan in 1846. And this idea that's what Manifest Destiny is. It's an idea that kind of was widely believed at the time that the United States had a divinely appointed mission to occupy all of North America. It was America's Manifest Destiny to move westward, to spread democratic government far and wide to bring technology and industry alongside with it. And that people could be, you know, quote unquote “civilized” by allowing America to continually expand its influence across the continental United States.

Another reason given, slightly related to Manifest Destiny, was spreading Christianity. Throughout the early 1800s, missionaries traveled all across the US trying to convert many Native American tribes. By 1850, many US missionaries were traveling all around the world that sought to kind of spread Christianity and promote the United States along with it. Not all missionaries were advocates of imperialism or advocates of using armed force against other countries. But also many were believing this to be a good thing. If you can convert people to Christianity, you are saving them. You are saving their souls and therefore this is a good thing if the United States enters into their country or their territory and spreads its influence. And similarly related with Manifest Destiny, it's kind of that the US is exceptional as a democratic country. You know, lowercase d—has a democracy at the time when there was lots of kings and, um, you know, kind of monarchies and things like that, that the US was ruled by the people and that all people around the world should want this, that everybody should want to rule themselves.

Another reason that was often given, back then and even up until this day, I guarantee you'll see this term up until today, is this idea to secure the country's national interest. This term of national interest is a little bit ambiguous. Really simply, it kind of means that the United States will do what it must to benefit itself. That was oftentimes at the expense of other countries. But where the term gets a little ambiguous is sometimes national interest, what is in the national interest of the United States could change from president to president. Maybe one president would find it beneficial to go try to colonize or take over some country. Maybe another president would not find it to be in the national interest 'cause it could, promote a harmful view of the United States. But this is back then and today still a term that's often given that the US is acting in its national interest in order to secure the best benefit of the United States.

You can see in that painting there by John Gast called American Progress, kind of this idea of Manifest Destiny, in particular showing kind of lady liberty, moving westward, chasing away Native American tribes. It's bringing along telegraph lines. It's bringing along an education book, bringing along technology and industry that moving westward will bring good things to all peoples.

Just kind of very briefly here, you can pause if you'd like to look at this in more detail. But this is kind of showing a kind of what the world situation was in the late 1800s, um, showing the kind of influence, the colonization of colonization of various empires or countries around the world. You can see that Africa has been pretty much entirely colonized. This came out of a conference in 1885 called the Berlin Conference, where all of the European powers got together, sat around a table and decided, you know, let's not fight over colonization of who gets what. Let's just kind of peacefully decide who gets what in Africa. So the British, the Dutch, the Germans, the, you know, the French, all of them kind of divvied up who gets what territory to colonize throughout Africa. The United States was kind of left off that meeting. They weren't allowed in. They had already kind of claimed the Western hemisphere for themselves. So Europeans didn't invite Americans to divide up and colonize Africa.

You can see that all of South America there is pretty much in white with a little bit of an exception there in the northeast, essentially saying that it was un-colonized at this point. No power had really leaned, uh, laid claim to it as of yet. You can also see China gonna talk about this later, that China was mostly un-colonized. Although the British have a railway that kind of runs throughout the middle of China, the Russians also have a railway that they're using to extract raw materials and resources from China. But China was still kind of up for debate at this point as to who exactly would have claim to colonize the country. You can also see just south of in of China, there's French Indochina, that had been colonized by the French Indochina is also known as Vietnam. The French had colonized the country of Vietnam, and later it would be Americans that go to war there. I'm gonna talk about that a lot later. All that is to say that a lot of these European powers in Russia, were expanding their influence all throughout the world.

So what was going on kind of in the 1890s that was kind of compelling, the United States to do more of that, do more of the same like the Europeans were doing. We have that whole process of industrialization and this industrial growth created the need for new markets, particularly during depressions in the 1870s and 1890s when the economy wasn't doing well. You know, Americans can't buy all of the new stuff being produced, but now factories can produce so much more. So what do you do with it? Try to send it abroad, try to find new markets to send it to. But again, this is more difficult if the Europeans, whether whatever country it is, have colonized different parts of the world. Maybe they're not open to US trade. So the US was struggling to figure out where can it sell its excess stuff? How can they create more, you know, economic growth that way and thereby kind of more power by spreading its influence.

