Chapter 26 - The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution

I. The Clash of Cultures on the Plains

1. After the Civil War, the Great West was still relatively untamed,wild, full of Indians, bison, and wildlife, and sparsely populated by afew Mormons and Mexicans.

2. As the White settlers began to populate the Great West, theIndians, caught in the middle, increasingly turned against each other,were infected with White man’s diseases, and stuck battling tohunt the few remaining bison that were still ranging around.

o The Sioux, displaced by Chippewas from the their ancestral lands atthe headwaters of the Mississippi in the late 1700s, expanded at theexpense of the Crows, Kiowas, and Pawnees, and justified their actionsby reasoning that White men had done the same thing to them.

The Indians had become great riders, hunters, and fighters ever since the Spanish had introduced the horse to them.

3. The federal government tried to pacify the Indians by signingtreaties at Fort Laramie in 1851 and Fort Atkinson in 1853 with thechiefs of the tribes. However, the U.S. failed to understand that such“tribes” and “chiefs” didn’t necessarilyrepresent groups of people in Indian culture, and that in most cases,Native Americans didn’t recognize authorities outside of theirfamilies.

4. In the 1860s, the U.S. government intensified its efforts byherding Indians into still smaller and smaller reservations (like theDakota Territory).

o Indians were often promised that they wouldn’t be botheredfurther after moving out of their ancestral lands, and often, Indianagents were corrupt and pawned off shoddy food and products to theirown fellow Indians.

o White men often disregarded treaties, though, and frequently swindled the Indians.

5. In frustration, many Native American tribes fought back. A slew ofIndian vs. White skirmishes emerged between roughly 1864 to 1890 in

theso-called “Indian Wars.”

o After the Civil War, the U.S. Army’s new missionbecame—go clear Indians out of the West for White settlers tomove in.

o Many times though, the Indians were better equipped than thefederal troops sent to quell their revolts because arrows could befired more rapidly than a muzzle-loaded rifle. Invention of the Colt.45 revolver (six-shooter) and Winchester repeating rifle changed this.

o Generals Sherman, Sheridan, and Custer (at Little Bighorn) all battled Indians.

II. Receding Native Population

1. Violence reigned supreme in Indian-White relations.o In 1864, at Sand Creek, Colorado, Colonel J.M. Chivington’s

militia massacred some four hundred Indians in cold blood—Indianswho had thought they had been promised immunity and Indians who werepeaceful and harmless.

o In 1866, a Sioux war party ambushed Captain William J.Fetterman’s command of 81 soldiers and civilians who wereconstructing the Bozeman Trail to the Montana goldfields, leaving nosurvivors.

This massacre was one of the few Indian victories, as another treaty at Fort Laramie was signed two years later.

2. Colonel Custer found gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota(sacred Sioux land), and hordes of gold-seekers invaded the Siouxreservation in search of gold, causing Sitting Bull and the Sioux to goon the warpath, completely decimating Custer’s Seventh Calvary atLittle Big Horn in the process.

o The reinforcements that arrived later brutally hunted down theIndians who had attacked, including their leader, Sitting Bull (heescaped).

3. The Nez Percé Indians also revolted when gold seekers madethe government shrink their reservation by 90%, and after a tortuousbattle, Chief Joseph finally surrendered his band after a long trekacross the Continental Divide toward Canada. He buried his hatchet

andgave his famous speech saying, “From where the sun now stands Iwill fight no more forever.”

4. The most difficult to subdue were the Apache tribes of Arizona andNew Mexico, led by Geronimo, but even they finally surrendered afterbeing pushed to Mexico, and afterwards, they became successful farmers.

5. The Indians were subdued due to (1) the railroad, which cut throughthe heart of the West, (2) the White man’s diseases, (3) theextermination of the buffalo, (4) wars, and (5) the loss of their landto White settlement.

III. Bellowing Herds of Bison

1. In the early days, tens of millions of bison dotted the Americanprairie, and by the end of the Civil War, there were still 15 millionbuffalo grazing, but it was the eruption of the railroad that reallystarted the buffalo massacre.

o Many people killed buffalo for their meat, their skins, or theirtongues, but many people either killed the bison for sport or killedthem, took only one small part of their bodies (like the tongue) andjust left the rest of the carcass to rot.

2. By 1885, fewer than 1,000 buffalo were left, and the species was indanger of extinction. Those left were mostly in Yellowstone NationalPark.

IV. The End of the Trail

1. Sympathy for the Indians finally materialized in the 1880s, helpedin part by Helen Hunt Jackson’s book A Century of Dishonor andher novel Ramona.

o Humanitarians wanted to kindly help Indians “walk the Whiteman’s road” while the hard-liners stuck to their“kill ‘em all” beliefs, and no one cared much for thetraditional Indian heritage and culture.

