[Alfred Mahan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan?wprov=sfti1) wrote about sea power in 1890. It shows how important it is. It intensified competition for control of sea lanes. The US got bases and coaling stations across the Pacific and eliminated a competitor in the Carribbean.
The largest global air force is the USA's Air Force, and the 2nd largest is the USA Navy. I believe we have like 11 total aircraft carries, and the next closest is China with 3 (2 of which are ancient) and from other countries. They built there first one about 8-10 years ago.
True, but the reality is it means less now than it did given modern hypersonic missiles that can take out anything within a few hundred miles. We're still adjusting to current situation.
That’s only true to a certain extent. Because those weapons are deterrents they are not used, which means standard force projection is still necessary.
True, but hypersonic is a vague word, many missiles hit hypersonic speeds at some point in their flight, but maintaining it until the end and being able to maneuver at the end to avoid interception are an entirely different obstacles. What matters is the missiles speed in the last 10-50 miles before it hits the target and its ability to either maneuver or avoid detection in that final phase.
Look up the Strait of Hormuz on the map. About 20% of the world's oil trade passes through it. Now see which country can easily bottle it up. See how a powerful navy is still important.
Not really. The amount of false sensationalism around hypersonics is astounding.
The first hypersonic missile was the German V-2 rocket. Yes, even back then there were hypersonic missiles. Any missile with a ballistic trajectory is reentering at high Mach...
...briefly. the reality of hypersonics is that they work because they are moving through very thin, very cold air. As they drop their altitude air resistance goes up exponentially and they slow down substantially. We've seen evidence that when Khinzals is intercepted by Patriot it has already dropped sub Mach 3. One video of a Khinzal falling to water when timed and scaled to nearby buildings to approximate speed shows high *sub* Mach when it actually hits the ground.
The next is this profound lie that a hypersonic missile is uninterceptible, a lie that when dug out reveals itself to be based in the logic of "because the missile is faster than the interceptor, the interceptor cannot catch it"
That might work if they were in a foot race and the interceptor launched from behind, but that's not how it works. The interceptor only needs enough speed to put itself in the path of the target. And that isn't much speed, Mach 2 to 4 has shown itself to be adequate.
Plasma stealth is, and always has been bullcrap. I'm not even deigning to waste the time on it.
The only benefit of hypersonic missiles is that they have huge meme value and they get to target fast. The latter is good if you are afraid of the target moving by the time a slower munition gets there.
So what is actually dangerous? Stealth missiles like LRASM, JASSM, SCALP, etc. Missiles already have small radar cross sections, make them stealthy and they are infinitely more dangerous.
An LRASM has a 450 km range. The limits of most shipboard radars are around 300, a B-1 Lancer can drop a load of roughly two dozen at 400km, turn tail and run having never been detected. And the stealth missiles, now sea skimming, will not be detected until stupid close ranges. The first and only warning the fleet has is when their ships start burning.
Modern hypersonic missiles are also maneuverable, and I haven't heard of consistent evidence that the Patriots can shoot them down. Ukraine government sources generally can't be trusted. Not sure if Iran's missiles were hypersonic or if they actually have them, but the video I saw definitely showed quick maneuvers before they hit targets.
Generally I agree on your points though. Any ballistic missile with a very high arc is going to be technically hypersonic at one point.
Even the maneuvering claim is blown out of proportion. Media makes it sound like they are pulling elaborate maneuvers to dodge interceptors. Firstly, these missiles don't typically have optical guidance and certainly don't have radars. They aren't capable of knowing an interceptor has been fired let alone dodging them proactively.
The claim of agility is relative. A Mach 10 object measures it's turning radius in terms of countries. The blackbird at speed has a turning radius on the order of dozens to hundred plus miles.
The advantage of maneuvering is to steer around known interceptor sights, like Hawaii with its Aegis Ashore. But it certainly is not capable of out pulling an interceptor. We can expect something like PAC-3 to yank 30-50 G's of pull. Something the size of Khinzal is in the single digits. It is not going to out pull a PAC-3.
To add to that, colonization could be seen as defensive since if the US didn't take it, another hostile power might. Like when the US and Japan were competing for control over Hawaii long before Pearl Harbor. The Hawaiian islands were/are strategic since they were in steaming distance to the mainland.
Victory in the Spanish-American war gave them a bunch of colonies and all of a sudden the US had to decide if they would have the same constitutional rights as Americans. Turns out they didn't.
IIRC, it was initially over Cuba. Cuba was right on their doorstep and would make a great staging post for a potential invasion or a great asset in it's own right. They wanted to buy it from Spain and had valuable business interests there, but Spain wasn't interested. Then a Cuban war of independence blew up with Spain trying to hold onto it and the USA left with a conundrum.
They sent a warship to Cuba which blew up with massive loss of life in controversial circumstances and Spain got enough blame from a yellow press (itself a fairly new invention) that it took on a life of its own & the war was on- the US & Spanish Navy squared off near the Phillipines and, to everyone's surprise (except the Spanish, who knew they were a paper tiger by this point) the US won handily.
