Final American history

Lecture 10, Expansion: The West and Imperialism

Contents

3I. Settlers Encounter Natives

10II. Migration and Immigration to the Far West

17III. Western Economy: Mining

19IV. Western Economy: Cattle Ranching

19V. Western Economy: Farming/Agriculture

20VI. Expansion Abroad: Imperialism

Important Terms and People (in order of appearance): Frontier Thesis/Frederick Jackson Turner; Plains Natives; Reservation Policy; Little Crow; Crazy Horse; Sitting Bull; General Custer; Battle of Little Bighorn; Wounded Knee; Assimilate; Dawes Severalty Act; Bureau of Indian Affairs; Zitkala-Sa; Transcontinental Railroad; The Homestead Act of 1862; The Timber Culture Act of 1873; The Desert Land Act of 1877; Buffalo Soldiers; 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act; Tombstone, AZ; Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday; Cuban Liberation Party; USS Maine; Spanish-Americna War; Platt Amendment; Puerto Rico, Philippines; Emilio Aguinaldo; Jones Act; Anti-Imperialism

Instructions for reading this lecture: This lecture is broken into the chronologic or thematic sections shown above in the Table of Contents. I have done this to make it easier to follow the information being presented. Please also note the list of Important Terms and People that show up directly below the Table of Contents; this list provides a guide for terms and people you should be familiar with once you have completed reading the lecture. There may be instances in which you desire more information regarding an important term or person; I have hyperlinked useful websites throughout this lecture to important terms or people that you can follow up on and read if you would like more information (these hyperlinks show up in bright blue and when you click on them, they should direct you to the appropriate website). Additionally, there are images throughout with captions, to help you better visualize the information you are reading, as well as film clips that you can watch via YouTube (these hyperlinks to YouTube show up in maroon and when you click on them, they should direct you to the clip on YouTube).

We left off last time talking about Reconstruction after the Civil War, touching on the economic, political, social and racial problems that erupted at the war’s end and with the implementation of the program of Reconstruction. We focused, in this discussion, on the development of the North and the South after the war. But what we didn’t touch on in any significant way was the American West, so what I’d like to talk about today is the development of the far west in the post-Civil War era. The west was a place that, through the end of the 1830s, was feared by most Americans. People assumed the soil was poor, the climate bad and the Natives terrifying. But by the mid-1840s, farmers, ranchers and miners, among others, took a gamble and tried their luck out west; by the end of the Civil War the romanticized notion of their experience on the “‘frontier’” drew increasingly more people out there in search of “wealth, adventure, opportunity, and untrammeled individualism.” In particular, it was the frontier thesis of a young man named Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that propelled greater numbers of Americans to unknown territory. His thesis said that the free lands that lie west, coupled with the drive of Americans to settle on that land, gave Americans the ruggedness, individuality and power they possessed.

What these new settlers found in their quest for excitement, however, was often extreme hardship in the new western lands. The image of the frontier was one of uncharted territory, virgin land, an unconquered and untamed environment, an empty plot of land ripe for settlement. But what these western-bound settlers usually found was a territory with diverse groups of Natives, Mexicans, French, Asians and others, all with different cultures, languages and ideas about “ ‘America.’” What we’re going to talk about today is first how the new settlers negotiated and battled with the native populations they encountered. We’ll do this by looking at a number of societies and what happened upon contact by Anglo-American settlers. Next we’re going to look at immigration and migration to the West. We’ll also be examining the Western economy that developed in this post-Civil War period, particularly in the mining and cattle industries. Then we will take a look at the positives and negatives of agriculture in the West, to get an idea of what life was like for the majority of the people who settled the west. And, finally, we will conclude by looking at how the concept of expansion, coupled with the frontier thesis, pushed Americans outside of continental US borders and into Imperialism.

I. Settlers Encounter Natives

Prior to massive white expansion to the Far West, various societies flourished in the Far West—the region beyond the Mississippi River, places like New Mexico, California, Texas, Colorado, and eventually territories like Oklahoma and the Dakotas. The largest populations in the West were the Native tribes who lived there. Some of these tribes had been displaced from their Eastern locations and relocated to western lands during earlier disputes with eastern whites (namely during the Indian Removal of the 1830s). Others had been inhabiting these lands for centuries. These native groups were spread out across the west and had varying reactions to outsiders encroaching on their territory.