2. Often, zealous White missionaries would force Indians to convert,and in 1884, they helped urge the government to outlaw the sacred SunDance, called the Ghost Dance by Whites. It was a festival that Whitesthought was the war-drum beating.

o At the Battle of Wounded Knee, the “Ghost Dance” wasbrutally stamped out by U.S. troops, who killed women and children as

well. This battle marks the end of the Indian Wars as by then theIndians were all either on reservations or dead.

3. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 dissolved the legal entities of alltribes, but if the Indians behaved the way Whites wanted them to behave(become farmers on reservations), they could receive full U.S.citizenship in 25 years (full citizenship to all Indians was granted in1924). Ironically, an immigrant from a foreign nation could become acitizen much, much faster than a native-born Native American.

o Reservation land not allotted to Indians under the act was sold to railroads.

o In 1879, the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania was founded toteach Native American children how to behave like Whites, completelyerasing their culture.

o The Dawes Act struck forcefully at the Indians, and by 1900 theyhad lost half the land than they had held 20 years before. This planwould outline U.S. policy toward Indians until the 1934 IndianReorganization Act which helped the Indian population rebound and grow.

V. Mining: From Dishpan to Ore Breaker

1. Gold was discovered in California in the late 1840s, and in 1858,the same happened at Pike’s Peak in Colorado.“Fifty-Niners” flocked out there, but within a month ortwo, the gold had run out.

2. The Comstock Lode in Nevada was discovered in 1859, and a fantasticamount of gold and silver worth more than $340 million was mined.

3. Smaller “lucky strikes” also drew money-lovers toMontana, Idaho, and other western states. Anarchy in these outpostsseemed to rule, but in the end, what was left were usually ghost towns.

4. After the surface gold was found, ore-breaking machinery wasbrought in to break the gold-bearing quartz (which was very expensiveto do).

5. Women found new rights in these Western lands however, gainingsuffrage in Wyoming (1869) (the first place for women to vote), Utah(1870), Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1896).

6. Mining also added to the folklore and American literature (Bret Harte & Mark Twain).

VI. Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive

1. As cities back east boomed in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the demand for food and meat increased sharply.

2. The problem of marketing meat profitably to the public market andcities was solved by the new transcontinental railroads. Cattle couldnow be shipped to the stockyards under “beef barons” likethe Swifts and Armours.

o The meat-packaging industry thus sprang up.3. The “Long Drive” emerged to become a spectacular feeder

of the slaughterhouses, as Texas cowboys herded cattle across desolateland to railroad terminals in Kansas.

o Dodge City, Abilene, Ogallala, and Cheyenne became favorite stopovers.

At Dodge City Wyatt Earp and in Abilene, Marshal James B. Hickok maintained order.

4. The railroads made the cattle herding business prosper, but it alsodestroyed it, for the railroads also brought sheepherders andhomesteaders who built barbed-wire, invented by Samuel Glidden, fencesthat erased the open-range days of the long cattle drives.

o Also, blizzards in the winter of 1886-87 left dazed cattle starving and freezing.

5. Breeders learned to fence their ranches and to organize (i.e. the Wyoming Stock-Growers’ Association).

o The legends of the cowboys were made here at this time, but lived on in American lore.

VII. The Farmers’ Frontier

1. The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed folks to get as much as 160 acresof land in return for living on it for five years, improving it, andpaying a nominal fee of about $30.00. Or, it allowed folks to get landafter only six month’s residence for $1.25 an acre.

o Before, the U.S. government had sold land for revenue, but now, it was giving it away.

o This act led half a million families to buy land and settle outWest, but it often turned out to be a cruel hoax because in the dry

Great Plains, 160 acres was rarely enough for a family to earn a livingand survive. And often, families were forced to give up theirhomesteads before the five years were up, since droughts, bad land, andlack of necessities forced them out.

o However, fraud was spawned by the Homestead Act, since almost tentimes as much land ended up in the hands of land-grabbing promotersthan in the hands of real farmers. Sometimes these cheats would noteven live on the land, but say that they’d erected a“twelve by fourteen” dwelling—which later turned outto be twelve by fourteen inches!

2. Taming Western Desertso Railroads such as the Northern Pacific helped develop the

agricultural West, a place where, after the tough, horse-trodden landshad been plowed and watered, proved to be surprisingly fertile.

o Due to higher wheat prices resulting from crop failures around theworld, more people rashly pushed further westward, past the 100thmeridian (which is also the magic 20-inch per year rainfall line),where it was difficult to grow crops.

