The Americas

During the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, in America the Spanish and Portuguese empires
were collapsing leaving all that pieces of land that sketched from Colorado (USA) to
Cape Horn (Chile) unsettled by Europeans. All those who lived here were called
mestizos. Mostly, Spanish culture and language predominated, except for Brazil.
The former Spanish domains were new republics but they were engaged in border
disputes with one another. This was happening by the 1820s when the European
imperialism was at low ebb.
These former colonies were protected by the British when the Congress of Verona in
1822 considered ways to returning them to the Spanish. This was a problem for Britain
because colonies can only trade with their mother country, and by this time Great
Britain was already trading with the new American republics. This was also supported
by the Americans Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which established that any European
interference in American territory was seen as a threat that required the intervention of
the United States.
But in fact, it was by the US that one of these new countries was threatened, this
country was Mexico.
The United States and Mexico
On becoming independent from Spain, Mexico reached from Mississippi to the Rocky
Mountains. In the Northeast, the American land seekers were moving westwards to
complete their Manifest Destiny. Some Americans, especially those from the South,
were bringing their slaves to these new territories, but the Mexican republic did not
allow slavery. The newcomers proclaimed their own republic called Texas. The problem
was that Texas wanted to be part of the US. Despite the fact that Mexico objected, the
United States annexed Texas in 1845. Apart from Texas, the US gained also the whole
region to the California coast.
The next threat for Mexico came from Europe. Mexican political leaders contracted
loans in Europe in order to pay for their internal disorder. The liberal leader Juarez
suspended the payment of the loans in 1861. Thus, the European countries (Great
Britain, Spain and France) conformed in an Alliance and demanded satisfaction from
the Mexican government. Europeans had never recognized the Monroe Doctrine and, as
the US was paralyzed by its own Civil War, they sent military forces to Veracruz. The
Mexican government reached to an agreement with the British and the Spanish by
signing a treaty, in which the Mexicans promised to pay their debts at some point.
However, the French had a secret project in mind. Napoleon III wanted the
establishment of a French satellite state in Mexico developed with French capital and
exports. The head of this empire would be the Austrian archduke Maximillian. The
British and the Spanish disapproved this and withdrew their forces. The French army
proceeded and, in fact, the archduke Maximillian reigned for some years. However,
Napoleon III gradually concluded that it was impossible, or at least too expensive. By
1865, the United Stated did not collapse and protested strongly to the French.
Eventually, the French withdrew, Maximillian was shot and Juarez and the Mexican
Liberals went back to power.
US pressure despoiled and protected the adjoining part of Latin America and this
became a characteristic of the new world. As the US became a great power, the Monroe
Doctrine became a barrier to European territorial ambitions.

In the 1870s Mexicans and foreign residents were obligated to pay loan to rival leaders.
The State Department at Washington demanded that American citizens be reimbursed
by the Mexican government which attempted to lay down the principle that "foreigners
had to accept the way of life of the people and participated not only in the benefits of it
but also in the adversities.
The US said that the citizens of advanced states should continue to enjoy the security of
property characteristic of their home countries. When US sent troops to the border and
the Mexicans objected, the secretary of state referred to them as childish and prejudicial
people. Mexico responded that the US had treated them as savages and they ignored the
rules of international law, in which civilized states might not intervene in each others
affairs but had the right of intervention in backward countries. Mexico was considered
as one. Mexicans objected this because they were not treated as a civilized nation.
US imperialism in the 1890s
Imperialism increased in Europe and in the US. In 1895, President Cleveland forbade
the British to deal directly with Venezuela in a boundary dispute affecting British
Guiana. However, when Colombia faced a revolution in the Isthmus of Panama the US
supported the revolutionaries and recognized Panama as an independent republic and
then the US built the Panama Canal.
What was left of the old Spanish American empire, confined to Cuba and Puerto Rico,
was looking for independence. The new imperialism showed itself. Americans had $50
million invested in Cuba which was vital to American strategic interests in the
Caribbean and in the Pacific. The newspapers roused the Americans to a fury of moral
indignation and imperial self assertion. The climax came when an American warship,
the Maine, sank under mysterious circumstances in Havana harbor.