Empire and Foreign Policy, 1893–1914

This is Unit Seven, part two, on the Philippines, China, the canal, and the question of empire. Part one closed by naming a method, control without formal ownership, and pointed to the war the Treaty of Paris started in the Philippines. This part tests that method in China, in Panama, and in Nicaragua. At the last entry the course asks directly whether the United States became an empire, and answers that it became one of two kinds. By the end you will be able to describe the Philippine-American War and its costs. To name the anti-imperialists' three motives. To explain the Open Door as empire without territory. To explain how the Roosevelt Corollary changed the Monroe Doctrine. And to answer whether the United States became an empire.

Three entries on the Philippines: the war, its civilian toll, and the Americans who opposed the whole enterprise.

The war the treaty started.

USH2 0919 The Philippine-American War

Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine independence on June twelfth, eighteen ninety-eight, and Filipino rebels under his leadership fought American forces for three years; the Yawp dates the war from eighteen ninety-eight to nineteen oh two. The anchor says more than four thousand American and twenty thousand Filipino combatants were killed. Neither witness gives a count of the dead.

The civilian cost, and American rule.

USH2 0920 The Civilian Toll

The anchor estimates the Philippine civilian death toll as high as two hundred fifty thousand, a figure it gives as an upper estimate: as high as, not exactly. William Howard Taft, civil governor from nineteen oh one, built roads, hospitals and schools. American rule lasted until nineteen forty-six.

The Americans who opposed the whole enterprise.

USH2 0921 The Anti-Imperialists

The American Anti-Imperialist League, founded in eighteen ninety-nine, included Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Jane Addams, Grover Cleveland and Samuel Gompers. The anchor names three motives side by side: democratic principle, fear of labour competition, and racial fear of assimilation, and Digital History confirms that some opponents were motivated by racism. The course keeps all three.

Three entries on China: carved into spheres, answered with a policy rather than a colony, and tested by a rising.

The scramble for China.

USH2 0922 Spheres of Influence

By eighteen ninety-eight European powers and Japan had carved China into spheres of influence, with Germany taking mining rights, Russia a railroad across Manchuria, and Britain, France and Japan privileged zones of trade. American merchants feared being shut out of a market they considered vital. The answer was a policy, not a colony.

That policy.

USH2 0923 The Open Door

Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door notes of eighteen ninety-nine asked the powers to keep equal access to all Chinese treaty ports, with standard fees for every nation and only China allowed to tax trade within its borders. The anchor says equal access suited the United States, whose goods were cheaper and better made. Empire without territory.

The rising that tested the Open Door.

USH2 0924 The Boxer Rebellion

Chinese insurgents known as the Boxers rose to drive every western nation, and western influence, out of China, and American troops joined a multinational force to put down the rebellion in nineteen hundred; the anchor dates the rising to eighteen ninety-nine. The Yawp says McKinley sent the Army without consulting Congress, setting a precedent for later presidents.

Two entries on Mahan's third plank: how the canal zone was obtained, and how the canal was built.

Mahan's third plank.

USH2 0925 Panama

After France failed to build a canal between eighteen eighty-one and eighteen ninety-four, the Colombian Senate refused American terms for a canal zone across Panama. In November nineteen oh three Roosevelt backed Panamanian independence, with American warships off the coast, and the United States recognised Panama within a week, on the terms Colombia had refused. Unit fifteen shows the canal returned.

How the canal was built.

USH2 0926 Building the Canal

Construction began in May nineteen oh four and moved more than one hundred seventy million cubic yards of earth before the canal opened in nineteen fourteen. Swamps were drained to destroy the mosquitoes that carried yellow fever and malaria, work Walter Reed's research made possible. The Americans built locks, not the sea-level canal on which France had failed.

Five entries on Roosevelt's new rule for the hemisphere, his diplomacy in Asia, and Taft's dollars.

Roosevelt's new rule for the hemisphere.

USH2 0927 The Roosevelt Corollary

In his annual message of December nineteen oh four, Roosevelt claimed for the United States an international police power in the Western Hemisphere, after British, German and Italian gunboats blockaded Venezuela in nineteen oh two over unpaid debts. Many Americans, the National Archives says, feared European intervention would undermine American dominance in the region.

How the corollary reversed the Monroe Doctrine.

USH2 0928 Monroe and Roosevelt

The Monroe Doctrine of eighteen twenty-three warned European powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt's corollary kept that warning and added a claim of its own: in cases of chronic wrongdoing, the United States itself would intervene as an international police power. Digital History counts some twenty American interventions over the next quarter century, in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama. The confusion to avoid is treating the corollary as a restatement of Monroe. The subject changed. Monroe restrained Europe; the corollary licensed the United States. Unit ten's Clark Memorandum later repudiated it.

Roosevelt as peacemaker.

USH2 0929 Portsmouth

After Japan's surprise attack on Russia in nineteen oh four, Roosevelt arranged peace talks at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in nineteen oh five, and Japan gained control of Korea, former Russian bases in Manchuria, and southern Sakhalin. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for the settlement, the first American to receive it.

His message to Japan afterward.

USH2 0930 The Great White Fleet

From December nineteen oh seven to February nineteen oh nine, sixteen white-painted battleships sailed around the world on what was publicly called a goodwill tour, and Japan's government read it as a warning about American interests. In the same years, the Yawp says, the Gentlemen's Agreement had Japan stop issuing passports to labourers bound for America.

Taft's approach to foreign policy.

USH2 0931 Dollar Diplomacy

President Taft sought to substitute dollars for bullets, using American loans and investment in place of military threats. When Nicaragua refused American loans to pay its debt to Britain, Taft sent a warship with marines. Dollars for bullets still used marines in Nicaragua, and in China and Japan Taft's diplomacy backfired.

One entry to close the unit, and it asks the question this unit has been circling.

Whether the United States became an empire.

USH2 0932 Whether the United States Became an Empire

The evidence answers this 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 Philippine war 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: the Teller Amendment, and the Anti-Imperialist League's argument that ruling others betrayed American principles. Two misreadings sit on either side. One treats the United States as a reluctant power that stumbled into a few islands, which cannot account for the Philippine war or Platt. The other treats it as an empire like Britain's, which misses that its characteristic method was control without annexation. The course follows the anchor and the Yawp in calling the result an empire of two kinds, and names the contemporary denials beside that verdict.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe the Philippine-American War: three years of fighting after Aguinaldo proclaimed independence, more than twenty thousand Filipino combatants killed, and a civilian toll the anchor estimates as high as two hundred fifty thousand. You can name the anti-imperialists' three motives: democratic principle, fear of labour competition, and racial fear of assimilation. You can explain the Open Door as empire without territory: equal access to China's ports, which suited the country with cheaper and better goods. You can explain how the Roosevelt Corollary changed the Monroe Doctrine. Monroe restrained Europe; the corollary licensed the United States. And you can answer whether the United States became an empire: yes, of two kinds, territories held outright and countries controlled without annexation.