Sunday, March 8, 2009

(catching up on old blogs) Imperialism

The United States began looking abroad into global expansion once the “frontier” was completely conquered. According to Turner, the United States economic and social growth heavily rested on the fact that we were expanding westward. He wondered how The United States was going to continue to prosper now that the frontier was gone. So people began looking globally. Specifically the protestant missionaries who wanted to save the souls of the ‘ignorant Asian’, and the businessman who wanted to have contacts in other countries and build lucrative businesses there. These helped to create the idea in America for ‘Imperialism’.

Because the idea of Imperialsm was becoming so popular, people began thinking about what it would take for this to actually happen. Writer, Alfred Thayer Mahan, realized that the only way to truly become a super power would be to have control of the seas, and this could only be done through a strong navy. This would also mean having swift travel thought the seas, including a canal thought Panama (to travel easily from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic).

The United States began gaining provinces and countries as spheres of influences and places to hold naval stations. These included, Cuba, the Philippines, and Hawaii. Roosevelt, during his presidency, wanted to make sure that the world knew how powerful that America had become, and sent the United States navy “The Great White Fleet” on tour around the world. This was in response to the fact that he, Roosevelt, had struck a deal with Japan saying that he would make sure American’s would be nice the Japanese Immigrants here. But he did not want the Japanese to think we were a weak/wempy nation, so he sent the navy on tour around the world. Part of his policy “speak softly and carry a bid stick”.

 By World War I, the United States was a world power with a lot of weight in discussions help by the other world powers at that time including Great Britain, France, Italy, etc. 

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