Document Project 20 Imperialism vs. Anti-Imperialism
In the final decade of the nineteenth century, the United States transformed itself into an imperial power. Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt carried out the tasks important for this imperialism in that era by
-enalrging the navy
-constructing a cana that linked Atlantic and Pacific oceans
- and got stations and army bases in the Pacific to service the fleet.
U.S. officials disregarded the nationalistic views of freedom fighters in Cuba and in the Philippines in favor of the imperial spoils gained from winning the War of 1898. The United States justified their intervention in their affairs with the reasoning of moral standards. The US stated that the United States had the …show more content…
Businessmen still considered these regions—especially China, with a population of millions of potential consumers—as future markets for American industries. The desire to expand foreign markets remained a steady feature of American business interests. The Hawaiians signed an agreement in 1887 that granted the United States exclusive rights to a naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu.
Cultural Justifications for Imperialism Drawing on Herbert Spencer’s concept of “survival of the fittest,” many Americans and western Europeans declared themselves superior to nonwhite peoples of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Claiming their arguments with racist studies claiming to demonstrate scientifically the “racial” superiority of white Protestants, imperialists claimed a “natural right” of conquest and world domination . Imperialists added an ethical dimension to this ideology by contending that “higher civilizations” had a duty to uplift inferior nations. In Our Country (1885), the
Congregationalist minister Josiah Strong proclaimed the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, or white northern European, race and the responsibility of the United States to spread the “blessings” of its Christian way of life throughout the world. Secular
In the final decade of the nineteenth century, the United States transformed itself into an imperial power. Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt carried out the tasks important for this imperialism in that era by
-enalrging the navy
-constructing a cana that linked Atlantic and Pacific oceans
- and got stations and army bases in the Pacific to service the fleet.
U.S. officials disregarded the nationalistic views of freedom fighters in Cuba and in the Philippines in favor of the imperial spoils gained from winning the War of 1898. The United States justified their intervention in their affairs with the reasoning of moral standards. The US stated that the United States had the …show more content…
Businessmen still considered these regions—especially China, with a population of millions of potential consumers—as future markets for American industries. The desire to expand foreign markets remained a steady feature of American business interests. The Hawaiians signed an agreement in 1887 that granted the United States exclusive rights to a naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu.
Cultural Justifications for Imperialism Drawing on Herbert Spencer’s concept of “survival of the fittest,” many Americans and western Europeans declared themselves superior to nonwhite peoples of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Claiming their arguments with racist studies claiming to demonstrate scientifically the “racial” superiority of white Protestants, imperialists claimed a “natural right” of conquest and world domination . Imperialists added an ethical dimension to this ideology by contending that “higher civilizations” had a duty to uplift inferior nations. In Our Country (1885), the
Congregationalist minister Josiah Strong proclaimed the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, or white northern European, race and the responsibility of the United States to spread the “blessings” of its Christian way of life throughout the world. Secular