Chapter 69: The New Imperialism
Chapter 69: The New Imperialism
In the late 19th Century, the nature of imperialism was evolving. Driven by realist geopolitics, capitalist forces, and racist assumptions, Westerners scrambled for power over the rest of the world. In this chapter, we will explore the impact of this transformation in China, Africa, and the empire of the United States.
Sources for this episode include:
Allitt, Patrick N. “The Rise and Fall of the British Empire.” The Great Courses. 2013.
Blackhawk, Ned. The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. Yale University Press. 2023.
Chang, Jung. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China. Alfred A. Knopf. 2013.
Harreld, Donald J. “An Economic History of the World since 1400.” The Great Courses. 2016.
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Empire: 1875-1914. Vintage Books. 1989.
Hopkins, A.G. American Empire: A Global History. Princeton University Press. 2018.
Laumann, Dennis. Colonial Africa: 1884-1994. Oxford University Press. 2019.
“Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations.” (1899-1913) Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913
Moore, Colin D. American Imperialism and the State: 1893-1921. Cambridge University Press. 2017.
“On the Industrial History of Italy.” European Route of Industrial Heritage. https://www.erih.net/how-it-started/industrial-history-of-european-countries/italy
“On the Industrial History of Switzerland.” European Route of Industrial Heritage. https://www.erih.net/how-it-started/industrial-history-of-european-countries/switzerland
“On the Industrial History of the Netherlands.” European Route of Industrial Heritage. https://www.erih.net/how-it-started/industrial-history-of-european-countries/the-netherlands
The Banana Wars: A Captivating Guide to the Interventions of the United States in Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Captivating History. 2023.
“The Donghak Peasant Rebellion: A Bloody Chapter in Jeolla History.” Gwangju News. 7 Jane 2022. https://gwangjunewsgic.com/features/jeolla-history/the-donghak-peasant-rebellion/
Full Transcript
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By 1900, the Kingdom of Italy had changed considerably. As I mentioned back in Chapter 53, the unification of the peninsula was not so much about creating a new nation as it was about expanding the Piedmont state across the rest of the country. As a result, the new government introduced certain economic policies that were clearly much more beneficial to the north than to the south. By the early 1880s, an agricultural crisis had begun, leading to millions of southern Italian peasants fleeing their new nation, emigrating to countries like the United States and Argentina.
Northern Italy, meanwhile, experienced its “miracolo industriale” – a boom period not only for the existing textile mills, but also for new heavy industry, chemicals, and machine production. The Pirelli rubber plant and the continent’s first electric power plant were introduced in Milan. Shipbuilding, with locally-produced steel, began in Genoa. The food producer, Cirio, opened a canning factory in Turin. And by the start of the First World War, the region had become home to several major automakers.
In fact, across Western Europe, most places that had not yet industrialized were now industrializing. Lumber and pulp production, smelting, and the refining of other goods took off across Scandinavia. In the Netherlands, companies like Philips (the lightbulb maker) joined the ranks of other manufacturers churning out food stuffs, chemicals, and more. Steel shipbuilding took off in Bilbao and Belfast. Switzerland tapped its hydroelectric power potential to open new silk mills, chemical plants, and factories producing electrical equipment.
But most of the world had more in common with southern Italy – exploited by the empires they now found themselves in. In these countries, the mineral and agricultural resources were being extracted for far-away markets. As French Prime Minister Jules Ferry put it, “Colonial policy is the daughter of industrial policy.” But the introduction of machinery and modern infrastructure were limited to those investments that would profit the Westerners – it was not to grow any domestic industry. In 1880, per capita income in the West was roughly twice that of the Global South. By 1913, it was more than thrice that, and the gap was continuing to widen. By 1900, famine had become a thing of the past in the West. But in the rest of the world, it was going to become more and more common.
Of course, this is what empires have always been about. The Assyrians, Chinese, Romans, Mongols, and Ottomans all conquered other peoples to profit at their expense. But this new Age of Empires was different in scale and scope. Capitalist colonialism led to a rapid, competitive race for power and influence around the globe. As our old friend, Eric Hobsbawm noted, “Between 1876 and 1915 about one-quarter of the globe’s land surface was distributed or redistributed as colonies among a half-dozen states. Britain increased its territories by some 4 million square miles, France by some 3.5 millions, Germany acquired more than 1 million, Belgium and Italy just under 1 million each.”
With the collapse of free trade agreements following the Panic of 1873 – a topic I have briefly mentioned in the past – merchants needed access to new markets. The only way to do that, within closed economic systems, was to expand such systems by expanding the empires. As British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, told the French ambassador in 1897, “If you were not such persistent protectionists, you would not find us so keen to annex territories.”
The technological supremacy and economic greed of the imperial powers obviously help explain why this happened, but they do not fully explain it. Cultural supremacism was also at play.
The Westerners believed their religion – Christianity – was superior to the beliefs of the indigenous peoples they conquered. They used their faith to both explain and justify their conquests. Not only would the introduction to Christ save souls, it would in time – it was believed – improve the material well-being of the natives too.
And of course, there was a great deal of racism at play. Building off the ideas published by Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, it was in the 19th Century when the construct of race was solidified. Anthropologists like Thomas Henry Huxley introduced complex theories of racial categorization. Infographics were published with pictures of Europeans at the top, Asians in the middle, and indigenous Africans and Americans at the bottom. Several World’s Fairs included exhibits of supposedly exotic people that reinforced stereotypes about the kinds of human beings who were most or least inclined toward human progress.
These attitudes help explain why even less-industrial European countries, such as Portugal and Spain, picked up new territories in Africa; why Western powers resisted Japan’s imperial ambitions; and why the British legitimately tried to introduce “civilization” to the peoples they conquered, rather than just stealing their wealth and running away.
But – just as it was in the 16th and 17th centuries – competition between the European powers was probably the greatest factor of all. As the U.K. spread its empire, the French felt the need to keep up. And as the French spread their empire, the Germans felt the need to keep up. Et cetera, et cetera.
Even today there remains debate about the overall impact of colonialism. Many argue that the conquered lands saw benefits. They argue that introduction to industrial societies ultimately brings with it all kinds of development. This is famously parodied in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, when Judean radicals are discussing their exploitation at the hands of the Romans.
Others, meanwhile, argue that colonialism has done much more harm than good. Such arguments tend to focus on the very real violence and trauma exacted on indigenous peoples by (mostly) Western powers.
But even this kind of colonialism doesn’t paint the full picture of what happened. Because from China to Chile, imperialism was evolving. And in many ways, it laid the foundation of the modern world order.
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This is the Industrial Revolutions
Chapter 69: The New Imperialism
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Before we begin, let’s tackle the admin.
First off, thank you for your patience with this episode. Now, if anything sounds a bit different, that might be because I am recording it in the dining room rather than my office. That’s because my office has become the nursery! Plus, having a baby has altered my schedule a bit, so I am actually recording this late at night rather than early in the morning.
Anyway, due to a number of factors – the month-early birth of our daughter being not the least among them – I was unable to get this episode done by August like I had planned. For a while I thought I might be able to get it done by September, but most likely October. Then October passed. Then November. Oh well.
Now, I am still trying to find a daycare where she can go a few days a week, so that I’ll have enough time to work on the podcast. And while I’ll definitely make that happen at some point, in all likelihood, it will be another 6 months or so before I can get you another chapter. (I know, I know.) Again, if you would like to pause your Patreon subscription in the meantime, I totally get it.
