6.4: The United States Civil War and United States Imperialism

Slavery and the United States Civil War

Cotton production was central to the U.S. economy from the time Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin in 1794. Though Whitney is often credited with inventing the cotton gin, in fact, he modified the double roller already in use in India for millenia. The cultivation of cotton began in ancient India, including the inventions of a single and then double roller cotton gin. Cotton production fueled economic growth in the U.S., Britain, and around the world. 

By 1820, the U.S. surpassed India as the world’s leading producer of cotton. By 1860, the U.S. exported 2/3 of the world’s cotton. As forced labor in producing the cotton, slaves suffered while creating wealth for slaveholders, merchants, and people in ancillary businesses such as shipbuilding and insurance. Cotton plantation holders had no motivation to end an institution that was at the heart of their wealth and economy. Newer research addresses slave resistance and struggles against oppression.

The most famous slave revolts were Gabriel's rebellion in 1800 and Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831. Both were in Virginia. The first abolitionists were the slaves themselves as the idea of human freedom could never be stamped out. Figure 6.4.1 shows a woodcut of the Southampton County (Virginia) insurrection in two panels: the top panel depicts slaves killing a woman and children as well as the owner of Nat Turner. The bottom panel shows a group of soldiers chasing the rebels. The woodcut shown in Figure 6.4.1 was created in 1831, the year of Nat Turner's Rebellion.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): 1831 woodcut image of Nat Turner's Rebellion. Library of Congress, in the Public Domain.

As the abolitionist movement spread grew in the north and Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the U.S. in 1860, plantation owners in the Southern states knew that their profits from cotton production, dependent on slave labor, was at risk. This led to the creation of the Confederate States of America and the secession of 11 states from the Union at the end of 1860 and the beginning of 1861. During the U.S. Civil War, many Southerners believed that Britain and perhaps France would support its secessionist cause since its manufacturers were dependent on cotton from the U.S. Some Southerners argued that this assumption was wrong. The Governor of Texas at the time, Sam Houston, wrote,

The secession leaders also tell us if war should come, that European Nations will speedily come to our relief, and aid us to win our independence because cotton is King and European commerce and civilization can not long exist without cotton, therefore they must help us maintain and perpetuate our Confederate government…Never was a more false or absurd statement ever made by designing demagogues.

Houston went on to warn that secession would lead to, “...anarchy and utter ruin…the fearful conflict will fill our fair land with untold suffering, misfortune and disaster.” Indeed by the time the Civil War was over, it was the largest war in the all of the Americas leading to 750,000 dead. Houston lived just long enough to see his prognostication come true.

The Civil War, like the Crimean a few years earlier, was one of the first modern wars that brought new technology to the battlefield. Railroads and steamboats made troop transportation quicker and more efficient, while the electric telegraph not only improved military communication, but also made war news more immediately available to the newspaper-reading public in the U.S. and abroad. The industrialized northern states benefited the most from the new technologies. They could produce more war material and get troops to the front more quickly than the South, which lagged in both industry and railroads. Warfare around the world had changed with the industrial revolution and each new development made killing faster and easier, a problem we face today.

Figure 6.4.2 shows war dead from the battle at Antietam on September 17, 1862. Hagerstown Pike is on the right side of the post-and-fence rail. It was one of the deadliest days in U.S. military history. Almost 28,000 men were dead, missing, or injured. 3,700 of those died. Alexander Gardner was the first photographer to capture dead soldiers on a battlefield. His images shocked the nation and brought the realities of war to people who would have never seen these kinds of atrocities before. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Dead bodies on the battlefield at Antietam, Alexander Gardner, in the Public Domain.

179,000 African-Americans fought on the Union side in the Civil War, making up 10% of the northern fighting forces. An additional 19,000 African-American sailors served in the Union Navy. African-American women also served in the Civil War as nurses and spies. The most well-known woman was Harriet Tubman, famous for her crucial role in the Underground Railroad. Figure 6.4.3 shows an African-American infantry in formation in front of a long wood paneled building. Each of the men holds a rifle-musket. They were part of Company E, 4th United States Colored Infantry. Theirs was one of the detachments assigned to guard the nation's capital during the American Civil War.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Photograph of African-American Infantry, Library of Congress, in the Public Domain

Even though slavery was abolished with the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, social and legislative treatment of African-Americans remained oppressive and exploitative for the next one hundred years. African-Americans were not provided equal treatment despite the 14th amendment to the Constitution, and were blocked from voting despite the 15th amendment to the Constitution. Though the 15th amendment stated that voting could not be abridged on the basis of race or previous servitude, the loophole was that it did not rule out suppressing the vote by mandating fees or educational requirements. Not until the Civil Rights movement during the 20th century would basic human rights be enforced.