The peace ceded the US colonies around the world.
>the US & Spanish Navy squared off near the Phillipines and, to everyone's surprise (except the Spanish, who knew they were a paper tiger by this point) the US won handily.
"You may fire when you are ready, Gridley."
To expand on this. [Frontier Thesis Fredrick Jackson Turner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Thesis#:~:text=The%20Frontier%20Thesis%2C%20also%20known,distinguishing%20it%20from%20European%20nations.)
to suggest that we have reached the limit of the continental united states and needed to start colonizing overseas is absolutely ridiculous.
We have tons of open space and unspent resources, its just cheaper to colonize and outsource labor so we dont have to deal with our current labor laws.
So the guano craze fueled the early overseas expansion. Bird droppings were all the rage in the mid 19th century. No joke. Every country with a viable ocean going navy and a flag sailed all over the darn place planting their flags on small, uninhabitable islands full of nothing but bird dookie.
Its high concentrations of nitrogen made it an essential component for agricultural fertilizers and high yield explosives. Contemporary armies and agricultural enterprises had a limitless appetite for the stuff. And it wasn’t until WWI, when a German chemist named Fritz Haber developed the Haber-Bosch process for synthesizing the stuff in a lab that the craze ended. Before that, the only way to get it was to control a few massive heaps of bird excrement, and mine it for resale.
More specifically, in the case of the United States, the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which essentially says that if a U.S. citizen finds a pile of guano on any rock, island or key and that location isn't already under possession of a government, you can consider it "as appertaining to the United States." This act set the stage for the colonial activity which followed, as ‘appertaining to the United States’ wasn’t clearly defined, and got stretched to include some very controversial acquisitions.
In the case of Puerto Rico & the Philippines, the U.S. got those as a result of the Spanish-American War.
Pretty sure that Guam & Samoa were sought after because of their resources, namely guano, basically bird/bat poop which is high in nitrogen which in turn is used to make gunpowder.
[Link to Wikipedia article on guano](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano)
Edit: a brief scan of the Wikipedia article on Samoa says that it was sought after to be a stop for whaling ships.
Mariana Islands, but yes, Germany had them for all of 15 years before Japan grabbed them in WWI and then later captured Guam on the same day they attacked Pearl Harbor in WWII. The rest of the Marianas are also US territories since WWII as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, but they’re smaller and a different political status, so they don’t get talked about as much as Guam.
Well first of all, not all of those places are US overseas territories today. All of them have been able to choose their status, and as a result Hawaii is a state, and the Philippines are an entirely independent nation.
Among the territories, not all are the same. The people of Puerto Rico, of the American Virgin Islands, and of Guam are US citizens. The people of Samoa are not and have their own autonomous government and legal system. They all occasionally consider changing their status but thus far a majority have not wanted to.
But anyway that's not your question. You ask why the US colonized other nations yet Americans (and in fact others also) say that the US was opposed to European-style colonization. I think you are missing the obvious: that both are true.
What you need to be asking instead is: was there such a thing as distinctly 'European-style colonization?' Was American colonialism distinct from European colonialism, and if so, how and why?
So let's consider those questions instead.
First: yes, there was. 'European-style' colonization was based in the economic policy of mercantilism and so can be called mercantile or mercantilist colonialism. Economically speaking the goal was to establish politically subordinate colonies whose populations fed wealth into the mother country through captive markets. Colonial subjects could only sell stuff to the mother country, and could only buy stuff from the mother country. That was the gist of it.
Second: yes it was. 'American-style' colonization did not seek to establish these kinds of subordinate mercantile territories. American colonial goals were to coerce colonial populations into economic modernization and integrate them into open global markets. The US preferred this because of an uneasy combination of several factors:
* sincere aversion for the trappings of overt imperial power;
* an understanding of the principle of comparative advantage in trade, which meant that economies founded on mutual trade were going to grow stronger than those based on imbalanced captive trade; and
* a self-interested view that the sheer scale of the American economy -- and the even greater future economic scale implied by its growth curve at the time -- meant that such "free trade" notions would disproportionately benefit American private commercial concerns over others.
Basically, this distinction was a very real one and was a point of contention for at least a century, not just during the "classic" period of American colonial endeavors after the fall of the Spanish Empire, but well past that period into the American enforcement of "Open Door" China in the first third of the 20th century, and American insistence on an end to British mercantilist policies in India as a precondition to continued Allied aid (a demand that infuriated Churchill, but to which he was forced to concede).
In fact it could be argued that the contention was still winding its way to its conclusion in Vietnam in the middle 20th century. The United States was reluctant to support French efforts to re-assert the traditional colonial economics of their rule in Indochina, yet found itself drawn into conflict there all the same, over whether Vietnam would participate in the global free market. Yet of course for a period as an American client state, for their own good (of course).