But, good news, I have decided to re-release the three existing Holiday Specials for this Holiday Season. If you’d like to re-listen to the story behind Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol, or about Victorian Christmas traditions we still observe, or the history of Santa Claus, you’re in luck. I’ll post those December 9th and keep them up through the end of the year.
Also, I hope you enjoyed the recent episode about the Great Civil War Locomotive Chase in my absence. If you did, be sure to check out the History Daily podcast for more great stories. And if you’re a History Daily listener who has newly discovered The Industrial Revolutions, welcome! Now, I’ve mentioned this before, but I do recommend new listeners start the podcast at Chapter 1 and listen in order from oldest to newest. That way you’ll be able to connect things I tell you about to things I’ve previously talked about.
Okay, another thing I want to mention quick is that I am on Bluesky. So, if you’re one of the people migrating over there from the platform formerly known as Twitter, you can find me @davebroker.bsky.social.
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Okay, let’s get on with the show.
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Part 1: The Dowager Empress
At the end of the last chapter, we discussed the rise of the newest empire in this New Age of Empires: Japan.
Even before the Meiji Restoration, Japanese leaders were expressing a desire to catch up with the West – scientifically, economically, and (most importantly), militarily. To these ends, they modernized and built up their naval fleet and armories. And, by the 1890s, they were ready to build an empire to rival those of the Western powers. So began a conflict I only briefly touched upon last time.
In the early months of 1894, an uprising broke out in the southernmost province of Korea. A religious leader named Jeon Bong-jun organized peasants who were fed up with the province’s corrupt and exploitative officials. He taught the Donghak faith – an interesting blend of Eastern religious practices that alarmed the government due to its egalitarian message. In the months to come, Jeon and his rebels attacked government offices and the royal armed forces, taking key villages and fortresses.
The aims of this Donghak Peasant Rebellion were complicated but, basically, they wanted to do away with the old feudal order. They wanted to abolish slavery and oppressive class distinctions, reduce the economic burdens faced by the peasantry, secure religious liberty for themselves, and advance democracy and meritocracy in government. They were also opposed to many of the changes they saw happening because of industrialization, such as the new ways rice could be transported out of the region, or the growing incursion of foreign merchants and missionaries in Korea.
That May, the government worked out a peace treaty with the rebels. It eventually fell apart and another year and a half of fighting followed. Before the end of 1895, the rebellion collapsed and Jeon was captured and executed.
But before any of those developments, the Korean government called on its Chinese and Japanese neighbors to help put down the uprising. Yet, these two neighbors were suspicious of each other, as both had designs to exert greater influence over Korea. Neither wanted the other to intervene. A months-long game of chicken followed. Finally, in July 1894, the Japanese captured Seoul and took the Korean king hostage. A pro-Japanese government was installed. Days later, war broke out between China and Japan.
The First Sino-Japanese War did not go well for China. Their army lost the key Battle of Pyongyang. Then – even though both countries had invested considerable resources toward building up their navies – Japan managed to sink eight of the ten modern Chinese ships at the Battle of the Yalu River. With control of the Yellow Sea lost to them, China faced a Japanese invasion via Manchuria. Finally, in the Spring of 1895, China sued for peace.
It was a humiliating turning point in their Century of Humiliation. While China had suffered losses at the hands of European powers for decades now, this was the first defeat to an Asian neighbor – and a neighbor that had bowed to them in deference for hundreds of years, no less.
Now China was under pressure like never before, with foreign powers breathing down their necks and a daunting need to modernize clearer than ever. And before the war was over, it led to the remarkable second comeback of the country’s most notable political figure: The Dowager Empress Cixi.
She was born Yehe Nara Xingzhen, the daughter of a somewhat prominent noble Manchu family. As a Manchu and a noblewoman, she was eligible to join the harem of our old friend, the Xianfeng Emperor. After she and a small group of others were selected over dozens of candidates, she began to rise through the ranks of the emperor’s concubines. Critically, she was the only woman who produced an heir for him, for which she was titled Noble Consort Yi, second in the harem only to the Empress.
By the 1860s, the situation around her was getting out of control. As you’ll remember from Chapter 52, the Taiping Rebellion was still underway, the British and French had burned down the Old Summer Palace as part of the Second Opium War, and shortly after that, the emperor died an early death. Her five-year-old son was soon made emperor, with a an 8-man regency council overseeing the empire. Both the empress and noble consort were given the title “Dowager Empress” and new names to mark the occasion. The emperor’s mother was from then on known as Cixi.
Unlike most women in the court, Cixi was fairly well educated, as well as opinionated, outspoken, and highly strategic. She formed an alliance with her fellow Dowager Empress and their late husband’s brothers, leading a coup against the regency council in November 1861. The two women would now jointly rule the country while the emperor was a boy. But, with the other Dowager Empress not as interested in politics, it was Cixi who now controlled China.
In the years to come, Cixi oversaw the end of the Taiping Rebellion and the implementation of the new unequal treaties with the Western powers. But she also wanted to ensure that calamities like these did not keep happening to China, and so she began to explore the possibilities of modernization.
Thanks to the unequal treaties, the number of cargo ships coming into Shanghai exploded as Cixi took power. With trade booming, China was exposed to more and more of the new technologies developed in the West. The trade also led to increased revenues for the state, allowing for investment in modernization. One example was the funding of new diplomatic missions. For the first time in Chinese history, diplomats were sent to the west to promote China while learning about Western ideas, of which they often came back with mixed opinions. Another was the funding of engineering education, though this was met with stiff resistance from the kingdom’s conservative Confucian scholars, who wanted to preserve the Chinese classics as the only subject of a formal education.
China did see some industrial development in the 1860s and 70s. New steamships were built for the Chinese navy – including 2 ironclads – and new coal mines and iron foundries were established in the process. Men were sent to France to learn the manufacturing processes for these ships and to Britain to train as Naval officers. Western merchants hoped it would be the start of a Chinese industrial revolution.
But many Chinese leaders – including Cixi – were very concerned about industrialization from a religious perspective. Loud machines and factories were viewed as disruptive to nature, especially to the ancestral tombs which dotted the Chinese landscape. Cixi feared that, if they adopted such practices in China, she would meet the wrath of heaven for it. Plus, she worried about the exorbitant foreign loans that would be needed to pay for such an industrial build-up.
But at the end of the day, she was only meant to be a caretaker. Her son turned 18 in 1873 and took charge. Yet, for years leading up to that point, everyone knew he would be a disaster as emperor. He hated learning – to the point he could barely read – and liked to sneak out of the palace to visit brothels and opium dens. As emperor, he faced a depleted treasury, but used the tax raises he implemented to fund a new Summer Palace. He fired and demoted officials who tried to thwart him. And despite getting married, he was unable to produce an heir.
In early 1875, this emperor died – officially of smallpox, possibly of syphilis. It led to a brief succession crisis. But Cixi had just the solution. She adopted a son on behalf of her late husband – a nephew of hers – making him the new Guangxu Emperor. And, with him being only a toddler at the time, it gave Cixi another go at regency.
Her second reign lasted another 12 years, during which she stepped-up the modernization efforts. With newspapers proliferating in the treaty ports – and news coming in over the wires from across the oceans – the court in Beijing was getting a much greater understanding of the outside world. And, from what they were learning, Cixi became convinced of the need to adopt more kinds of Western technology, culture, and institutions. It became known as China’s “Self-Strengthening Movement.”