 

U.S. Imperialism: The Spanish-American War of 1898

In 1890, Alfred Thayar Mahan published a book called, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. As a naval officer, historian, and president of the United States War College, Mahan argued that the United States needed to increase its naval power in order to gain status as a world power. He also argued that the U.S. needed overseas markets in order to sell the overabundance of products produced in the nation. His message did not go unheeded. By 1900 the U.S. Naval fleet had grown by over 100 steel ships and several battleships, so that it was the second largest in the world, behind only the British Navy.

Since the 1820s, merchants and Christian missionaries from the United States had been living to Hawaii, cooperating with Native Hawaiian elites, expropriating land, and starting businesses. U.S. influence over island affairs and native government increased as the decades wore on. Figure 6.4.4 depicts Crown Princess Lili'uokalani in a formal gown that was made for her trip to London, along with her mother Queen Kapi`olani, for Queen Victoria's Jubilee celebration in 1887.  The black and white photograph was taken in London and showcases a diamond butterfly brooch in her hair that the princess bought in London.

Queen Lili'uokalani ruled as the last monarch of Hawaii from 1891 to 1893. In January 1893, businessman Sanford Dole, staged a coup d'etat, and overthrew Queen Lili'uokalani. The U.S. Minister to Hawaii, John Stevens, recognized Dole as the head of state and named Hawaii as a U.S. Protectorate. From that point on, Native Hawaiian people were required to sign a loyalty pledge to the U.S. if they wanted to vote or hold political office. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Photograph of Crown Princess Lili'uokalani in 1887, Hawaii State Archives, in the Public Domain.

From July 4, 1894 through August 12, 1898, Dole made himself President of the Republic of Hawaii and did not tolerate dissent. Those who protested found themselves in jail. In January of 1895, Queen Lili'uokalani was put in prison. She remained there until 1897, when she sailed to the U.S. to present a petition to the U.S. Congress. She had 20,000 signatures in support of a Hawaii under her own rule and against U.S. annexation.

On July 7, 1898, President William McKinley declared Hawaii a U.S. territory. Five days later, the U.S. Congress voted to annex Hawaii as a U.S. territory. For three years, from 1900-1903, Sanford Dole took the position of Governor of Hawaii. His governorship, therefore, followed his previous role as president as a result of the 1894-1898 coup d'etat. Until her death in 1917, Queen Lili'uokalani fought for Hawaiian independence and her people to no avail. Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21, 1959.

Hawaii was not the only annexation by the U.S. in 1898. Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were also affected by U.S. imperialism that same year. Between 1868-1878, Cubans fought for independence against Spanish colonial rule and for the end of slavery on the island. On December 27, 1868, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes wrote in his Decree on Slavery that,  “Free Cuba is incompatible with Cuban slavery; and abolition of Spanish institutions must include, and the highest form of justice demands, the abolition of slavery, the most iniquitous Spanish institution of all.” Slavery was abolished in 1886 though Cuban fighting against Spanish rule continued.

In 1895, Cuban independence leader, Jose Marti, led an army of U.S. exiles into battle against the Spanish and lost his life. These kinds of armed conflicts pushed the Spanish to try even harder to hold onto their power as a colonial regime. The Spanish created reconcentration camps where rural Cubans were made to live, so that any rebels against Spanish rule might be discovered. Camp conditions led to the deaths of 170,000 Cubans. Figure 6.4.5 is a panel of 3 black and white photos taken by American and Cuban journalists between 1896 and 1897 of victims in reconcentration camps. The Spanish reconcentration policy was implemented by General Valeriano Weyler who relocated Cuba's rural population into concentration camps, where most people died from starvation or disease.

Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\): Photographs of victims of Spanish reconcentration camps in Cuba, in the Public Domain.

At the beginning of 1898, public opinion in the US was divided over entering the Cuban war for independence. U.S. companies built and owned much of the communications and transportation infrastructure on the island. U.S. smokers were the main consumers of Cuban cigars, and U.S. investors controlled the all-important sugar industry. 

