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2.3: Neo-Colonialism and U.S. Intervention

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    U.S. Intervention in Latin America

     
    In 1822, U.S. President James Monroe finally recognized Mexico’s independence. The following year, he made an historic declaration now known as The Monroe Doctrine.  In his annual address to Congress, he issued one of the most impactful policy statements in the history of the Americas, proclaiming that Latin America was indeed within the “sphere of influence” of the United States and that the newly formed Latin American countries “henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers… it is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of [the continent] without endangering our peace and happiness.” (Gonzalez, p. 39)


    In describing the large scope and scale of this policy shift, one historian wrote: 

     

    “During the twentieth century, a succession of presidents using Monroe’s words to justify repeated military occupations of Latin American nations.  This dual interpretation of the doctrine’s provisions continues to this day. It underscores an unresolved contradiction of U.S. history – between our ideals of freedom and our predilection for conquest.” (Gonzalez, p. 39)
     

    1599px-The_Pull_of_the_Monroe_Magnet.jpeg

    Figure 𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 3.3.1: A 1913 political cartoon by U.Keppler titled "The Pull of the Monroe Magnet" depicting the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine and critique of U.S.  "protectorates" in Latin America, beginning with Cuba in 1901.   (CC BY-SA 4.0; Puck via Wikimedia)

     

     

    The westward and southern expansion of the United States is also related to the idea of “Manifest Destiny”. This term was coined by John O’Sullivan, owner and publicist of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review,  in 1845. Along with other advocates of US expansionism, especially in to Latin America, he considered Latin Americans to be culturally and racially inferior to their Anglo counterparts.  Their advancements in science and technology and democratic institutions were prima facie evidence of their superiority. They also drew from pseudoscience and now-debunked medical experts to justify such thinking. 

     For instance:

     “To the Caucasian race is the world indebted for all the great and important discoveries, inventions, and improvements that have been made in science and the arts.” – Dr. George Caldwell, Thoughts on the Original Unity of the Human Race, 1830

     
    “Wherever in the history of the world the inferior races have been conquered and mixed in with the Caucasian, the latter have sunk into barbarism.”  - Dr. Josiah Nott, Speech, 1844


    American_Progress_(John_Gast_painting).jpeg
    Figure 𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 3.3.2: This 1872 illustration titled "American Progress" by John Gast represents Manifest Destiny.  Settlers are moving west, guided and protected by Columbia, aided by modern technology like railroads, and driving Native Americans and bison into obscurity. Columbia represents Anglo America, dressed in a Roman toga to represent classical republicanism, and brings the enlightened east to the darkened west.  (CC BY-SA 4.0; The Autry via Wikimedia)

     

     

    Mexico

     
    In the Mexican province of Tejas (the modern-day state of Texas) Anglo-settlers used old Spanish land grants, illegal land grabs, filibustering, and marriage into elite Mexican families to acquire Mexican land and property. For instance,

     “James Power, who married Dolores de la Portilla, an heiress of the rich De la Garza landowning family. Power thus initiated a form of land acquisition that hundreds of Anglo adventurers in the Southwest copied – he married into the Mexican elite and thereby acquired a mayorazgo.” (Gonzalez, p. 41).

     Due to the increase in illegal Anglo squatters and migrants, the Mexican government abolished slavery in 1929 in hopes of creating an economic disincentive for American southerners to venture into the Mexican territory.  By then, however, Anglo settlers outnumbered Mexicans in the province of Tejas.  When President Santa Anna took control of Mexico in 1933, he soon rescinded the exemptions from taxes and antislavery laws that the Texans had previously been granted, setting up the inevitable clash between the Anglo Texan settlers and the Mexican government under Santa Anna.  This clash led to the Texas War of Independence, the infamous Battle of the Alamo, and the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836.  General Santa Anna was captured and Mexico was forced to recognize Texas independence over the following years.  It was finally annexed into the United States in 1845, after some years political dispute between the two countries.     

     
    Manifest destiny and pressure to expand propelled the US to annex more Mexican territory through the Mexican-American War of 1846.  The last president of the Texas Republic, named Anson James, was critical of then President Polk and General Zachary Taylor for their shameful war mongering and their efforts to “induce [him] to aid them in their unholy and execrable design of manufacturing a war with Mexico.” (Gonzalez, p. 44) The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) officially ended the war and Mexico was forced to relinquish about half of its territory, including present-day Nevada, New Mexico, California, parts of Arizona, Utah and a disputed 150-mile wide Neuces Strip, giving Anglo-Americans ownership of and access to approximately 3 million head of wild horses and cattle.  And thus out of the Spanish/Mexican vaquero culture was born the U.S. cattle industry.  As historian Carey McWilliams pointed out,  Anglo-America cowboy culture was rooted in Spanish/Mexican vaquero culture. For example, the language of the Western range was derived from Spanish words used by Spanish/Mexican cowboys for generations such as bronco, buckaroo, burro, mesa, canyon, lasso, rodeo, corral, loco, lariat, among others.  In addition, the United States also now had ownership over the gold in California, rich gold and silver deposits,  copper and wool deposits, an established sheep raising industry in New Mexico, and fertile land in Central California. This newfound wealth and the presence of Mexican laborers "provided the underpinnings of twentieth-century western prosperity" that is not often recognized in Western U.S. and frontier history.  