Another kind of crisis at this time period was that the US Navy was very weak compared to these other European powers of Britain, France, Germany, et cetera. Again, you can think the Civil War is only a few decades in the rear view mirror. The United States had spent a few years fighting against itself, fighting against each other. There was no kind of massive military like we're used to today, where, you know, the US military is the biggest and strongest in the world. That was not the case in the late 1800s. The US Navy was very weak compared to other powers. For example, just to kinda give you some examples of this, in 1880, the head of the Ottoman Empire, which is modern day Turkey, decided to close three foreign embassies in order to reduce expenses in their country. And they chose the countries of Sweden, Belgium, and the United States to close their embassies basically saying, well, we're never gonna work with the United States. They're not doing anything. They're not out and about in the world. We don't need them. We don't need an embassy in our country. Also in 1880, the American Navy was smaller than both the countries of Denmark and Chile in South America. This was just kind of comparatively the US had a very weak navy. It was not built up like it is today.

This started to change in this time period. And a lot of this is due to a, uh, military theorist named Alfred Thayer Mahan, who wrote a very influential book for US policymakers in 1890 called The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. And essentially this book argues, Mahan argues, in the Influence of Sea Power Upon History, that throughout history, at least in modern times in the last few hundred years, that economic rivalries were the true source of global conflict. And that often the country that has the greatest navy holds the biggest advantage in commerce and that merchant classes must therefore be protected by a powerful Navy operating from oversee bases. As Mahan said in his book, “Americans must now begin to look outward.” His book would be highly influential among the political and military elite who saw merit in this argument that the US needed to bolster its navy in order to protect kind of a merchant class sending new items abroad, which again, now the United States has the capacity and the ability to make following that period of industrialization to make all sorts of stuff to send abroad.

Mahan's book was read widely, um, by all sorts of kind of political elites, including Teddy Roosevelt, who at this point was a secretary— Assistant Secretary of the Navy, later US President. He was kind of a big advocate of Alfred Thayer Mahan in pushing the United States, the United States to create a much more powerful US Navy. Ultimately, this would provide policy makers with kind of justifications for overseas expansion and for building up the US Navy over time.

This is just kind of a quick picture showing the kind of expansion of the United States westward from 1776 moving across the Louisiana purchase from France. Then there's the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s, the kind of pushed all the way to the West coast. But then the question is where to expand next, kind of we've run out of room to keep expanding. So the first stop on kind of the US expanding outside of its original borders was in 1893. There was a coup that overthrew the queen of Hawaii. Essentially, there was a tax that was passed—a tariff, which is a tax on kind of all imports coming into the United States. There was a tax on sugar that was passed in 1890 and Sanford B. Dole was a sugar planter. You may have heard of the Dole Fruit Company, but Sanford B. Dole was a sugar, uh, plantation owner in Hawaii that really did not like this new tax, this new tariff that was passed in 1890. So by 1893, he helped to organize a coup that overthrew the queen of Hawaii, in order to make it an American territory or state, and therefore would not have to pay this tariff or tax on sugar that was being applied to everyone else around the world. And this was kind of the first stop on the US expanding its influence abroad. This would've been supported by the US government. Basically, Sanford B. Dole contacted some of his friends in Washington and asked for some help. They sent a detachment of 162 Marines there who took over Hawaii. They put the queen under house arrest. And she gave up power kind of knowing that there would be no way to really oppose the American military, 'cause even though the US military was weak compared to today at this point, the Hawaiian military was pretty much non-existent. They were very much reliant on Americans at that point. So that's kind of the first part.