Here, as warned by geologist John Wesley Powell, so little rainfell that successful farming could only be attained by massiveirrigation.

To counteract the lack of water (and a six year drought in the1880s), farmers developed the technique of “dry farming,”or using shallow cultivation methods to plant and farm, but over time,this method created a finely pulverized surface soil that contributedto the notorious “Dust Bowl” several decades later.

o A Russian species of wheat—tough and resistant todrought—was brought in and grew all over the Great Plains, whileother plants were chosen in favor of corn.

o Huge federally financed irrigation projects soon caused the“Great American Desert” to bloom, and dams that tamed theMissouri and Columbia Rivers helped water the land.

VIII. The Far West Comes of Age

1. The Great West experienced a population surge, as many people moved onto the frontier.

2. New states like Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming were admitted into the Union.

o Not until 1896 was Utah allowed into the Union, and by the 20thcentury, only Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona remained as territories.

o In Oklahoma, the U.S. government made available land that hadformerly belonged to the Native Americans, and thousands of“Sooners” jumped the boundary line and illegally went intoOklahoma, often forcing U.S. troops to evict them.

o On April 22, 1889, Oklahoma was legally opened, and 18 years later, in 1907, Oklahoma became the “Sooner State.”

3. In 1890, for the first time, the U.S. census announced that a frontier was no longer discernible.

4. The “closing” of the frontier inspired the Turner Thesis, which stated that America needed a frontier.

5. At first, the public didn’t seem to notice that there was nolonger a frontier, but later, they began to realize that the land wasnot infinite, and concern led to the first national park being opened,Yellowstone, founded in 1872, followed by Yosemite and Sequoia (1890).

IX. The Fading Frontier

1. The frontier was a state of mind and a symbol of opportunity.2. The “safety valve theory” stated that the frontier was

like a safety valve for folks who, when it became too crowded in theirarea, could simply pack up and leave, moving West.

o Actually, few city-dwellers left the cities for the West, sincethey didn’t know how to farm; the West increasingly became lessand less a land of opportunity for farms, but still was good for hardlaborers and ranchers.

o Still, free acreage did lure a host of immigrant farmers to theWest—farmers that probably wouldn’t have come to the Westhad the land not been cheap—and the lure of the West may have

ledto city employers raising wages to keep workers in the cities.

3. It seems that the cities, not the West, were the safety valves, asbusted farmers and fortune seekers made Chicago and San Francisco intolarge cities.

4. Of hundreds of years, Americans had expanded west, and it was inthe trans-Mississippi west that the Indians made their last stand,where Anglo culture collided with Hispanic culture, and where Americafaced Asia.

5. The life that we live today is one that those pioneers dreamed of,and the life that they lived is one of which we can only dream.

X. The Farm Becomes a Factory

1. Farmers were now increasingly producing single “cash”crops, since they could then concentrate their efforts, make profits,and buy manufactured goods from mail order companies, such as the AaronMontgomery Ward catalogue (first sent in 1872) or from Sears.

2. Large-scale farmers tried banking, railroading, and manufacturing,but new inventions in farming, such as a steam engine that could pull aplow, seeder, or harrow, the new twine binder, and the combinedreaper-thresher sped up harvesting and lowered the number of peopleneeded to farm.

o Farmers, though, were inclined to blame banks and railroads for their losses rather than their own shortcomings.

3. The mechanization of agriculture led to enormous farms, such asthose in the Minnesota-North Dakota area and the Central Valley ofCalifornia.

o Henry George described the state as a country of plantations and estates.

o California vegetables and fruits, raised by ill-paid Mexican workers, made handsome profits when sold to the East.

XI. Deflation Dooms the Debtor

1. In the 1880s, when world markets rebounded, produced more crops,and forced prices down, the farmers in America were the ones that foundruin.

2. Paying back debts was especially difficult in this deflation-filledtime during which there was simply not enough money to go around foreveryone. Less money in circulation was called“contraction.”

3. Farmers operated year after year on losses and lived off their fatas best they could, but thousands of homesteads fell to mortgages andforeclosures, and farm tenancy rather than farm ownership wasincreasing.

4. The fall of the farmers in the late 1800s was similar to the fallof the South and its “King Cotton” during the Civil War:depending solely on one crop was good in good times but disastrousduring less prosperous times.

XII. Unhappy Farmers

1. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, droughts, grasshopper plagues,and searing heat waves made the toiling farmers miserable and poor.

2. City, state, and federal governments added to this by gouging thefarmers, ripping them off by making them pay painful taxes when theycould least afford to do so.

3. The railroads (by fixing freight prices), the middlemen (by takinghuge cuts in profits), and the various harvester, barbed wire, andfertilizer trusts all harassed farmers.

