History of the United States II / Unit 7 USH2 0932 review, 2 to 3 minutes

Whether the United States Became an Empire

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The idea

Whether the United States became an empire in these years is a question the evidence answers in two ways at once. The territorial record is plain: Hawaii annexed in eighteen ninety-eight, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines taken from Spain, and a war in the Philippines that the anchor says cost more than twenty thousand Filipino combatants and a civilian toll estimated as high as two hundred fifty thousand. So is the informal record: the Platt Amendment made Cuba a protectorate, the Open Door sought markets without colonies, and the corollary licensed intervention across the hemisphere. The anchor uses the word empire plainly, and the Yawp calls its chapter Geographies of Empire. Against that stood contemporary denials. Digital History notes the Teller Amendment was meant to show the United States had no imperialist ambitions in Cuba, and the Anti-Imperialist League argued that ruling others betrayed American principles.

In practice

A map in two colours: territories held outright, and countries controlled by treaty, loan and marine landings.

Where people slip

Two misreadings sit on either side. The first treats the United States as a reluctant power that stumbled into a few islands, which cannot account for the Philippine war or the Platt Amendment. The second treats it as an empire like Britain's, which misses that its characteristic method was control without annexation, as Cuba, China and Nicaragua show. The anchor's own treatment of the China policy captures the difference: economic power used to add to an empire without adding territory. The course follows the anchor and the Yawp in calling the result an empire of two kinds, and it names the contemporary denials beside that verdict.

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