But the next big stop that would result in a war is in Cuba. This is the Spanish-American War. I've got the second bullet point here just to try to be kind of clear about this because it's kind of different countries and peoples involved of what this war was about or who was involved. So this war that broke out in 1898, the Spanish-American War was fought between Americans and their Cuban allies versus the country of Spain. The Spanish had colonized Cuba long time ago. It was one of their kind of few remaining colonial holdings in the Western hemisphere. And many of the Cubans did not like this. There was a failed Cuban revolt in 1868, 10 years of kind of warfare followed between the Cubans and the Spanish. And there was kind of an independence movement that was growing in Cuba by 1895. Meanwhile, the Spanish had a policy of rounding up civilians and moving them into detention camps and treating them very poorly. Anybody who was resisting the Spaniards in Cuba were treated very, very harshly. And this began to grow support in the Americas. As many Americans were saying, we ought to free the Cubans. The Cubans are being very, you know, very poorly treated by the Spaniards. So again, many of the Cubans wanted independence from Spain. They wanted to rule themselves, they wanted to be independent. Kinda a similar situation with the United States and the British way back in 1776, and many Americans also then supported the Cubans saying, yes, they ought to rule themselves. We ought to get them out of there or get the Spanish out of there. Many American newspapers, which is the New York Journal, the New York World, the New York Times, lots of newspapers throughout the country were kind of supportive of the US getting the Spaniards out of Cuba saying that the Cubans are being mistreated and that the US ought to do something about it.

However, President McKinley, who was the president from kind of the end of the last lecture we talked about, didn't really want to go there so much. He wanted to avoid armed conflict despite many Americans kind of hoping the Cubans to be freed. But what he did do was he sent a US warship called the USS Maine down to dock in Havana Harbor in Cuba. He sent it down there to kind of protect US interests, US traders that were in the area. He became increasingly concerned about the safety of US citizens throughout Cuba, believing that with so much kind of animosity building up in America towards Spanish rule throughout the country of Cuba, that maybe Americans could be at risk. So he sent this warship, the USS Maine down there to kind of serve as a, um, kind of reminder of US power and that perhaps US could do something if it came to it. However, McKinley's hand was forced a little bit, 'cause on February 15th, 1898, the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor. In retrospect, it's still not, it's still not entirely clear how or why it blew up. Most kind of excavations of that ship in the time since had shown some explosion in the engine room, and it is kind of mostly accepted that there was likely some kind of combustion, some kind of engine failure that caused the USS Maine to blow up. There was no evidence that it was blown up from the outside or attacked from the outside. And, uh, the Spanish certainly didn't claim any responsibility for this ship blowing up in Havana Harbor. There's been a ton of documentaries and kind of subsequent investigations, but there's never been a kind of 100% clear this is what happened with the USS Maine. But one way or the other, this big US ship, USS Maine blows up in Havana Harbor in Cuba, on again, February 15th, 1898. Much of the press blamed Spain for this and insisted on retribution. And after Spain rejected an American demand for a ceasefire on the island and the eventual Cuban independence, essentially Americans were telling Spain, alright, stop fighting the Cubans and start to pull out of the country. The Spanish said, no, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna remain in Cuba. So in April of 1898, President McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war against Spain, and it was granted thus beginning the Spanish-American War.

You can see on this political cartoon from the time period kind of much of how the press was portraying this conflict. It says, you know, the famous kind of phrase from this was, remember the Maine, and it also says beneath that, and don't forget the starving Cubans talking about how the Cubans were very mistreated by the Spanish and they must be freed. Meanwhile, the Spanish must have blown up the Maine is kind of how a lot of the press was selling this. And in turn, how McKinley was also selling it to Congress, that the Spanish blew up the Maine, therefore the United States must respond with force and a declaration of war.