Before the end of 1875, Cixi ordered the installation of a telegraph between Beijing and Taiwan. She hired Chinese business tycoon Sheng Xuanhuai to lead the Imperial Telegraph Administration. Initially, the telegraph was very unpopular, and crowds pulled down the wires and poles. But eventually the concerns about them subsided and lines spread across the empire.
Also that year, Cixi initiated modern coal mining practices in two trial areas. Leading the effort was merchant Tang Jingxing, who had many Western contacts. Western technicians were brought in to get the mines up and running. With coal came electricity. Cixi had electric lights installed at her Sea Palace in 1888. Seventeen electric companies formed in the next few years, serving the big cities – including many far inland, away from the treaty ports. And by 1889, Beijing had its first electric trams.
In 1876, British merchants built the first railway in Shanghai. It shocked the local population, which tried to stop it. Cixi actually had the government purchase the railway and dismantle it, moving it to Taiwan for the coal mines there. But when Taiwan proved unsuitable for them, it was moved again, this time to Kaiping – a new district east of Beijing that would become the cradle of Chinese industrialization.
Of all the advances coming from the West, none were as unpopular in China as railways. At first, the Kaiping railway had to be pulled by horses to quell concerns about it disturbing ancestral tombs. Eventually, a Chinese-built locomotive – the Rocket of China – was constructed for the line.
By and large, the Self-Strengthening Movement seemed to be working. The increased trade had led to a doubling of the empire’s revenues.
Still, Cixi was not prepared to go further with these efforts. In addition to limiting rail construction, she prevented the adoption of modern textile manufacturing, fearing that it threatened silk jobs. Silk production was a venerated craft going back thousands of years, and she did not like the idea of this tradition being forgotten.
But she was feeling more confident about China’s position in the world. When a rogue French commander sent expeditions into northern Vietnam – made up of Chinese vassal states – Cixi protested, but allowed the French to take them rather than face a war that risked Chinese territory proper. Still, when she sent troops to secure the boarder and mineral resources in Vietnam that the French coveted, it led to skirmishes. The French were emboldened to demand a 250 million franc indemnity from China. But an outraged Cixi refused, leading to the Sino-French War in 1884. Amazingly, China prevailed within a few months. It cost them many lives, as well as influence in Vietnam, but they would not have to pay that indemnity.
Still, it became clear to Cixi that foreign powers would remain a threat to Chinese interests and sovereignty. So, she ordered the further buildup of China’s navy.
And then…she had to relinquish control, once again, this time to her adopted son.
From 1887 to 1895, Cixi did her best to sit on the sidelines, letting the emperor rule without getting in his way – something that was undoubtedly difficult for her. Until, that is, the disasters of the Sino-Japanese War.
As the kingdom hurled toward a catastrophic defeat, the Guangxu Emperor became more erratic toward his officials. Most of them had served under Cixi during her decades of steady rule, and they knew her to be highly intelligent. They simply started keeping her in the loop and following her directions, instead of the emperor’s.
Finally, China sued for peace. In exchange, they would have to give up Taiwan and several other Pacific islands to Japan. Additionally, they agreed to pay 200 million taels of silver for war indemnities. Japan also reaped several commercial concessions similar to those the Western powers had obtained in previous wars. Japan even nearly secured the Liaodong Peninsula in China proper, across the Bohai Sea from Beijing, as new territory. But Western powers – fearing an overly powerful Japan – demanded that concession be dropped in exchange for another 30 million taels of silver.
And for their help keeping Japan out of the Chinese mainland, the Europeans would seek their own territorial gains as “thank you” gifts. By 1897, the Scramble for China had begun.
Now, it had already kind of started with the Russians, who teamed up with China to build the East China Railway. (Shout out last time.) Cixi had already been convinced by now of the merits of a rail network for China. Railways were needed to boost Chinese exports and close the huge trade deficit with the West. It began in 1896 with the Beijing-Wuhan Railway, a trunk line that moved agricultural goods, (processed locally by modern machines) to the Yangtze River port, where they could be shipped out to global markets. Now, with the Russian railway in Manchuria, Chinese goods could be shipped directly by rail to Europe. What’s more, Russia had their own plans for Korea and Japan (shout out last time again), and signed a secret mutual defense agreement with China.
But the scramble really became apparent, and adversarial, when Germany came a-knockin’. Kaiser Wilhelm II – whose anti-Asian racism was really quite something, even for this period in history – demanded control of Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong Province so Germany could build a port and naval base there. To show he was serious, the Kaiser sent warships to cruise up and down the coast. Then, when a pair of German missionaries were murdered in Shandong Province, it gave Wilhelm the pretext he needed to blockade the bay. Terrified by the prospect of war, the Guangxu Emperor forbade any attacks on the Germans. Shortly thereafter, the Qing government caved to the German demands.
The British and French already had ports in China. Now that Germany was joining the club, the Russians wanted in too. They demanded Port Arthur – which we talked about last time – and bribed Chinese diplomats to pull off the acquisition.
The British and French then staked out their own claims for even more territory. The U.K. leased a naval base on the northernmost tip of the Shandong Peninsula, across the way from Port Arthur, and secured control of Hong Kong for the next 99 years. France took control of Guangzhouwan on the south coast.
In effect, foreign powers – including Japan – now controlled most of China’s coastline. This competition for naval presences and port territories there was best illustrated by the famous 1898 political cartoon in Le Petit Journal, where a pie labeled “China” is being carved up by Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II, a French woman representing Liberty, and a Japanese Samurai, while a frantic Chinese official looks on. (And if you’re somehow not familiar with this cartoon, don’t worry, I’ll post it to social media this month.) A similar cartoon appeared in Punch Magazine later that same year as well.
As all this was happening, the emperor and Cixi were working closely together, spending most of their time together and jointly making decisions for the empire. They agreed that reform was desperately needed. They wanted to emulate the success Japan had had in catching up with the West. And so, they kicked off the most ambitious period of reform China had ever known. But these “Hundred Days Reforms”, as they were known, would also lead to the collapse of their partnership.
Among other things, the reforms included the introduction of more western-style education, for bureaucratic examinations as well as general education for schools and universities, teaching natural and social sciences in addition to the Chinese classics. They introduced more modern training for the army, modern agricultural methods and commercial endeavors were encouraged, and modern machines were imported to help manufacture raw materials for export, such as processing camel hair for textiles. They even implemented new patent regulations for the introduction of more and more modern technology, developed by native Chinese.
But it was thanks to a wildly ambitious official named Kang Youwei – a reformer who believed he was the reincarnation of Confucius, and who scammed and bribed his way into positions of influence in the palace – that the whole project fell apart. Kang advocated for an elected advisory council to guide the emperor, and he worked diligently for the emperor’s approval. It would put China on the path to becoming a constitutional monarchy. Though Cixi liked the idea (not trusting the talents of the emperor to rule by himself after she died), she instead sided with the conservatives who opposed it. It was to stop Kang from taking too much power for himself.