4. In 1890, one half of the U.S. population still consisted of farmers, but they were hopelessly disorganized.

XIII. The Farmers Take Their Stand

1. In the Greenback movement after the Civil War, agrarian unrest had flared forth as well.

2. In 1867, the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, betterknown as The Grange, was founded by Oliver H. Kelley to improve thelives of isolated farmers through social, educational, and fraternalactivities.

o Eventually, it spread to claim over 800,000 members in 1875, andthe Grange changed its goals to include the improvement of thecollective plight of the farmer.

o The Grangers found most success in the upper Mississippi Valley,and eventually, they managed to get Congress to pass a set ofregulations known as the Granger Laws, but afterwards, their influencefaded.

3. The Greenback Labor Party also attracted farmers, and in 1878, theGreenback Laborites polled over a million votes and elected 14 membersof Congress.

o In 1880, the Greenbackers ran General James B. Weaver, a Civil War general, but he only polled 3% of the popular vote.

XIV. Prelude to Populism

1. The Farmers’ Alliance, founded in the late 1870s, was anothercoalition of farmers seeking to overthrow the chains from the banks andrailroads that bound them.

o However, its programs only aimed at those who owned their own land,thereby ignoring the tenant farmers, and it purposely excluded Blacks.

o The Alliance members agreed on the (1) nationalization ofrailroads, (2) the abolition of national banks, (3) a graduated incometax, and (4) a new federal sub-treasury for farmers.

2. Populists were led by Ignatius Donnelly from Minnesota and MaryElizabeth Lease, both of whom spoke eloquently and attacked those thathurt farmers (banks, railroads, etc.).

3. The Alliance was still not to be brushed aside, and in the comingdecade, they would combine into a new People’s Party (AKA, thePopulist Party) to launch a new attack on the northeastern citadels ofpower.

XV. Coxey’s Army and the Pullman Strike

1. The Panic of 1893 fueled the passion of the Populists. Many disgruntled unemployed fled to D.C. calling for change.

o Most famous of these people was “General” Jacob Coxey.“Coxey’s Army” marched on Washington with scores offollowers and many newspaper reporters. They called for:

relieving unemployment by an inflationary government public works program.

an issuance of $500 million in legal tender notes.o The march fizzled out when they were arrested for walking on the

grass.

2. The Pullman Strike in Chicago, led by Eugene Debs, was more dramatic.

o Debs helped organize the workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company.

o The company was hit hard by the depression and cut wages by about 1/3.

o Workers struck, sometimes violently.o U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney called in federal troops to

break up the strike. His rationale: the strike was interfering with thetransit of U.S. mail.

o Debs went to prison for 6 months and turned into the leading Socialist in America.

XVI. Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan

1. McKinleyo The leading Republican candidate in 1896 was William McKinley,

arespectable and friendly former Civil War major who had served manyyears in Congress representing his native Ohio.

o McKinley was the making of another Ohioan, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, whofinancially and politically supported the candidate through hispolitical years.

o McKinley was a conservative in business, preferring to leavesthings alone, and his platform was for the gold standard, even thoughhe personally was not.

His platform also called for a gold-silverbimetallism—provided that all the other nations in the world didthe same, which was not bound to happen.

2. Bryano The Democrats were in disarray and unable to come up with a

candidate, until William Jennings Bryan, the “Boy Orator of thePlatte,” came to their rescue.

o At the 1896 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Bryan delivered amovingly passionate speech in favor of free silver. In this

“Cross of Gold Speech” he created a sensation and won thenomination for the Democratic ticket the next day.

The Democratic ticket called for unlimited coinage of silver withthe ratio of 16 silver ounces worth as much as one ounce of gold.

Democrats who would not stand for this left the party.o Some Democrats charged that they’d stolen the Populist ideas,

and during the Election of 1896, it was essentially the“Demo-Pop” party.

XVII. Class Conflict: Plowholders Versus Bondholders

1. McKinley won decisively, getting 271 electoral votes, mostly fromthe populous East and upper Midwest, as opposed to Bryan’s 176,mostly from the South and the West.

2. This election was perhaps the most important since the electionsinvolving Abraham Lincoln, for it was the first to seemingly pit theprivileged against the underprivileged, and it resulted in a victoryfor big business and big cities.

3. Thus, the Election of 1896 could be called the “gold vs.silver” election. And, put to the vote, it was clear then thatAmericans were going with gold.

4. Also in the election, the Middle Class preserved their comfortableway of life while the Republicans seized control of the White House of16 more years.

XVIII. Republican Standpattism Enthroned

1. When McKinley took office in 1897, he was calm and conservative, working well with his party and avoiding major confrontations.

