US Foreign Policy

America prior to the Civil War

  1. Westward Movement

Lewis & Clark Expedition (1803-1806)

Manifest Destiny “Go West Young Man, Go West” Horace Greeley

James Sullivan Democratic Review

a.

b.

c.

Monroe Doctrine (1824)

Connected American democratic principles to Latin America

Eliminated future European imperialism in Latin America

Westward Movement

Fur Trappers/ Jedediah Smith

Oregon Trail/Gila Trail/ Santa Fe Trail

Natural Resources

California Gold Rush (1849)

Nevada Comstock Lode (1859)

Cultural Conflicts

  1. Texas Independence
  2. Mexican-Am. War (1846-1848)
  3. Land Act of 1850
  4. Fort Laramie Treaty
  5. Slavery in the West
  1. Popular sovereignty
  2. 1850 Compromise
  3. Kansas-Nebraska Act

Post-Civil War Foreign Policy

The Rationale

  1. New Imperialism
  1. New markets
  2. Sources of raw material
  1. International Darwinism

“survival of the fittest”

  1. Missionary Impulse

Reverend Josiah Strong Our Country: Its Possible Future and Present Crisis (1885)

  1. Naval Power

Alfred T. Mahan The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890)

  1. Closing of the Western Frontier

Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis (1892)

American Acquisitions

1867: Alaska

$7.2 million

Seward’s Ice Box

1885: Hawaii

Base at Pearl Harbor

1889: Pan American Conference

Beginning of hemispheric cooperation

Secretary of State James G. Blaine

1893: Hawaii

Overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani

Causes of the Spanish-American War

  1. Yellow Journalism

William Randolph Hearst

Joseph Pulitzer

  1. Cuban Revolt in 1895

General Valeriano Weyler

Relocation camps

  1. Economic Interest (New Markets + Natural Resources)
  2. Military Interest

Theodore Roosevelt and the Large Policy

  1. De Lome Letter (Jan. 1898)
  2. Sinking of the USS Maine (February 1898)

The Spanish-American War: April-August 1898

  1. Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders

San Juan Hill

  1. Admiral Dewey defeats Spanish at Manila Bay

Result:

U.S. acquires Cuba and the Philippines

What to do?

Cuba

Platt Amendment

US naval base at Guantanamo Bay

Never sign a treaty with a foreign power that impaired independence

Philippines

Annexation or Not?

Anti-Imperialists: William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Samuel Gompers, Andrew Carnegie

Imperialists: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Albert Beveridge

Emilio Aguinaldo leads revolt (1899-1901)

Insular cases (1901-1903): Defined rights of the Filipino citizen

Constitution did not extend to territorial possessions

China

1899: Open Door Policy

Secretary of State John Hay

Free trade for an occupied China: Japan, Russia, England, France

1900: Boxer Rebellion

1901: Hay’s Second Round of Notes

  1. U.S. committed to China’s territorial integrity
  2. Safeguard “equal and impartial trade” with Chinese empire

Latin American Policy

1903: Panama overthrows Colombian rule

Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty

The Panama Canal (1904-1914)

The Big Ditch/Doctor William Gorgas + yellow fever

Hay-Pauncefote Treaty gives U.S. right to build canal

The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

U.S. becomes the “policeman” in Latin America

Big Stick Diplomacy

“Speak softly and carry a big stick” Theodore Roosevelt

Russo-Japanese War (1905)

Treaty of Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Roosevelt receives the Nobel Peace Prize

1907: Great White Fleet

1908: Gentlemen’s Agreement

Issue: Anti-Japanese sentiment in California

Root-Takahira Agreement

U.S.-Japan agree to honor Open Door policy