You see, Kang had convinced the emperor to fire a lot of his own officials, replacing them with Kang’s supporters. So, yeah, that created a good deal of resentment. He also tried to make the Japanese Prime Minister – our old friend, Ito Hirobumi – an official advisor to the Qing Emperor, bringing Japan into a position of greater influence in China. In effect, China would become something like a client kingdom to the Japanese Empire – or, at the very least, the Japanese would be able to ensure China’s huge indemnity payments to them would continue coming without interruptions. All of this led the majority of the Qing court to turn to Cixi. Soon enough, she organized an armed insurrection and – on September 21, 1898 – staged a successful coup d’etat. From now on, the emperor would be her prisoner, while Kang was forced to flee the country.
Western powers were horrified by this extralegal seizure of power – by a woman, no less. What’s more, it was becoming clear that she was getting a little too confident in her relations with them. When Italy came demanding a Chinese naval base in 1899, threatening war if it wasn’t handed over with just four days’ notice, the other Western powers gave them the green light. But the Italians were bluffing, and Cixi called their bluff.
Still, the episode caused Cixi to lose her patience with the Western powers. The racism implicit in their imperial escapades was bad enough. But she was also learning more about the treatment of Chinese people in the West – particularly in the United States – where they were regularly abused for seeking their own advancement.
And Cixi’s frustration with the West was widely shared among the Chinese people.
On a local level, this was mostly in the form of antipathy toward Christian missionaries. Because they had the backing of European gunboat diplomacy, Chinese Christians would usually get their way when it came to local disputes. So, more and more people converted, often just to get out of their legal obligations, like paying back their debts or answering subpoenas. And when periods like droughts came along, ceremonies were held to pray to the rain god, which many Chinese believed required broad community participation. Except, the missionaries forbade their converts from taking part. Thus, droughts and subsequent starvations were blamed on the foreigners and their religion. More and more, non-Christian Chinese felt increasingly powerless within their own country.
Throughout the 1880s and ‘90s, a folk-religious movement slowly spread in Shandong as drought devastated the province. It emphasized magic and martial arts, which the practitioners believed was so powerful it would protect them from the lethality of bullets. The movement was very decentralized and today its hard for historians to pin down much of a structure. But at least one of the names these practitioners went by was the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, alluding to a punching-based martial art they practiced called “Yihe Quan.” The Western newspapers would describe them as “Boxers.” And today the movement is remembered as the Boxer Rebellion.
From 1897 to 1899, Boxer gangs attacked Christians, killing tens of thousands. Initially, Cixi supported harsh punishments for the Boxers. However, her tough measures were not tough enough for the Western powers, who demanded more. And after Italy’s bluff was called, they believed China was becoming too big headed. Eventually, they pissed Cixi off enough that she flipped the script, backing the Boxers in a ‘people’s war’ against the foreigners humiliating her country.
From January 1900 until that August, Western forces invaded China to put down the Boxers. Western troops, protecting their embassies in Beijing’s foreign quarter, faced a monthslong siege by Boxer forces. The foreign armies were outnumbered – they had just 55,000 troops, compared to 100,000 Qing troops and hundreds of thousands more Boxers. But again they were able to use their technological supremacy to successfully defeat the rebellion. As one Westerner explained it, “Slowly they came on, shouting with their swords and pikes flashing in the sun, merely to be mowed down, whole ranks at a time by rifle and machine gun fire.”
In the end, some hundred thousand Chinese died in the fighting. Disagreements within both the Qing and Boxer forces led to faltering. Beijing was secured by the foreign armies, and Cixi was forced to flee the city in a mule cart. An eight-nation alliance began a long and brutal occupation of China. To return to power, Cixi had to agree to another unequal treaty, the Boxer Protocol. Huge indemnity payments were imposed and sovereignty over additional territories within China were surrendered.
With the disastrous episode behind her then, Cixi tried to rebuild relations with the West. And once again, reforms were proposed to help catch up with them. This time, it would represent a huge shake-up of the existing system, targeting “all the fundamentals that made the foreign countries rich and strong.” From 1902 until her death in 1908, Cixi led something akin to a revolution.
For starters, major upgrades were made to urban infrastructure, including the introduction of running water, trash clean-ups, streetlights, and even telephones in Beijing. A Commerce Ministry was formed, and entrepreneurship was encouraged – a huge break from the past, when merchants were seen as being among the lowest classes. The yuan was established as a national currency. The education system was overhauled, based on Western models, with modern course offerings instead of just Chinese classics. Cixi also promoted education for women and girls with new schools and a university for them. A successful effort was made to eradicate the use of opium.
Modernization efforts allowed state revenues to double during this period, which again allowed for further investment in modernization. But Cixi was convinced that more than economic reforms were needed. Other Western practices would be adopted as well. A significant degree of free speech and free press was allowed. A new legal code was implemented for the country’s commercial, civil, criminal, and judicial needs. Cruel and unusual forms of punishment were significantly more restricted. Foot-binding was banned (albeit, the implementation was to be phased in) and the ban on Han-Manchu intermarriage was lifted.
Perhaps most significantly, Cixi began work to introduce an elected Parliament to China – an increasingly popular idea – and a drafted constitution. She strongly believed such systems were behind the West’s success because it encouraged buy-in for programs to work, and it allowed a greater number of minds to tackle a nation’s problems. Still, all these efforts were designed to extend the longevity of the Qing Dynasty. But, in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, many Han Chinese were again becoming fed up with Manchu control of the throne. Republicanism was steadily growing, waiting for Cixi’s death.
The Dowager Empress died on November 15, 1908. The Guangxu Emperor had died just one day earlier, most likely poisoned by the dying Cixi, who did not trust him to rule effectively without her. He was succeeded the 2-year-old Puyi, the last emperor of China.
At the end of the day, Cixi left behind a mixed legacy. She clearly understood, early on, that certain forms of modernization were needed. China’s hyper-conservative posture was not helping the empire in an increasingly industrialized world. But she too feared the consequences of overhauling the country too much, too fast, understanding the cultural and political realities she was up against. Modernization came so slowly that foreign powers were able to chip away at the once-great empire more and more.
Still, China was only one theater in which the forces of empire were vying for power. During these same years, Europeans descended on a new imperial target – an entire continent, in fact.
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Part 2: The Scramble
If you were to poll the entire world’s population and ask them about the history of Africa, my guess is the vast majority would be unable to tell you much of anything before the years of European colonialism. They’d probably be familiar with the ancient Egyptians and the slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries, but that would be about it. When I was growing up, I learned about how Africa was known as the “dark continent” – not because its people had dark skin, but because Westerners knew so little about the place when they showed up. In other words, they were in the dark as to the continent’s peoples, history, and more.
Not only does Africa have some extraordinary ancient and Medieval history, it was also changing in some profound ways during the Industrial Age.
Following the decline of the transatlantic slave trade, African leaders and merchants had to pivot to ensure their continued political and economic expansions. Not only were more enslaved people sent to East Africa and the Islamic World, but many others were put to work producing the raw goods sought by Europe – just now in West Africa rather than the Americas. The Europeans needed palm oil to lubricate their new machines, ivory for a myriad of consumer products, and rubber for all sorts of purposes which we covered in chapters 39 and 59. African farmers and traders extracted these resources to sell into the global market.
In the process, commercial networks for the cultivation and delivery of such resources expanded across the continent. Many of the continent’s burgeoning empires consolidated power too, using the revenues of the trade to bolster their military and administrative capacities. Africans who traded with Europeans were becoming increasingly educated by Western standards and spreading Western ideas across these empires. At the same time, Christianity and Islam spread rapidly.
