Q. Define the main tenets of American imperialism.

Explain its implementation with

special Reference to the Spanish-American War of 1898.
American imperialism refers to the political, economic, and cultural influence that the United
States exerted over other countries, particularly during the late 19 th and early 20th centuries.
This period saw America become a global superpower, with an ever-growing desire to
expand its territory and assert its dominance over other nations. America imposed
imperialist control over other countries not only by formal annexation of the countries, but
also by technological and economic superiority over the other countries’ economies. In
addition, the rapidly vanishing American frontier in North America prompted America to
push beyond its continental borders to expand into distant lands. However, The Spanish-
American War(1898) played a significant role in shaping American imperialism and the
country’s role in world affairs.

Towards the 1890’s, the United States began to take its place as a world power. By expanding
its frontiers further than the Northern hemisphere (beginning with the Monroe Doctrine). In
world history, the last quarter of the nineteenth century is known as the age of imperialism,
when rival European empires carved up large parts of the world among themselves. After
1870, a “new imperialism” arose, dominated by European powers and Japan. By the early
twentieth century, most of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific had been divided
among these empires. The justification for this expansion of imperial power was that it
would bring modern “civilization” to the supposedly backward peoples of the non-European
world.

Territorial expansion, of course, had been a feature of American life from well before
independence. But the 1890s marked a major turning point in America’s relationship with
the rest of the world. There was persistent talk of acquiring Cuba, and President Grant had
sought to annex the Dominican Republic. The last territorial acquisition before the 1890s had
been Alaska, purchased from Russia by Secretary of State William H. Seward in 1867. Most
Americans who looked overseas were interested in expanded trade, not territorial
possessions. The country’s agricultural and industrial production could no longer be entirely
absorbed at home. By 1890, companies like Singer Sewing Machines and John D.
Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company aggressively marketed their products abroad.

One group of Americans who spread the nation’s influence overseas were religious
missionaries, thousands of whom ventured abroad in the late nineteenth century to spread
Christianity. Missionary work offered employment to those with few opportunities at home,
including blacks and women, who made up a majority of the total. The influence of ‘Social
Darwinism’ played an important role in the extension of American Imperialism. The concept
of the ‘survival of the fittest’ in the social realm, and that only superior races would survive
and rule the world had a major effect on the minds of many Americans.

A small group of late-nineteenth-century thinkers actively promoted American expansionism,

warning that the country must not allow itself to be shut out of the scramble for empire. In
Our Country (1885), Josiah Strong, a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, sought to
update the idea of manifest destiny. Having demonstrated their special aptitude for liberty
and self-government on the North American continent, Strongly announced, AngloSaxons
should now spread their institutions and values to “inferior races” throughout the world. The
economy would benefit, he insisted, since one means of civilizing “savages” was to turn
them into consumers of American goods. Naval officer Alfred T. Mahan, in The Influence of
Sea Power upon History (1890), argued that no nation could prosper without a large fleet of
ships engaged in international trade, protected by a powerful navy operating from overseas
bases. His arguments influenced the outlook of James G. Blaine, who served as secretary of
state during Benjamin Harrison’s presidency (1889–1893). Blaine urged the president to try
to acquire Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba as strategic naval bases. Until the 1870’s, USA
mainly had a defensive navy. Now the building of new steel battleships was encouraged to
keep up with the leading world Navy’s. Important steps taken for the strengthening of the
Navy included the Naval Act of 1890.

Following the Naval Act, strategic requirements were now considered important for
American foreign policy. To start with, On March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William H.
Seward agreed to purchase Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. The main interest at this time
was to acquire the Aleutian Islands. Following that, in 1878, the US signed a treaty with
Samoa to establish a naval base there. Up until then, Germany, Britain and the US were
battling it out to gain influence on the islands as they were located in a key place in the
Pacific to establish bases. In 1878 the United States signed a treaty for the establishment of a
naval station in Pago Pago Harbour. An 1899 agreement between colonial powers divided
Samoa into spheres of influence: Germany gained control of the western islands, and the
United States took the eastern islands.

The annexation of Hawaii was also an important step in the expansion of the American
empire. Hawaii was already closely tied to the United States through treaties that exempted
imports of its sugar from tariff duties and provided for the establishment of an American
naval base at Pearl Harbour (rights to establish acquired in 1887). Hawaii’s economy was
dominated by American-owned sugar plantations. Early in 1893, a group of American
planters organized a rebellion that overthrew the Hawaii government of Queen Liliuokalani.
On the eve of leaving office, Harrison submitted a treaty of annexation to the Senate. After
determining that a majority of Hawaiians did not favour the treaty, Harrison’s successor,
Grover Cleveland, withdrew it. In July 1898, in the midst of the Spanish-American War, the
United States finally annexed the Hawaiian Islands.

