causes of imperialism

1. Aim:
What motivated the U.S.
to become an imperial
power?

2. Reasons that led to
American Imperialism
1. Thirst for new markets to sell US goods= Economic
reason
2. Desire for military strength to compete with, and gain
the respect of, other world powers= Military reason
3. Belief in our cultural superiority (Social Darwinism)
and the benefits it could bring to less civilized
people= Cultural reason
4. Desire for a new frontier to settle in order to maintain
America’s identity and prosperity= Nationalist
reason

3. Economic Reason
• The industrial revolution led American farms and
factories to produce far more than Americans could
consume
• The US had suffered a depression in 1893 – unemployment
was high and farmers were suffering greatly from
overproduction, under consumption and low prices
• Overseas territories would provide the US with
access to cheap raw materials it could use to fuel its
factories to recapture its prosperity
• Overseas territories would provide US businesses
and farmers access to new markets (places) to sell
their surplus (extra) goods leading to higher prices,
more profits and more jobs (A STRONG ECONOMY!)

4. “American factories are making more than the
American people can use; American soil is producing
more than they can consume. Fate has written our
policy for us; the trade of the world must and shall be
ours.”
—Senator Albert Beveridge (1898)
Senator Beveridge

5. American industry grew so large that companies
needed new sources of raw materials and
overseas markets to sell their products

6. Military/Political Reasons
• If the US was to become a respected and
influential world power (like Great Britain and
France) it too would need to establish a global
military presence and acquire overseas
territories
• American leaders, like Theodore Roosevelt and
Alfred T. Mahan of the US Navy, urged
government officials to build up the U.S. Navy
in order to compete with other powerful
nations and extend its influence globally
– Overseas territories needed to support the new navy
(repair stations, military bases)
– Navy needed to protect new territories and merchant
ships trading near new territories

7. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influenceof SeaPower upon
History, 1890
“… Americans must now begin to look outward… Control of the
sea by maritime commerce and naval supremacy, means
predominant influence in the world; because, however great the
wealth product of the land, nothing facilitates the necessary
exchanges as does the sea”
“Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or
military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like
land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide
resting places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be
one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the
development of the power of the nation at sea.”
Navy officer Alfred T. Mahan

8. Admiral Alfred Mahan
encouraged the USA to
build a modern navy so
it could compete with
European militaries
World tour of the
“Great White Fleet”

9. • Some Americans combined the philosophy of Social
Darwinism – a belief that the strongest economic
nations would “survive and thrive (do well)” in a
global free market – along with a belief in the racial
superiority of Anglo-Saxons (white Americans of
Northern & Western European descent) – to justify
American Imperialism
• How Social Darwinism was used to justify overseas
expansion:
– English speaking Anglo-Saxons rule the world and help uplift
inferior races (in Africa and Asia in particular)
– The US had a responsibility to spread Christianity and
“civilization”
Cultural/ Ideological Reasons

10. Social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer
“Survival of the fittest is that which Mr.
Charles Darwin has called ‘natural
selection’ or the preservation of favored
races in the struggle for life”
Social Darwinism

12. Many believed in
Social Darwinism and the
responsibility to “civilize”
the “inferior races” of
the world by spreading
technology, Christianity,
and democracy…

13. …also known as the White Man’s Burden
White Man’s Burden
By Rudyard Kipling (1899)
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

14. Nationalist Reasons
• Overseas territories would provide the US
with a new frontier to settle, explore and
exploit
– Continue to be prosperous ( as they would provide
new land to settle and natural resources to use)
– Maintain our democratic values of equality,
bravery, individualism and patriotism
– Remain a great independent nation

15. In a recent bulletin of the Census for 1890 appear these significant words: “at
present… there can hardly be said to be a frontier line…
This brief official statement marks the closing of a great historic movement. Up
to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the
colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land and the
advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.
[…] Since the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the
New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and the people of
the United States have taken their tone from the incessant (non-stop)
expansion….
And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred
years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has
closed the first period of American history.
• Frontier: a line or border
Frederick Jackson Turner, TheSignificanceof theFrontierin American
History,1893
The Frontier Thesis

17. In 1890, the U.S. census
revealed that the American
frontier was closed and
there were no new lands in
the “west” to expand into

18. Americans felt the need to keep up with other
European imperial nations who were building colonies

19. Be prepared to answer this question tomorrow…
What motivated the U.S.
to become an imperial
power?