Major newspapers soon engaged in sensationalist reporting on Spain’s crimes in Cuba in order to increase circulation. Media magnates William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer used what became known as "yellow journalism" to agitate for war. Yellow journalism, named after a popular cartoon character, “Yellow Kid,” is the technique of using inflammatory headlines backed by little or no factual reporting to stir up public emotion. It is ironic that Pulitzer is now best known for the highest award in journalistic excellence, something he established in his will.

Alarmed about instability on the island, President McKinley sent the U.S. battleship Maine to Havana in order to protect U.S. business interests. The Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana harbor, killing scores of U.S. soldiers. The Spanish were immediately blamed by the sensationalist U.S. press. (Decades later, investigations showed that the explosion came from the inside and was an accident. The munitions room was located alongside the engine room.) As a result of the explosion, McKinley asked the U.S. Congress to declare war on Spain, and it did on April 25, 1898. Theodore Roosevelt, the Secretary of the Navy at the time, formed his own army unit he called the “Rough Riders” so that he would not miss out on what he called the “splendid little war” in Cuba. However, Black troops from the regular army had to save him and his men at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Figure 6.4.6 shows African American soldiers of the 25th Infantry charging up the hills of San Juan. The Battle of Kettle Hill, also known as San Juan Hill, was significant because it was the only battle that involved all four Buffalo Soldier regiments, the 9th and 10th Cavalry as well as the 24th and 25th Infantry.  

Figure \(\PageIndex{6}\): 1899 Lithograph of Black troops charging San Juan Hill. Kurz and Allison, in the Public Domain. 

The most important fighting of the ten-week Spanish-American war was really at sea. The U.S. Navy sank the Spanish fleet in the Caribbean and in the Philippines, denying any possibility of the arrival of reinforcements and war material from Spain. At the end of the war in 1898, the Spanish Crown agreed to Cuban independence and relinquished control over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. With the Treaty of Paris signed on December 10, 1898, the U.S. paid Spain $20 million dollars for the Philippines. Meanwhile, the U.S. annexed Puerto Rico and Guam, which are still U.S. territories today. Cuban nationalists excitedly shouted Cuba Libre (“Free Cuba”) with the establishment of a new republic, but Cuba was far from free. 

The U.S. government demanded the right to intercede in the internal affairs of Cuba for any reason. The infamous “Platt Amendment” was forced into the constitution of the new Cuban republic, and U.S. Marines were sent periodically to change governments or put down rebellions.  U.S. investors were leery of increased Afro-Cuban participation in politics, fearing popular uprisings on the island. U.S. interference in Cuban political and economic affairs continued until Fidel Castro led a successful coup d'etat against Fulgencio Batista in 1959. The outright annexation of the Philippines took a different form. 

The Filipinos had already been fighting a war for independence against Spain since 1892. The Filipino middle class and intelligentsia sought home rule, the priests wanted an end to the Spanish monopoly of church power, and the workers were against unjust taxation and forced labor. From 1896 onward, Emilio Aguinaldo led the Filipino forces against Spain and joined the U.S. in their fight, also against Spain in 1898. Aguinaldo declared the Philippines independent on January 12, 1898, using the American Declaration of Independence as his inspiration. One year later, he was Aguinaldo was elected as president. The Filipinos had no desire to become a possession of the United States. Figure 6.4.7 shows pages from the Philippine Declaration of Independence issued on June 12, 1898. The document states that the people of the Philippine Islands,

...are and have the right to be free and independent; that they have ceased to have any allegiance to the Crown of Spain; that all political ties between them are and should be completely severed and annulled; and that, like other free and independent States, they enjoy the full power to make War and Peace, conclude commercial treaties, enter into alliances, regulate commerce, and do all other acts and things which an Independent State has a right to do...

Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\): Declaration of Independence of the Philippines, June 12, 1898, Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista, National Library of the Philippines, in the Public Domain

The Filipino leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, was promised that the U.S. would recognize the independence of the Philippines, but instead, President McKinley issued a proclamation of “benevolent assimilation.” From 1899 to 1902, the Philippine-American War claimed 4,200 American lives and over 20,000 Filipino military deaths. In addition, more than 200,000 Filipino civilians died from disease, violence, or starvation. Figure 6.4.8 depicts dead bodies of Filipino insurgents in a circular trench on the first day of the Philippine-American War. The photograph was taken on February 5, 1899. As historian Paul Kramer points out, President Theodore Roosevelt cast the Philippine-American War as a race war, stating on Memorial Day at Arlington Cemetery on May 4, 1902, that it was, "the triumph of civilization over forces which stand for the black chaos or savagery and barbarism." Rudyard Kipling’s famous 1899 poem, “The White Man’s Burden,” was written in support of the U.S. effort to subdue the people of the Philippines. Like Roosevelt's message, the poem also centered racist ideology as justification for wars of empire. Scholars like historian Patrick Wolfe help make sense of this settler colonialism by defining race as a justification to expropriate land or exploit labor. It would be hard to justify war in the Philippines if the people were thought about as, and treated as, valuable human beings. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\): Filipino casualties on the first day of the Philippine-American War, February 5, 1899, U.S. Archives, in the Public Domain.

When the U.S. Navy destroyed the city of Iloilo to suppress the independence movement, Aguinaldo called on his people to engage in guerrilla warfare. In 1901, Aguinaldo was captured and forced to surrender. By 1902 most of the Filipino  fighters had been pushed out of  major cities. Nevertheless, resistance to U.S. control continued until 1913. During WWII, the Filipinos endured occupation by Imperial Japan. Finally with the end of WWII, the U.S. granted the Philippines its independence  in 1946.

The Panama Canal

The 1848 discovery of gold in California brought the Colombian province of Panamato the attention of investors. The U.S. based Pacific Mail Steamship Company was founded in 1847. Its company sent the first steamship,The California, to sail from New York to Panama, leaving on October 6, 1848. From that point forward, steamships from the East Coast ports brought passengers there, who, by 1855, could take a U.S. built and owned railway to the Pacific side, embarking onto other steamers for the trip up to California. The Spanish-American War further highlighted the military importance of building a canal through the isthmus in Panama to shorten the time it takes to sail from the East Coast of the U.S. to the West Coast. The map of Panama in Figure 6.4.9 shows how the canal route that connected the Atlantic side of Panama to the Pacific side of Panama.

Figure \(\PageIndex{9}\): Map of the Isthmus of Panama, Encyclopedia Britannica, in the Public Domain.

French diplomat Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps was responsible for securing funding for the Suez Canal in Egypt. With over 100,000 Egyptian laborer deaths, it opened in 1869. With this success behind him, de Lesseps was also responsible for the start of the Panama Canal starting in 1880. He was not an engineer, but skilled at making friends and finding willing investors. Figure 6.4.10 is a painting of the Great Culebra Cut made by the French on January 1, 1881. Culebra is the name of the mountain ridge and the Culebra Cut refers to a man-made valley that cuts through the Continental Divide in Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Panama.

Figure \(\PageIndex{10}\): Painting of the first cut at Culebra on January 1, 1881, Charles Graham, in the Public Domain.

In 1885, the Panamanian people broke out in rebellion against the Colombian government, so the U.S. sent ships and troops to both sides of the isthmus to protect the railroad in Panama owned by North American investors. In response, the Chilean government sent its British-built armored cruiser Esmeralda (the fastest ship in the world when launched the year before) to the Pacific side of Panama, to send a message that it would prevent any annexation of the isthmus by the United States.

Whatever its intentions, the U.S. government withdrew its navy and troops after the rebellion had calmed. U.S. naval observers complained that the mighty Esmeralda could sink every ship in the U.S. navy at the time. The incident contributed to the building of a more effective U.S. navy in the ensuing years. As noted above, Alfred Thayar Mahan published his book about the need for the U.S. to emulate the British Navy in 1890. The U.S. Congress also passed the 1890 Naval Act, appropriating funds to create the best armored ships known at that time. The sense of vulnerability in 1885 also intensified U.S. interest in a canal through the isthmus of Panama.

By 1888, nearly 40,000 workers were working on the French Panama Canal Company. However, due to landslides, yellow fever, malaria, and unforgiving terrain, the French gave up on the project in 1893. Though they had already completed some of the most difficult digging, the tropical jungles of the area proved too difficult for the canal workers. Ferdinand De Lesseps had planned a sea-level canal, like the Suez in Egypt, but the hilly topography did not allow for it. Investors lost everything they had put into the project. In the future, it took locks to make it work.