On the Pacific Coast, for example, over 150,000 Natives from various tribes including the Serrano, Chumash, Pomo and Chinook, and the Kumeyaay, had survived disease and dislocation by the Spanish settlers who had conquered the area years before, and flourished both in mixed Spanish-Indian communities and in strictly tribal communities. In the Southwest, Pueblo Natives had used their developed ideas about building, trade and irrigation to forge a powerful relationship with the Spanish who came in, providing them an unbreakable alliance against other native groups like the Apache, Navajo and Commanche. Each of these groups resisted white advances and often made westward expansion difficult for American settlers.

But it was the Plains Natives—who filled up most of the non-coastal west and were by far the most numerous—who fought the hardest. The Plains Natives were actually a number of different tribes with a number of different languages. Culturally, however, each of these tribes had much in common with one another, with a focus on family and community, an intimate relationship with nature, and a sexual division of labor that dictated women to the role of domestic caretaker and vegetation gatherer, and men as the hunters, traders, religious leaders and warriors. The men tended to hunt buffalo and protect the tribe from outside attack which meant that they were a group of warriors skilled in defending themselves and their tribe from rival

Figure 1: Buffalo Hunting

Native groups, who were caught up in almost constant warfare with one another. Because of this warrior culture, then, the Plains Natives provided the greatest challenge to western settlement for the Anglo-Americans, particularly when rival tribes could overcome their divisions and unite against the potential settlers. But as with the earliest contact between Natives and whites, even the most powerful alliances or the best laid plans couldn’t help the Natives; disease wiped out tens of thousands of Natives during 19th and early 20th century westward expansion.

If disease didn’t destroy a native community, the convergence of white settlers upon these native populations changed things quickly for each group of natives. First, white settlers to the westernmost reaches of the United States began to also tap into natural resources, most notably the buffalo and salmon sources that natives had relied on for subsistence. With thousands more people using those natural resources and with the overall environmental disturbances that came with westward expansion (not to mention native’s increasing need to provide buffalo furs for trade) came a quick decline in these two prominent food sources. By the 1880s, the buffalo population of the Plains had declined from 25 million (where it had been in the 1820s) to only a few hundred! Salmon met a similar fate.

The decline of the food supply wasn’t the only factor that changed life dramatically for natives in the west. The white population, itself, that came to the west had a unique effect on native populations. What do I mean by this? Well, typically it was men who went west—meaning men far outnumbered women in western areas. “In 1870, white men outnumbered white women by three to two in California, two to one in Colorado, and two to one in the Dakota Territory.” Most of these men did not have wives, most were young—in their 20s or 30s—and this combination of a lot of testosterone and youth often meant violence was very apt to happen in western lands. What this meant for native populations was that white western settlers often had guns and weren’t afraid of or opposed to using them. Moreover, western settlers frequently justified taking land and using force by claiming that Natives were uncivilized, lazy, trouble-makers and downright cruel. Cruelty certainly came from both sides—natives burned homes and buildings down, mutilated settlers bodies, and the like; white settlers behaved very similarly, and often bragged of their exploits in saloons and taverns.

Finally, government policy spelled disaster for native populations. The federal government had long had a history of making and subsequently breaking treaties with native groups over land; so it’s unsurprising that from the 1860s to the 1880s the federal government instituted a reservation policy, wherein all Native groups on land white settlers desired were rounded up and sent or forced onto reservations in the Plains regions, mostly in the area that’s now Oklahoma. The government claimed to be moving Natives together so that they could be ‘civilized,’ but more often than not, the goal was to put Natives in a place where they could be more easily controlled and to get them off of good land. What reservation policy meant for natives was that they often had no say over what went on on their reservations. They were denied the right to US citizenship, free speech and so on. Additionally, reservation lands that had initially been seen as undesirable and uninhabitable land quickly became desirable as other western lands filled up and, so, whites moving westward continually requested that the government carve off chunks of reservation land. And many different tribes and native cultures were grouped together in these regions, putting mortal enemies together while destroying individual native cultures.

