American Imperialism vs. European Imperialism part 2

This is the second part of a three part series on the differences of American Imperialism verse European Imperialism.  If you would like to see the work sited you will need to go to part 3:

The land that the U.S. annexed was also different than the land acquired by European nations.  The islands of Hawaii at the time of annexation were of a mixed population of Americans and indigenous. people.  While the indigenous. people did not want to be annexed, the politician in charge of the island did.[1] As for the islands of Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, they had already been colonized by Spain.  The U.S. army was not conquering the indigenous. people so much as taking the islands from Spain.  This is a sharp contrast from European imperialism, which conquered untapped markets like inland Africa or Central Asia.  Europeans for the first time saw English, French, German, and Belgium borders drawn on the maps of Africa.  Chiefs were forced to sign treaties of allegiance to European nations.[2]

It is necessary to look at the differences between the U.S. and European nations and how the differences relates to their forms of Imperialism.  First, European nations like France and England had been involved in imperialism long before the late 1800s.  For them it started during the Age of Discovery in the 1450s. When imperialism started up in Europe, the nations simply built up the empires they already had.[3] The U.S. had been a nation for less than 200 years.  It had just finished expanding from sea to shining sea and had no territories or colonies. A culmination of events catapulted the U.S. into imperialism.  The U.S. people and politicians were unsure what it would look like.[4] These differences led to slower and smaller imperialism in the U.S., while Europe colonized huge chunks of Africa within twenty years.  In 1880, only about ten percent of Africa was controlled by European nations whereas in the 1900s only about ten percent was not controlled by European nations.[5]

Another huge reason for the difference between Europe and the U.S. is the U.S. did not feel as much pressure to enter into imperialism.  European nations had the idea of a balance of power.   Nations like Germany, England, France, Russia, and Austria-Hungry were in a constant struggle not to let any one nation become more power than the others.  Nations having more colonies than the others were seen as a shift in the balance of power.[6] America did not feel the constant strain European nations felt to keep up with their neighbors.  America was thousands of miles away from European nations and felt safe with its new proven navy.  Evidence of the pressure European nations felt can be seen by the scramble for Africa.  Britain during the mid nineteenth century enjoyed an informal empire from Sierra Leone to the Niger.  Britain had four naval bases and a few consuls and no plans to expand.  The economies of Africa and Britain worked well together and there was no need for change until France started to colonize Africa.  British politicians were worried that Britain would lose its profitable trading with Africa so they scrambled to grab as much of Africa as they could.[7] Another example is Germany and its Prime Minster Otto Von Bismarck.  He did not want to enter into Africa, but when the lure of economic gain and pressure to compete with France and England kept increasing he was forced to enter into imperialism.  Bismarck saw that England and France had started taking parts of Africa and felt that if Germany didn’t get involved there would be a great shift of power away from Germany.  This led him to call the Berlin Conference of 1885.  He actually soon became disillusioned with the idea of colonies in Africa but was forced to keep them because it would be unacceptable to give them to other European nations.[8]

• Click to read part 1 of American Imperialism vs. European Imperialism

• Click to read part 3 of American Imperialism vs. European Imperialism