Monday, November 23

[5whitneyyy]

Today we continued presentations...Puerto Rico was invaded by the U.S. The Foraker Act established civilian government in Puerto Rico. After the Spanish American war up to the passing of the Foraker Act United States was the leader of Puerto Rico. The Jones Act in 1917 gave Puerto Ricans citizenship. Today Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens, they can move freely between the United States and Puerto Rico. They can also be drafted into the military but they cannot vote for our president. They have to also pay taxes.The Teller Ammendment was added to the declaration of the war, it garuanteed independents to Cuban after the war. After the war we helped Cuba with the diseases in such, at first they didnt welcome us because they thought we were going to take them over. That's when we started doing positive things for them. Cuba made a constition but it didnt say anything about the relationship with us. So we wrote an amendment saying Cuba could not intervene with other countries. They had to add this amendment to their constitution and then we would remove our troups. It gave us the right to have control over them, later they finally excepted it. Cuba became a free country but were controlled by a higher power. We were interested in Cuba because they had tobacco and sugar plantations, and they had a great location for naval bases and such.The Philipines wanted us to give them independents just like we did to Cuba. Philipines then realized we were going to give them independents, we were going to control them. Filipinos didnt get their independents until the war was over and for a while they didnt care for the U.S.. The Filipinos started war and fought back because they wanted freedom. Many U.S. Troops who were fighting them were African Americans. We defeated them, but 4000 Americans died.America was looking for a country to trade with. John Hay was the secretary of state, he nicknamed the Spanish and American war. He issued the Open Door Policy that allowed all countries to trade with China. It garaunteed Chinese independence as well. The Boxer Rebellion. The Boxers were a society that practice martial arts and wanted to rid the country of foreign devils, such as other countries basically like Europe and so on. They killed many foreigners and missioners. They sent 2500 american soldiers and were joined by other countries and finally took down the Boxers. All of this would've been a great opportunity for them to take over.