Natives fought vehemently against reservation policies and against white expansion, leading to near constant warfare between whites and Natives between the 1850s and 1880s. Early on in the fighting, Natives retaliated against white attackss by striking out against stagecoaches, trains and ranches. But as the United States Army became more involved in the battles, Natives began focusing their aggression and attacks on white soldiers instead. Battles between Natives and whites were often small and localized, but there were a few instances of large-scale fighting between these two groups. During the Civil War, for example, the Sioux in Minnesota rebelled under the guidance of Little Crow, killing more than 700 whites. Thirty-eight Natives were hanged for this rebellion after they were subdued by white soldiers and militiamen. Other battles of similar scale and death occurred across the west, particularly after the Civil War ended. Natives were faced with aggression and hostility from both the United States military and unofficial vigilantes who killed Natives without prejudice and, it seemed, for the fun of it.

Treaties were signed in 1867 to calm the violence, but these treaties were soon violated and by the 1870s, as whites trampled supposedly-reserved Indian land in the Dakotas, violence re-escalated. At the same time, the federal government removed Natives’ status as independent entities, meaning that the federal government no longer had to negotiate with tribal leaders but could instead take unilateral steps as they saw necessary.

Again, Native Americans were not pleased with the new developments and their rebellion gained strength. In 1875, the Sioux Natives left their reservation and refused to return upon orders from white officials. They instead united under two strong leaders, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and were able to surprise the army expedition that set out to round them up and put them back on their reservation. During this Sioux rebellion, the Natives famously killed General Custer and his entire regiment (at the Battle of Little Bighorn ). But the power of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull was not enough to keep the Sioux united and they were eventually forced back to the reservation, defeated and broken. The Sioux would attempt a similar rebellion in 1890 at Wounded Knee , South Dakota, after Sitting Bull was killed by white agents; natives left the reservation, but were ultimately forced back after a major massacre by American forces.

The federal government, time and again, was able to strike the deepest blows—both physical and legal. The government pushed Natives to assimilate into white culture, and abandon their native ways. To this end, Congress effectively ended the practice of communal land ownership (many tribes believed that individuals couldn’t really ‘own’ land—rather, they simply used it collectively and communally, as a loan from nature) and instead passed the Dawes Severalty Act in 1877. Under this act, specific parcels of land were granted to adults, along with US citizenship, but Natives couldn’t get the title to this land for twenty-five years. [Any ideas on why the government did this? Perhaps it was to keep Natives assimilating and behaving well? Perhaps it was to provide the government enough time to change their minds and take the land back?] With acts like the Dawes Severalty Act, it was clear that the United States government was trying to undermine the community and kinship concepts that were a large part of native culture.

Along with this distribution of land, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (the governing body in charge of Native policy and problems) found other ways to try and force Natives to assimilate into white culture. Most notably, the Bureau often took Native American children away from their families and sent them off to white-run boarding schools where they would learn Christianity and proper white behavior. Zitkala-Sa was one such child who was sent to an Indian boarding school and she wrote of her traumatic experience there:

Figure 4: A Native American Boarding School

Late in the morning, my friend Judewin gave me a terrible warning. Judewin knew a few words of English; and she had overheard the paleface woman talk about cutting our long, heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards! We discussed our fate and when Judewin said, “We have to submit, because they are strong,” I rebelled. “No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!” I answered. I watched my chance, and when no one noticed I disappeared. I crept up the stairs as quietly as I could in my squeaking shoes—my moccasins had been exchanged for shoes…On my hands and knees I crawled under the bed, and cuddled myself in the dark corner.”

Figure 5: Zitkala-Sa

After being caught hiding, Zitkala-Sa writes of having her hair cut, “I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indignities…And now my long hair was shingled like a coward’s!”

The policies that accompanied the Dawes Act were incredibly devastating to Natives, particularly because the Bureau of Indian Affairs failed to properly distribute all reservation lands, leaving many with no land and no culture.

II. Migration and Immigration to the Far West

We’ve talked so far about what westward migration meant for native populations. But what did westward migration mean for the new settlers? And where were these settlers coming from and going to? As more and more people settled in the West, territories quickly installed territorial governments in preparation for statehood. This map shows the US in 1860—as you can see, most of the West was territories with only a couple of states. But by the end of the 1860s, there were territorial governments (the first step toward statehood) in Nevada, Colorado, Dakota, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and by the end of the 1890s, all of these territories but Arizona had become states. Utah gained statehood in 1896, after Mormon leaders were able to convince Congress that the practice of polygamy had been abandoned. What this meant, then, was that by the turn of the twentieth century, only New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arizona—all territories with few whites living there—were not yet states. In other words, in just forty years, almost half of the territory in the continental US became a state in the Union!

