Started off with a political cartoon, in which america bought alaska from russia. the russian dude had sort of a sour face and he was carrying an ice block to a building where William Sewerd was smiling at directing the russian inside, whie holding a bag labeld 7,200,000 (meaing the amount of monay paid for alaska). In the forground, sitting next to a plank of wood is a guy, who bruns thinks is the president of the time. In the background, a fat brittish man (tom bull, the brittish equivilent of the US unlce sam) looks on the exchnage with a concerned frown on his face. also in the background is also a lion on a roof, with a similar expression (brittish lion = usa eagle) Also, just inside the doorway to the building W.S. is on the doorsteps of is Uncle Sam, who is also smiling.
basically, this political cartoon is supporting the trade because in it, the us people are both smiling. Also, tom bull being unhappy is because Gbrittain controlled canada, and thought that the us was giong to try and kick them out of the western hemisphere, like what Gbrits did to france when they took over canada.
Taking Hawaii-
Hawaii was like a mid-way stop between the usa and asia. most of hawaii's ecomony was based on their suger cane plantations. mckinley took tarriffs off of hawaii's sugar, blah-de-blah-de blah, basically making them be veiwed as something like a state. then, at some point, white americans outnumbered the aboriginal hawaiians 3 to 1. they forced the hawaiian king to say that only white landowning men could vote. when he died later, his sister was supposed to take control, but obviously the white men didnt like that so they took control. She did become the rightful queen eventually. She was the last monarchy rular of hawaii while it was independent. She wanted ahwaii to be fo hawaiians. Hawaii became a state in 1959, the 50th state when mckinley anexed them, after cleveland gave the queen her power back. because cleveland was an anti-imperialist, but mckinley was an imperialist. hawaii became a state about 60 years after it was anexed, mind you.
Causes of the Spanish-American War -
started when cuba was still part of spain. america tried to buy cuba, but spain said they'd rather see it sink to the bottom of the ocean. cuba wanted independance, so we decided to help them out (partially because they reminded us of us trying to get independence from brittain.)
abolishied slavery here. cuba had sugar can plantations. a second war came right after the first. because we wanted the sugar canes. Jose Marti organized the rebellion, destroying american property (sugar cane plantations) because the cubans wanted help. he made it seem like it was spain's fault, so that american soldiers would be brought in to help the cubans. good plan, and it worked. spain retalliated by sending in soldeirs and setting up concentration camps, where lots of people died (not like nazi camps, basically just relocation where people died of lack of medical treatment) yellow press exagerated things, like calling one of the spanish generals in charge a "butcher" although he had not killed anyone in the camps. yellow press caused tension between usa and spain, even though many things blamed on spain were not spain's fault. besically printed lots stretched truth, pretty much lies.
we started offering ultimatum. or more like demanding, while spain was offering. in 1898, a ship blew up on a journey to bring us citizens home from cube, and the yellow press blamed spain although it was an accident, and war broke out. so this entire war was the fault of stupid newspaper companies trying to compete in sales.
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