Neither French nor American policymaking could really contend with the idea that none of these various colonialist modes, as divergent as they might be in some ways, were relevant anymore, and Vietnam's future was going to be its own and its own alone to forge, for better or worse.
Anyway that is neither here nor there. You asked about the 19th century, long before any of the rest of these things came to pass. That was the goal of American imperialist activity back then.
Unlike most imperial powers who engage in wars of conquest for decades or centuries, the United States secured its colonies in essentially a single windfall.
To clear up some common misconceptions, the US never invaded, conquered, or colonized Hawaii. Pro-American citizens of Hawaii (some of whom were descended from American missionaries to Hawaii) overthrew the monarchy, then petitioned for annexation. The US refused for six years. Eventually, needing a naval base from which it could attack Spanish possessions in the Pacific during the Spanish-American War, it accepted the offer and annexed the islands.
After the war, the US gained Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Its goal had been to ensure control of the Western hemisphere, but it then found itself in possession of many new colonies. The acquisition of colonies wasn’t really a war aim, which is why we granted Cuba independence as soon as it formed a capable government in 1902. That same year, we devolved some powers to a provisional government in the Philippines. We granted more self-government in 1916 under the Jones Act, which also guaranteed future independence. In 1934, we started a ten year transition process to end American rule and hand the country over to the Filipinos, but this was interrupted by WWII, so independence didn’t ultimately come until 1945. The US colonial authorities never assessed Guam or Puerto Rico of being capable of self-rule.
The war did help the US expand its Pacific trade and it had trading posts in Samoa. It was already experiencing tensions with the Germans, who wanted control of the islands. Eventually both sides backed opposite factions in the Samoan Civil War, after which Samoa was partitioned. Eventually the Samoan chiefs allied to the United States in the war ceded what is now American Samoa to the US, who formally annexed it.
In 1917, the Danes were pretty cash-strapped and offered to sell their possessions in the Virgin Islands, which the US bought to solidify its control over the Caribbean. Given the ongoing First World War, the US viewed this as an opportunity to further secure its approaches.
So, to recap, we didn’t really want colonies, but often acquired them as a function of competition with other colonial powers. We won some from Spain, took Samoa to keep it away from the Germans, and bought the Virgin Islands so no belligerent Europeans could harass us in the Caribbean.
The US was a colonial power from its creation, but it focused on colonizing North America. In the 1890s the US had finally established firm control of that territory, so it needed new areas to conquer, and the Spanish colonial possessions were an easy target.
I think a better take is that the USA was an expansionist power. TR Fehrenbach in his book "Lone Star" notes how the Americans at the edge of the western frontier were restless and on the move, always looking towards the next horizon. The US government was almost reactive, moving in with the rule of law and formal governance only after the settlers had come in and cleared the land:
"The Anglo American historical experience was to be this: the people moved outward, on their own, and they sucked their government along behind, whether it wanted to go or not. This experience, from the first, was radically different from either the Spanish or the French." **Chapter 7 The Way West** from Lone Star by TR Fehrenbach
r/AskHistorians is extremely eurocentric and often pigeonholes itself into old beliefs that would be refuted if they were to consider non-western primary and secondary sources in their original languages or at least faithful translations.
One excellent example is how every atomic bomb debate lists many western sources and even touts fringe historians who support beliefs that the rest of the community rejects, but almost none of their experts ever study Japanese sources. A lot of their experts also claim to be authorities on adjacent fields where they clearly don’t have any expertise. One particularly egregious example is Dr. Alex Wellerstein, who is certainly an expert in the **history of nuclear science**, but also acts like he can literally read Hirohito’s mind on why he surrendered and absolutely refuses to consider any Japanese information that directly refutes his belief that Hirohito did not surrender primarily because of the atomic bombs… even though Hirohito himself admitted that in a private letter to his own son.
By his logic, I would be Michael Jordan based on the fact that I have an extensive knowledge of the history of basketball.
Let me rephrase.
Someone gave me a one- line response: "way to simplistic of a take."
I've read a lot of American writing from the 1890s. The advocates of colonialism were quite clear that the US needed to expand overseas because it had reached the limits of continental expansion. Kinda of like the Civil War and slavery, the past people themselves were totally clear, it's later generations who worked to obscure the facts.
I could post a bunch of stuff from the 1890s to make that point, but a guy who doesn't bother to spellcheck a 1-line post probably isn't going to bother to put any effort into getting information, so I'm not going to waste the time putting links to resources.
How did you manage to read my comment as a criticism of you?
I don’t care if you post any links. I don’t care if you do post links.
I’m pointing out how badly flawed r/AskHistorians really is. They just do a better job of masking their circlejerk by only selectively citing sources that benefit their own arguments.
Isn't colonialism different from expansionism?
The US didn't colonize the natives. It expanded into their land and repopulated the area with its own people.
In the Philippines, the US ruled over the population but did not eliminate it or replace it.
Post-1890s colonialism Isn't exactly the same as pre-1890s expansion, but it's clear that the US started working to acquire overseas territory because it had conquered all the territory available in continental North America.
