Nineteenth Century U.S.-Latin American Relations

“Founding Fathers”

• “I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of states.” --Thomas Jefferson

• Adams, Madison, Monroe and Quincy Adams, too!

• “...Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only toward the North American Union...” --U.S. minister to Spain

• Presidents Polk (1840s) and Pierce (1850s) tried to buy Cuba

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

• U.S. hegemony

• Paper tiger

• Influences: “manifest destiny” & Roosevelt Corollary

U.S.-Mexican War 1846-1848

• Causes?

• Spot resolution

• Effects

William Walker (1856-1857)

• motives in Nicaragua

• reaction in the USA

• Cornelius Vanderbilt

• Honduran firing squad

Spanish-American War 1898

• Causes?

• yellow journalism

• protectorate

• Guantanamo Bay

• seeds of Cuban Revolution (1959)

Creation of Panama• Motives

• longterm connection to USFP

“We bought it, we paid for it, we built it, and we intend to keep it.” President Reagan