Imperialism Era Essay

US History - K Imperialism Era Essay Assessment Grade

DIRECTIONS: This activity requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of the provided documents (letter A-L below) and your knowledge of the Imperialism Era. In order to answer the question completely, you will need to both cite evidence (in the form of quotes) from the documents, as well as draw upon your knowledge of the events in American foreign policy between 1890 and 1920. In writing you essay, please consider the following:

• A five paragraph essay will be required for this assignment (with an introduction, a body paragraph for each of the three areas identified in the prompt, and a conclusion). A thesis statement must be provided in your introductory paragraph, which identifies your main argument. You must also identify three supporting elements.

• You must use at least two documents to support your argument in relation to each of the three areas identified in the prompt (ie. two sources per body paragraph). You may use the same document to support more than one area, but no more than twice per source. While direct quotes from sources are permitted, you are strongly encouraged to paraphrase sources where possible. Use the source or title when referring to information in a document. Do NOT just say “Document A says . . . ” in the narrative.

• Your paper should be between two and three pages long. Each page must have one inch margins, with Times New Roman font, and a font size of 12.

• Spelling and grammar DO count

IMPORTANT DATE: • The Final Draft of your essay will be due one week from date assigned.

PROMPT: Imperialism has been interpreted from a variety of view points, in both a positive and negative light. Evaluate America’s own “imperialism era” by answering the following: What impact did the philosophy of imperialism have on shaping, i.e. determining the direction, of America’s foreign policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

Specific Requirements for Opening Paragraph . . . Your Opening Paragraph MUST include: 1. A unique opening sentence a. Goal is to attract the reader’s attention b. Avoid broad generalizations such as, “The Imperialism Era was a time of expansion.” c. Do not use global statements such as, “Throughout history . . .” 2. A Thesis a. A thesis is a statement that reflects the conclusion you have reached about your topic after a careful analysis of the sources. The thesis statement is an answer to a question. b. Remember: do NOT use the following: I think, In my opinion, we, us, me 3. A roadmap, outline, or itemized list of topics you will discuss in the body of your paper a. You need three topics (hence three body paragraphs) b. These are the points you will discuss to support your thesis c. The specific details of each topic will discussed in the body paragraph

Also, you need to connect your paragraphs with transitions that allow the reader to know you are moving to another supporting point. Common transitions include: Also, Just as, In addition to, Similarly . . . DOCUMENTS:

DOCUMENT A Source: William McKinley Speech, November 1899. "I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way...(1) that we could not give [Philippines] back to Spain -- that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany -- our commercial rivals in the Orient -- that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for self government -- and they would soon have anarchy and misrule worse than Spain's was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them..."

DOCUMENT B Source: Rudyard Kipling, “White Man’s Burden”, 1899. Take up the White Man’s burden – Take up the White Man’s burden - Take up the White Man’s burden - Send forth the best ye breed – In patience to abide The savage wars of peace Go, bind your sons to exile To veil the threat of terror Fill full the mouth of Famine To serve your captives’ need; And check the show of pride And bid the sickness cease; To wait, in heavy harness, By open speech and simple, And when your goal is nearest On fluttered folk and wild – An hundred times made plain, (The end for others sought) Your new-caught sullen peoples, To seek another’s profit Watch sloth and heathen folly Half devil and half child. And work another’s gain Bring all your hope to nought.

DOCUMENT C Source: African Proverb. When the whites came to our country, we had the land and they had the Bible, now we have the Bible and they have the land.

DOCUMENT D Source: Boston Globe, May 28, 1898.

Well, I Hardly Know Which to Take First DOCUMENT E Source: Maps.com

DOCUMENT F Source: William Jennings Bryan, “Paralyzing Influence of Imperialism” Speech, Democratic National Convention, 1900. If it is right for the United States to hold the Philippine Islands permanently and imitate European empires in the government of colonies, the Republican Party ought to state its position and defend it…

The Filipinos do not need any encouragement from Americans now living. Our whole history has been an encouragement, not only to the Filipinos, but to all who are denied a voice in their own government. If the Republicans are prepared to censure all who have used language calculated to make the Filipinos hate foreign domination, let them condemn the speech of Patrick Henry. When he uttered that passionate appeal, ”Give me liberty or give me death,” he expressed a sentiment which still echoes in the hearts of men.