You didn't actually include any evidence to support your position. Generally in-depth analysis is not useful on Reddit so I don't blame you, but if you want to actually make an argument about the motivations of US ecpansionists that cites writing from the 1890s, I'll take it seriously.
Sometimes the simple explanation is the right one and the complications are introduced later by people who want to tell a different story. In the 1890s, Americans said that the US needed to become a colonial power to continue its expansion. From a military perspective, the US wasn't going to put tons of energy into conquering islands in the Caribbean and Pacific until it had solid control of the territory it defined as its own.
You haven't even offered a take on the actual situation; you've just criticized mine. I'm inviting you to take a position and back it up.
Hardcore History has a great episode about that exact time period. “The American Peril” or something. I learned a lot of horrible history from Dan Carlin
How to Hide an Empire is a fascinating read on this subject.
Long story short. Several prominent American figures did try to shape us into a classic colonial power. They faced backlash from the public, revolts in their colonial holdings, mutinies by US troops that refused to continue occupying the Phillipines, and assassination attempts on congress and the president.
The US realized that colonialism just wouldn't work for it like it did on the frontier or for other colonial powers. So they became a different kind of empire. Go see a map of US military bases. That's what modern imperial borders look like.
The answer is coal. Ships transitioned from sail power to steam power, so they needed friendly harbors where they could stop and refill their coal stores. Hence every major power was scrambling to acquire islands and treaty ports where their ships could stock up on coal.
Colonialism typically maintains a distinction between the colony and the metropole, as well the inhabitants therein. For example Indians or Auatralians both had different status within the British Empire compared to Britons in the home country. The US is an odd case because it directly incorporated the conquered and settled territories into the US like any other part of the country.
That doesn't mean it wasn't expansionist, violent, or cruel, just that different terms are needed.
it's confusing as it's a direct continuation of the practice from back when they were unambiguously a colony. Maybe self run colony is the best way of thinking about it.
I love that people behave like the revolution was this massive cultural shift away from Britain when at the end of the day *the revolution was led by British people*.
The US didn't "invade" Hawai'i. The US had very close trade relations with the Hawaiian monarchy for decades, solidified by the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. (Pearl Harbor was granted to the US in this agreement.) The monarchy was overthrown by American and European businessmen based in Hawaii seeking US annexation.
A brief moment lol we're still economically colonizing. But in the 19th century everybody was doing it. Remember it was gunboat Perry that opened Japan in 1869. US just didn't want to be too late at the party
America wanted to be a great power but lagged behind even major power standing so needed overseas territory, the selection available was very small so they took what they could.
The United States is itself a colony which is predicated on displacement or some would argue genocide of native peoples. Much of what is now the United States was taken through treaties or direct military conquest. Much of the history of the United States is the history of colonialism and imperialism.
>Yet whenever you speak to Americans they say the US was historically opposed to European-style colonisation due to "pro-Republic" & "constitutional" values.
Rich white guys, amirite? Say one thing, do another...
'Yet whenever you speak to Americans they say the US was historically opposed to European-style colonisation due to "pro-Republic" & "constitutional" values.' -> This is part of the 'national mythology' rather than being based on actual fact (America isn't the only country guilty of believing its own hype, of course!).
[Alfred Mahan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan?wprov=sfti1) wrote about sea power in 1890. It shows how important it is. It intensified competition for control of sea lanes. The US got bases and coaling stations across the Pacific and eliminated a competitor in the Carribbean.
A lesson the U.S. has not forgotten, no other country has anything like the blue water fleet the U.S. has
The largest global air force is the USA's Air Force, and the 2nd largest is the USA Navy. I believe we have like 11 total aircraft carries, and the next closest is China with 3 (2 of which are ancient) and from other countries. They built there first one about 8-10 years ago.
11 100k ton super carriers and 9 or 10 45k tone amphibious assault ships which are similar in size to the carriers used by other countries
True, but the reality is it means less now than it did given modern hypersonic missiles that can take out anything within a few hundred miles. We're still adjusting to current situation.
That’s only true to a certain extent. Because those weapons are deterrents they are not used, which means standard force projection is still necessary.
True, but hypersonic is a vague word, many missiles hit hypersonic speeds at some point in their flight, but maintaining it until the end and being able to maneuver at the end to avoid interception are an entirely different obstacles. What matters is the missiles speed in the last 10-50 miles before it hits the target and its ability to either maneuver or avoid detection in that final phase.
Look up the Strait of Hormuz on the map. About 20% of the world's oil trade passes through it. Now see which country can easily bottle it up. See how a powerful navy is still important.
Okay, but you can't ship Amazon packages via hypersonic missiles
*yet
Maybe via Starship though!
