L5: American Involvement the Latin America
American Foreign Policy
Agenda
Objective:
1. To evaluate three
competing interpretations
for why the United States
was involved in Latin
America.
Schedule:
1. Group Work
Homework:
1. Consult Unit
Schedule for
Background
Reading.
1. Work on Civic
Literacy
Assignment. First
assignment due L8
(Tan = Fri 5/10; Red
= Wed 5/15; Blue =
Tues 5/14)
What Were American Policies in
Latin America?
• Summarize Each with Your Group:
–Monroe Doctrine 1823
–Roosevelt Corollary to the
Monroe Doctrine 1904
–Dollar Diplomacy 1909-1913
How American Involvement Played
Out in Three Different Countries
• With your group, briefly read about how
Latin American involvement played out in
three different countries:
– Panama
– Nicaragua
– The Dominican Republic
Three Different Interpretations of
Latin American Policy
• With your group you will discuss three
different interpretations of why the United
States became involved in Latin America in
the ways you just summarized.
• For each:
– Discuss the interpretation for 10 minutes or so
– Write:
• Agree/Disagree & Why
• 2-3 Pieces of from our country case-studies to support
your conclusion
Interpretation One:
Hemisphere Defense
• Historian Samuel Flagg Bemis:
“Dollar diplomacy was not designated to profit private
interests. It was intended rather to support the foreign
policy of the United States; in the instance of Latin
America to support the Roosevelt Corollary to the
Monroe Doctrine, Taft was following the instincts and
traditions of continental security. Nicaragua, like the
Dominican Republic, like Panama, like Haiti was one of
the states in the entire world where least American
capital was invested. It is a well-known fact that it was
only with difficultly that the Department of State was able
to persuade bankers to invest their funds for political
purposes.”
Interpretation Two:
Profits
• U.S. Marine Smedley Butler:
“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service as a
member of the country’s most agile military force—the Marine
corps. And during that period I spent most of my time being a
high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for
the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. Thus I
helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I
helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for National City
Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped purify Nicaragua for
the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 19091912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American
sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for
American fruit companies in 1903.”
Interpretation Three:
Idealism
• U.S. Secretary of State under President Theodore
Roosevelt, Eli Root:
“We believe that the independence and equal rights of
the smallest and weakest members of the human family
of nations are entitled to as much respect as those of the
greatest. We deem the observance of that respect the
chief guarantee of the weak against the oppression by
the strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights, nor
privileges, nor powers that we do not freely give to every
American Republic. We wish to help all friends in Latin
America to a common prosperity and a common growth,
that we may all become greater and stronger together.”