Age+of+Imperialism

How the U.S.A became involved in world affairs in the early 1900's:

The whole idea behind imperialism is that a country takes over another country for capitol gain and resources. The United States is no exception to this. Imperialism can be a good thing for the people of the country but in most cases, the people, who live there, are not in favor of the change. Imperialism has been around for ever for example the Roman Empire. Imperialism still goes on today but due to modern weaponry, the spread of imperialism is limited.

The United States first became involved in world affairs when they went to war over the liberation of Cuba because of the political unrest in Cuba and when the ship the U.S. battle ship Maine exploded just off of Cuba and there was extreme speculation of Spain being the culprit which in turn cause the United States to declare war. The American ends up winning the war putting an end the Spanish empire in the Americas. The reason for the U.S. liberating Cuba after the war was: to end political unrest and because of Cuba’s vast resources. The rebels of Cuba eventually turned against the U.S. so the U.S. compromised by giving Cuba independence with the exception that the U.S. could be involved in Cuban affairs. This pretty much means that if anyone is going to have Cuba its going to be the U.S. If I were a citizen of cuba I would be angry that the U.S. did not give us our full independence like they said they would but on the other side if the United States didn't intervine at all, Cuba would not have any form of independence.

During the early 1900's the U.S. wanted to build a canal through Panama but the government overthere would not allow it, so the U.S. supported a revolution that would give Panama independence. When the U.S. took over they divided Panama into to parts: the canal zone (which the U.S. claimed as its territory) where the newly formed canal was, and the other parts of Panama controled by the people. The natives of Panama did not like the idea of the U.S. owning their land so many rebellion groups formed against the U.S. and for good reason since the people of Panama got nothing in return for the canal being built through their land. There are good things about Panama canal like helping them gain some indepence but it also was kind off a crap shoot because the people of Panama never really got anything from the canal being built.

On Feburary 4, 1899 the Phillipean Insurrection began because during the Spanish-American war the Phillipean people helped the U.S. win against Spain for what they thought would give them indepence but when their land was taken away from Spain and given to them America did not give them indepence when Aguinaldo requested like what was originally planned. So he declared war against the U.S. but was quickly captured by U.S. forces and forced to live low profile in his country. The U.S. eventually gave the people their indepenence in 1946 after being stalled longer due to the invasion of Japan. This means that the U.S. stalled giving the Phillipean people thier indepence until they became upset, did something, got defeated after having thousands of casualties and killing around 7,000 U.S. troops before Theodore Roosevelt declared the conflict over March 23, 1901, and just waited for their indepence in 1946. If I were a Phillipean person I would not be happy because it took so long to get indepence but for the U.S. the more land not owned by someone else the better for war.

In January 1900, the Open Door policy was founded that would get all countries to have free trade with China it was founded by Secretary of State John Hay. It lead to disagreement in Asia for the next 40 years. This means that all countries would have to promote trade with China whether they liked them or not or needed their goods which angered people. America was being imperialistic over all the other countries to benefit themselves but it backfired because it created to much conflict between other countries which out weighed the benefits. If I was a person of this time I would feel happy that our country gets to set up relations with other countries through trade and the extra goods would be nice to have.

Theodore Roosevelt set up the Roosevelt Corollary on december 6, 1904 which said that the U.S, counld be an international police to protect Latin America from European aggression. This means if a conflict happens that gets the intrest of the United States for trade reasons or whatever the U.S. could step in. This is great for the U.S. in protecting trade and also having some controll in the trade but tended to make people angry who did not want to trade with the U.S. If I were a person in Latin America I would feel iffy about this subject because it would be nice not to have to worry about European aggression but I would not like the fact that the United States could have so much control over everyone.

The boost of American foreign policy by the use of American economic investments, mostly in third world countries is called Dollar Diplomacy in which president William Howard Taft really pushed in the early 1900's. This means that investers were encouraged to trade with other countries. This was great for the world market but it caused the United States to become more dependent on foriegn goods which is bad in a time of war. I would really like this if I were there back then because if you were invester it would open litterally a whole new world of investments in which you could make money and recieve different goods.

The Big Idea about imperialism is that it can be both good and bad. It can be good if things are not taken well out of hand and it benifits society but if it does not imperialism can be an evil thing.