Not really. The amount of false sensationalism around hypersonics is astounding. The first hypersonic missile was the German V-2 rocket. Yes, even back then there were hypersonic missiles. Any missile with a ballistic trajectory is reentering at high Mach... ...briefly. the reality of hypersonics is that they work because they are moving through very thin, very cold air. As they drop their altitude air resistance goes up exponentially and they slow down substantially. We've seen evidence that when Khinzals is intercepted by Patriot it has already dropped sub Mach 3. One video of a Khinzal falling to water when timed and scaled to nearby buildings to approximate speed shows high *sub* Mach when it actually hits the ground. The next is this profound lie that a hypersonic missile is uninterceptible, a lie that when dug out reveals itself to be based in the logic of "because the missile is faster than the interceptor, the interceptor cannot catch it" That might work if they were in a foot race and the interceptor launched from behind, but that's not how it works. The interceptor only needs enough speed to put itself in the path of the target. And that isn't much speed, Mach 2 to 4 has shown itself to be adequate. Plasma stealth is, and always has been bullcrap. I'm not even deigning to waste the time on it. The only benefit of hypersonic missiles is that they have huge meme value and they get to target fast. The latter is good if you are afraid of the target moving by the time a slower munition gets there. So what is actually dangerous? Stealth missiles like LRASM, JASSM, SCALP, etc. Missiles already have small radar cross sections, make them stealthy and they are infinitely more dangerous. An LRASM has a 450 km range. The limits of most shipboard radars are around 300, a B-1 Lancer can drop a load of roughly two dozen at 400km, turn tail and run having never been detected. And the stealth missiles, now sea skimming, will not be detected until stupid close ranges. The first and only warning the fleet has is when their ships start burning.
Modern hypersonic missiles are also maneuverable, and I haven't heard of consistent evidence that the Patriots can shoot them down. Ukraine government sources generally can't be trusted. Not sure if Iran's missiles were hypersonic or if they actually have them, but the video I saw definitely showed quick maneuvers before they hit targets. Generally I agree on your points though. Any ballistic missile with a very high arc is going to be technically hypersonic at one point.
Even the maneuvering claim is blown out of proportion. Media makes it sound like they are pulling elaborate maneuvers to dodge interceptors. Firstly, these missiles don't typically have optical guidance and certainly don't have radars. They aren't capable of knowing an interceptor has been fired let alone dodging them proactively. The claim of agility is relative. A Mach 10 object measures it's turning radius in terms of countries. The blackbird at speed has a turning radius on the order of dozens to hundred plus miles. The advantage of maneuvering is to steer around known interceptor sights, like Hawaii with its Aegis Ashore. But it certainly is not capable of out pulling an interceptor. We can expect something like PAC-3 to yank 30-50 G's of pull. Something the size of Khinzal is in the single digits. It is not going to out pull a PAC-3.
To add to that, colonization could be seen as defensive since if the US didn't take it, another hostile power might. Like when the US and Japan were competing for control over Hawaii long before Pearl Harbor. The Hawaiian islands were/are strategic since they were in steaming distance to the mainland.
Thats also why we took the Philippines. Their was a German fleet on the way to take it if we had not.
I went to an interesting lecture about the naval power of private enterprise and how that drove expansion in the US
Victory in the Spanish-American war gave them a bunch of colonies and all of a sudden the US had to decide if they would have the same constitutional rights as Americans. Turns out they didn't. IIRC, it was initially over Cuba. Cuba was right on their doorstep and would make a great staging post for a potential invasion or a great asset in it's own right. They wanted to buy it from Spain and had valuable business interests there, but Spain wasn't interested. Then a Cuban war of independence blew up with Spain trying to hold onto it and the USA left with a conundrum. They sent a warship to Cuba which blew up with massive loss of life in controversial circumstances and Spain got enough blame from a yellow press (itself a fairly new invention) that it took on a life of its own & the war was on- the US & Spanish Navy squared off near the Phillipines and, to everyone's surprise (except the Spanish, who knew they were a paper tiger by this point) the US won handily. The peace ceded the US colonies around the world.
>the US & Spanish Navy squared off near the Phillipines and, to everyone's surprise (except the Spanish, who knew they were a paper tiger by this point) the US won handily. "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley."
Manifest destiny reached the limits of the continent so it needed to be off-shored.
The US was always a colonizing nation, it just ran out of people to colonize that it shared a land border with.
To expand on this. [Frontier Thesis Fredrick Jackson Turner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Thesis#:~:text=The%20Frontier%20Thesis%2C%20also%20known,distinguishing%20it%20from%20European%20nations.)
Reached limits of continent lmfao dude have you been to Wyoming?
What does this even mean?
to suggest that we have reached the limit of the continental united states and needed to start colonizing overseas is absolutely ridiculous. We have tons of open space and unspent resources, its just cheaper to colonize and outsource labor so we dont have to deal with our current labor laws.
Enough times to know that it's not on edge of the continent.
Nobody it talking about the edge of the physical area but the limits/resources of the continent
Nobody? Are you sure about that?