2. The Dingley Tariff Bill was passed to replace the Wilson-Gorman lawand raise more revenue, raising the tariff level to whopping 46.5percent.

Chapter 27 - Empire and Expansion

I. America Turns Outward

1. From the end of the Civil War to the 1880s, the United States wasvery isolationist, but in the 1890s, due to rising exports,manufacturing capability, power, and wealth, it began to expand ontothe world stage, using overseas markets to sell its goods.

o The “yellow press” or “yellow journalism”of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst also influenced overseasexpansion, as did missionaries inspired by Reverend JosiahStrong’s Our Country: It’s Possible Future and Its PresentCrisis. Strong spoke for civilizing and Christianizing savages.

o People were interpreting Darwin’s theory ofsurvival-of-the-fittest to mean that the United States was the fittestand needed to take over other nations to improve them.

Such events already were happening, as Europeans had carved up Africa and China by this time.

In America, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan’s 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783,argued that every successful world power once held a great navy. Thisbook helped start a naval race among the great powers and moved theU.S. to naval supremacy. It motivated the U.S. to look to expandingoverseas.

2. James G. Blaine pushed his “Big Sister” policy, whichsought better relations with Latin America, and in 1889, he presidedover the first Pan-American Conference, held in Washington D.C.

3. However, in other diplomatic affairs, America and Germany almostwent to war over the Samoan Islands (over whom could build a naval basethere), while Italy and America almost fought due to the lynching of 11Italians in New Orleans, and the U.S. and Chile almost went to warafter the deaths of two American sailors at Valparaiso in 1892.

o The new aggressive mood was also shown by the U.S.—Canadianargument over seal hunting near the Pribilof Islands off the coast

ofAlaska.

4. An incident with Venezuela and Britain wound up strengthening the Monroe Doctrine.

o British Guiana and Venezuela had been disputing their border formany years, but when gold was discovered, the situation worsened.

o Thus, the U.S., under President Grover Cleveland, sent a notewritten by Secretary of State Richard Olney to Britain informing themthat the British actions were trespassing the Monroe Doctrine and thatthe U.S. controlled things in the Americas.

o The British replied by stating that the affair was none of the U.S's business.

o Cleveland angrily replied by appropriating a committee to devise anew boundary and if Great Britain would not accept it, then the U.S.implied it would fight for it.

o Britain didn’t want to fight because of the damage to itsmerchant trade that could result, the Dutch Boers of South Africa wereabout to go to war and Germany’s Kaiser Wilhem was beginning tochallenge Britain's power.

o Seeing the benefits of an alliance with the "Yankees," GreatBritain began a period of "patting the eagle's head," instead ofAmerica "twisting the lion's tale." This was referred to as the GreatRapprochement or reconciliation.

II. Spurning the Hawaiian Pear

1. From the 1820s, when the first U.S. missionaries came, the United States had always liked the Hawaiian Islands.

2. Treaties signed in 1875 and 1887 guaranteed commercial trade andU.S. rights to priceless Pearl Harbor, while Hawaiian sugar was veryprofitable. But in 1890, the McKinley Tariff raised the prices on thissugar, raising its price.

3. Americans felt that the best way to offset this was to annexHawaii—a move opposed by its Queen Liliuokalani—but in1893, desperate Americans in Hawaii revolted.

o They succeeded, and Hawaii seemed ready for annexation, but GroverCleveland became president again, investigated the coup, found it to bewrong, and delayed the annexation of Hawaii until he basically leftoffice.

o Cleveland was bombarded for stopping “Manifest Destiny,” but his actions proved to be honorable for him and America.

III. Cubans Rise in Revolt

1. In 1895, Cuba revolted against Spain, citing years of misrule, andthe Cubans torched their sugar cane fields in hopes that suchdestruction would either make Spain leave or America interfere (theAmerican tariff of 1894 had raised prices on it anyway).

2. Sure enough, America supported Cuba, and the situation worsenedwhen Spanish General Valeriano “Butcher” Weyler came toCuba to crush the revolt and ended up putting many civilians intoconcentration camps that were terrible and killed many.

3. The American public clamored for action, especially when spurred on by the yellow press, but Cleveland would do nothing.

o The Mystery of the Maine Explosiono The yellow presses competed against each other to come up with

moresensational stories, and Hearst even sent artist Frederick Remington todraw pictures of often-fictional atrocities.

For example, he drew Spanish officials brutally stripping andsearching an American woman, when in reality, Spanish women, not men,did such acts.

Then, suddenly, on February 9, 1898, a letter written by Spanishminister to Washington Dupuy de Lôme that ridiculed PresidentMcKinley was published by Hearst.

o On February 15th of that year, the U.S. battleship U.S.S. Mainemysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, killing 260 officers and men.

