For Module 6, we read Frederick Jackson Turner's speech, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” The speech was Turner’s reaction to the 1890 Census, which had pronounced that the frontier was “closed”: there was no more “unclaimed” land left in the United States.
Turner explained that the “frontier” was an important marker of American political and cultural character, as many of you noted in your annotations. Turner’s ideas were significant in terms of the US’ policies regarding Native people. In this module, we’ll also examine how the ways in which American politicians and thinkers understood Native people and access to “untamed” land in the West impacted the ways in which they thought about acquiring territories outside of the continental US.
Three questions will guide this module blog post:
How did the “closing of the frontier” affect American attitudes towards overseas expansion?
How were racial and cultural ideologies of “civilized” and “backwards” peoples incorporated into American politics and military actions?
What were the economic and political motivations of the expansion of the US into overseas territories?
Let's get started!
Part I: The Closing of the "Frontier"
In his speech, which he delivered at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Turner stated:
“American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character.”
Turner reasoned that the frontier, meaning the existence of an area of “free land” and its continuous recession, prompted the advance American westward settlement, which in turn developed a united American democracy and character. How did this character develop? By facing off against a common enemy, the “Indian.” Turner wrote:
“The effect of the Indian frontier as a consolidating agent in our history is important. From the close of the seventeenth century various intercolonial congresses have been called to treat with Indians and establish common measures of defense. Particularism was strongest in colonies with no Indian frontier. This frontier stretched along the western border like a cord of union. The Indian was a common danger, demanding united action.”
Turner argued that it in the process of defending themselves against a common enemy (Native people), Americans were brought together.
When Turner delivered his speech in 1893, the Indian Wars on the Plains had been declared "over." It was three years after the Wounded Knee Massacre. The US was invested in an assimilation program on reservations and boarding schools. What would happen to Americans, now that there was no common enemy? No “frontier” for “perennial rebirth”?
If the continuously recessing frontier was what defined American character, the US needed to look beyond its borders for more frontiers. In order to fully understand Turner’s ideas in detail and context, we must look at the setting for his speech.
The World's Columbian Exposition (1893)
The World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago in 1893, to commemorate 400 years since Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. Over 21 million people visited the fair. There were two key components: the White City, structures built specifically for the fair and located inside the fairgrounds; and the Midway Plaisance, the area surrounding the fair. On the Midway, fairgoers found other exhibits, educational and entertainment acts, and amusements like the Ferris Wheel.
Inside the White City, cultural attributes and technology from different nations were displayed.
G. Brown Goode, who worked at the Smithsonian, helped to organize and design the exhibits inside the White City. Goode believed the fair would illustrate, “…the steps of progress to civilization and its arts in successive centuries, and in all lands up to the present time.” It would become, “in fact, an illustrated encyclopedia of civilization.” [1]
The fair was built for the “average person” to come and learn about different cultures, and the so-called “trajectory” of civilization over time. Some cultures were viewed as “farther along” the line of civilization than others. The White City explicitly celebrated the prowess of Anglo-Saxon civilization. This dovetailed with discussions of recapitulation theory and neurasthenia, mentioned in Module 8.
For example, Robert Rydell writes in All the World’s A Fair that Japan was represented as on the verge of leaping “at one bound to those things for which the Caucasians battled during succeeding centuries.” Because of Japan’s industrial progress and the influence it had over other countries, it was viewed as "closer" to the Anglo-Saxon ideal of progress than other countries, such as China. [2]
China was considered to be closer to the “lower orders of mankind.” American writers and social scientists described the Chinese using stereotypes like “shrewd,” “cunning,” and “threatening.” Considering the context established in previous modules regarding hostility to Chinese immigration, it is not too surprising that they were discussed in this way. [3]
Essentially, the fair provided patrons with a visual representation of how civilization was “racially ordered.” The Midway Plaisance exacerbated this representation even further. There, exhibits blurred the lines between entertainment and “anthropological” education. The Midway was where countries who were deemed even lower on the rungs of the “ladder of civilization” were exhibited.