Now, there were a few Western colonies in Africa by the mid-19th Century. In what is today South Africa, Britain controlled the Cape of Good Hope, a settler colony set first set up by the Dutch in 1652. The French had colonized Algeria shortly before the July Revolution of 1830. And the U.K. and U.S. had both set up colonies for freed Blacks – Sierra Leon and Liberia, respectively.
But few Africans could have predicted what was coming next. In his 1987 book, African Perspectives on Colonialism, the Ghanaian historian and politician, A. Adu Boahen, wrote that,
“The most surprising aspects of the imposition of colonialism on Africa were its suddenness and its unpredictability. By as late as 1880, there were no real signs or indications of this phenomenal and catastrophic event. On the contrary, an overwhelming majority of the states and polities in Africa were enjoying their sovereign existence, and their rulers were in full control of their own affairs and destinies.”
But as quinine production ramped up in the mid-1800s (shout out Chapter 54!), European explorers began venturing into Africa. Men like Paul du Chaillu, David Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley, Georg Schweinfruth, Frederick Russell Burnham, and Sir Richard Burton became famous across the West for their adventurous expeditions of Africa, and for the colorful stories they wrote about their travels. More importantly, the reports they compiled provided key information about the geography, botany, economics, and politics of the places they explored – in other words, the details for what could be exploited and how it could be done.
And as different European countries did this, they began feeling that old competitive pressure. Like, “if it was up to me, we wouldn’t need control of the Congo basin, but this other country clearly has their eyes on it, and if we don’t take it, they will!” It was that sort of thing. And, sure enough, by 1883, France began annexing territories in modern-day Senegal, Benin, and Togo. Fearing French dominance – and buoyed on by missionary societies and commercial outfits – the British and Germans then made their own claims, seizing other territories along the West Coast of the continent. Belgian King Leopold II, meanwhile, was making his own inroads in central Africa. (Shout out Chapter 59!)
But while industrialization was clearly transforming Africa, the continent had experienced virtually nothing in terms of its own industrial development. Still, colonizing Africa would require considerable resources. And, as the Europeans saw it, there was little point wasting these resources by fighting each other over the still undeveloped landscape. Instead, they would colonize cooperatively.
Thus, in 1884, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck organized the meetings we now call the Berlin Conference. For four months, diplomats from 12 European countries – as well as the U.S. and Ottoman Empire – hashed out an agreement for how Africa was to be colonized. Driven by racist instincts, of course, there was little impetus felt for involving actual Africans in this discussion.
They agreed to a format that would set the stage for nearly a century of imperial rule. The Congo and Niger rivers were to remain free trade routes accessible for everyone, and Western powers were able to enter into protective agreements with local African polities. But more importantly, any country that controlled any coastal possession in Africa could extend their territory into the continent’s interior. Notice would be given to the other powers to adjudicate any counterclaims that may be out there. Once everyone was satisfied, and once the Western empire in question secured effective control of that territory (i.e. had achieved miliary dominance there), their claim would be recognized by the other powers.
By the time of the First World War, they had carved up and laid claim to nearly every part of the continent. In addition to Algeria, the French laid claim to Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Gabon, Congo, a big chunk of central Africa, Djibouti, the island of Madagascar, and a huge swathe of territory dubbed “French West Africa” – which included the modern states of Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, Benin, and the Ivory Coast. The Germans came away with Togo, Cameroon, Namibia, Rwanda, Burundi, and most of modern-day Tanzania. Portugal would get Guina Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique. Italy got in on the action, taking much of modern-day Libya, Somalia, and Eritrea. But of course, the greatest empire in Africa was that of the British, whose colonies extended from South Africa up to Zambia and Malawi, from Egypt down to Uganda and Kenya, and Gambia, Sierra Leon, Ghana, and Nigeria.
Of course, none of these places mentioned really existed before the Europeans – their boarders and sovereign governments today are direct descendants of Europe’s colonies.
But why colonize Africa at all? Why not instead develop a formalized trade relationship with African leaders?
Well, the Europeans seemed to believe the colonial mission would help them bring the so-called “3 C’s” to Africa: Christianity, civilization, and commerce. They earnestly believed in the superiority of their societies; that they could help the African people. But, of course, colonization also allowed them to practice unfettered power across vast, resource-rich territories. And it provided them with a defensive check over their European competitors. The British even took effective control of Egypt just to keep their shipping needs on the Suez Canal secure.
Of the 3 C’s, commerce proved to be by far the most motivating. And while the Europeans hoped to develop lucrative markets for their exports in Africa, it was resource extraction that drove them more in the short-term.
I already mentioned how Leopold II and the French brutally culled central Africa for its rubber plants. Numerous empires hoped to expand the production of agricultural goods like sugar and hemp. But perhaps nothing encouraged colonization quite like the establishment of diamond and gold mines in southern Africa.
And mining prospects were behind the rise of the man who was perhaps the era’s most famous imperial figure: Cecil Rhodes.
The grandson of a brick manufacturer during the First Industrial Revolution, Rhodes was born in Hertfordshire in 1853. Due to health issues, he dropped out of school at age 9 and was then sent to the Cape Colony as a teenager to benefit from the climate there. Beginning at age 18, he got the financing he needed from the Rothschilds to get diamond-mining operations up and running in the northern part of the colony. After a brief return to England to study at Oxford, Rhodes returned to South Africa and bought what turned out to be some wildly successful diamond fields from the De Beers family. With the help of a business partner and more financing from the Rothschilds, he launched the De Beers Company in 1888.
In time, De Beers virtually monopolized diamond mining operations in southern Africa, and Rhodes raked in a fortune. By the time of his death, the millions of pounds he amassed left him with an estate that would be worth about a billion dollars today. And with this fortune, he got into politics. Rhodes was a fierce advocate of British imperialism. In 1890 he became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and expanded the British Empire northward. He tried fomenting a war to conquer the South African Republic – controlled by the Afrikaners, descendants of the area’s earlier Dutch settlers – which not only forced his resignation, it contributed to the outbreak of the famous Boer War at the turn of the century. He also expanded British holdings into modern-day Zimbabwe and Zambia, a huge territory that became known as “Rhodesia.”
To secure control of such territories, Europeans like Rhodes relied on a combination of duplicity and force. So-called “treaties of protection” were signed by local leaders who were often unable to read treaties and thus were unaware of what they were giving up. Other times such treaties were signed by leaders after being kidnapped by European soldiers and held at gunpoint.
Yet many African leaders resisted. As Machemba, king of the Yao in present-day Tanzania, defiantly told the German commander trying to push a treaty on him, “I would rather die first… If it should be friendship that you desire, then I am ready for it, today and always; but to be your subject, that I cannot be… if you are strong enough, then come and fetch me.”
Such resistance was crushed time and time again. Although African forces did achieve some memorable victories, they were more often met by the overwhelming superiority of Europe’s military technology. During the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, for example, thousands of British troops took on an indigenous kingdom that was armed primarily with spears and cowhide shields. In subsequent conflicts, African combatants did use firearms, but these were largely century-old muskets, whereas the Europeans used breach-loading rifles, heavy artillery, and even machine guns.
Technological superiority and violence would continue to be used by the imperial powers to maintain control throughout the colonial period. Steamships and railways provided easier means for the colonizers to move within the interior of Africa. Telegraph lines allowed for instant communication between the distant outposts of the empires.