People were flocking to these territories and states in great numbers. Most of the westward settlers were from the eastern United States and began their journey after the end of the Civil War. There was also a huge influx of foreign immigration, with over 2 million immigrants traveling to the western frontier between 1870 and 1900, from Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and other European countries. These migrants and immigrants came to the west for specific reasons: the prospect of getting rich off of gold or silver was incredibly tempting; the seemingly endless fields for putting cattle and sheep to pasture were quickly filling up in the East and were already full in Europe; the transcontinental railroad, which had been completed in 1869, provided a connection to new trading spots and new settlement areas; and the government’s passage of laws like The Homestead Act of 1862 , which offered 160 acres of land to settlers for $1.25/acre and a promise to live on that land for five years and improve it. All of these factors made the frontier seem extremely promising.

But, for many, the promise of the frontier proved too good to be true. Though 160 acres of land was a lot of land compared to what the average person could get in the East, it didn’t provide individuals with enough land to create a system of commercial agriculture that would boost the economy of the Great Plains region. Accordingly, though over 400,000 settlers stayed for the five years required by the Homestead Act and gained title to their land, an even greater number left before their five years were up, lost their land and went back to where they came from.

For those who did stay, life was anything but easy or convenient. Accordingly, many settlers looked to the federal government to help them deal with this harsh new world of theirs. The government responded by passing laws like The Timber Culture Act of 1873 which allowed settlers to purchase another 160 acres of land if they promised to plant forty acres of trees on that land, and The Desert Land Act of 1877 which allowed settlers to purchase another 640 acres if they irrigated part of that land within three years. On the one hand, these laws and others like them allowed some settlers to acquire large tracts of land for cheap, giving them a chance, albeit a small one, at a profitable agricultural enterprise. On the other hand, purchasing extra land and paying the high cost of irrigation were not costs the typical westward settler could afford, so only the wealthiest or most industrious settlers were able to take advantage of laws like these.

Alongside white migrants to the west were African Americans who left the racist South at the end of the Civil War in hopes of a better life in the West. Though many began the journey with great hope—hope that their economic situation, their political situation and their social and cultural situations would be better—for many, the journey and the West itself proved to be almost as difficult and problematic as life in the South and East had been and racism and discrimination certainly existed throughout the new western regions.

The west wasn’t all bad for African Americans, however. Some became hotel and restaurant owners, some became hairdressers or shopkeepers, and others, like the famous Madame CJ Walker, became wealthy entrepreneurs (Walker created a highly profitable and best-selling hair straightener). Some African American men also became cowboys, others “ Buffalo Soldiers ” for the US military endeavors in the West, and still others became politicians and ranchers, among other things. But despite increased opportunity in the west, African Americans also saw discrimination in employment, politics and social life on more than regular occasions. So African Americans in the West saw both achievement and disappointment, opportunity and loss, in their new homes.

Similarly, immigrants also came from countries like Mexico, Japan and China, in the hopes of creating a better life and these non-white settlers also found times were difficult in the west. These groups were often marginalized because of their race and ethnicity, but none more so than the Chinese. The Chinese came over around the same time as the Europeans were coming over in the mid-19th century. China was an incredibly impoverished country at this time and many Chinese immigrated in the hope of finding something better. After the gold rush hit in the late 1840s, the Chinese began immigrating in large numbers and by 1880, “more than 200,000 Chinese had settled in the United States, mostly in California where they constituted nearly a tenth of the population.” Most Chinese came to work in the mines and were seen, early on, by white settlers as industrious and hard-working. But as it became clear that the Chinese were proving to be even more hard-working and industrious than themselves, whites began to view the Chinese in a hostile, racist manner. White settlers quickly came to resent Chinese miners and this view soon made it into the state legislature. For example, in 1852, California’s legislature began taxing Chinese and other non-white miners in an attempt to get them out of the mines, quickly driving the Chinese, as well as other minority groups like Mexicans, out of prospecting.