On the Midway, “anthropological” exhibitions consisting of live people in simulated villages were presented as exotic and colorful. These exhibits served to illustrate a contrast between their “primitive” or “backwards” lifestyles and all of the achievements of the new industrial civilizations of the West.
Below, we’ll examine some of the exhibits which featured Native people. In addition, the Midway also contained representations of European colonies, including a Javanese Settlement, a Moorish Palace, a Turkish Village, an Irish Village, and a Cairo Street. In addition to formally scheduled dances and song performances, fairgoers also viewed a tableau of domestic scenes—for example, indigenous people performing domestic tasks outside of a teepee, longhouse, or hogan.
This description of the Iroquois exhibit was typical: “If the visitor will turn aside into this curious village he will find that he has dropped just 400 years out of the calendar of time, and is face to face with red men and women, dressed and accoutered exactly as their forefathers were when Columbus discovered the continent.”
The Midway included two exhibits of Native Americans organized by private concessionaires. A group of Pottawatomie, Winnebago, and Sioux families lived in an “American Indian Village,” and next door was an exhibit of Sitting Bull’s “original log cabin,” occupied by his niece and a Lakota warrior who had survived Wounded Knee. The largest display of indigenous people was the anthropology exhibit organized by Frederic Ward Putnam, the curator and professor at Harvard’s Peabody Museum.
Putnam envisioned his exhibits as spaces where Native people would “live under normal conditions in their natural habitations during the six months of the Exposition.” [4]
But what were “normal” conditions? Putnam’s vision of ultimate “authenticity” was that an indigenous person in 1893 could accurately demonstrate what life was like in 1493. This meant obliterating aspects of Native culture that had been adapted and incorporated for four hundred years!
For example, he wanted Navajo performers to make stone arrowheads and wear pre-contact clothing. Putnam’s assistant pointed out that nobody used yucca fibers for clothing, and that the Navajo had used wool since the Spanish had introduced sheep hundreds of years earlier. Similarly, no one even knew how to make a stone arrowhead, as metal had a similarly long history in the Southwest.
The indigenous participants were workers, not just “anthropological” specimens on view. Not surprisingly, they protested working conditions when they found them to be unfair. For example, the Inuit were required to wear sealskin clothing, despite the Chicago summer heat. One performer recalled, “They did not treat us right when they coaxed us from Labrador. They told us we would be well and only have to wear the skin clothes half of the day, but when they got us here they made us wear them from 9 in the morning until 6 in the evening. No man can stand that.” [5]
Once they found out that their wages were lower than other indigenous performers, two Inuit “came out of their huts attired in blue jeans, leaving their furs behind them.”
Historian Paige Raibmon notes in Authentic Indians that by wearing jeans, the Inuit performers destroyed the “authentic” view of Native life set up by anthropologists. Although they actively resisted being exploited, in response, their employers locked them in their hunts until they agreed to comply with orders. Obviously, they faced limited options for resistance.
Others filed lawsuits agains their employers for forcible confinement, or escaped their exhibits and began working as carpenters within the fairgrounds. A group of Native performers set up their own “village” in a nearby area which was popular on Sundays when the rest of the fair was closed.
Word Cloud #1:
Why do you think a Native person might agree to participate in an “authentic” living exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair? What might have been the economic, social, or other benefits? Enter a response in the word cloud below, or access it here.
Poll #1:
Within the World's Fair, we can see the racial dynamics of how the US thought about “civilization” and understand how the US saw itself in relation to the rest of the world. Keeping this in mind, answer the following poll:
In your opinion, which aspect of the 1893 World's Fair revealed the most about the ideology of white Americans? Turner's speech on the "closing of the frontier"? or the "authentic" indigenous villages? Answer the poll below, or access it here.