     

    Central America and the Panama Canal

     

    William Walker launched an uprising in the northern state of Sonora and proclaimed the president of the “Republic of Sonora”. For this, he was forcibly chased out of Mexico by federal troops and arrested in the US for violating international neutrality laws. 

     
    In an historical movement towards independence, Central American countries broke away from Mexico in 1823 and formed the United Provinces of Central America. In 1838, they formed their own 5 independent countries – Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. 

     The California Gold Rush and pressure from merchants and US business interests increased the need for a faster passage to the Pacific coast of the US.  Two competing companies led by the business magnates of their time – William Aspinwall and Cornelius Vanderbilt - built railroad lines that traversed Central American through Panama and Nicaragua.  During this time, the US government put the Monroe Doctrine into action. For example, U.S. sailors went ashore onto a sovereign nation to defend Vanderbilt’s company to settle a disagreement with a local government.  Similarly, the U.S. Navy bombarded a town called San Juan/Greytown over a financial quarrel between an American company and local governmental agencies.  Brazen violations of sovereignty were not limited to the US armed forces.  In 1854, Colonel Henry Kinney, the founder of the Texas Rangers and land speculator, declared that he had purchased 22 million acres of land in Nicaragua (about 70% of the entire country) and launched a failed armed revolt against the government in order to enforce his illegal claim. 

     Back in the U.S., such schemes to appropriate land through dubious land grabs were also lauded by newspaper columnists, using racist tropes and Manifest Destiny to justify such acts:

     

    “Central America is destined to occupy an influential position in the family of nations, if her advantage of location, climate and soil are availed of by a race of ‘Northmen’ who shall supplant the tainted, mongrel and decaying race which now curses it so fearfully.” – New York Times, December 15, 1854

     

    In 1899, two giant US fruit companies merged and formed the United Fruit Company. Combined, they already owned 230,000 acres of land throughout Central America and controlled 112 miles of railroad. The UFC would become emblematic of the US presence in Central America over the next century.  It would come to control the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, institute the US policies of “gunboat” and “dollar” diplomacy to install and topple governments, and extract billions of dollars in profits from Central American countries over the decades.
     

    Spanish Caribbean

     
    Unlike other Latin American countries, Puerto Rico and Cuba remained under Spanish colonial rule throughout the 19th century.   

     
    Spain allowed American investment in Cuba. US government offered Spain $130 million in 1852 but they refused their offer.  US investments in sugar, railroads, iron and steel manufacturing grew to more than $50 million by 1890. The Cuban and American economies were co-dependent by the end of the 19th century, with 94% of the sugar exports going to the U.S. and business with Cuba accounted for 1/4 of U.S. international global commerce. 

    Meanwhile, in the Dominican Republic... After Haiti won its independence in 1804, they invaded the eastern part of the island and freed Dominican slaves but imposed a harsh social hierarchy.  The Dominicans ousted the Haitian occupiers and founded their own sovereign country – The Dominican Republic – in 1844.  Almost immediately following its founding as a nation, U.S. politicians and economic venturers began to court Dominican leaders. The US Navy thought Samana Bay in the northeast section of the island would make a great naval base and President Ulysses Grant, in the post-US Civil War era, signed an annexation treaty with Dominican dictator Buenaventura Baez with the intent of turning the country into a “colonizing venture for any American black who were dissatisfied with the post-Civil War South.” The U.S. Senate did not concur with his colonial project and rejected the treaty in 1870.

     Following the first Cuban War of Independence, thousands of Spanish and Cuban planters migrated to the Dominican Republic and along with international investors and transplants from the US and Europe, established an impressive sugar-based economy. By 1893, it had one of the largest sugar plantations in the western hemisphere and about half of all DR trade was with the US.

     Pressure to go to war from pro-expansionists such as Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge as well as newspaper titans such as William R. Hearst almost inevitably led to the Spanish American War of 1898.  The Spanish empire was teetering and its military might diminished, and it was no match for the US. The Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish American war and the US acquired control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. 

     

     Following the end of the Spanish American War and the rapid increase of US investment in Latin America, by 1924 it accounted for nearly half of all international US investment. 

     

     

     

    Contributors and Attributions 

    • Ramos, Carlos. (Long Beach City College)

     

    Works Cited 

    • Gomez, L. (2022). Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism. The New Press, New York 
    • Gonzalez, J. (2000). Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. Penguin Books, New York 

     


    This page titled 2.3: Neo-Colonialism and U.S. Intervention is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Carlos Ramos.

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