Since the Chinese could no longer get mining jobs, they began pursuing employment in agriculture and with the railroad construction companies. By the 1870s, over half of California’s agricultural workers were Chinese, and when work on the transcontinental railroad began in 1865, scores of Chinese immigrants began work on building this railroad, proving to labor managers their hard-working and industrious nature. But the working conditions on the railroad lines were horrible and dangerous and in 1866, Chinese workers went on strike for better working conditions and fairer compensation. The railroad managers were not sympathetic and the strike ultimately failed. Those Chinese who stayed on as employees were forced to accept awful wages and conditions. And in 1869 when the construction of the transcontinental railroad was completed, thousands of Chinese were out of work. This effectively pushed Chinese immigrants into big cities, where they created their own communities, culture and work.

As their communities gained strength, numbers, and a viable economy, whites’ hostility to the Chinese resurfaced and was expressed in legislation against the Chinese like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act , which stopped Chinese immigration to the US for ten years and prohibited the naturalization of those Chinese citizens already here. Similarly, hostility was expressed through violence, such as the invasion of Chinatown in Rock Springs, Wyoming . This goes back to what I said last time about racism coming from fear of losing one’s social, political and economic power/status.

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Take a look at the two primary sources that follow. As you look at them I want you to:

· “read” between the lines—what is the illustration/poster saying on the surface? What is it saying implicitly?

· think about how these sources illustrate the fear that whites had of losing their social, political and economic status.

Figure 7: Anti-Chinese Cartoon (notice the way the Chinese are illustrated and notice the out-of-work whites on the side of the building!)

Figure 8: Anti-Chinese Boycott

III. Western Economy: Mining

As you just read, despite some of the problems posed by westward expansion, millions of people migrated and immigrated to the west. Unlike today, however, when people move West because of the good weather, the ocean, the flat land for horse riding and the tall mountains for skiing, in the 19th century, people moved West simply because land was cheap. When they got here, though, they had to find a way to make some money, so three major industries developed: mining, cattle ranching and farming.

The mining industry began when gold was found at Sutter’s Mill near present-day Sacramento in 1849. Millions wanted to try their hand at striking it rich and so between 1849 and 1890, people came to California, Nevada, Arizona and other territories and states first in search of gold and later in search of silver, zinc, talc, lead, quartz, copper and other mineral deposits. For some, mining paid out big time. Nevada lodes alone yielded over $300 billion in gold and silver stores. But most of this went to wealthy corporations; most individual miners had to keep moving to different, dirtier, more desolate western regions in search of their pay day.

Figure 9: Miners

Perhaps the most famous example of one of these later boomtowns is Tombstone, Arizona. The town was named Tombstone because friends told town founder Ed Schieffelin that he’d sooner find his tombstone than gold or silver in the town. Of course, he did find silver and the town became a hotbed of mining activity, as well as lawlessness. Tombstone was often talked about because of the gambling, prostitution, drug use and criminal activity that occurred there. Some of you may have seen the famous film, Tombstone, which depicts the years of the early 1880s when Tombstone was at its peak. The film primarily follows the lives of two important Tombstone historical figures: Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp perfectly embodied the West. He was actually a deputy sheriff in Tombstone—yet when tensions between Earp’s family and the Clanton boys erupted in a gunfight near the OK Corral, Earp, along with his pal Doc Holliday, had no issue with killing three of their opponents. And this certainly wasn’t Earp’s first killing—he was never opposed to offing someone he considered an enemy, a problematic “quirk” for a lawman, for sure.

His friend, Doc Holliday, living in Tombstone to try and alleviate his tuberculosis symptoms, was no better. This clip from the film Tombstone provides a pretty good illustration of what life in the Wild West was like. In this scene, Val Kilmer, who plays Doc Holliday is gambling at a local saloon. [Click here for the Tombstone clip; watch this clip to 2:38]

Crime like this was endemic in Western towns and happened with great frequency through the last years of the nineteenth century. Some historians credit this crime to the relative absence of women in mining towns. Of course, this isn’t to say that there were no women in the West. There were female miners, to be sure, as well as married women who accompanied their husbands out West in the hopes of striking it rich. But single women were fairly hard to come by. Young men had difficulty finding women of the same age because the women who did come to the mining communities generally accompanied their husbands there. Some single women did go to the mining towns, however, working “as cooks, laundresses, tavern keepers” and prostitutes. Nevertheless, because of the high number of single men, lawlessness was a given in mining towns, many of which did not have a local government.