Part II: American Imperialism
In Part II of this module, we’ll unpack the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world at the turn of the twentieth century.
Two distinct groups of people were interested in expanding the influence of the US overseas:
Missionaries: In the late 19th century, thousands of missionaries went abroad to spread of Christianity and uplift the poor. For example, the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions sent more than 8,000 missionaries across the globe.
Those who promoted expansion with the goal of boosting American economic power and international prestige: For example, in 1890, naval officer Alfred T. Mahan published The Influence of Sea Power upon History, where he argued that no nation could prosper without a large fleet of ships engaged in international trade, protected by a powerful navy operating from overseas bases. His ideas also influenced James G. Blaine, who served as secretary of state for President Benjamin Harrison from 1889 to 1893. Blaine urged the president to acquire strategic naval bases in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.
Hawai'i
Hawai’i was already closely tied to the United States by the end of the 19th century. The first American ship docked in Honolulu in 1790. American merchants took advantage of a burgeoning Trans-Pacific fur trade as a way of coping with the economic effects of the Revolutionary War. Eventually, Honolulu became the principal way station for ships which annually traveled the trade routes from the Pacific Northwest and Asian markets, namely China. In addition to traders and sailors, American missionaries came to the Hawaiian islands. [6]
Hawai’i had signed treaties with the US which exempted imports of its sugar from tariffs and provided for the establishment of an American naval base at Pearl Harbor. Hawai’i’s economy was dominated by American-owned sugar plantations that employed a workforce of Native Hawaiians, and Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino laborers under long-term labor contracts.
In 1887, a group of white planters, the sons of missionaries, created the Bayonet Constitution. This constitution established an oligarchy of haole (white) planters and businessmen and destroyed the executive powers of the Hawaiian government.
In response, Native Hawaiians formed the first Hawaiian political organization, the Hui Kālai’āina. This organization and others worked hard to petition the government to change the constitution and resist the power of the white oligarchy, who, they argued, “thought of themselves as US citizens first,” “even while serving the Hawaiian kingdom government.” [7]
In 1891, Queen Lili’oukalani took power. She attempted to implement the new constitution her people demanded. However, just two years later, her government was overthrown by the same men who perpetrated the Bayonet Constitution. They occupied a government building, declared themselves to be the provisional government of Hawaii, and arranged with the minister of the United States in Hawaii to recognize them as a legitimate government.
Both the provisional government and the Native Hawaiians petitioned the US for assistance. The provisional government appealed to imperialists, those who supported annexation of other territories to satisfy the need for new economic markets; and to expand the US’ “civilizing” reach to Native people. The Native Hawaiians appealed to anti-imperialist sentiments, especially those who believed that people should exercise self-determination.
Joseph Nāwhaī, a Native Hawaiian activist, gave a speech at a protest of between 5,000-7,000 people against a constitutional convention to approve the Bayonet Constitution by the provisional government. He said: “We have been ousted by trespassers who entered our house and who are telling us to go and live in a lei stand that they think to build and force us all into. I am telling you, my fellow citizens, we should not agree in the least.”
In 1897, President McKinley signed a treaty of annexation with representatives of the Republic of Hawai’i, the white oligarchy, and submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification. Queen Lili’oukalani and Native Hawaiian political organizations, representing a majority of Native Hawaiians, formed a coalition to oppose the treaty, appealing to the American principles of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
In 1899, Lili’oukalani asserted: “When I speak at this time of the Hawaiian people, I refer to the children of the soil—the native inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands and their descendants. …Other individuals have been sent on to assist in this attempt to defraud an aboriginal people of their birthrights—rights dear to the patriotic hearts of even the weakest nation. Lately these aliens have called themselves Hawaiians. They are not and never were Hawaiians.” [8]
The annexation treaty failed in Congress. However, due to the start of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Hawaiian islands were deemed an essential military base.