Native revolts were then suppressed by brutal, even genocidal tactics. When the Herero people of present-day Namibia rose up against the German Empire in 1904, for example, the local German commander received an order reading “Within the German boarders, every Herero, whether armed or unarmed, shall be shot.” More than 80% of the Herero died over the next three years, many of whom were worked to death or poisoned in concentration camps – a grim foreshadowing of what was to come in Germany’s future.
Through their colonial departments, the European states would send local administrators to oversee vast territories. Stationed at remote outposts with limited budgets, these administrators seldom had much understanding of the peoples they were governing. Nevertheless, they used their empire’s military force to collect taxes and dispense justice – or their own notions of justice, anyway. To maintain order, they often resorted to playing local tribes or ethnic groups off one another – something that would lead to disastrous consequences in the post-colonial era. And these officials were often corrupt, often brutal, and often seen as illegitimate interlopers by the native populations.
But most of the interactions between native Africans and Europeans were not through the colonial administration. Instead, colonial officials usually left these interactions to missionaries and to commercial outfits.
The role of the missionaries was, first and foremost, to spread the Christian faith to the Africans. But more broadly, they sought to instill European cultural norms – which they believed were intrinsically tied with their religion – within the native communities. These often included rigid models of European-style patriarchy, education, health, dress, cuisine, and even agricultural practices. Initially, these efforts were often met with ridicule. But over time, many of the missionaries’ mores – as well as Christianity – did take root across the continent.
The role of the commercial outfits, meanwhile, was to profit from the African colonies. In addition to mines for precious minerals, these ventures included huge tracts of land being converted into farms for cash-crop exports. African peasants now found themselves in the service of foreign companies like the French Company of West Africa (CFAO) and Unilever, which sought to create huge yields of specific products. In some cases, these efforts faced backlash. German officials, hoping their Togoland colony would produce the raw cotton needed for German textile mills, were quite frustrated by the local resistance to the crop, as peasants knew it was not the most economically advantageous crop for them. Other times, imperial policy prohibited what they could grow, as was the case with coffee and tea in Kenya, which were so profitable that they threatened established enterprises elsewhere in the British Empire
As they transformed land use and built new roads and railways, the Europeans effectively replaced the once-burgeoning trade networks of the continent. Africans were suddenly excluded from benefiting from the export economies created within their homelands. And new systems of taxation forced them into a new wage labor economy. In order to pay the taxes demanded by the Europeans, they would have to find work on settler farms, in mines, on infrastructure projects, or in the burgeoning cities of the continent.
And as Africans migrated into the cities, it had an impact not all that unlike the impact of urbanization back in Europe. The migrants would need to build networks within these new metropolises for their survival. And as they did, they began shaping their identities around these experiences.
For some, this meant a greater association with the colonial order – adopting Western norms and contributing to the empires of their European rulers. For others, it meant a greater emphasis on their tribal identities – after all, they often relied on others who spoke their language and knew their customs to find employment or housing. And, in time, many Africans began identifying themselves along new lines of national identity, associated with their colony but not with their colonizers.
Now, the United States had established the colony that became the Republic of Liberia, and several of the famous explorers of Africa were American, and the U.S. had participated in the Berlin Conference. And yet, the Americans showed no interest in participating in this Scramble for Africa. But, before the end of the 19th Century, the United States would establish its own overseas empire.
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Part 3: The American Empire
The United States had been expanding from the get-go. In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, in which Britain recognized American independence, the new nation inherited their mother country’s claims to almost all lands south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi River. In 1803, our old friend, President Thomas Jefferson, purchased all of France’s land claims in the Mississippi River basin. This “Louisiana Purchase”, nearly doubled the size of U.S. territory. Florida was purchased from Spain in 1819. War with Mexico in the 1840s – as well as the actions of squirrely American settlers in Texas a decade earlier – delivered to the U.S. its southwestern lands. And a compromise with Britain secured the Oregon Territory.
In its first 65 years, the United States had already become an empire, spanning the North American continent from “sea to shining sea.” As newspaper publisher John O’Sullivan put it in an 1845 column, “that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.”
Indeed, this belief in a “Manifest Destiny” became a popular one in 19th Century America, not only for the development of the nation’s political values, but also for the material and technological development that came with westward settlement.
But, of course, these lands were merely claimed by the United States, as there was a myriad of sovereign nations that had been occupying them for centuries. Now, the U.S. Constitution had given Congress the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” – thus, in effect, the Constitution recognized the sovereignty of Native American nations. The lands where they lived and worked were theirs, and this understanding was reinforced by the U.S. Supreme Court,
So, the U.S. government came up with a way to acquire the lands under these competing concepts of territorial sovereignty. They would secure their land claims via treaties with the various tribes, but maintained that these lands could not be sold by the indigenous peoples there to any other foreign country. In exchange for land, the government would provide the tribes money, arms, and smaller territories (usually further West) that would be reserved for them indefinitely – reservations.
Now, some treaties were fairer than others, but they were still wildly unequal. And the U.S. government would routinely violate the treaties if they found them inconvenient. A quite notable example was President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act. Complicating matters further, the individual states often shrugged off U.S.-tribal diplomacy and forced Native communities out themselves.
We already mentioned how this played out in the southern U.S. back in Chapter 5 – how the need to clear lands for cotton plantations, supplying the textile mills of the First Industrial Revolution, led to the infamous Trail of Tears, where several tribes were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands. Well, as the railroads expanded west in the late 19th Century, such incidents of ethnic cleansing continued to multiply during the Second Industrial Revolution.
The railroads brought settlers – homesteaders, fortune-seeking miners, and the occasional outlaws – who frequently scuffled with the indigenous populations. American bison – the primary game for many Great Plaines Indians – often disrupted traffic on the transcontinental railroads. And precious metals were discovered on tribal lands in South Dakota and Colorado.
Time and time again, the solution was to bring in the U.S. Army to subjugate the Indians. Over the course of about thirty years, though they engaged in noteworthy wars of resistance, the Sioux, Navajo, Apache, Shoshone, Nez Pierce, and other peoples were continuously massacred and removed to smaller and smaller reservations. By 1900, the indigenous population stood at just a quarter million – less than half of what it had been a century earlier. The bison, meanwhile, were hunted on a deliberately (ahem) industrial scale, nearly leading to their extinction. And the government scrapped its treaty strategy altogether. New laws passed in the 1870s and ‘80s allowed bureaucrats in Washington to remove tribes and reallocate reservation lands as they saw fit.
Indeed, this process of ethnic cleansing proved to be informative for the expansions of other empires around the world. Even Adolf Hitler, in the lead up to his taking power, spoke admirably of how the United States “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage.” He would go on to plan a similar program of expanding his Third Reich into Eastern Europe, by slaughtering and subjugating millions of Slavic and Jewish Europeans in the process.
Once the continental United States was complete, the nation started looking over the seas to expand its empire. The future state of Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. President Ulysses S. Grant proposed a mission to colonize the Dominican Republic in 1869, although this was rejected by the Senate and eventually abandoned. And, in 1875, the Grant Administration pressured the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi to sign a trade reciprocity treaty, bringing the Pacific islands into the American economic orbit.