IV. Western Economy: Cattle Ranching

Lawlessness was also probably so prevalent because of how disappointing a venture mining was. Very few found the wealth they desired and so these would-be miners were forced to look for other avenues by which to make money. Some turned to cattle ranching, which grew tremendously because of the vast open spaces of the west, particularly in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. Cattle ranching allowed for the development of some wealth in the Great Plains region and it also helped create a spirit of individualism and independence that was different than the rest of the United States. For example, Wyoming folks were so independent and so open to new ideas that women were able to become cattle ranch owners, businesswomen and, ultimately the first female voters in the nation when Wyoming extended women the right to vote under their territorial Constitution in 1869 and their state Constitution in 1890.

V. Western Economy: Farming/Agriculture

Those who didn’t become cattle ranchers or miners typically became farmers but the life of the western farmer was no easy one. Drought was constant in the Great Plains region (and the government refused to help pay for irrigation that would’ve lessened the impact of this drought). Most farmers quickly abandoned any romantic notions they may have had of living off the land and became staple crop farmers. As a result, western farmers were increasingly dependent on the banks for loans to help them buy seeds, machines and labor year after dry year, and on railroads to ship their staple crops to far-away markets. But in the late 1800s, banks and railroads were not exactly the most trustworthy guys around. The farmers became increasingly frustrated because railroads often charged exorbitant and unfair shipping rates while banks set incredibly high interest rates which hurt financially-strapped farmers.

As a result, farmers became more and more resentful of the eastern establishment, of banks and railroads, by the late 19th century and their resentment would lead to some major shake-ups in American politics. Additionally, their children began to see farming as a fruitless and even stupid enterprise and they began to set their sights on the newly developing industries of America’s big cities.

VI. Expansion Abroad: Imperialism

As the American West continued to fill up, many began to think of the possibility of expanding American borders even further, a concept and practice that came to be known as Imperialism. Proponents of Imperialism used the idea of “Manifest Destiny”—a concept that you’ll remember emerged in the 1830s that said that America was destined, by God, to spread American democracy to the farthest, westernmost regions of the continent—to justify American expansion beyond the continental U.S. Following the lead of European countries who had begun colonizing foreign territories in the nineteenth century, the United States began looking to colonize foreign countries, as well. They did this for three major reasons: new markets to export to; natural resources to exploit; and areas where overseas military bases could be built.

For example, the US supported an overthrow of the Hawaiian government by American-born sugar growers in the early 1890s because it allowed the Hawaiian sugar market to fall under US control and enabled the US to build the military base at Pearl Harbor (on the island of Oahu). Hawaii became an official territory in 1893 and native Hawaiians and their political system were subsumed by the US.

But this small foray into colonialism in Hawaii, wherein the United States used a colony primarily for its natural resources and to build up military superiority, was just a small taste of what was to come in terms of American foreign expansion. The Spanish-American War that began in 1898 was truly the beginning of rampant American Imperialist spirit; the Spanish-American War left the American government wanting a power position in other, small countries, and left the American people caught up in the spirit of expansionism. So what was the Spanish-American War and why was it so explosive? The Spanish-American War began in Cuba after an 1895 Cuban uprising against their Spanish colonial rulers. You see, the Spanish colonial government had banned Cuban export to the United States, and this really hurt the Cuban sugar economy. Cubans responded by destroying the island of Cuba, effectively burning the island and its sugar plantations to the ground, in 1895 in order to drive the Spanish off. Many Cubans also began leaving the island around this time and immigrating to the United States. These Cuban immigrants spoke out loudly against Spanish rule in Cuba, effectively rallying a good deal of support for the actions of the Cuban Liberation Party and for anti-Spanish sentiment.

When William McKinley became president in 1897, he took a stand against the vilified Spanish, protesting what he called Spain’s “uncivilized and inhuman” conduct towards Cubans. This inflammatory statement embarrassed Spain and they quickly granted the island autonomy. It looked like the situation was taken care of. But two events occurred in 1898 that pitted Spain and the United States against each other. The first was the interception of a letter written by the Spanish minister in Washington; that letter “described McKinley as a weak man and a ‘bidder for the admiration of the crowd.’” Americans were outraged by this “dis” to their president.

