American Imperialism

American Imperialism

Imperialism was not a new concept in the Nineteenth Century. Throughout history past civilizations have gone beyond their traditional borders to expand their territories. Foreign colonies were setup all around the continent whereby we have seen the occupation of other civilizations. The reasoning behind why civilizations have expanded their territories were numerous. We have seen in the past civilizations have expanded for political strength and security, raw materials, moral or religious reasons. The Civil War was over and big business had nearly engulfed America, so it was not surprising America sought more growth and prosperity wherever it could find it. By the time things had settled down, America began to see its world counterparts moving their way across the globe. America did not want to be left out of the imperial race but there were concerns about how "involved" America would be in comparison to the other countries involved in imperialism. Though the reason behind why one nation wants to "conquer" another nation can be abundant. But, despite hesitations and concerns, America got involved in the imperialism race due to economic and security reasons.

The industrial age in America brought a lot of social and economic changes. Once upon a time, our nation's economy relied on those mom and pop shops, but by the Nineteenth Century business began to boom with factories, railroads, and new forms of telecommunication. With such a big economic boom, the American economy would eventually need to seek elsewhere for that prosperity big business was bringing. It would be in this mentality that would lead to slight differences in European and American imperialism. While, America was not fully devoid of such notions of conquering other nations and simply taking what they thought was their divine right. There were some Americans who thought in order to expand our nation would need to do more international trading. By looking at an economics import and export chart from 1870 to 1910 chart, exporting and importing from abroad increased exponentially and shows that the industrial push played a large impact on international trade (Davidson, et. al, 2008, p. 612). While in-country agriculture materials such as cotton were important, American businessmen saw better prospects abroad such as sugarcane, pineapple and other tropical crops that could be sold domestically and abroad (Davidson, et. al, 2008, p. 613). The 1893 depression really hampered domestic business, thus global trading was sought out in foreign lands in Asia and Latin America where raw materials and food was in abundance. This type of imperialism was adopted for economic purposes. The United States had already been exporting its goods abroad, yet while Europe was seen as more hands on with its imperialism, many Americans sought promote what they saw was "free-enterprise