In the midst of the war, Hawai’i was made a territory of the US with a resolution which passed with a majority in each house.
Spanish-American War (1898)
The Spanish-American War occurred in the context of an economic depression in the US. Many prominent businessmen believed that adding foreign markets was needed to stimulate the American economy. Additionally, Americans largely supported the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, especially as reports came of Spanish soldiers rounding up Cuban civilians and sending them to detention camps.
After an American battleship, the Maine, exploded in Havana Harbor, American demands for intervention in Cuba escalated. Spain rejected an American demand for a cease-fire on the island, and McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war. Ostensibly, the war was declared for humanitarian purposes, to aid Cuban patriots in their struggle for “liberty and freedom.” Congress adopted an amendment to the declaration, stating that the US had no interest in annexing or dominating the island.
The war, nicknamed the “Splendid Little War,” lasted only 4 months and resulted in fewer than 400 American casualties. Teddy Roosevelt distinguished himself during this war and became a national hero in the Battle of San Juan Hill. Roosevelt himself was an ardent expansionist who believed that a war could reinvigorate national unity and restore a sense of manhood.
The most decisive battle of the war occurred in Manila Bay, in the Philippines, where the American navy defeated a Spanish fleet.
After winning the war, the US took possession of former Spanish colonies, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the island of Guam. The US also maintained control over Cuba through an amendment that authorized them to intervene militarily whenever they saw fit, and to acquire a permanent lease on naval stations in Cuba, including what is now Guantanamo Bay.
Poll #2:
In your opinion, was American expansion to overseas territories like Hawai’i, Cuba, and the Philippines more related to accumulating economic power or exerting strength in international politics and diplomacy? Answer the poll below or access it here.
Puerto Rico
US military forces invaded Puerto Rico in 1898 after the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. For the next 18 months, the military ruled the island. In 1900, Congress passed the Foraker Act, which established a civil government in Puerto Rico, defining it as an “unincorporated territory” under congressional control, and replacing the military government. The act also provided a taxing mechanism to fund its operations—imposing taxes and duties collected on goods imported from the US to Puerto Rico.
These taxes and duties provided the grounds that led to a series of Supreme Court cases known as the Insular Cases. These cases centered around the following question: did the imposition of this kind of tax contradict the Constitution, which required that “all Duties, Imposts and Excises…be uniform throughout the United States”? The answer to this question depended on whether the Constitution applied in territories.
In other words, did the Constitution follow the flag?
Was Puerto Rico included in the US, as it was a territory, not a state? In previous rulings, the court had decided that other territories were included in the US—the District of Columbia, or the territory of Missouri. But, the Supreme Court did not consider Puerto Rico to be the same as other territories.
According to Justice Henry Billings Brown: “It is obvious that in the annexation of outlying and distant possessions grave questions will arise from differences of race, habits, laws and customs of people, and from differences of soil, climate and production, which may require action on the part of Congress that would be quite unnecessary in the annexation of contiguous territory inhabited only by people of the same race, or by scattered bodies of native Indians.” [9]
Thus, Puerto Ricans were not granted citizenship or civil rights, in part because they were viewed as fundamentally different from residents of other US territories.
The Court gave Congress the ultimate authority to decide when, according to Justice Edward White, “the acquired territory has reached the state where it is proper that it should enter into and form a part of the American family.” Puerto Rico was “not a foreign country,” but “was foreign to the United States in a domestic sense.” [10]
Some of the justices dissented, arguing, as Justice Harlan did, that the Constitution “speaks…to all peoples, whether of States or territories, who are subject to the authority of the United States.”However, the Court gave the US the right to rule over the islands without their consent or democratic participation.
The annexation of Puerto Rico did not grant Puerto Ricans citizenship or civil rights. A Puerto Rican newspaper protested this new, ambiguous status: “We are and we are not a foreign country. We are and we are not citizens of the United States…the Constitution applies to us and does not apply to us.”
