Turner, Mahan, and the Plan for Empire

Figure 1. Historian Fredrick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis stated explicitly that the existence of the western frontier forged the very basis of the American identity.

The initial work of businesses, missionaries, and reformers set the stage by the early 1890s for advocates of an expanded foreign policy and a vision of American empire. Following decades of de facto isolationism combined with relatively weak presidents who lacked a popular mandate or congressional support for substantial overseas commitments, a new cadre of American leaders—many of whom were too young to fully comprehend the damage inflicted by the Civil War—assumed leadership roles. Eager to be tested in international conflict, these new leaders hoped to prove America’s might on a global stage. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, was one of these leaders who sought to enlarge American influence, and he advocated for the development of the U.S. Navy, which at the turn of the century was the only military resource suitable for securing overseas expansion.

Fredrick Jackson Turner and naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan were instrumental in the country’s move toward foreign expansion, a priority also supported by Brooks Adams, who dramatized the consequences of the nation’s loss of its domestic frontier in his The Law of Civilization and Decay in 1895. As mentioned at the beginning of the module, Turner announced his Frontier Thesis—that American democracy was largely formed by its encounter with the American frontier—at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. He noted that “for nearly three centuries the dominant fact in American life has been expansion.” He continued: “American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise.”

Turner concluded that “the demands for a vigorous foreign policy, for an interoceanic canal, for a revival of our power upon our seas, and for the extension of American influence to outlying islands and adjoining countries are indications that the forces [of expansion] will continue.” Such policies would permit Americans to find new markets. Also mindful of the mitigating influence of a frontier—in terms of easing pressure from increased immigration and population expansion in the eastern and midwestern United States—he encouraged new outlets for further population growth, whether as lands for further American settlement or to accommodate more immigrants. Turner’s thesis was enormously influential, but has subsequently been widely criticized by historians. Specifically, the thesis underscores the pervasive racism and disregard for the Indigenous communities, cultures, and individuals in the American borderlands and beyond.

While Turner provided part of the philosophical reasoning for an empire, Mahan provided the more practical guide. In his 1890 work, The Influence of Seapower upon History, he suggested three strategies that would assist the United States in constructing and maintaining an empire:

• First, noting the sad state of the U.S. Navy, he called for the government to build a modern fleet.
• Second, he suggested establishing a network of naval bases to fuel this expanding fleet. William Seward’s previous acquisition of the Midway Islands served this purpose by providing an essential naval coaling station, which was vital, as the limited reach of steamships and their dependence on coal made such stations necessary for increasing the navy’s geographic reach. Future acquisitions in the Pacific and Caribbean also increased this capability.
• Finally, Mahan urged the future construction of a canal across the isthmus of Central America, which would decrease by two-thirds the time and power required to move the new navy from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans.

Heeding Mahan’s advice, the government moved quickly, passing the Naval Act of 1890, which set production levels for a new, modern fleet. By 1898, the government had succeeded in increasing the size of the U.S. Navy to an active fleet of 160 vessels, of which 114 were newly built of steel. In addition, the fleet now included six battleships, compared to zero in the previous decade. As a naval power, the country catapulted to the third strongest in world rankings by military experts, trailing only Spain and Great Britain.

Figure 2. American imperial acquisitions as of the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Note how the spread of island acquisitions across the Pacific fulfills Alfred Mahan’s call for more bases in order to support a larger and more effective U.S. Navy rather than merely to facilitate a short-term territorial expansion.

Annexing Hawaii

The United States also began to expand its influence to other Pacific Islands, most notably Samoa and Hawaii. With regard to the latter, American businessmen were most interested in the lucrative sugar industry at the heart of the Hawaiian Islands’ economy. By 1890, through a series of reciprocal trade agreements, Hawaiians exported nearly all of their sugar production to the United States, tariff-free. When Queen Liliuokalani tapped into a strong anti-American resentment among native Hawaiians over the economic and political power of exploitative American sugar companies between 1891 and 1893, worried businessmen worked with the American minister to Hawaii, John Stevens, to stage a quick, armed coup to counter her efforts and seize the islands as an American protectorate.