So how did it go? In the words of John Hay, who's the Secretary of State at the time, it's kind of the, um, governmental position of the person that's in charge of diplomacy. But John Hay had written to Vice President Teddy Roosevelt at this time that this was a splendid little war. That this was a, um, a war that went very well. And the reason he kind of referred to that is that this was a very quick war. It was over within only four months, and the United States won pretty decisively for defeating the Spanish. The most decisive battle of this kind of four month conflict against the Spanish over the territory of Cuba happened actually in the Philippines way across the other side of the world. It's kind of in south islands in Southeast Asia, it's in, uh, the Philippines that the Spanish naval fleet, the majority of it was docked there. And, and kind of around midnight on May 1st, the American Navy under Admiral George Dewey kind of pulled up on the Spanish fleet without them realizing they were there kind of using the cover of night and decimated the Spanish fleet in the Manila Bay in the Philippines. This essentially prevented the Spanish from really responding in any substantial way. Their whole kind of Navy was decimated at Manila Bay, but often what's kind of the most publicized battle is that of the taking of San Juan Hill. A lot of that is due to this kind of picture on the right, you can see the gentleman in the center there standing under the American flag was Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt had volunteered to go and fight in Cuba. He resigned from his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to raise a volunteer cavalry unit. But he also kind of meant this to be a kind of a boost for his publicity. He wanted it, he envisioned his unit as kind of a cross-section of American society. He enrolled athletes from Ivy League colleges, Western cowboys, representatives from various immigrant groups, and even some American Indians. And he kind of posted this photo of his, you know, the rough riders as they were called. And I, I guess he didn't post the photo, the internet didn't exist. But this was publicized throughout many newspapers that, you know, Teddy Roosevelt went and fought against the Spanish and defeated them at San Juan Hill fighting against Spanish forces there. It wasn't as consequential of a battle, uh, in, in terms especially because the Spanish were outnumbered in this battle, 16 to 1. So there were 16 Americans to every one Spanish soldier. So it was more of a rout, it was more kind of a, just running the Spanish off the hill. It wasn't as kind of a this long protracted battle or anything like that. And it certainly wasn't as influential as this battle in the Manila Bay where the whole Spanish fleet was decimated and they really had no way to respond or reinforce their people throughout Cuba.

So with that, this splendid little war, as John Hay had said, was over, again only in four months. And through the kind of negotiations with Spain, the ultimate victory of the Americans in the Spanish-American War provided the United States with control over the Philippines—islands in Southeast Asia, the country Puerto Rico, and Guam. Whereas Cuba was supposedly, supposed to be more so free and autonomous. However, so for many Americans then this was kind of a celebratory moo—US won this war. But at, you know, at the same time, it was all about kind of freeing Cuba. There was a drink that was served throughout America at the time called the Cuba Libre, called, you know, free Cuba, free Cuba from Spanish rule. But interestingly, when the new Cuban government was now to take place before recognizing Cuban independence, President McKinley had forced the island's new government to approve a, what was called the Platt amendment within the new Cuban constitution. Uh, this was drafted by Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut. It's kind of how it got its name, the Platt amendment. But essentially what this Platt Amendment was, was a provision in the Cuban constitution. Now the new Cuban government, this Platt Amendment had stated that the, that the US was authorized to intervene militarily in the affairs of Cuba whenever its saw fit. And the United States would also acquire a permanent lease on naval stations throughout Cuba, including what is now at the facility at Guantanamo Bay. The Platt Amendment narrowly passed by one vote in Cuba, but essentially they had to pass this in order for the US to okay their new constitution. And again, you can think about what that means is that the US whenever it wants through this Platt Amendment, can intervene in Cuban affairs. They can send the military down whenever they want to. So this really denies Cubans the autonomy, the kind of ability of self-rule that they were searching for. One Cuban revolutionary named Jose Marti had written at the time with the passage of this Platt Amendment that quote, “to change masters is not to be free.” So many Cubans were dismayed by this. They believed that the United States was helping to free Cuban from Spanish rule so that they could rule themselves, when in fact it essentially allowed the United States control over Cuba. Again, if you want to use the word colonization or imperialism or expanding influence or empire, it's kind of up for debate. But the United States would intervene several times in Cuba over the early 1900s. And the memory of this kind of event in 1898, the end of the Spanish-American War would help inspire another Cuban revolution, half a century later. When a communist revolution takes over Cuba, and many Cubans were very angry at the United States, many people were wondering, you know, how could Cuba turn into a communist country? It wasn't as much because they loved this idea of communism or socialism as much as they harbored animosity towards the United States due to this Platt Amendment and how the whole Spanish American war ended in 1898.