Following a major reform in the late 1840s, Hawaiʻi began to allow foreigners to buy land. Over the next half century, thousands of American settlers arrived in Hawaiʻi, buying up huge tracts of land for new sugar plantations. They also gradually took over the government there, serving in various bureaucratic roles for the king. The settlers ensured American economic and religious influence in the kingdom, as well as America’s exclusive naval rights to Pearl Harbor. But when the new queen, Liliʻuokalani, tried enacting reforms to limit American power, the settlers overthrew her and declared Hawaiʻi a republic. Then, after years of lobbying efforts in Washington, the settler government there achieved annexation into the United States in 1898, becoming a distant territory of the sprawling empire.
Sugar played a huge role in the expansion of this empire overseas. Between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century, Americans had increased their sugar intake fivefold, consuming some 2.6 million tons annually. (That’s about 70 pounds of sugar per person, per year.) And despite a limited sugar cane industry in Louisiana, as well as a growing beet sugar industry, domestic production could not meet demand. It was the country’s top import, accounting for 12% of all imported goods. Yet, sugar plantations were easy to set up for Americans with capital. And thanks to steamships making trade voyages easier and easier, these rich Americans increasingly looked abroad for land to cultivate the sweet stuff.
Among the places producing the world’s sugar supply were three colonies of Spain: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
On February 15, 1898, a modern, steam-powered, steel-plated American naval vessel – the USS Maine – sank in Havana Harbor when it was hit by a massive explosion. Officially, it had been sent there to protect American citizens in Cuba during its War of Independence from Spain. Now, a Spanish-American War was inevitable.
Despite being a cash-crop plantation economy, Cuba had transformed significantly in the Industrial Age. Not only did it put many of the new technologies to use – steam engines for sugar mills, railroads, telegraph lines, etc. – it maintained a slave system for the many decades that legal slavery was gradually abolished elsewhere in the world. As a result, sugar could be sold abroad for lower prices than other sugar-producing places could accommodate. This greatly enriched the island. And the Spanish treasury became dependent on it.
But a failed Cuban revolution from 1868 to ’78 upended the economy. And then the British managed to coax the Spanish into abolishing slavery there in 1886. Suddenly, Cuban planters were unable to pay their debts, and lands there were gradually bought up by American investors. Finally, in 1895, disaffected Cubans – including the military officer Máximo Gómez and the poet José Martí – launched another uprising against Spain.
It was an incredibly vicious affair, for both sides. The island’s Governor-General set up perhaps the first-ever concentration camps, where hundreds of thousands of Cubans were rounded up and starved. Stories of the atrocities made their way into the U.S. tabloids – the so-called “yellow press” – which beat the drum of war to help liberate the Cuban people. And by 1898, the magazine Judge produced a cartoon titled, “Remember the Maine! And Don’t Forget the Starving Cubans!” Although the rallying cry would be amended to “Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!”
Not long after the sinking of the Maine, the U.S. Navy launched a blockade of the island to keep out Spanish reinforcements. Spain then declared war. Though it lasted only three months, tens of thousands of American troops were sent to the Caribbean and the South Pacific to strip the Spanish of their imperial possessions. Among those who volunteered for the fight was an Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who resigned his post to help form the First Volunteer Calvary Regiment – better known as the Rough Riders. And he would go on to become the standard bearer for a new phase of American imperialism.
Theodore Roosevelt was born into an old and prosperous capitalist family in New York City in 1858. His early life was full of devastating set-backs – debilitating asthma as a child, the early death of his father, his first wife and his mother dying on the same day. But he was also brilliant and adventurous. Roosevelt was self-taught in many subjects and excelled at Harvard. He also became obsessed with athletic pursuits and outdoorsmanship.
Roosevelt’s political career began when he took a seat in the New York State Assembly in 1881, where he became noteworthy for his efforts to fight Gilded Age corruption. He ran for New York City Mayor in 1886, but lost handedly, even behind our old friend, the socialist writer Henry George. After remarrying that year, though, he was appointed to a number of increasingly prominent offices: U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, New York City Police Commissioner, and finally, Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
But it was his service with the Rough Riders in Cuba – particularly their victory at the Battle of San Juan Hill – that made Teddy Roosevelt a national figure. Though it wasn’t especially important for the overall U.S. victory over Spain, his daring tactics made him a popular hero through the press. It was thanks to this notoriety that he was elected Governor of New York later that year. Two years later, hoping to benefit from his fame and glory, President William McKinnley chose Roosevelt to serve as his Vice President in his second term. And when McKinnley was shot and killed by an anarchist in September 1901, Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency.
Anyway, after Spain surrendered in August 1898, they ceded several territories to the United States – most notably Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Cuba was granted independence, though Congress had effectively placed the country under U.S. control by 1901.
Overseeing these new overseas colonies would be the U.S. Department of War. And to lead the department, with its new mission, President McKinnley appointed a corporate attorney named Elihu Root. Unlike the Western territories of the continental U.S., these overseas territories would not generally make for good settler colonies. Cuba and Puerto Rico had long-established populations of Spanish-speakers, and the Philippines were a little too far away. And in this age when white supremacy was taken for granted by Anglo-Saxon Americans, it was thought that a colony without white settlers would just need to be treated a bit differently.
As Root put it in his first Annual Report for the War Department:
“the people of the islands have no right to have them treated as States, or to have them treated as the territories previously held by the United States have been treated, or to assert legal right under the provision of the constitution which was established for the people of the United States themselves and to meet the conditions existing upon this continent, or to assert against the United States any legal right whatever not found in the treaty.”
(That being the peace treaty with Spain.)
A new Bureau of Insular Affairs was set up within the War Department to serve as a colonial service of the U.S. government. In the Philippines, a judge named William Howard Taft (yes, the future U.S. President) was appointed to lead a civilian government commission. Through these institutions, the U.S. worked to sell-off public land in the Philippines and build railroads to help attract capital for cash-crop plantations.
Success here was very limited, partly because American agricultural interests opposed Filipino competition, and partly because Filipino patriots responded to American occupation with insurgency. As the Philippine-American War dragged on, many Americans asked, “uh, what are we doing over there?”, especially as various American war crimes came to light. And by 1916, the U.S. government decided it would eventually grant the island nation its independence.
Guam and Puerto Rico, though, remain territories of the American empire to this day.
More than colonies, what the American government really wanted from these places was naval bases. After all, the global naval arms race was heating up. And so, U.S. naval bases were set up in Manila Harbor in the Philippines, Apra Harbor in Guam, Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, Ceiba, Puerto Rico, and Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.
Of course, having a naval presence in two oceans was logistically challenging. What if you needed to move ships from one ocean to another? Sailing them around South America took way too long. Therefore, the United States would launch one of its most consequential forays into Latin America.
Back in Chapter 32, I talked about the process of how Europe and the United States financed infrastructure and industrial development in Latin America, how this resulted in trade deficits for Latin American countries, and how it ultimately trapped their governments in endless cycles of growing national debts. Various wars across the region (shout out Chapter 52!) only made the situation worse.
Well, in 1902, Venezuelan President Cipriano Castro decided to halt payments to his nation’s European creditors. This led several European governments – most notably the British and Germans – to blockade Venezuela. Now the United States would need to come to Venezuela’s aid, thanks to a long-standing foreign policy called the Monroe Doctrine.
