Latin American Imperialism

The passage from 1800 to 1900 and those first few decades encompassed many events within the western hemisphere. Many of those events were born of the progressively economic nature of relations between the United States and Latin America. U.S. business interests came to dominant Central America and the Caribbean particularly, but their reach extended to South America also. Latin America itself was far from silent or complacent. Latin Americans increasingly spoke out against U.S. imperialism. Not just against the businesses establishing monopolies, but U.S. military involvement as well, as these two forces went hand-in-hand. U.S. policy was another force in Latin America during this time that had a lasting impact for years to come. The more pervasive form of U.S. influence and control were the business corporations that built their empires throughout Central America. Business empires which would lay the foundation for the U.S. Empire starting to take form. The most powerful of these business empires was the United Fruit Company with it enclaves in Costa Rica and Guatemala. Its founder and vice president, Minor C. Keith, also …show more content…
military involvement in the area, often on behalf of companies like United Fruit. At whose behest, the military helped overthrow Guatemala’s reformist president who the company felt threatened their interests. The U.S. Government conducted its own projects. It blatantly rested Panama from Colombia and created the Canal Zone through the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, it invaded Nicaragua on numerous occasions, and occupied Cuba as authorized by the Platt Amendment, among many other exploits. This instilled no small amount of trepidation and hostility among Latin Americans. Luis Drago, an Argentine diplomat, was one of those concerned by U.S. involvement. A concern which prompted him to write what has since become known as the Drago Doctrine, which states that force cannot be used to collect a public