US Expansion

1
US Expansion

• Acquisition of Empire

2
The Need For Bird h!t!

• In the State of the Union Address of 1850
  President Millard Fillmore addressed the need for
  guano.
• Bird droppings are rich in chemicals for
  fertilizer, used by farmers to increase crop
  yields.

The United States failed to acquire a treaty with
Peru for buying guano, but the Guano Act of 1856
by the U.S. Congress authorized annexation of any
small island in the Pacific that was not claimed
by another government
3
Guano Act Acquisitions

• Baker Island 1857
• Howland Island 1857
• Jarvis Island 1857
• Johnston Atoll 1858
• Midway Islands 1867

4
Early Japanese Contact

• In 1853 Commodore Matthew C. Perry was dispatched
  by President Fillmore to Japan. Supporters of
  the mission wanted to see Japan opened to trade
  but this mission was to serve a wider purpose
  an extension of US naval power into and across
  the Pacific.
• To project naval power the US Navy needed coaling
  stations and Perry investigated potential
  stations on the islands of Okinawa and Chichi
  Jima, part of the Bonin Islands.
• The Department of the Navy along with the US
  Congress opposed imperialist acquisitions and
  Japan seized control of both islands in the
  1860s.

5
US Interventions 1858 to 1868
Fiji 1858 Shanghai 1859 Newchwang 1866 Japan 18
68 Somoa 1878
6
The US and Hawaii

• The U.S. economy was benefiting from a decline in
  transport costs, an expansion of trade and a
  rising standard of living.
• By the 1870s Hawaii's sugar exports were more
  than thirteen times what they had been in 1860,
  with steamships providing faster transport
  between Honolulu and San Francisco.
• The Hawaiians were Christianized, and missionary
  families were well established and still citizens
  of the United States, with foreigners having the
  right to own land, to vote and to serve in
  government.

7
The US and Hawaii

• In 1875 the United States and the Kingdom of
  Hawaii signed a "treaty of reciprocity" - free
  trade.
• Southern congressmen complained about injury to
  the rice and sugar producers in their districts
  cheap Asian rice could be imported by way of the
  Hawaiian Island duty-free.
• Also, by 1880, Hawaiians were unhappy, not about
  US imports but about the accumulation by
  missionaries and other foreigners of both power
  and influence.
• Native Hawaiians became increasingly hostile to
  arrogant and uncharitable opportunists as they
  described white business owners.
• Hawaiians called for a purely native legislature
  and complained that foreigners held most of the
  land.
• "Hawaii for Hawaiians" had became a slogan.

8
The US and Hawaii

• Claus Spreckles
• Spreckles, a German-born financier from
  California, all but monopolized the sugarcane
  procurement.
• King Kalakaua granted Spreckles political favors
  because the two played poker together and
  Spreckles arraigned personal loans for the king.
• Rumor had it that Spreckles was the power behind
  the throne when in 1886, he returned to
  California.
• 
  Kalakaua

9
The US and Hawaii

• Well-established U.S. citizens felt they had been
  in Hawaii long enough to be considered Hawaiian.
• They
• Felt they deserved the influence they could
  exercise
• were disturbed by what they thought was hostility
  from non-whites
• were concerned about bad government by King
  Kalakaua.
• Common among whites during these times was the
  belief that non-whites were incapable of good
  government.
• Whatever the beliefs of influential whites in
  Hawaii, among them were at least a few who
  believed that the king had too much power.
• A few formed a secret society called the Hawaiian
  League, led by Lorrin Thurston.
• Thurston wanted a new constitution that gave more
  power to the legislature and voting restrictions
  that  protected men like himself from the
  opinions of hostile non-whites.

10
The US and Hawaii

• The conspirators confronted King Kalakaua and
  took power the old fashioned way, with weapons.
• Without an adequate guard or military
  counterforce, King Kalakaua responded by signing
  the Bayonet Constitution which Thurston and his
  fellow conspirators had devised.
• The king, according to his sister Liliuokalani,
  signed the constitution "under absolute
  compulsion."

11
The US and Hawaii

• When King Kalakaua died of kidney disease in 1891
  Liliuokalani took the oath as reigning monarch,
  swearing to uphold the new constitution that she
  despised.
• With the support of Hawaii's citizens she drafted
  a constitution to replace the Bayonet
  Constitution and in January 1893, the former
  conspirators, now in power, defended their power
  by resorting to yet another coup.
• They formed a Committee of Safety and enlisted a
  militia that took over government buildings and
  offices.
• U.S. President Benjamin Harrison encouraged the
  move favored annexation.
• The coup was supported by the commanding officer
  of the U.S.S. Boston which landed marines and
  sailors to keep order in Honolulu.
• The Queen's guards surrendered their arms at the
  palace barracks and Queen Liliuokalani was
  retired to her private residence.
• Wanting no bloodshed she urged people not to riot
• A new Democratic administration would be coming
  into power the following March and she believed
  that the decency of the American people would set
  things aright she planned to write an appeal to
  President Cleveland.

12
The US and Hawaii

• Unfortunately for the Hawaiians, on February 1,
  the Harrison administration recognized the
  government of the Hawaiian League and Hawaii
  was proclaimed a U.S. protectorate.
• A treaty of annexation was sent to the Senate,
  but after learning that most Hawaiians opposed
  annexation, Democrats opposed it and the treaty
  of annexation failed to pass.
• Grover Cleveland spoke of the dishonorable
  conduct toward Hawaiians and in March after his
  inauguration he sent a new U.S. minister to
  Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to power.
  Liliuokalani also had the support of the sugar
  magnate, Claus Spreckles, but his power was not
  what it had been rumored to be.
• The government in Honolulu refused to step down,
  and there was not the will by the new
  administration, or the U.S. public, to use force
  against their fellow citizens in Hawaii.

13
The US and Hawaii

• On 04 March 1897 Republicans returned to the
  presidency, and in June 1898, during the Spanish
  American War, annexation of the Hawaiian Islands
  was once again debated in Congress.
• We must have Hawaii to help us get our share of
  China.
• In July, President William McKinley signed the
  annexation of the Hawaiian Islands into law and
  by 1900 the islands were made a territory, with
  the leader of the coup against Liliuokalani,
  Sanford B. Dole, the territory's first governor.

14
From Kingdom to Territory

• 12 August 1898