In 1917, Congress passed the Jones Act, granting Puerto Ricans citizenship but not full political rights.
The 1922 case Balzac v. Porto Rico exemplifies this. Jesus Balzac, the editor of a daily newspaper, was charged with criminal libel. He requested a jury trial, relying on the Jones Act’s grant of citizenship. His request was denied. He appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court. In an opinion written by Chief Justice (and former president) William Howard Taft, the Court unanimously ruled that he was not entitled to a trial by jury.
In Taft’s opinion, he wrote that citizenship enabled Puerto Ricans to “move into the continental United States and becoming residents of any State there to enjoy every right of any other citizen of the United States, civil, social and political…In Porto Rico, however, the Porto Rican can not insist upon the right of trial by jury…”
Taft justified his reasoning through racial stereotypes. His perception was that Puerto Ricans were unable to understand a system of “Anglo-Saxon” origin, like juries, and the US was therefore justified in limiting their rights of citizenship.
He wrote, “The jury system needs citizens trained to the exercise of the responsibilities of jurors…Congress has thought that a people like the Filipino or the Porto Ricans, trained to a complete judicial system which knows no juries, living in compact and ancient communities, with definitely formed customs and political conceptions, should be permitted themselves to determine how far they wish to adopt this institution of Anglo-Saxon origin…” [11]
The Philippines
Taft was sent by President McKinley in 1901 to serve as the first civilian governor of the Philippines.
At first, Filipinos welcomed American intervention as a way of breaking free from Spain. Filipinos had fought for independence for decades. However, after the US’ war with Spain ended, it was clear that the Philippines would remain under colonial rule—the US did not grant independence. Instead, they articulated a policy of “benevolent assimilation.”
According to McKinley, Americans came “not as invaders or conquerors but as friends, to protect the natives in their homes, their employments, and in their personal and religious rights.”
McKinley did not believe that Filipinos were capable of self-government. In addition, he feared that if the US didn’t control the Philippines another imperial power would. The Philippines was seen as a crucial foothold in Asia, to expand America’s global standing, influence, and trade.
Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, Filipinos turned their energies from fighting Spain to fighting a guerrilla war with the US, which lasted from 1899 to 1903.
.jpg)
The war devolved into a race war. The US couldn’t tell civilian from soldier, and both were subjected to brutal treatment. Soldiers and officers—along with journalists and politicians—continually compared Filipinos to Native Americans. In their view, the war against Aguinaldo and the Filipino freedom fighters was just another Indian war—they were “savages” who needed to be conquered for their own good. [12]
In 1901, the US suppressed most of the insurgency, but violence continued to erupt for years afterwards. Roughly 4,200 Americans and 18,000 Filipinos died in battle. Civilians suffered from gunfire, disease, and starvation.
Once in control of the Philippines, the US sought to “modernize” the islands by expanding railroads, bringing in American schoolteachers and public health officials, and modernizing agriculture. McKinley spoke of the American obligation to its “little brown brothers.”
Here we can see how the ideology propagated at venues like the World’s Columbian Exposition was put to use in real life. The idea that Filipinos were “little brown brothers” marks them as racially inferior, but with the potential to be helped along the path to civilization under the instruction of their “big brother,” the United States. This ideology is often referred to under the phrase, the “white man’s burden.” This phrase comes from a poem by Rudyard Kipling written in 1899.
Poll #3:
For this poll, consider the cartoon below. In your opinion, which figure in the political cartoon reveals the most about American racial ideology at the turn of the twentieth century? Enter your response in the poll below, or access it here.