The depression that began in 1893 heightened the belief that a more aggressive foreign
policy was necessary to stimulate American exports. In the face of social conflict and the
new immigration, government and private organizations in the 1890s promoted a unifying
patriotism. By the late 1890s, papers like William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and
Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World—dubbed the “Yellow Press” by their critics after the colour
in which Hearst printed a popular comic strip—were selling a million copies each day by
mixing sensational accounts of crime and political corruption with aggressive appeals to
patriotic sentiments.
All the above factors of the rise of imperialism contributed to America’s rise as a world
power. However, the turning point of American imperialism came with the Spanish-
American War of 1898.

The immediate cause of the war did not originate from USA but arose due to the long Cuban
struggle for independence from Spain. As reports circulated of widespread suffering caused
by the Spanish policy of rounding up civilians and moving them into detention camps, the
Cuban struggle won growing support in the United States. Demands for intervention
escalated after February 15, 1898, when an explosion—probably accidental, a later
investigation concluded— destroyed the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbour, with
the loss of nearly 270 lives. The yellow press blamed Spain and insisted on retribution. After
Spain rejected an American demand for a cease-fire on the island and eventual Cuban
independence, President McKinley in April asked Congress for a declaration of war.

Spain declared war on the US on April 24 th followed by the US declaration of war on 25 th. The
purpose, declared Senator Henry Teller of Colorado, was to aid Cuban patriots in their
struggle for “liberty and freedom.” To underscore the government’s humanitarian intentions,
Congress adopted the Teller Amendment, stating that the United States “had no intention of
annexing or dominating the island.”

The war’s most decisive engagement, in fact, took place not in Cuba but at Manila Bay, a
strategic harbour in the Philippine Islands in the distant Pacific Ocean. Here, on May 1, the
American navy under Admiral George Dewey defeated a Spanish fleet. Soon afterward,
soldiers went ashore, becoming the first American army units to engage in combat outside
the Western Hemisphere. By the Treaty of Paris signed on Dec 10th, 1898, Spain renounced
all claim to Cuba, ceded Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States, and transferred
sovereignty over the Philippines to the United States for $20 million.

With the backing of the yellow press, the war quickly escalated from a crusade to aid the
suffering Cubans to an imperial venture that ended with the United States in possession of a
small overseas empire. McKinley became convinced that the United States could neither
return the Philippines to Spain nor grant them independence, for which he believed the
inhabitants unprepared. In the treaty with Spain that ended the war, the United States
acquired the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Pacific island of Guam. The United States also
acquired a permanent lease on naval stations in Cuba, including what is now the facility at
Guantanamo Bay. The Platt Amendment passed the Cuban Congress by a single vote. Cuban
patriots were terribly disappointed.

The Spanish-American War was an important turning point in the history of both
antagonists. Spain’s defeat decisively turned the nation’s attention away from its overseas
colonial adventures and inward upon its domestic needs, a process that led to both a cultural
and a literary renaissance and two decades of much-needed economic development in
Spain. The victorious United States, on the other hand, emerged from the war a world power
with far-flung overseas possessions and a new stake in international politics that would soon
lead it to play a determining role in the affairs of Europe and the rest of the globe.
As far as the historical interpretation were concerned, Historians have studied the war at
four levels of analysis: international, regional, national, and individual. The international level
of analysis allows us to explore the characteristics of the international system, the
distribution of power within it, and structural shifts over time. Paul Kennedy demonstrates
that as power shifted in the international system, the United States claimed an increasingly
higher station, its international interests growing at the expense of others. Other was
regional in which Louis A Perez establishes the extent to which the United States valued
Cuba as a key link in the U.S. sphere. Pérez states that Americans eyed Cuba as a strategic
site in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, a market, supplier, rich investment territory, and
cultural outpost. The United States sought to prevent Cuba’s sovereignty from being
transferred from Spain to anybody else—including radical Cubans vowing revolution against
propertied interests. When Spain would not sell the island and could not reform it, the
United States intervened in 1898 to halt a nationalistic revolution or social movement that
threatened U.S. interests. The third context is the national context, and by considering it we
add other dimensions essential to understanding 1898. Historians primarily identify
domestic or internal characteristics to explain foreign-policy decisions. Lastly, in the
individual context, historians have concentrated on President William McKinley and the
imperialists who surrounded him.

To conclude, Overall, American imperialism was driven by a combination of economic,

military, political, cultural, and ideological factors. While some Americans saw imperialism as
a means to spread American values and institutions, others saw it as a way to exploit and
dominate other countries for the benefit of American businesses and political interests. we
can see that despite the various proposed causes of the Spanish-American War, something
that all historians agree on is that this war marked a shift in US foreign policy where they
began to look for territory and spheres of influence beyond North America.