So while this war, the Spanish American War was a fairly quick, what would end up being a lot longer, one more protracted was the Philippine War from 1899 to 1903. Again, if you remember, part of the victory spoils for the United States winning the Spanish-American War was they acquired the Philippines. The Philippines were actually thrown in by Spain as kind of a, an extra bundle deal. The United States acquired the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. The Spanish basically said, yes, you can also have the Philippines, if you give us 20 million, then you can also have Puerto Rico and Guam as well. That's what happened. So the US paid Spain $20 million and acquired the Philippines. Um, Filipionos were initially elated and then not. Similar situation as what happened in Cuba. Many thought that the United States was going to free Cuba to rule themselves that Platt Amendment made it difficult for them to do so. And now the United States just kind of outright purchased the Philippines that was colonized by the Spanish, but is now owned by the United States, or at least it was back then. There was this whole kind of continual resistance movement against the United States led by Emilio Aguinaldo. And this kind of protracted, gruesome guerrilla war ensued. Where many Filipinos were just trying to fight the Americans very small scale battles, trying to kind of pick them off one by one trying to, you know, wear the Americans down, but eventually it would not work. And Emilio Aguinaldo was captured and essentially told the rest of the revolutionaries to give up. The United States has won. A future president, William Howard Taft would become the Governor General of the Philippines in 1901. Essentially, it's just a term that was used then of saying he's the kind of American that's going to be heading up the kind of reorientation of the Philippines. Filipinos were appointed to government posts, it's kind of the trade off, I guess, is that many kind of native Filipinos were allowed to work under American rule in kind of, administering rule in local areas. But still a lot of the rural population did not as much benefit from this. There was kind of a handful of Filipinos that, were made more wealthy, were able to benefit, but a lot of the rural population were forced to kind of change their, you know, agricultural practices to cash crops, to things that could be exported for more profit. So this would also kind of build up some resentment towards the United States at this time. At the same time though, you know, the United States wasn't doing what a lot of the Europeans were. They didn't move there en masse and completely colonize or have a bunch of Americans move there and kind of take over the Philippines. Americans did allow some Filipinos to, to rule in government positions. So again, this kinda leads to some of the ambiguity of how you exactly describe American actions during this time period.

So what did President McKinley say here about why did he want to take the Philippines? Uh, President McKinley was asked by a reporter in 1903 about kind of, why did you take the Philippines or what did you want out of this? And this is McKinley's response. Read kinda a quote here from President McKinley. He had said, “The truth is I didn't want the Philippines. And when they came to us as a gift from the Gods, I did not know what to do with them. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight, and I am not ashamed to tell you gentlemen that I went down to my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance. And then one night it came to me this way, I don't know how, but it came that we could not give them back to Spain,” talking about the Philippines. “We could not give them back to Spain. That would be cowardly and dishonorable. We could not turn them over to France and Germany, our commercial rivals in the Orient that would be bad business and discreditable, we could not leave them to rule themselves. They were unfit for self-government and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's ever was. And there was nothing left for us to do, but to take them all to educate the Filipinos, uplift civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace, do the very best we could by them as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, I went to sleep and I slept soundly. And the next morning I sent for the Chief Engineer the War Department, and I told him to put the Philippines in the map of the United States. And there they are, and they will, there they will stay while I am President.” So again, McKinley's kind of summary of that, he's saying that can't give them back to Spain. That would be cowardly and dishonorable, can't turn them over to France and Germany. There are kind of economic rivals in Asian trade. We can't leave them to rule themselves. They were unfit for self-government and that it would be beneficial to uplift, civilize and Christianize these people. It would be beneficial to them. So that's kind of how President McKinley justified actions in the Philippines.

Here you can see kind of a President McKinley campaign poster. He's running for election. Kind of has some of these ideas encompassed in this of, you know, “prosperity at home,” kind of increasing the economic power at home, “prestige abroad” as the United States is expanding through commerce and civilization expansion. I'll allow you to pause here if you want. You can kinda see some of these similar ideas playing out of this kind of a more of a critical cartoon of kind of, Uncle Sam educating the “New Class” as this cartoon is titled of American Citizens or Subjects.