Set by President James Monroe way back in 1823, the doctrine dedicated the U.S. to defend all countries in the Western Hemisphere from any new European colonization efforts. On this basis, American diplomats working behind the scenes eventually got the Europeans to back off Venezuela. But this set a worrisome precedent. Was the U.S. going to help its neighbors avoid their debt obligations? No, Roosevelt decided. Instead, the U.S. would assume the total right to police Latin American governments and their economies. If they had debts to pay, America would handle it. Such action was off limits to the other imperial powers. The Western Hemisphere belonged to the American Empire. And in time, this policy became known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Even before the Roosevelt Corollary was formalized, it was put to use for another purpose: Taking control of a broad zone of Panama for the construction of a canal.
Up until that point, Panama had always been a province of Colombia. It was also a very good place to build a canal that could link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Construction of such a canal began back in 1881 by our old friend, the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built the Suez Canal in Egypt. (Shout out Chapter 54!) But unlike Egypt, Panama had a thick jungle where workers constantly contracted malaria and yellow fever. For over 20 years, the French struggled to build this second great canal. So, in 1902, Roosevelt successfully persuaded Congress to let the U.S. take over the project.
The canal would be important not only for a dramatic improvement of commercial shipping, but also for the U.S. Navy’s maneuvering between oceans. Thus, the U.S. demanded indefinite control of the canal as a condition for building it. Though generally supported by Panamanians, the Colombian government in Bogota refused to the Americans’ terms for this takeover. So, on November 3, 1903, Panama declared independence from Colombia. And guess whose navy came to the Panamanians’ defense? That of the United States, of course.
Shortly thereafter, the U.S. secured a treaty with Panama, giving the Americans 553 square miles for a “Panama Canal Zone.” Originally granted to the U.S. in perpetuity, it was eventually returned to Panama at the end of the 20th Century. And the rest of Panama would be a U.S. protectorate for over three decades.
From 1904 to 1914, the United States took control of and eventually completed construction of the Panama Canal. It was thanks in part to innovative engineering techniques, and in part to extensive efforts to fight those mosquito-spread diseases, which had previously killed off so many canal workers. (Albeit, thousands of workers still died from those diseases over the course of that decade.) And a huge amount of land was flooded to form the giant Lake Gatun on the north side of the canal, making the rest of the project a little less burdensome. To this day, the Panama Canal remains a massively important link in our global supply chains.
In the years to come, the Roosevelt Corollary was used dozens of times to justify American interventions across the Western Hemisphere.
In 1905, the U.S. invaded the Dominican Republic to seize its customs house after the country defaulted on its debt. They invaded again in 1916, leading to an 8-year occupation. There was a similar U.S. occupation of Cuba from 1906 to 1909.
Between 1909 and 1933, there were three different occupations of Nicaragua. Among other action seen, the U.S. Marines used arial support – for the first time ever in this sense, it’s believed – to attack the forces of a Nicaraguan patriot and revolutionary socialist named Augusto César Sandino. The illegitimate son of a wealthy Nicaraguan landowner, Sandino fled his home country after shooting a man who disrespected his mother. After working on plantations in Honduras and Guatemala, and then an oil refinery in Mexico, he returned to Nicaragua as a radicalized insurgent. He was assassinated by an American-backed paramilitary force in 1934, but went on to inspire the organization of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which has ruled Nicaragua – in defiance of the United States – for 29 of the last 45 years.
The U.S. occupation of Haiti, from 1915 to 1934, was especially bad. The Haitian government was forced by the U.S. military (often at gunpoint) to sign treaties allowing Americans to confiscate land for plantations, write a new constitution, impose martial law, disband the legislature, round up foreign nationals (mostly Germans who had married Haitians), and impose forced labor on the population.
In some cases, the U.S. could exert its power without such occupations. When he became president, Taft worked out an agreement with Honduras to help them with their national debt. In exchange, the Americans would control Honduras’ customs duties, while control of their railroads was handed over to New York bankers. This approach was known as “Dollar Diplomacy.”
Indeed, with the Roosevelt Corollary, the United States could circumvent anti-imperialist sentiments at home by quietly building an informal empire over Latin America. And the informal empire changed the economic landscape of Latin America – not only in terms of debt, but in sugar, mining, and (perhaps most importantly of all)… bananas.
As steamships began incorporating cold storage in the Technological Revolution, shipping merchants gradually started importing tropical fruits to the U.S. and Europe. Bananas, coconuts, and mangos, were among the goods that were becoming available in the new commercial era. (Shout out Chapter 58!) And although most Americans were hesitant to try these fruits at first, modern marketing efforts – highlighting the exotic wonders of this new world – helped sales take off. Bananas proved to be especially popular.
In 1899 – at the height of the Great Merger Movement (Shout out Chapter 62) – the country’s biggest banana importers merged to form the United Fruit Company. It would control 70% of the U.S. market, and it would also become the poster child for America’s economic imperialism.
Along with its competitors, United Fruit exerted obscene influence over the countries where they operated. Latin American governments invited them in, and changed laws for them, to encourage the capital investment that they brought – particularly in building railroads in the country. Due to the lack of stable financial institutions locally, farmers could get financing from United Fruit to buy land, on the condition that they grow bananas for United Fruit. The contracts guaranteed the farmers sold bananas exclusively to United Fruit, but the company didn’t have to buy the bananas if they weren’t good enough. In effect, thanks to their overwhelming capital advantage, United Fruit assumed none of the risks and most of the rewards.
The company would even serve as contractors to Latin American governments, taking on various public functions. For example, they took charge of Guatemala’s postal service as early as 1901, its main railroad in 1904, and the main railroad in Honduras in 1913.
Unsurprisingly, the farmers and plantation workers cultivating the bananas weren’t always big fans of how the American fruit companies wielded power. So, the companies would cajole local governments to help put down labor unrest, either by bribing politicians, overthrowing them, or threatening to call on the U.S. to send in the Marines. This was how countries like Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and Cuba became known as “banana republics.” Unknown numbers of disaffected workers were butchered in incidents like the Banana Massacre in Ciénaga, Colombia.
A frequent commander in the so-called “Banana wars” – U.S. interventions in Latin American countries during this period – was Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler. After retiring from the service in 1931, he became a prominent peace activist with his speech “War is a Racket.” In it, he argued that wars are paid by taxpayers with their dollars and by soldiers with their lives, but that the returns of war are reaped by corporations like defense contractors, banks, and fruit companies. In one editorial, he wrote “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism.”
It has become a popular sentiment in retrospect. The Roosevelt Corollary continued until Teddy’s distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, instituted his own “Good Neighbor Policy” in 1933. The impact of the informal empire, though, continued through the Cold War, and – I would argue – up to the present day.
But the builders of the New American Empire – Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, William Howard Taft, and others – did not see it as an exploitative enterprise for the benefit of American corporations. They earnestly saw it, through their paternalistic eyes, as a means of advancing the political, social, and economic conditions of the far-flung places now under their auspices. For them, it was a progressive endeavor. And at the same moment they were advancing imperialism, they were also advancing reforms to pull the U.S. out of the shenanigans of the Gilded Age and into a new Progressive Era – next time on the Industrial Revolutions.
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Don’t forget to come back to hear the Holiday Specials, and don’t forget to find me on Bluesky. Again, the handle is @davebroker.bsky.social. I’m also still on Facebook, X, and Instagram @IndRevPod. That’s “at I-N-D – R-E-V – P-O-D.” Thanks again for listening.