Expansion in the Industrial Age - The Pacific

EXPANSION IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE HIST 1301 | History The Pacific Spanish claims to the Philippines in the sixteenth century marked the beginning of European colonisation of the Pacific. Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Pacific islands were also claimed by France and Britain. In 1788, Britain founded a colony in Australia, and in 1840, it colonised New Zealand. In 1842, Tahiti became a protectorate of France. The islands that were not already a part of a major power were swiftly incorporated into bigger colonial empires during the second half of the 1800s. Rival powers have occasionally decided to divide control of large islands or island chains. For instance, official agreements to partition the Samoan islands between Germany, which assumed sovereignty of those now known as Samoa, and the United States, which acquired those now known as American Samoa, were made in 1899 by Britain, Germany, and the United States. Germany granted authority over a portion of the area it had established in the North Solomon Islands and made concessions about its interests in Africa in return for Britain giving up any claim to the islands. The foreign forces went one better and abolished the Samoan monarchy. In the Pacific, the US was especially involved. Aside from a few commercial concessions in China, it has not sought to annex any territory in Africa or Asia, unlike the other industrial powers. It was cultivating the land and using the resources inside its boundaries with North America in the latter part of the 1800s. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, it advanced gradually westward, gaining land from France, Britain, and Mexico by treaties, purchases, and conquests. The federal government had forced the Indigenous peoples into reservations by the end of the century in order to free the land for use by farmers, ranchers, miners, and lumber firms. It acquired Alaska, a Russian possession, in 1867. It had populated its whole huge land by the 1890s, at which point it started to look overseas. The United States desired land for the cultivation of sugarcane, one of the agricultural staples it was unable to produce in sufficient quantities to meet its demands, as well as access to China's riches. Taking possession of Hawaii was the United States' first major attempt to expand its dominion beyond the borders of North America. It did not inhabit or develop the tiny islands it had seized in the Pacific, such as Baker Island, Howland Island, and Midway Atoll; rather, it had done so primarily for the purpose of gathering guano for fertiliser. Since the middle of the 1800s, Americans have travelled to and resided in the Kingdom of Hawaii, and a sizable American population has land there. A lot of people farmed sugar to export to the US. The Hawaiian Patriotic League was established in 1887. The League, which had mostly American members, compelled King Kalakaua of Hawaii to enact a new constitution that granted property-owning Americans the right to vote and run for public office but disenfranchised many Indigenous Hawaiians. The United States Congress imposed a new tariff in 1890 that boosted duties on sugar from outside sources, driving up the cost of Hawaiian sugar and jeopardising the earnings of American plantation owners. Hawaii's sugar would no longer be taxed as a foreign import, benefiting the planters, if Hawaii were to become a part of the US. Following Kalakaua's death in 1891, the monarchy was inherited by his sister Liliuokalani. She wanted a new constitution that would grant voting rights to many Native Hawaiians while restricting them to Americans and Europeans, since she was resentful of American meddling in Hawaii's administration. A gang of conspirators, mostly Americans, drove Liliuokalani to abdicate in 1893 because of fear of losing political control over Hawaii and the possibility of annexation. Hawaii was acquired by the United States in 1898. There were other imperial conquests of the United States in 1898 besides the annexation of Hawaii. Cubans, who lived in one of Spain's last colonies, rose up in 1895 to seek their own country. Numerous US companies have dealt with the Spanish colony and made significant investments in Cuba. President Grover Cleveland of the United States was set on maintaining neutrality despite the Cuban revolutionaries' pleas for assistance in gaining independence. But in December 1897, President William McKinley sent the battleship USS Maine to defend American lives and property from rioting in Havana. A ship explosion in February 1898 was attributed to a Spanish mine. On April 25, 1898, Congress declared war on Spain in response to popular and journalistic calls for the American government to "remember the Maine" and get revenge for the deaths of American citizens. American commodore George Dewey sailed from Hong Kong to the Philippines, a different Spanish territory, two days later. As soon as Dewey entered Manila Bay, the Spanish navy was promptly decimated. The Cuban War likewise moved quickly and to the US's advantage. Puerto Rico and Guam, Spain's final two island possessions, surrendered with minimal resistance. Spain granted the United States recognition of Cuba's independence in December 1898, as well as the ability to acquire the Philippines and hand over Guam and Puerto Rico. While the United States was only getting started, Spain had reached the end of its colonial powers. While many Americans supported it, not everyone was in favour of the Philippines becoming a US colony. Those who wanted to trade with China were drawn to the Philippines because of its closeness to the latter. Many believed that if the United States did not lay claim to the islands, Japan or another European power, like as Germany, would take over. Indeed, just a few weeks after the Spanish soldiers submitted, Germany made an attempt to construct a foothold in the Philippines.