Sample Imperialism DBQ

Early American Imperialism, marked by American intervention into Latin America, created an environment in which the influence of the United States over other countries could flourish. As a result of the Spanish-American War, the United States was able to establish military control over new territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific. In Central America, the construction of the Panama canal reinforced Theodore Roosevelt's corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, establishing a strong military and commercial presence in the region. These early experiments in American imperialism created conflict within the United States as Americans debated the positive and negative effects these actions would have on the development of the United States. Overall, America's intervention into the Caribbean and Latin America created opportunity for the United States to become a major player on the world stage.

Vital to the establishment of an American empire, the Spanish-American War resulted in the addition of four territories to the holdings of the United States. An outgrowth of a Cuban Revolution against Spanish rule, the four month conflict was fueled by media speculation and sensationalism. Explosions aboard the U.S.S. Maine, depicted in an 1898 drawing published in The World (Document 1), allowed the media to trump up charges against the Spanish and to inspire the American public to call for war. Brief and successful, the conflict glorified American Imperialism and created war heroes, like Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, memorialized in Frederic Remington's piece, "The Charge up San Juan Hill" in 1901 (Document 2). At the close of the war with Spain, the United States took possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam; and American influence spread swiftly throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. A cartoon in the Minneapolis Journal of July 4, 1896 (Document 3) depicts this process as akin to a fuse, lighting explosives in many parts of the world. Emboldened by her successes, the United States reached even more deeply into Latin American commerce and politics.

Theodore Roosevelt sought to realize the long-held dream of easing international trade by constructing a canal through a thin strip of land separating the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Using the American military, Roosevelt assisted in the Panamanian Revolution, securing access to the land necessary to construct the canal. A remarkable feat of engineering, the canal required a system of locks, shown in Document Set 4, to move ships between the disparate elevation of the two oceans. This process was costly in money and lives, a fact reflected in the cartoon published in the "Ohio State Journal on March 1903 (document 5). Depicting a proud Uncle Sam straddling the isthmus of Panama, the cartoon laments huge payments to the Colombians and the forcefulness of the treaty required to secure the Panama Route. Trade between Europe and the West Coast of the United States was tremendously eased by the completion of the canal, and the United States was able to establish a permanent military presence to protect its interests in Central America. Brooks Adams, in The New Empire, explained, "With the completion of the Panama Canal, all Central America will become part of our system (Document 6)." American experiences with intervention into foreign affairs brought swift benefits for the growth of both the American economy and American military power; but these successes cost dearly.

Imperialism, for the America of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, was a double-edges sword. Territorial expansion allowed for American influence to reach other continents while improved trade brought wealth to growing American markets. Militarily, the power of the United States was enhanced by its physical and economic expansion, and countries that had struggled for years under oppressive governments were exposed to American democratic concepts. Echoing the sentiment of the American public, Brooks Adams wrote in 1902, "The United States will outweigh any single empire, if not all empires combined. The whole world will pay her tribute. Commerce will flow to her from both East and West, and the order which has existed from the dawn of time will be reversed (Document 6)." However, in building an empire and controlling the politics of foreign peoples, the United States turned its back on its own founding principles, especially those of equality and self-determination. Senator Albert Beveridge reinvigorated the British imperialist claim that it was the White Man's Burden to civilize the people of the world (Document 7). Burdens of managing the newly established empire included the cost of maintaining a large and well-equipped Navy, the danger of creating enemies abroad, and the ideological inconsistencies of subjugating foreign peoples while attempting to uphold Liberal values. Overall, the period of American imperialism, though costly, established the United States as a political, economic, and cultural powerhouse in the international community.

When the American public pushed for intervention into the Cuban Revolution in 1898, it could not have known the far reaching impact of that decision. Like a butterfly reaching out of its cocoon for the first time, the United States stretched its wings over Latin America and the Pacific. Expanding into island territories, easing and protecting trade routes, and influencing the politics of other nations allowed turn-of-the century America to compete with the powers of Europe.