In 1902 with a push from President Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. government bought the French canal company’s land for $40 million. Initially, the Colombian government signed a treaty handing over the canal zone to the United States. However, the Senate stalled in approving the agreement. Panamanians were upset with the delay, and it did not take much for the U.S. to help engineer an independence movement in Panama, sending a naval destroyer to discourage the Colombian government from sending troops. Almost immediately, a new government in Panama signed the canal zone over to the U.S. 

Opened in 1914, the Canal was an impressive engineering feat, shortening the trip for cargo between the oceans. The U.S. medical service, with the help of Cuban researchers, also made the connection between mosquitoes and malaria, and were able to check the spread of both while building the canal. In 1915, both San Diego, California and San Francisco, California held "Panama-Pacific Expositions" to commemorate the opening of the Canal. Both locations are still parks today.

In more recent times, on Dec. 31, 1999, the U.S. withdrew from the Canal Zone and the canal became Panamanian property. The canal was expanded in 2016 to accommodate Panamax container ships. Currently about 14,000 ships pass through the canal per year, carrying over 330 million tons of cargo.

Primary Source: A Southern Statesman Opposes Secession (1861) by Sam Houston \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Sam Houston served as Governor of Texas from 1859-1860

"...But the hiss of the mob and the howls of their jackal leaders can not deter me nor compel me to take the oath of allegiance to a so-called Confederate Government. I protest against surrendering the Federal Constitution, its Government and its glorious flag to the Norther abolition leaders and to accept in its stead a so-called Confederate Government whose constitution contains the germs and seeds of decay which must and will lead to its speedy ruin and dismemberment if it can ever secure any real existence. Its seeds of ruin and decay are the principle of secession which permits any one or more of the Confederate States to secede from teh parent Confederate Government and to establish separate governments. 

Can any well informed man doubt that the time will soon come when several of the Confederate States will secede and establish separate governments? Why will such results follow in the event the Confederate Government is established? Because in all the Confederate States there are ambitious secession leaders who will be aspirants for the Presidency of the Confederacy and to exercise control and influence in its government and in all cases where their ambitions are frustrated these leaders will cause their respective States to secede and form separate governments wherein they may be able to realize their selfish political hopes. Within ten years we would have ten or more separate Confederate Governments, which would in time fall an easy prey to foreign Governments...

...The secession leaders also tell us if war should come that European Nations will speedily come to our relief, and aid us to win our independence because cotton is King and European commerce and civilization can not long exist without cotton, therefore they my help us maintain and perpetuate our Confederate Government. Gentlemen who use such false and misleading statements forget or else are ignorance of the facts that commerce and civilization existed a long period of time before cotton was generally known and used.

They also forget or else are ignorance of the fact that the best sentiment of Europe is opposed to our systems of negro slavery. They also tell us if war comes that the superior courage of our people with their experience of the use of firearms, will enable us to triumph in battle over ten times our number of Northern forces. Never was a more false or absurd statement ever made by designing demagogues...

...For this reason I predict that the Civil War is inevitable and is near at hand. When it comes the descendants of the heroes of Lexington and Bunker Hill will be found equal in patriotism, courage, and heroic endurance with the descendants of the heroes of Cowpens and Yorktown. For this reason I predict that the civil war which is now near at hand will be stubborn and of long-duration. We are sadly divided among ourselves, while the North and West are united. Not only will we have to content against a united and harmonious North, but we will also have to battle against tens of thousands of our own people, who will never desert hte Stars and Stripes nor surrender the union of states for a Southern Confederacy of states, whose principles of secession must inevitably lead to discord, conspiracy and revolution, and at last anarchy and utter ruin. When the tug of war comes, it will indeed be the Greek meeting Greek. Then, oh my fellow countrymen, the fearful conflict will fill our fair land with untold suffering, misfortune, and disaster. The soil of our beloved South will drink deep the precious blood of our sons and brethren. In earnest prayer to our Heavenly Father, I have daily petitioned him to case out from my mind the dark foreboding of the coming conflict...

From Eugene Barker and Amelia Williams, ed., "Speech at Brentham," March 31, 1861, in The Writings of Sam Houston, Austin: Jenkins, 1970, Volume 8: 295-299.

 

Review Questions

To what extent and how did the Civil War change the political, economic, and social life of the United States?

How is the United States approach to the Philippines and Panama similar to European colonization?