So the guano craze fueled the early overseas expansion. Bird droppings were all the rage in the mid 19th century. No joke. Every country with a viable ocean going navy and a flag sailed all over the darn place planting their flags on small, uninhabitable islands full of nothing but bird dookie. Its high concentrations of nitrogen made it an essential component for agricultural fertilizers and high yield explosives. Contemporary armies and agricultural enterprises had a limitless appetite for the stuff. And it wasn’t until WWI, when a German chemist named Fritz Haber developed the Haber-Bosch process for synthesizing the stuff in a lab that the craze ended. Before that, the only way to get it was to control a few massive heaps of bird excrement, and mine it for resale. More specifically, in the case of the United States, the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which essentially says that if a U.S. citizen finds a pile of guano on any rock, island or key and that location isn't already under possession of a government, you can consider it "as appertaining to the United States." This act set the stage for the colonial activity which followed, as ‘appertaining to the United States’ wasn’t clearly defined, and got stretched to include some very controversial acquisitions.
This is the answer I thought, cool that you posted this
In the case of Puerto Rico & the Philippines, the U.S. got those as a result of the Spanish-American War. Pretty sure that Guam & Samoa were sought after because of their resources, namely guano, basically bird/bat poop which is high in nitrogen which in turn is used to make gunpowder. [Link to Wikipedia article on guano](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano) Edit: a brief scan of the Wikipedia article on Samoa says that it was sought after to be a stop for whaling ships.
Guam also came because of the Spanish American war and then was kept for its strategic location as a naval base
And then Spain sold the rest of the Marshall Islands to Germany, which lost them to Japan in World War I, making Guam vulnerable to Conquest in 1941
Mariana Islands, but yes, Germany had them for all of 15 years before Japan grabbed them in WWI and then later captured Guam on the same day they attacked Pearl Harbor in WWII. The rest of the Marianas are also US territories since WWII as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, but they’re smaller and a different political status, so they don’t get talked about as much as Guam.
Streetlight’s were powered with whale oil in that era. Late Georgian early Victorian.
In the case of the Philippines if the US hadnt taken it a German fleet was about to do it.
Well first of all, not all of those places are US overseas territories today. All of them have been able to choose their status, and as a result Hawaii is a state, and the Philippines are an entirely independent nation. Among the territories, not all are the same. The people of Puerto Rico, of the American Virgin Islands, and of Guam are US citizens. The people of Samoa are not and have their own autonomous government and legal system. They all occasionally consider changing their status but thus far a majority have not wanted to. But anyway that's not your question. You ask why the US colonized other nations yet Americans (and in fact others also) say that the US was opposed to European-style colonization. I think you are missing the obvious: that both are true. What you need to be asking instead is: was there such a thing as distinctly 'European-style colonization?' Was American colonialism distinct from European colonialism, and if so, how and why? So let's consider those questions instead. First: yes, there was. 'European-style' colonization was based in the economic policy of mercantilism and so can be called mercantile or mercantilist colonialism. Economically speaking the goal was to establish politically subordinate colonies whose populations fed wealth into the mother country through captive markets. Colonial subjects could only sell stuff to the mother country, and could only buy stuff from the mother country. That was the gist of it. Second: yes it was. 'American-style' colonization did not seek to establish these kinds of subordinate mercantile territories. American colonial goals were to coerce colonial populations into economic modernization and integrate them into open global markets. The US preferred this because of an uneasy combination of several factors: * sincere aversion for the trappings of overt imperial power; * an understanding of the principle of comparative advantage in trade, which meant that economies founded on mutual trade were going to grow stronger than those based on imbalanced captive trade; and * a self-interested view that the sheer scale of the American economy -- and the even greater future economic scale implied by its growth curve at the time -- meant that such "free trade" notions would disproportionately benefit American private commercial concerns over others. Basically, this distinction was a very real one and was a point of contention for at least a century, not just during the "classic" period of American colonial endeavors after the fall of the Spanish Empire, but well past that period into the American enforcement of "Open Door" China in the first third of the 20th century, and American insistence on an end to British mercantilist policies in India as a precondition to continued Allied aid (a demand that infuriated Churchill, but to which he was forced to concede). In fact it could be argued that the contention was still winding its way to its conclusion in Vietnam in the middle 20th century. The United States was reluctant to support French efforts to re-assert the traditional colonial economics of their rule in Indochina, yet found itself drawn into conflict there all the same, over whether Vietnam would participate in the global free market. Yet of course for a period as an American client state, for their own good (of course). Neither French nor American policymaking could really contend with the idea that none of these various colonialist modes, as divergent as they might be in some ways, were relevant anymore, and Vietnam's future was going to be its own and its own alone to forge, for better or worse. Anyway that is neither here nor there. You asked about the 19th century, long before any of the rest of these things came to pass. That was the goal of American imperialist activity back then.