Finally, this leads us to kind of another expansion of US power in the late 18, uh, 1800s with the kind of implementation of the Open Door Policy in China. US industries were increasingly dependent on trade with China because just like today, back then China had the most populous country in the world. At that point in 1898, 1899, there were about 80 million Americans and 400 million Chinese people. So with an economy that is booming and creating lots of stuff, it makes sense. You would like to trade with the most populous country in the world. So it's a, you know, group of people that can buy all of your surplus stuff that you are creating. And US industries kept wanting to push more and more to trade into China. But if you remember back to that, uh, picture I'd shown earlier, if you can go back and look at it if you'd like, China was still kind of up for grabs. Nobody, no European countries had definitively colonized China. The British had railways, the Russians had railways, but nobody had definitively carved up China yet for colonization. So in 1899, Secretary of State, John Hay, had sent out this note basically to all European powers asking to have open trade in China or have an Open Door Policy throughout China that anybody can come in, anybody can trade. He was asking the Europeans for kind of no spheres of influence. Nobody gets to monopolize trade in China, let it be for all the world to trade with. And he called for all Western powers again to have equal access to Chinese markets. He was fearing, John Hay was, that other imperial powers and potentially Japan, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy planned to carve China into their own spheres of influence. And he tried to prevent that. But many Europeans kind of blew this off. They thought, who cares America, who are you guys to tell us what to do? You already decided you have the Western Hemisphere, you don't need to take part in this. Let us do our own thing over in China. The Chinese for their part also really liked the American position here. This is why I do think this is a pretty smart diplomatic maneuver on behalf of the United States. Because the Chinese really liked this idea. They didn't want to be carved up into spheres of influence and have their country kind of piecemeal divided amongst European powers. So they were also kind of promoting this as well. But many Europeans ignored it. They thought, you know, who are you to tell us what to do?

This began to change in the year 1900 when the Chinese began to fight against European dominance of their economy. As more and more Europeans were moving into the country and trying to, you know, monopolize or kind of establish spheres of influence over different parts of China, many Chinese people started to uh, fight back. And this was the Boxer Rebellion in the year 1900. This is essentially when a whole group of Chinese individuals began to go around the country and fight against Europeans. They were killing European business owners, you know, church leaders, missionaries, anybody that was a foreigner to China was being attacked by many Chinese people. So the United States kind of took this as an opportunity to show that it can have some more influence in that country. So the United States would send over part of its military to fight against the Chinese that were rebelling. They worked kind of hand in the Americans now worked hand in hand with European powers to put down this Boxer Rebellion again, of the Chinese rebellion against European rule. And eventually they did. So eventually, the Boxer Rebellion was put down with the help of the American military working alongside Europeans to kind of put down this countrywide rebellion against European rule. So finally with that happening now, this kind of Boxer Rebellion, the Europeans, all the European countries and Japan tentatively agree to this Open Door Policy, they decide, okay, I guess you're right. Maybe we shouldn't push too much to have spheres of influence. Let's all kind of trade equally throughout China. Let's go along with this Open Door Policy that was put forth by John Hay. The one exception to that was Russia. Russia did not. They still didn't like the idea. They wanted to have their own sphere of influence in China. Eventually this would lead to a war that they will lose, that we may get to later. But all of that is to say that again, United States now has this kind of foothold of trade in China that is much more secured, that will benefit US industries, who are producing lots of excess stuff from that industrialization time period.

Here is a, again, kind of a political cartoon that is kind of showcasing this idea. From 1900 it says, “and after all, the Philippines are only the stepping stone to China.” And it's kind of showing Uncle Sam, uncle Sam using the Philippines, which is kind of a use, uh, a way to refuel all your ships, kind of refuel everything to kind of keep moving onward towards China. You can see Uncle Sam carrying, you know, education, religion, steel rails, bridges, mowing machines. You can see China on the other side that wants bridges, engines, cars, rails, sewing machines, reapers, plows. Kind of hoping that this will be the start of a massive influx of US made stuff going into China.

That's it for this lecture is just kind of again, explaining how the US began to go out and about kind of the outcome of the Spanish-American war, the Philippine American War, and kind of how and why the US got involved and that they're looking to expand a lot of trade into Southeast Asia, but they didn't really have the military means to do so themselves at that time. They didn't have the strong Navy, but it is starting to build up, built on the ideas of Alfred Thayer Mahan.