The final straw that broke the camel’s back, though, was that immediately following the publication of the letter, the American battleship U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana harbor, killing more than 260 people. Though it eventually became the speculation that the battleship blew up because of an internal explosion (artillery had been placed near the coal burner), the immediate reaction was that Spain had blown the ship up, and Americans clamored for revenge. The national chant for revenge became “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain,” and Americans rallied to avenge the memory of the 266 men who died on the battleship. After a series of failed negotiations with Spain, the U.S. declared war.

The Spanish-American War was a short one, lasting for only a few months, and many Americans came to see it as “a splendid little war” because of this. The war was so short because Cuban rebels had already significantly weakened the Spanish resistance prior to America’s entry into the battle. But the war, many soldiers would have argued, was not really that splendid for them, even though it was short. Though few men died in battle, many were struck down with diseases like malaria and dysentery. Soldiers faced a shortage of weapons, good uniforms and food. For African American soldiers, of which there were many, the injustice of their position in society became abundantly clear as they fought in segregated regiments while Afro-Cubans fought side-by-side with the white American troops.

Figure 12: The Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War ended with Spain’s surrender in 1898. Cuba was eventually granted their independence in 1902, but simultaneously, the Platt Amendment was passed, giving the US the right to intervene if Cuba showed any signs of instability—clearly, the United States was uncomfortable with the notion of giving Cuba it’s complete freedom and independence.

The reason for this was that during the course of the war, the American military strategy grew larger. Rather than just helping Cuba get rid of Spain, the United States decided that they wanted to capture all Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Can you guys think of any problems that this new military strategy might have posed for the Spanish colonies? [The war was no longer a war to help the Cubans; instead, it meant that the US would replace Spain as the conquerer and colonizer.] Accordingly, American soldiers were sent to the Philippines, Puerto Rico and other Spanish colonial settlements in the Western Hemisphere during the Spanish-American War.

In Puerto Rico, once the Spanish were evicted, the US set up a puppet government there that answered directly to the United States and in 1917, Puerto Rico became an American territory and Puerto Ricans became American citizens. This territorial status allowed the US to hold a great deal of power over Puerto Rico. Similarly, in the Philippines, after the Spanish left, American soldiers stayed in the Philippines supposedly to “keep the peace.” But by 1889 the United States had clearly decided to use the natural resources in the nations they had taken from the Spanish, as well as ensure that these nations would stabilize the American economy. The US believed that only their intervention and policing could help these supposedly backwards nations succeed. In the case of the Philippines, then, the United States decided to continue to be a military and economic presence. What they didn’t bargain on was that Filipinos would not be happy with this relationship. Originally, the Philippines was very happy about the United States coming to help them overthrow the oppressive Spanish colonial regime. But Filipinos thought the US was doing this out of fairness and justice, not out of greed, and so they believed the US would leave once Spain was kicked out, leaving Filipinos to finally govern their own country. Instead, the United States merely replaced Spain as an oppressive dictator.

But Filipinos had had enough! Under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo, the Philippines took up arms against the United States. It was a horrific war, with both sides resorting to brutal and deadly behavior—American forces burned villages down, while Filipino soldiers ambushed American soldiers’ camps. This type of brutality colored how each side thought of the other; one American soldier declared that the Philippines “won’t be pacified until the niggers [Filipinos] are killed off like the Natives.” This soldier was suggesting, in other words, that the Philippines wouldn’t be okay until all of the Filipinos were gone!! The Filipino rebellion was finally put down by the US in 1902, when the death total was at 5,000 Americans and 200,000 Filipinos. The battle didn’t end there, however, as the US attempted to Americanize the Philippines for the next fifteen years. In 1916, the Jones Act promised independence to the Philippines, but with no date set for that independence and, in fact, it wasn’t until 1946 that the United States finally ended its rule there.