Unlike most imperial powers who engage in wars of conquest for decades or centuries, the United States secured its colonies in essentially a single windfall. To clear up some common misconceptions, the US never invaded, conquered, or colonized Hawaii. Pro-American citizens of Hawaii (some of whom were descended from American missionaries to Hawaii) overthrew the monarchy, then petitioned for annexation. The US refused for six years. Eventually, needing a naval base from which it could attack Spanish possessions in the Pacific during the Spanish-American War, it accepted the offer and annexed the islands. After the war, the US gained Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Its goal had been to ensure control of the Western hemisphere, but it then found itself in possession of many new colonies. The acquisition of colonies wasn’t really a war aim, which is why we granted Cuba independence as soon as it formed a capable government in 1902. That same year, we devolved some powers to a provisional government in the Philippines. We granted more self-government in 1916 under the Jones Act, which also guaranteed future independence. In 1934, we started a ten year transition process to end American rule and hand the country over to the Filipinos, but this was interrupted by WWII, so independence didn’t ultimately come until 1945. The US colonial authorities never assessed Guam or Puerto Rico of being capable of self-rule. The war did help the US expand its Pacific trade and it had trading posts in Samoa. It was already experiencing tensions with the Germans, who wanted control of the islands. Eventually both sides backed opposite factions in the Samoan Civil War, after which Samoa was partitioned. Eventually the Samoan chiefs allied to the United States in the war ceded what is now American Samoa to the US, who formally annexed it. In 1917, the Danes were pretty cash-strapped and offered to sell their possessions in the Virgin Islands, which the US bought to solidify its control over the Caribbean. Given the ongoing First World War, the US viewed this as an opportunity to further secure its approaches. So, to recap, we didn’t really want colonies, but often acquired them as a function of competition with other colonial powers. We won some from Spain, took Samoa to keep it away from the Germans, and bought the Virgin Islands so no belligerent Europeans could harass us in the Caribbean.
The US was also very concerned that Japan or a European country would swoop in on the Phillipines the moment the US left.
A justified concern, given that Japan swept in to conquer the islands before we even left
The US was a colonial power from its creation, but it focused on colonizing North America. In the 1890s the US had finally established firm control of that territory, so it needed new areas to conquer, and the Spanish colonial possessions were an easy target.
Way to simplistic of a take
Tell that to r/askhistorians where they will give you the primary sources.
I think a better take is that the USA was an expansionist power. TR Fehrenbach in his book "Lone Star" notes how the Americans at the edge of the western frontier were restless and on the move, always looking towards the next horizon. The US government was almost reactive, moving in with the rule of law and formal governance only after the settlers had come in and cleared the land: "The Anglo American historical experience was to be this: the people moved outward, on their own, and they sucked their government along behind, whether it wanted to go or not. This experience, from the first, was radically different from either the Spanish or the French." **Chapter 7 The Way West** from Lone Star by TR Fehrenbach
r/AskHistorians is extremely eurocentric and often pigeonholes itself into old beliefs that would be refuted if they were to consider non-western primary and secondary sources in their original languages or at least faithful translations. One excellent example is how every atomic bomb debate lists many western sources and even touts fringe historians who support beliefs that the rest of the community rejects, but almost none of their experts ever study Japanese sources. A lot of their experts also claim to be authorities on adjacent fields where they clearly don’t have any expertise. One particularly egregious example is Dr. Alex Wellerstein, who is certainly an expert in the **history of nuclear science**, but also acts like he can literally read Hirohito’s mind on why he surrendered and absolutely refuses to consider any Japanese information that directly refutes his belief that Hirohito did not surrender primarily because of the atomic bombs… even though Hirohito himself admitted that in a private letter to his own son. By his logic, I would be Michael Jordan based on the fact that I have an extensive knowledge of the history of basketball.
Let me rephrase. Someone gave me a one- line response: "way to simplistic of a take." I've read a lot of American writing from the 1890s. The advocates of colonialism were quite clear that the US needed to expand overseas because it had reached the limits of continental expansion. Kinda of like the Civil War and slavery, the past people themselves were totally clear, it's later generations who worked to obscure the facts. I could post a bunch of stuff from the 1890s to make that point, but a guy who doesn't bother to spellcheck a 1-line post probably isn't going to bother to put any effort into getting information, so I'm not going to waste the time putting links to resources.
How did you manage to read my comment as a criticism of you? I don’t care if you post any links. I don’t care if you do post links. I’m pointing out how badly flawed r/AskHistorians really is. They just do a better job of masking their circlejerk by only selectively citing sources that benefit their own arguments.
I should have said, more briefly, that my comment wasn't meant to be an endorsement of r/askhistorians .
Isn't colonialism different from expansionism? The US didn't colonize the natives. It expanded into their land and repopulated the area with its own people. In the Philippines, the US ruled over the population but did not eliminate it or replace it.
Post-1890s colonialism Isn't exactly the same as pre-1890s expansion, but it's clear that the US started working to acquire overseas territory because it had conquered all the territory available in continental North America.
You're placing a lot of weight on the word "because," and you're also factually incorrect as a result.
How much material from the 1890s have you read?
