Imperialism Questions

America's New Imperialism

"The splendid little war," as Secretary of State John Hay called the Spanish-American conflict, lasted a mere four months. The United States emerged victorious after a series of major battles in Cuba and in the Pacific Ocean.

Eventually, the Treaty of Paris, signed by both nations in December 1898, formally ended the war and Spain acknowledged Cuban independence.

The United States, however, remained in Cuba. Under Republican Senator O.H. Platt of Connecticut, the American government established the conditions under which Cubans would be permitted to govern themselves. The Platt Amendment stated that the U.S. government held the right to intervene in Cuban affairs to maintain peace. It also required the Cuban government to lease military bases to the United States and limited Cuban authority in negotiating treaties with other nations.

As revolutionary leaders had feared, American policy instilled in Cuba a new dependency just as the Cuban republic was born. Before his death in 1895, Cuban independence leader José Martí warned of American aid. "Once the United States is in Cuba," he remarked, "who will drive it out?"

The Philippine War

As the treaty that ended the Spanish-American war obscured Cuban independence, it also left the status of the Philippines up to the American government.

Spain, in selling the Philippine Islands to the United States, laid the foundation for a new conflict. Filipinos, like Cubans, had initially welcomed American intervention in their struggle against Spanish forces. But once war with Spain had ended and it became clear that American armies would remain to assert control over the islands, Filipino insurgents turned against the United States.

The Philippine-American War was officially declared over in 1902 after three years of fighting, far longer than the Spanish-American War. The lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers were lost, and hundreds of thousands of Filipino soldiers and civilians died in the struggle. The United States succeeded in crushing Emilio Aguinaldo and his armies, and ultimately, it annexed the Philippine Islands.

For Filipinos, however, the war with the United States was far from over. For 13 years after President Theodore Roosevelt announced the end of the war in the Philippines, battles raged between U.S. troops and Filipino guerilla soldiers seeking independence.

In 1915, the United States government granted the Philippines self-government and vowed to gradually return the islands to the Filipino people, but full independence and the removal of U.S. military troops would not come until 1992, nearly a century after the first shot had been fired in the Philippine-American War.

 

A New Empire

For some Americans, U.S. policies in the Philippines looked quite a bit like Spanish imperialism. These anti-expansionists objected to what they perceived as an abuse of their nation's power. Many worried that, if the United States continued its pursuits, it would become entangled in too many foreign crises, spend far too much money abroad, and damage its international reputation, much like the crumbling European empires.

Others, like humorist Mark Twain and Progressive Jane Addams, opposed war and annexation by arguing that the U.S. government was more intent on killing Filipinos than on "civilizing" them.

Andrew Carnegie sarcastically praised President McKinley for his mission in the Philippines upon learning of the thousands of Filipinos killed in the first year of the war. "About 8000 [Filipinos] have been completely civilized and sent to Heaven," he wrote. "I hope you like it.”