Summary: The Latin American Empire

A Latin American Empire (Page 384 -387)

Leaders of the United States started realizing that their country's security depends on the security of Latin America. (due to strong links with their southern neighbors)

Most Latin American colonies were independent by the early 1800's but were still not secure. They feared that European countries would try to re-conquer the new republics. The US feared this too;

Monroe Doctrine: (President James Monroe- 1823) The document stated that "the American continents... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." (Until 1898, this law had little enforcement but due to Cuba, which gave the US a testing ground)

Cuba Declares Independence:
Caribbean
Island of Cuba (one of Spain's last colonies in America).
In 1868; Cuba declared its independence and fought a ten-year war against Spain.
In 1878; Cuba gave up the fight due to its island which was in ruins. - But Cubans still continued to seek independence from Spain.
In 1895; Jose Marti (a writer which has been exiled from Cuba by the Spanish) returned to launch a second war for Cuban independence.
- Killed early in fighting while the rest battled on.
Min 1890s' US had developed substantial business holdings in Cuba, there for it had an economic stake in the fate of the country. In addition, the Spanish had forced many Cuban civilians into concentration camps(Americas objected to the Spanish brutality).
Spanish-American War: In 1898; The US joined the Cuban war for independence. This lasted about four months.
The Us forces launched their first attack not on Cuba but on the Philippine Islands, a Spanish colony thousands of miles away in the Pacific. Unprepared for a war on two fronts, the Spanish military quickly collapsed.
In 1901; Cuba became an independent nation, at least in name- However, the US installed a military government and continued to exert control over Cuban affairs. This caused tremendous resentment among many Cubans, who had assumed that the US's aim in intervening was to help Cuba become truly independent.
-After its defeat in the Spanish-American War, Spain turned over the last of its colonies. Puerto Rica, Guam and the Philippines became U.S territories. Having become the dominant imperial power in Latin America, the US next set in sight of
Panama.

Connecting the Oceans:
Latin Americans were beginning to regard the US as the political and economic "Colossus of the North"/ The US was colossus in the geographic term too.
By 1870's the transcontinental railroad connected its east and west coasts, but the land travel still time-consuming and difficult. As sea travel between the coasts involved a trip about 13,000 miles around the tip of South America. (If a canal could be dug across a narrow section of Central America, the coast-to-coast journey would be cut in half)
The US had been thinking about such a project since the early 19th century: In the 1880s, a French company tried- but failed- to build a canal across Panama. No one more enthusiastic than President Theodore Roosevelt came around and led the nation from 1901 to 1909.
In 1903; Panama was a province of Colombia. Roosevelt offered that county $10 million plus a yearly payment for the right to build a canal. When the Colombian government demanded more money, the US responded by encouraging a revolution in Panama; The Panamanians had been trying to break away from Colombia for almost a century.
In 1903; with the help from the US Navy, they won their country's independence. In gratitude, Panama gave the US a ten-mile-wide zone in which to build a
canal.

For the next decade Americans tried to build the massive waterway, however their greatest challenge was the disease carrying insects that infested the area. The US began a campaign to destroy the mosquitos that carried yellow fever and malaria, and the rats that carried bubonic plague. The effort to control these diseases were eventually successful. Even so, thousands of workers died during construction of the canal.
The Panama Canal: Opened in 1914, Ships from around the world soon began to use it. Latin America has become a crossroads of the world trade. And the US controlled the tollgate.

The Roosevelt Corollary:

The building of the Panama Canal was only one way that the US expanded tits influence in Latin America in the early 20th century. Its presence in Cuba and its large investments in many Central and South American countries strengthened its foothold. To protect those economic interests, in 1904, President Roosevelt issued a corollary, or extension the "Monroe Doctrine"

Roosevelt Corollary: Gave the US the right to be "an international police power" in the Western Hemisphere.
The US used the Roosevelt Corollary many times in the following years to justify the US intervention in Latin America. US troops occupied some countries for decades. Many Latin American protested this intervention, but they were powerless to stop their giant neighbor to the north. The US government simply turned a deaf ear to the protests.