Between 1893 and 1898, the nation fiercely debated Hawaiian annexation. Those in favor argued that Hawaii was ideally located as a gateway to Eastern markets and could provide rich commercial advantages. They also recognized the strategic importance of Pearl Harbor, which could serve as a military outpost and coaling station for merchant ships in the Pacific. Critics of annexation, including President Cleveland who thought it unwise and immoral, denounced the sugar interests for their plot to depose the Queen and reproached Minister Stevens for making the U.S. government a conspirator in the coup. Because Hawaii was not part of the continental United States, some anti-annexationists saw the taking of this overseas territory as a departure from the progress of westward expansion and a violation of American principles. They raised concerns about the constitutionality of this encroachment and argued that the United States could have a thriving trade with Hawaii and secure access to Pearl Harbor without the burdens of official annexation.

Grover Cleveland and Hawaii

Figure 3. Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii (a) was unhappy with the one-sided trade agreement Hawaii held with the United States (b), but protests were squashed by an American-armed revolt.

Grover Cleveland was president in 1893 when American planters in Hawaii staged a coup to remove Queen Liliuokalani from power. When a treaty of annexation reached Cleveland’s desk, he refused to sign it and offered a lengthy criticism of the arguments for annexing Hawaii. He concluded that the planters who launched the coup did not have significant support from the local population. More alarming to Cleveland, the landing of U.S. troops to “maintain order” had been coordinated in such a way as to directly sanction the coup.

I believe that a candid and thorough examination of the facts will force the conviction that the provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States. Fair-minded people with the evidence before them will hardly claim that the Hawaiian Government was overthrown by the people of the islands or that the provisional government had ever existed with their consent [. . .] While naturally sympathizing with every effort to establish a republican form of government, it has been the settled policy of the United States to concede to people of foreign countries the same freedom and independence in the management of their domestic affairs that we have always claimed for ourselves.

—Grover Cleveland, 1893

While Cleveland dropped his initial plan to restore Queen Liliuokalani, he refused to proceed with annexation of the Hawaiian Islands during his presidency. The U.S. government maintained a relationship with the independent Hawaiian Republic until 1898. Cleveland’s stance reflects an attitude that many Americans shared at the time and a degree of suspicion about overseas expansion. By all indications, Cleveland’s position was a minority one in Congress, and when he left office in 1896, one of the obstacles to annexation was removed.

Watch this video to learn more about the strength and resolve of Queen Lilioukalani.

Samoa

The United States had similar strategic interests in the Samoan Islands of the South Pacific, most notably, access to the naval refueling station at Pago Pago where American merchant vessels, as well as naval ships, could take on food, fuel, and supplies.

The First Samoan Civil War, also called the Samoan Crisis, was fought roughly between 1886 and 1894, primarily between Samoans fighting over whether Malietoa Laupepa or Mata’afa Iosefo would be King of Samoa. However, the German military intervened on several occasions and competing interests in the islands led to a naval standoff between the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. After the 1889 Apia cyclone destroyed six of the German and American ships stationed at Samoa, the three countries decided that Laupepa would be the King. King Laupapa died shortly thereafter and the exiled Mata’afa Iosefo returned to be elected to power by a council of Samoan chiefs. This reignited tensions on the islands and in response, the British Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy landed forces in Samoa in support of Laupepa’s son Malietoa Tanumafili I against the German-backed Mataafa. Fighting lasted another year, resulting in more than 40,000 deaths and the eventual Tripartite Convention of 1899 that partitioned the Samoan Islands into American Samoa and German Samoa. After World War I, New Zealand took over the administration of what had been German Samoa, and the area was renamed the Western Samoa Trust Territory. This area became independent in 1962 and was renamed Samoa. American Samoa remains an unincorporated territory of the United States.