The proponents of a strong navy also recognized the value of overseas trade. The clamor to annex Hawaii, for example, came first and foremost from the American sugar cane planters on the islands. Business leaders believed that huge profits could be made by selling American goods in Central and South America and Asia as well as by directly investing in the development of the natural resources of those countries. Both industrial output and agricultural production were far exceeding the ability of the nation's consumers to absorb them, and foreign markets were thereby deemed essential to continued economic growth. Several factors contributed to the United States' somewhat belated participation in this Age of Imperialism. Justifications for expansion.Since 1870, European nations such as Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy had been seizing territory and establishing colonies in Africa and Asia. imperialism boiled over into the Spanish‐American War. territory in 1898, just as European and U.S. McKinley ran on a platform that called for the annexation of Hawaii, and the island became a U.S. The United States quickly recognized the new republic, but this did not end the matter. President Cleveland refused to annex Hawaii and preferred the restoration of a constitutional monarchy, but the leaders of the coup rejected that solution and instead proclaimed The Republic of Hawaii on July 4, 1894. In 1891, Queen Liliuokalani assumed the throne and tried to reassert Hawaiian sovereignty, but this brief interlude of independence came to an end two years later when the planters, with the help of American gunboats, staged a successful coup. The United States was given the right to build a naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1887, and, in the same year, Americans on the islands forced the Hawaiian rulers to create a constitutional monarchy under American control. American missionaries and commercial interests had long been active in Hawaii by the 1840s, they controlled the sugar plantations and held positions in government. The true prize in the Pacific, however, was the Hawaiian Islands. In 1878, a treaty was negotiated that gave the United States the right to establish a naval station at Pago Pago in Samoa. Seward as an important step in establishing a foothold in Asian markets. The purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, though derided at the time as “Seward's Folly,” was seen by Secretary of State William H. Before and after the war, several small islands in the Pacific were acquired as coaling stations for American ships: Howland and Baker Islands in 1857 and the Midway Islands in 1867. Nonetheless, steps were taken to extend American influence beyond the continental United States. BushĪround the time of the Civil War, the majority of Americans showed little interest in foreign policy national concerns were industrialization, the settlement of the West, and domestic politics. From Vice President to President: George H.W.The United States under Ford and Carter.A New Society: Economic & Social Change.American Society and Culture, 1865–1900.
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