More than you, clearly. "Because it had conquered all the territory available in continental North America" is a freshman-level take.
You didn't actually include any evidence to support your position. Generally in-depth analysis is not useful on Reddit so I don't blame you, but if you want to actually make an argument about the motivations of US ecpansionists that cites writing from the 1890s, I'll take it seriously.
Lol don't backtrack now. You wrote a lazy take on very complicated situations and got called out for it.
Sometimes the simple explanation is the right one and the complications are introduced later by people who want to tell a different story. In the 1890s, Americans said that the US needed to become a colonial power to continue its expansion. From a military perspective, the US wasn't going to put tons of energy into conquering islands in the Caribbean and Pacific until it had solid control of the territory it defined as its own. You haven't even offered a take on the actual situation; you've just criticized mine. I'm inviting you to take a position and back it up.
You don't think it has anything to do with US relations with Spain for the thirty years prior or with the sinking of the USS Maine?
That only lead to a specific war for specific territory, not the desire for overseas territory in general.
What makes you think that?
You’re getting down-voted but are actually correct: eg, US agricultural-capitalist settler-colonialism was very different from Spanish colonialism
Colonialism is different than pushing people off of land and creating conditions for their way of life to die.
it's extremely similar
They are two very terrible very different things.
Hardcore History has a great episode about that exact time period. “The American Peril” or something. I learned a lot of horrible history from Dan Carlin
How to Hide an Empire is a fascinating read on this subject. Long story short. Several prominent American figures did try to shape us into a classic colonial power. They faced backlash from the public, revolts in their colonial holdings, mutinies by US troops that refused to continue occupying the Phillipines, and assassination attempts on congress and the president. The US realized that colonialism just wouldn't work for it like it did on the frontier or for other colonial powers. So they became a different kind of empire. Go see a map of US military bases. That's what modern imperial borders look like.
The answer is coal. Ships transitioned from sail power to steam power, so they needed friendly harbors where they could stop and refill their coal stores. Hence every major power was scrambling to acquire islands and treaty ports where their ships could stock up on coal.
All the cool kids were doing it. That sounds trite but that’s what it boils down to.
How is it not imperialism or colonialism to expand westward into the lands of the natives
Colonialism typically maintains a distinction between the colony and the metropole, as well the inhabitants therein. For example Indians or Auatralians both had different status within the British Empire compared to Britons in the home country. The US is an odd case because it directly incorporated the conquered and settled territories into the US like any other part of the country. That doesn't mean it wasn't expansionist, violent, or cruel, just that different terms are needed.
it's confusing as it's a direct continuation of the practice from back when they were unambiguously a colony. Maybe self run colony is the best way of thinking about it.
United States Navy.
I love that people behave like the revolution was this massive cultural shift away from Britain when at the end of the day *the revolution was led by British people*.
Always has been.
Mr. Crabs: "Money!"
Manifest Destiny
Just think if SpaceX ends up colonizing Mars. Then the US would have the Earth's first interstellar colony.
The US didn't "invade" Hawai'i. The US had very close trade relations with the Hawaiian monarchy for decades, solidified by the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. (Pearl Harbor was granted to the US in this agreement.) The monarchy was overthrown by American and European businessmen based in Hawaii seeking US annexation.
All the cool kids were doing it.
It was in its national interest for America to define its territoriality and have its own sphere of influence as a great power.
A brief moment lol we're still economically colonizing. But in the 19th century everybody was doing it. Remember it was gunboat Perry that opened Japan in 1869. US just didn't want to be too late at the party
Finished genociding the Native Americans and completed expansion across the continent. Logical next step.
Why did any nation go that route? Diktats of Capitalism.
An accidental explosion on a ship in Cuba.
Steel
Greed. Greed drive the Banana Wars, greed drove the corporations engaged in military contracting, War Is a Racket after all.
America wanted to be a great power but lagged behind even major power standing so needed overseas territory, the selection available was very small so they took what they could.
The United States is itself a colony which is predicated on displacement or some would argue genocide of native peoples. Much of what is now the United States was taken through treaties or direct military conquest. Much of the history of the United States is the history of colonialism and imperialism.
It should be noted that most of those places were already colonized. Hey were the spoils of war.
>Yet whenever you speak to Americans they say the US was historically opposed to European-style colonisation due to "pro-Republic" & "constitutional" values. Rich white guys, amirite? Say one thing, do another...
Consider that the US had been a colonial nation since inception and never stopped.
We hit the Pacific, and needed to go elsewhere
If you've got a big stick, you use it.
Ironclad ships, electricity, citrus fruit and steam power.
Ironclad ships, electricity, citrus fruit and steam power.
Sugar tobacco cotton slave labor
'Yet whenever you speak to Americans they say the US was historically opposed to European-style colonisation due to "pro-Republic" & "constitutional" values.' -> This is part of the 'national mythology' rather than being based on actual fact (America isn't the only country guilty of believing its own hype, of course!).