Despite an unknown cause, America was war-mad and therefore Spain received the blame.

Hearst called down to Cuba, “You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the story.”

Actually, what really happened was that an accidental explosion hadbasically blown up the ship—a similar conclusion to what Spanishinvestigators suggested—but America ignored them.

The American public wanted war, but McKinley privately didn’tlike war or the violence, since he had been a Civil War major. Inaddition, Mark Hanna and Wall Street didn’t want war because itwould upset business.

4. However, on April 11, 1898, the president sent his war message toCongress anyway, since: (1) war with Spain seemed inevitable, (2)America had to defend democracy, and (3) opposing a war could split theRepublican party and America.

5. Congress also adopted the Teller Amendment, which proclaimed thatwhen the U.S. had overthrown Spanish misrule, it would give the Cubanstheir freedom and not conquer it.

IV. Dewey’s May Day Victory at Manila

1. On paper, at least, the Spanish had the advantage over the U.S.,since it had more troops and a supposedly better army, as well asyounger (and seemingly more daring) generals.

2. Navy Secretary John D. Long and his assistant secretary, TheodoreRoosevelt had modernized the U.S. navy, making it sleek and sharp.

o On February 25, 1898, Roosevelt cabled Commodore George Dewey,commanding the American Asiatic Squadron at Hong Kong, and told him totake over the Philippines.

o Dewey did so brilliantly, completely taking over the islands from the Spanish.

3. Dewey had naval control, but he could not storm the islands and itsfortresses, so he had to wait for reinforcements, but meanwhile, othernations were moving their ships into Manila Harbor to protect theirmen.

o The German navy defied American blockade regulations, and Deweythreatened the navy commander with war, but luckily, this episode blewover, due in part to the British assistance of America.

4. Finally, on August 13, 1898, American troops arrived and capturedManila, collaborating with Filipino insurgents, led by EmilioAguinaldo, to overthrow the Spanish rulers.

5. On July 7, 1898, the U.S. annexed Hawaii (so that it could use theislands to support Dewey, supposedly), and Hawaii received fullterritorial status in 1900.

V. The Confused Invasion of Cuba

The Spanish sent warships to Cuba, panicking Americans on theEastern seaboard, and the fleet, commanded by Admiral Cervera, foundrefuge in Santiago harbor, Cuba.

1. Then, it was promptly blockaded by a better American force. American ground troops, led by fat General William R. Shafter, were

ill-prepared for combat in the tropical environment (i.e. they hadwoolen long underwear).

The “Rough Riders,” a regiment of volunteers led byTheodore Roosevelt and Colonel Leonard Wood, rushed to Cuba and battledat El Caney stormed up San Juan Hill.

Admiral Cervera was finally ordered to fight the American fleet, and his fleet was destroyed.

On land, the American army, commanded by General Nelson A. Miles, met little resistance as they took over Puerto Rico.

Soon afterwards, on August 12, 1898, Spain signed an armistice. Notably, if the Spaniards had held out for a few more months, they

might have won, for the American army was plagued with dysentery,typhoid, and yellow fever.

1. Finally, TR wrote a “round-robin” letter demanded that the U.S. government take the troops out before they all died.

VI. America’s Course (Curse?) of Empire

In negotiations in Paris, America got Guam and Puerto Rico andfreed Cuba, but the Philippines were a tough problem, since Americacouldn’t honorably give it back to Spain after decades ofmisrule, but the U.S. couldn’t just take it like an imperialisticnation.

Finally, McKinley decided to keep the Philippines, even though theyhad been taken one day after the end of the war, but he did so becauseof popular public opinion and because it meshed well with businessinterests.

1. The U.S. paid $20 million for the islands. Upon the U.S. taking of the Philippines, uproar broke out, since

until now, the United States had mostly acquired territory from theAmerican continent, and even with Alaska, Hawaii, and the otherscattered islands, there weren’t many people living there.

The Anti-Imperialist League sprang into being, firmly opposed tothis new imperialism of America, and its members included Mark Twain,William James, Samuel Gompers, and Andrew Carnegie.

1. Even the Filipinos wanted freedom, and denying that to them was un-American.

However, expansionists cried that the Philippines could become another Hong Kong.

1. British writer Rudyard Kipling wrote about “The WhiteMan’s Burden,” urging America to keep the Philippines and“civilize them.”

In the Senate, the treaty was almost not passed, but finally,William Jennings Bryan argued for its passage, saying that the soonerthe treaty was passed, the sooner the U.S. could get rid of thePhilippines. The treaty passed by only one vote.