DOCUMENT G Source: Mark Twain, New York Harold, 1900 [I used to be] a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific...Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself?...I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the Treaty of Paris [which ended the Spanish-American War], and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.

It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. DOCUMENT H Source: The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 1904. "It is not true that the Unites States feels any land hunger... as regards to the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or any impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society [however], may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power... It is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in American or any where else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that the right of such independence can not be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it."

DOCUMENT I Source: First Open Door Note, Department of State, Washington, September 6, 1899. "...the Government of the United States would be pleased to see his German's Majesty's Government give formal assurances, and lend its cooperation in securing like assurances from other interested powers...

"First. Will in no way interfere with any treaty port or any vested interest within any so-called "sphere of interest" or leased territory it may have in China.

"Second. That the Chinese treaty tariff of the time being shall apply to all merchandise landed or shipped to all such ports as are within said "sphere of interest" (unless they be "free ports"), no matter to what nationality it may belong, and that duties so leviable shall be collected by the Chinese Government.

"Third. That it will levy no higher harbor dies on vessels of another nationality frequenting any port in such "sphere" than shall be levied on vessels of its own nationality, and no higher railroad charges over lines built, controlled, or operated within its "sphere" on merchandise belonging to citizens or subjects of other nationalities transported through such "sphere" than shall be levied on similar merchandise belonging to its own nationals transported over equal distances." ...

DOCUMENT J Source: The Platt Amendment, 1903. Article I: The Government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes, or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of said island. ...

Article III: The Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba...

Article VII: To enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the Government of Cuba will sell or lease to the Unites Sates lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.

DOCUMENT K Source: From: Cecil Rhodes, British imperialist in Africa, Confessions of Faith, 1877. I contend that we [Britons] are the finest race in the world, and the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race…It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more Anglo-Saxon race, more of the best, the most human, most honorable race the world possesses.

DOCUMENT L Source: From: Mark Twain, Speech Anti-Imperialist League, New York, 1901. It is a distress to look on and note the mismoves, they are so strange and so awkward. [England] manufactures a war out of materials so inadequate and so fanciful that they make the boxes grieve and the gallery laugh, and [they] tries hard to persuade themselves that it isn't purely a private raid for cash, but has a sort of dim, vague respectability about it somewhere, if he could only find the spot; and that, by and by, he can scour the flag clean again after he has finished dragging it through the mud, and make it shine and flash in the vault of heaven once more as it had shone and flashed there a thousand years in the world's respect until he laid his unfaithful hand upon it. It is bad play -- bad. For it exposes the Actual Thing to Them that Sit in Darkness, and they say: "What! Christian against Christian? And only for money? Is this a case of magnanimity, forbearance, love, gentleness, mercy, protection of the weak -- this strange and over-showy onslaught of an elephant upon a nest of field-mice, on the pretext that the mice had squeaked an insolence at him -- conduct which 'no self-respecting government could allow to pass unavenged?' as Mr. Chamberlain said. Was that a good pretext in a small case, when it had not been a good pretext in a large one? -- DOCUMENT M Source: "The March of the Flag", Albert J. Beveridge 1898. "Have we no mission to perform, no duty to discharge to our fellow-man? Has God endowed us with gifts beyond our deserts and marked us as the people of His peculiar favor, merely to rot in our own selfishness, as men and nations must, who take cowardice for their companion and self for their deity -- as China has, as India has, as Egypt has?…

"The rule of liberty that all just government derives its authority from the consent of the governed, applies only to those who are capable of self-government. … Would not the people of the Philippines prefer the just, humane, civilizing government of this Republic to the savage, bloody rule of pillage and extortion from which we have rescued them? …

"…do we owe no duty to the world? Shall we turn these people back to the reeking hands from which we have taken them? Shall we abandon them, with Germany, England, Japan, hungering for them? Shall we save them from these nations, to give them a self-rule of tragedy?…

"…Jefferson, who dreamed of Cuba as an American state; Jefferson, the first Imperialist of the Republic -- Jefferson acquired that imperial territory which swept from the Mississippi to the mountains, from Texas to the British possessions, and the march of the flag began!…

"American energy is greater than Spanish sloth… Their trade will be ours in time… We cannot fly from our world duties; it is ours to execute the purpose of a fate that has driven us to be greater than our small intentions. We cannot retreat from any soil where Providence has unfurled our banner; it is ours to save that soil for liberty and civilization."

DOCUMENT N Source: Minneapolis Journal, 1899.