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Part VII: Pax Americana and the “American Mediterranean” Session 9 The New Empire and Neocolonialism in the Caribbean Jefferson’s Dream Manifest Destiny Monroe Doctrine The Obsession with Cuba Platt Amendment: Cuba Roosevelt Corollary Calling Uncle Sam A chronology of US military interventions in the wider Caribbean region Common justifications for US intervention Common consequences of US expansion Support for dictatorships Ships for Bases: US Expansion into the British West Indies

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Jefferson’s Dream

1811, Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the US (1801-1809): federation of all Caribbean islands; later Cuba, hoped would become a state of the U.S

Manifest Destiny

Jefferson’s Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, President (1825-1829): dominate the entire Western Hemisphere

“There are laws of political as well as physical gravitation and if an apple severed by the tempest from its native tree, cannot choose but to fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its unnatural connection with Spain and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only toward the North American Union, which, by the same law of nature, cannot cast her off from its bosom.”

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an apple (fruit), the force of gravity (nature) a woman (manhood), a damsel in distress (salvation, civilization)

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Social Darwinist ideas of racial superiority “The miserable republics of Central America, people by a degraded half-race of humanity, will yet bow to the rule of the Anglo-American…[and Americans will carry] moral and material well-being to the disintegrating communities and decaying races of Spanish America.”

Captain Alfred Mahan, Influence of Sea Power on History (1890): “Whether they will or no, Americans must begin to look outward. The growing production of the country demands it.” Monroe Doctrine

US President James Monroe (1817-1825) addressed the US Congress on December 2, 1823

The Americas would now be deemed a special sphere of interest of the US

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US Secretary of State Richard Olney: “Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subject to which it confines its interposition.” The Obsession with Cuba

US resorted to numerous schemes to obtain Cuba, loans, offers to purchase Cuba for $100 million (under US President Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857)

“A new consciousness seems to have come upon us—the consciousness of strength—and with it a new appetite, the yearning to show our strength….Ambition, interest, land hunger, pride, the mere joy of fighting, whatever it may be, we are animated by a new sensation. We are face to face with a strange destiny. The taste of Empire is in the mouth of the people even as the taste of blood in the jungle.” ~ Editorial, Washington Post, 1898

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Formal Military Government instituted by the US set about disarming

the Cuban revolutionaries, eradicating yellow fever, reducing starvation, and imposing a new electoral law.

Platt Amendment: Cuba

March 2, 1901, a US military appropriation bill, Platt Amendment, named after Senator Orville Platt who presented it on behalf of Secretary of War Elihu Root

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1. That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or convention with any other power that would entail the effective domination of Cuba by such a power;

2. That Cuba should not acquire any foreign loan whose repayment would make it impossible for the government of Cuba to sustain itself;

3. “That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty…”

4. That all rights acquired by the US during its military occupation shall remain valid and in force, even after US withdrawal;

5. That the government of Cuba will safeguard commerce and the protection of its population, and to protect the commerce of the US;

6. That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba

7. “That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States” areas such as Guantánamo Bay and Bahia Honda

8. “That by way of further assurance the government of Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the United States.”

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Roosevelt Corollary

US President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) , Roosevelt Corollary, 1904: “Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”

Roosevelt: “show these Dagoes that they will have to behave decently”

US President William Howard Taft (1909-1913), international policeman: “the right to knock their heads together until they should maintain peace between them”

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Calling Uncle Sam

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A chronology of US military interventions in the wider Caribbean region (33 interventions just between 1898 and 1925) 1849-1851: 3 US filibustering expeditions to Cuba, aim of annexation 1856: William Walker, President of Nicaragua 1898-1902: US occupation of Cuba 1898: Colonization of Puerto Rico 1898: US intervention in Nicaragua 1899: US intervention in Nicaragua 1902: US intervention in Colombia 1903: US troops intervene in the Dominican Republic 1903: US troops sent to Honduras 1903: US intervention to aid the secession of Panama from Colombia 1904: US troops intervene in the Dominican Republic 1906-1909: US invasion and occupation of Cuba 1907: US troops sent to Honduras 1910: US intervention in Nicaragua 1911: US troops sent to Honduras 1912: US troops sent to Honduras

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1913: US intervention in Mexico 1914: US troops intervene in Haiti 1914: US troops intervene in the Dominican Republic 1914-1917: US intervention in Mexico 1915-1934: US invasion and occupation of Haiti 1916-1924: US invasion and occupation of the Dominican Republic 1912: US intervention in Cuba 1912-1925: US invasion and occupation of Nicaragua 1918-1919: US intervention in Mexico 1919: US troops sent to Honduras 1920: US intervention in Guatemala 1921: US intervention in Panama 1924: US troops sent to Honduras 1925: US troops sent to Honduras 1925: US intervention in Panama 1926-1933: US invasion and occupation of Nicaragua 1917-1922: US invasion and occupation of Cuba 1927: US intervention in Nicaragua

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Common justifications for US intervention 1. To protect US lives and/or US owned property, or other US interests; 2. To promote “peace” and protect government “stability”; 3. To prevent revolution, or to quell insurrections; 4. To create or maintain “neutral” zones or cities. Common consequences of US expansion 1. The acquisition of large tracts of arable land, for the production of

cash crops for export; 2. The loss of lands by peasants engaged in subsistence agriculture and

growing food for the local market; 3. The alliance of powerful US political, military, and business interests

with sectors of the local bourgeoisie, in union against large sections of the working class and peasants.

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Support for dictatorships Fulgencio Batista—Cuba Rafael Trujillo—the Dominica Republic Anastasio Somoza—Nicaragua François Duvalier—Haiti

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Ships for Bases: US Expansion into the British West Indies

1940: With World War II, 50 US ships to Britain, 99-year leases for US military bases in British Caribbean colonies:

Antigua The Bahamas Jamaica St. Lucia Trinidad Guyana

The Attorney General to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Robert

Jackson, what the US gave to Britain consisted of “over-age ships…decommissioned with a view toward scrapping…and obsolescent military materials…and certain other small patrol boats which…are already obsolescent”.