But though the American government was pretty gung-ho about imperialism and about the countries they’d managed to extract from the Spanish Empire, a sentiment of anti-imperialism sprung up in the U.S., counting many influential members in its ranks, men like Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Gompers (the head of the biggest American labor union, the American Federation of Labor), and others. These anti-imperialists were worried about imperialism for a number of reasons. Gompers and other Labor interests worried that cheap labor would flood into the country from the new colonies. Sugar growers feared that Puerto Rican and Cuban sugar would create too much competition and drive their market down. The strongest anti-imperialist sentiment, however, came from those who were anti-immigrant, who believed that the annexation of these countries could “‘pollute’ the American population by introducing ‘inferior’ Asian races into it.” But the power that imperialism seemed to give to the United States was more than enough to overpower anti-imperialist sentiment.

Figure 14: An Anti-Imperialist Cartoon

Whether an American supported Imperialism or not, the fact that the United States had expanded its territory, borders, and reaches from 1865 until the early nineteenth century was undeniable. As the nation’s territory expanded, so too did the population. To absorb this growth, American cities began to grow, American industry provided new (often terrible) jobs to employ these new Americans, and reform activities sprung up around the nation to deal with the effects of so much growth. To the story of the Machine Age and the Progressive Movement, we will turn next time.

Figure � SEQ Figure \* ARABIC �2�: Little Crow

Figure � SEQ Figure \* ARABIC �3�: The Battle of Little Bighorn

Figure � SEQ Figure \* ARABIC �6�: Buffalo Soldiers

Figure � SEQ Figure \* ARABIC �3�: Protest by the Hawaiian Government of Overthrow

Figure � SEQ Figure \* ARABIC �4�: A Pin Commemorating the Explosion of the Maine

Figure � SEQ Figure \* ARABIC �6�: US Troops Enter Puerto Rico

� Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People (McGraw Hill: New York, 1996), 454.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://blog.hmns.org/?p=727" �http://blog.hmns.org/?p=727�

� Mary Beth Norton, et al, A People and a Nation: A History of the United States (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005), 455.

� Norton, 455

� Brinkley, 473.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/a1041/siouxup/LittleCrow.htm" �http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/a1041/siouxup/LittleCrow.htm�.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.manataka.org/page1134.html" �http://www.manataka.org/page1134.html�.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.horizonlines.org/Volume1/cult/boarding.html" �http://www.horizonlines.org/Volume1/cult/boarding.html�.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.highplainschautauqua.org/zitkala_sa.html" �http://www.highplainschautauqua.org/zitkala_sa.html�

� From � HYPERLINK "http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_1859-1860.png" �http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_1859-1860.png�

� Brinkley, 463.

� Riley, 51.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.buffalosoldiersmc.net/chaphist.html" �http://www.buffalosoldiersmc.net/chaphist.html�

� Brinkley, 459.

� Norton, 463.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/yellow+peril" �http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/yellow+peril�.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/chinese-boycott/images/union-flyer-01.gif" �http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/chinese-boycott/images/union-flyer-01.gif�

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.delamare.unr.edu/mining_101.html" �http://www.delamare.unr.edu/mining_101.html�

� � HYPERLINK "http://www.clantongang.com/oldwest/filmfest.html" �http://www.clantongang.com/oldwest/filmfest.html�; � HYPERLINK "http://www.cityoftombstone.com/" ��http://www.cityoftombstone.com/�; � HYPERLINK "http://www.oldwesthistory.net/oldwest2.html/" ��http://www.oldwesthistory.net/oldwest2.html/�. Earp actually moved to SD between 1885 and 1887 and owned at least 4 saloons in SD’s Stingaree district (now Gaslamp)!

� Brinkley, 467.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.japanfocus.org/-Wada-Haruki/2934" �http://www.japanfocus.org/-Wada-Haruki/2934�

� Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People (McGraw Hill: New York, 1996), 566.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://guest.portaportal.com/edwinarichardson" �http://guest.portaportal.com/edwinarichardson�

� Brinkley, 566.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.ohssar.org/american_war_statistics.htm" �http://www.ohssar.org/american_war_statistics.htm�

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.art.com/gallery/id--b27630/north-wind-press-posters_p4.htm" �http://www.art.com/gallery/id--b27630/north-wind-press-posters_p4.htm�

� Brinkley, 573.

� From � HYPERLINK "http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/medical_history/yellow_fever/politics.cfm" �http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/medical_history/yellow_fever/politics.cfm