VII. Perplexities in Puerto Rico and Cuba

The Foraker Act of 1900 gave Puerto Ricans a limited degree ofpopular government, and in 1917, Congress granted Puerto Ricans fullAmerican citizenship.

1. U.S. help also transformed Puerto Rico and worked wonders in sanitation, transportation, beauty, and education.

In the Insular Cases, the Supreme Court barely ruled that theConstitution did not have full authority on how to deal with theislands (Cuba and Puerto Rico), essentially letting Congress dowhatever it wanted with them. Basically, the cases said the islandresidents do not necessarily share the same rights as Americans.

America could not improve Cuba that much however, other thangetting rid of yellow fever with the help of General Leonard Wood andDr. Walter Reed.

1. In 1902, the U.S. did indeed walk away from Cuba, but it alsoencouraged Cuba to write and pass the Platt Amendment, which becametheir constitution.

2. This amendment said that (1) the U.S. could intervene and restoreorder in case of anarchy, (2) that the U.S. could trade freely withCuba, and (3) that the U.S. could get two bays for naval bases, notablyGuantanamo Bay.

VIII. New Horizons in Two Hemispheres

The Spanish-American War lasted only 113 days and affirmed America’s presence as a world power.

However, America’s actions after the war made its German rival jealous and its Latin American neighbors suspicious.

Finally, one of the happiest results of the war was the narrowingof the bloody chasm between the U.S. North and South, which had beenformed in the Civil War.

1. General Joseph Wheeler was given a command in Cuba.

IX. “Little Brown Brothers” in the Philippines

The Filipinos had assumed that they would receive freedom after theSpanish-American War, but when they didn’t they revolted againstthe U.S.

1. The insurrection began on February 4, 1899, and was led by EmilioAguinaldo, who took his troops into guerrilla warfare after open combatproved to be useless.

2. Stories of atrocities abounded, but finally, the rebellion wasbroken in 1901 when U.S. soldiers invaded Aguinaldo’sheadquarters and captured him.

President McKinley formed a Philippine Commission in 1899 to dealwith the Filipinos, and in its second year, the organization was headedby amiable William Howard Taft, who developed a strong attachment forthe Filipinos, calling them his “little brown brothers.”

The Americans tried to assimilate the Filipinos, but the islandersresisted; they finally got their independence on July 4, 1946.

X. Hinging the Open Door in China

Following its defeat by Japan in 1894-1895, China had been carvedinto “spheres of influence” by the European powers.

Americans were alarmed, as churches worried about their missionarystrongholds while businesses feared that they would not be able toexport their products to China.

Finally, Secretary of State John Hay dispatched his famous OpenDoor note, which urged the European nations to keep fair competitionopen to all nations willing and wanting to participate. This became the“Open Door Policy.”

1. All the powers already holding spots of China were squeamish, andonly Italy, which had no sphere of influence of its own, acceptedunconditionally.

2. Russia didn’t accept it at all, but the others did, oncertain conditions, and thus, China was “saved” from beingcarved up.

In 1900, a super-patriotic group known as the “Boxers”started the Boxers’ Rebellion where they revolted and took overthe capital of China, Beijing, taking all foreigners hostage, includingdiplomats.

After a multi-national force broke the rebellion, the powers madeChina pay $333 million for damages, of which the U.S. eventuallyreceived $18 million.

Fearing that the European powers would carve China up for good, now, John Hay officially asked that China not be carved.

XI. Imperialism or Bryanism in 1900?

Just like four years before, it was McKinley sitting on his frontporch and Bryan actively and personally campaigning, but TheodoreRoosevelt’s active campaigning took a lot of the momentum awayfrom Bryan’s.

Bryan’s supporters concentrated on imperialism—a badmove, considering that Americans were tired of the subject, whileMcKinley’s supporters claimed that “Bryanism,” notimperialism, was the problem, and that if Bryan became president, he

would shake up the prosperity that was in America at the time; McKinleywon easily.

XII. TR: Brandisher of the Big Stick

Six months later, a deranged murderer shot and killed WilliamMcKinley, making Theodore Roosevelt the youngest president ever at age42.

1. TR promised to carry out McKinley’s policies. Theodore Roosevelt was a barrel-chested man with a short temper,

large glasses, and a stubborn mentality that always thought he wasright.

1. Born into a rich family and graduated from Harvard, he was highlyenergetic and spirited, and his motto was “Speak softly and carrya big stick,” or basically, “Let your actions do thetalking.”

Roosevelt rapidly developed into a master politician, and amaverick uncontrollable by party machines, and he believed that apresident should lead, which would explain the precedents that he wouldset during his term, becoming the “first modern president.”