![Print shows Uncle Sam as a teacher, standing behind a desk in front of his new students who are labeled "Cuba, Porto [i.e. Puerto] Rico, Hawaii, [and] Philippines"; they do not look happy to be there. At the rear of the classroom are students holding books labeled "California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, [and] Alaska". At the far left, an African American boy cleans the windows, and in the background, a Native boy sits by himself, reading an upside-down book labeled "ABC", and a Chinese boy stands just outside the door. A book on Uncle Sam's desk is titled "U.S. First Lessons in Self-Government".](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/edcf55_7a479f44d33b46ccaf3a2f11a663655f~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_617,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/edcf55_7a479f44d33b46ccaf3a2f11a663655f~mv2.png)
American imperialism wasn’t an aberration from American policy and ideology. It was rooted in what Frederick Jackson Turner described, the idea that Americans needed an ever expanding frontier, and a common enemy. Conflicts with Native people during the late 19th century should be viewed as part of the same impetus for expansion as the US’ pursuits overseas.
Conclusion:
Without a “common enemy” and no more chance for the “perennial rebirth” of social development after 1890, Americans increasingly looked to overseas territories as new “frontiers.”
Incorporation of new overseas territories like Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii was not motivated by a desire to bestow equal citizenship on the people of these new acquisitions. They were considered to be in need of American uplift to a higher level of racialized civilization.
In addition access to new economic markets in Latin America and Asia, the US maintained control of their new territories to prevent other imperial powers from taking those valuable resources.
Citations:
[1] Quoted in Paige Raibmon, Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 35.
[2] Robert Rydell, All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 50.
[3] Rydell, All the World's a Fair, 51.
[4] Raibmon, Authentic Indians, 36-37.
[5] Raibmon, Authentic Indians, 39.
[6] John Whitehead, “Hawai’i: The First and Last Far West?” Western Historical Quarterly 23, no.2 (May 1992), 154-160.
[7] Information on Native Hawaiian resistance to the provisional government from Noenoe Silva, Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).
[8] Queen Lili'uokalani, "My Own Nation," (1899), in Say We Are Nations: Documents of Politics and Protest in Indigenous America Since 1887, ed. Daniel Cobb (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 16-18.
[9] Quoted in Juan R. Torruella, "Ruling America's Colonies: The Insular Cases," Yale Law and Policy Review 32 (2013), 66.
[10] Torruella, "Ruling America's Colonies," 71.
[11] Torruella, "Ruling America's Colonies," 78.
[12] Paul Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 124-125.
In your opinion, American expansion to overseas territories like Hawai’i, Cuba, and the Philippines was more related to:
I chose exerting strength in international politics and diplomacy for two reasons. One, to make it 50% and 50% for both options. And second, to because America was keen to get more power over countries, especially in that century.
With a Large fair being put on grand display. The chance for natives to learn and explore opportunities that may be beneficial. To experience what other cultures and peoples may look like. To be given a chance to share their own culture with others. Upon hearing this idea at first it may have been appealing for natives. A large gathering of so many different people and a grand showing of wonders. Although the worker abuse that came from the event was a disappointing and upsetting moment.
Hi all! Thanks for all of your thoughtful comments. I wanted to draw out a few themes from the responses to the question on the political cartoon. Many of you chose the front row of students for your answer and I saw some great analysis explaining why. Joseph, Aleah, and Amany all noted that the caricatures of the new overseas territories were represented as children being chastised or coerced into learning from Uncle Sam. They didn't get to decide to be pupils, rather the cartoon reveals how the US rewards compliance and punishes those who fight for their independence from US power/control. (I think we can also see this in the representation of the Black man and the Native student…
In your opinion, which figures in the political cartoon reveal the most about American racial ideology at the turn of the twentieth century?
I chose The front row of students - the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Cuba. We can see the four children are labeled with a different state they represent, they look furious and stubborn. It looks like they were forced to be in this situation, and they didn't have a choice. This represents the uncivilized races that the United States encountered.
"In your opinion, which figure in the political cartoon reveals the most about American racial ideology at the turn of the twentieth century?"
I think the racial ideology would have to be answer A, with the front row of students being the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, it's similar to the natives on how they were being forced in a sort of way of being civil and educated.