Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization

2. The Great Powers in the Caribbean Basin, 1800–1890s

CHAPTER 2 ~ The Great Powers in the Caribbean Basin, 1800-1890s ~ Throughout the colonial period and in the early decades of U.S. independence , North Americans and Europeans had clashed repeatedly in the Caribbean area. The British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Swedes, and Danes had all established Caribbean colonies to support trade, to find gold or a passage to Asia, to acquire cane sugar and other tropical products, and to trade slaves. In the 1810s and 1820s, Spain lost its mainland colonies, but dreamt of launching the reconquest ofimperial glory from its islands. Meanwhile Mexico, Colombia, several European states, and the United States lusted after Cuba and Puerto Rico. Jealousy and competitive attitudes, however, helped Spain retain its islands. The quest to reach Asia was common to Europeans and North Americans. The route to the Pacific basin would pass through the Caribbean and across the isthmus. Leaders in most circum-Caribbean countries and colonies expected to profit from that region's geography.! While Mexico, Cuba, and Gran Colombia (modern Columbia, Venezuela , and Ecuador) had been principal centers of the Spanish New World empire , Central America had been a minor area with a long history ofnon-Spanish imperial activity-Great Britain exercised authority in Belize, the Bay Islands, and the north coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua. After the wars of independence , otherindustrial and commercial powers-France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands-sought influence, a business base, and investment opportunities in the Caribbean basin. Only about mid-century did the U.S. government and American entrepreneurs move forcefully to gain preeminence in the area. The rise in U.S. power and activity became a cause for grave concern among Caribbean and isthmian leaders. Most Caribbean islands remained colonies ofEuropean powers, but Gran The Caribbean Basin 19 Colombia, Mexico, and the Central American states obtained independence in the 1820s. These states had to protect their sovereignty at a time when the North Atlantic political economies were industrializing under classicalliberalism (or the free market economic system), which taught a growth or decay dichotomy. Some ofthe turbulence in Gran Colombia, Mexico, and Central America in the mid-nineteenth century related to U.S. and European agents pursuing transit routes between the Atlantic and Pacific. The metropole and semi-peripheral powers sought cooperation with isthmian political factions that would grant control of land for colonies or transit. The foreigners also needed local land and labor for development, permission to extract raw materials and export crops, and conditions to facilitate commerce in the world markets. Such advantages would support their lifestyle, stability, and expansion. The Caribbean islands, except for Hispaiiola (Haiti and Santo Domingo), remained colonies. Several colonies-the Virgin Islands and Cuba-entered the whirlpool ofgreat power competition. The rising sugar production and disputes about authority in Spanish Cuba drew U.S. (and Mexican and Colombian ) attention before the 1890s. The heightened expectations ofa canal on the isthmus invigorated German and U.S. interests in potential naval stations in Haiti, Santo Domingo, the Virgin Islands, and Cuba after mid-century. Mexican society suffered for generations from the long, bloody, bitter, and costly war of independence that was simultaneously a civil and international conflict. After more than two decades offighting, the war sputtered to a pause in the 1830s, more from exhaustion than resolution ofdifferences. The fractured and impoverished Mexican society had experienced the destruction of its agricultural and commercial capital. Mexico's farm lands had returned to wilderness, its tools and equipment were destroyed, its planting seeds were consumed, its animals had been neglected, its work force had suffered death, injury, and disruption, and its buildings, bridges, and roads had deteriorated. The chaotic decades had allowed many leaders to exercise greed, self-serving conduct, and to pursue personal rather than social objectives. Civil-religious disputes remained fundamental-at stake was control of education, public records, wealth, and property-as reformers tried to convert church wealth into social wealth. The value of the Caribbean colonial empires eroded in the nineteenth century. The islands supplied markets for fish, lumber, flour, and cheap textiles (slave clothing) and were a source of slaves, sugar, molasses, rum, and other tropical agricultural products, but the anti-slavery movements disrupted the labor force and the profitability of the plantations. When sugar cane production increased and European science developed beet sugar, the value of 10 Uncle Sam's War of 1898 cane sugar decreased. And after 1808 slave trade with the U.S...