XIII. Building the Panama Canal

TR had traveled to Europe and knew more about foreign affairs thanmost of his predecessors, and one foreign affair that he knew needed tobe dealt with was the creation of a canal through the Central Americanisthmus.

1. During the Spanish-American War, the battleship U.S.S. Oregon hadbeen forced to steam all the way around the tip of South America tojoin the fleet in Cuba.

2. Such a waterway would also make defense of the recent island acquisitions easier (i.e. Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii).

However, the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Britain had forbadethe construction by either country of a canal in the Americas withoutthe other’s consent and help, but that statement was nullified in1901 by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.

A Nicaraguan route was one possible place for a canal, but it wasopposed by the old French Canal Company that was eager to build inPanama and salvage something from their costly failure there.

1. Their leader was Philippe Bunau-Varilla.2. The U.S. finally chose Panama after Mount Pelée erupted and

killed 30,000 people. The U.S. negotiated a deal that would buy a 6-mile-wide strip of

land in Panama for $10 million and a $250,000 annual payment, but thistreaty was retracted by the Colombian government, which owned Panama.

1. TR was furious, since he wanted construction of the canal to begin before the 1904 campaign.

At this point, TR and the U.S. decided enough was enough and it was time for action.

o On November 3, 1903, another revolution in Panama began with thekilling of a Chinese civilian and a donkey, and when Colombia tried tostop it, the U.S., citing an 1846 treaty with Colombia, wouldn’tlet the Colombian fleet through.

o Panama was thus recognized by the U.S., and fifteen days later,Bunau-Varilla, the Panamanian minister despite his French nationality,signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty that gave a widened (6x10 mi.)Panamanian zone to the U.S. for $15 million.

o TR didn’t actively plot to tear Panama away from Colombia,but it seemed like it to the public, and to Latin America, and hisactions in this incident saw him suffer a political black eye.

In 1904, construction began on the Panama Canal, but at first, problems with landslides and sanitation occurred.

1. Colonel George Washington Goethals finally organized the workers while Colonel William C. Gorgas exterminated yellow fever.

2. When TR visited Panama in 1906, he was the first U.S. president to leave America for foreign soil.

3. The canal was finally finished and opened in 1914, at a cost of $400 million.

XIV. TR’s Perversion of the Monroe Doctrine

Latin American nations like Venezuela and the Dominican Republicwere having a hard time paying their debts to their European debtors,so Britain and Germany decided to send a bit of force to South Americato make the Latinos pay.

TR feared that if European powers interfered in the Americas tocollect debts, they might then stay in Latin America, a blatantviolation of the Monroe Doctrine, so he issued his Roosevelt Corollary,which stated that in future cases of debt problems, the U.S. would takeover and handle any intervention in Latin America on behalf of Europe,thus keeping Europe away and the Monroe Doctrine intact.

1. It said in effect, no one could bully Latin America except the U.S.2. However, this corollary didn’t bear too well with Latin

America, whose countries once again felt that Uncle Sam was beingoverbearing.

When U.S. Marines landed in Cuba to bring back order to the islandin 1906, this seemed like an extension of the “BadNeighbor” policy.

XV. Roosevelt on the World Stage

In 1904, Japan attacked Russia, since Russia had been in Manchuria,and proceeded to administer a series of humiliating victories until theJapanese began to run short on men.

1. Therefore, they approached Theodore Roosevelt to facilitate a peace treaty.

2. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1905, both sides met, and thoughboth were stubborn (Japan wanted all of the strategic island ofSakhalin while the Russians disagreed), in the end, TR negotiated adeal in which Japan got half of Sakhalin but no indemnity for itslosses.

3. For this, and his mediation of North African disputes in 1906through an international conference at Algeciras, Spain, TR receivedthe Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.

However, due to the Russo-Japanese incident, America lost twoallies in Russia and Japan, neither of which felt that it had receivedits fair share of winnings.

XVI. Japanese Laborers in California

After the war, many Japanese immigrants poured into California, and fears of a “yellow peril” arose again.

The showdown came in 1906 after the San Francisco earthquake whenthe city decreed that, due to lack of space, Chinese, Japanese, andKorean children should attend a special school.

1. Instantly, this became an international issue, but TR settled it eventually.

2. San Francisco would not displace students while Japan would keep its laborers in Japan.

To impress the Japanese, Roosevelt sent his entire battleshipfleet, “The Great White Fleet,” around the world for atour, and it received tremendous salutes in Latin America, New Zealand,Hawaii, Australia, and Japan, helping relieve tensions.

The Root-Takahira Agreement pledged the U.S. and Japan to respecteach other’s territorial possessions in the Pacific and to upholdthe Open Door Policy in China.