Black

Piper Black

History of the Americas

Period 3

9-30-22

US Expansionist Foreign Policies

In the late 1800’s, the United States had suffered through the Civil War and was still becoming accustomed

to the shift from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy. New ideas were emerging, and the previously

held belief that isolationism and avoidance of global affairs would best benefit the country began to be questioned.

As a result of the raw and fragile economy the US had in the mid to late 1800’s, expansionist foreign policies

became a direct solution to the issue, and political and ideological reasons soon justified and condoned the ways in

which foreign markets were accessed.

The economy faced several depressions and crises after overproduction of railroads led to job shortages and

need for demand, which would scar the economy for decades. As the economy shifted industrial, policy makers

attempted to restore the economy by fulfilling the demand in foreign markets. After the Napoleonic Wars, the US

coped with the disruption of trade through internal markets. The construction of railroads, and the subsequent

deconstruction of the railroad industry, left a mark on the new economy. By 1870, Americans had settled into lots of

land, and home markets bought between 75-85% of total farm value, but cotton, tobacco, and wheat depended

heavily on foreign markets. Between 1820 to 1860, the US accounted for 80% of the global cotton supply. Home

markets began to not contribute enough demand, and in the 1870’s, farmers began to suffer heavier losses the more

they sold. The Panics of 1873, 1883, and 1893 amassed large panic throughout the US, and socialist ideas began to

emerge. This led to a growing resentment among the lower class, especially against those such as Carnegie who took

advantage of the depressions to grow his empire. Henry Adams wrote that the system had begun to become

outgrown, and this prompted many policymakers to look for a solution. While politics and ideologies played an

important role in expansionist foreign policies, these policies would not exist without the conditions of a strained

and desperate economy.

As the economy demanded foreign markets, the US began to align politically to the measures needed to

fulfill the economy, such as creating and adjusting policies that helped the US expand into foreign markets and
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protecting US business through naval means. New policies such as the Banking Act of 1863 created a national

currency, which promoted a stable uniform currency. And as the economy demonstrated the need for foreign

markets, politics became heavily involved to properly facilitate trade networks. Fears of cargo ships and exports

being stolen, the US began to rapidly invest in their Navy. Believing that naval powers were key in protecting trade

and establishing safe markets, the Navy became center in protecting merchant ships and defending the US’s right to

trade. The Navy was eventually used for preclusive imperialism, in regions in Latin America as well as islands in the

Pacific. In most instances, the US had forcibly entered a country with the intention of competing against other

foreign powers as well as establishing trading posts. However, in some instances it was negotiated, such as when the

US accepted an offer from the King of Samoa for the access of a trading post, in exchange for protection against

external and internal conflicts. These newly established trading posts would act as the joint that connected the US to

Asian markets. The economic depressions plaguing the country began to become remedied by the new access to

markets, via the trading posts and harbors.

As the US economy and politics shifted on a national scale towards foreign markets and expanding the

economy, many sought this as an opportunity to expand religion or assert dominance throughout the world. Even

though the civil war had ended and slavery had become abolished, racial bias was still incredibly abundant, and was

thrusted upon anyone who wasn’t an English-white Christian, known as an Anglo-Saxon. Promoted most notably by

Josiah Strong, the US underwent a period of economic rebuilding embedded in moralistic justifications for

imperializing. Known as the “white man’s burden”, some religious citizens of the US used the foreign expansion as

a means of “civilizing” the receiving nation’s society. Sending missionaries to indoctrinate natives, ideology had

justified imperialism and its humanistic flaws by arguing that converting them to Christianity was not only

justifiable, but their responsibility. Other ideologies such as those from Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power developed

ideas that controlling the seas was crucial in a nation’s ability to grow and assert power. The ideas of Strong’s and

Mahan’s changed the narrative away from controlling land without consent of the public, which many Americans

viewed as unconstitutional, and instead framed it in a manner of all sides are benefiting.

Expansionist foreign policies marked a new era in US history, one that sprouted from the economic crises

and panics that haunted a fragile and isolated economy. Resorting to foreign markets, the country adjusted to the
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new system by establishing trading posts and creating harbors they used to access foreign markets across the globe.

Ideological ideas became a means to subsequently justify and condone these actions by promoting ideas of racial

superiority and a drive for global dominance. With many different factors resulting from expansionist foreign

policies, the policies themselves would not have existed if not for the reliance on markets to supply demand to a

starving economy.