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CARIBBEAN COLLAGE

U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean, 1898-1934

President’s palace, Havana. Photograph album. Images of Florida and Cuba. 1910. This photograph is from an album whose creator is unknown. With U.S. intervention in Cuba at the turn of the century, the island attracted an increasing number of American tourists.

Plan of the Manati Sugar Company. 1919-1921. The Manati Sugar Company, incorporated in New York in 1912, owned Central Manati (a central factory) in northwestern Oriente Province. This plan shows company buildings, including worker housing (at the top in yellow) and the mill itself (in the center in gray).

Ti Memenne, Queen of La Gonave.From Faustin Wirkus, 1896-1945, and Taney Dudley. The white king of La Gonave. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1931. Shown here is U.S. marine sergeant Faustin Wirkus with the “Queen” of La Gonave, an island off the west coast of Haiti. In his book on his experience during the American occupation of Haiti, Wirkus relates how the people of La Gonave crowned him Faustin II. The story reflects the patronizing attitude of the U.S. military during the occupation.

U.S. imperialistic activity in the Caribbean escalated with the Spanish-Cuban-American War. In 1898 American forces intervened in Cuba’s final war for independence from Spain. As a result, the U.S. acquired all of Spain’s overseas empire, including Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, as well as Cuba. In 1901 the Platt Amendment to the new Cuban constitution allowed the U.S. to intervene in local politics whenever it saw fit, established a perpetual loan of Guantánamo Bay as a U.S. naval base and necessitated U.S. oversight of Cuba’s international agreements. Meanwhile, American investors achieved increasing control of Cuba’s economy, particularly its sugar industry.

A second major U.S. intervention in the Caribbean began in 1915, when American marines occupied Haiti, in an effort to achieve political stability and favorable economic and strategic conditions. From the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, the occupying force spread into the countryside to engage with rural guerrillas. Until 1934 the U.S. controlled the country in collaboration with a Haitian political elite and national guard. In response to the racism of the American occupiers, Haitians increasingly affirmed African-derived cultural traditions as a foundation for their national identity. For intellectuals and peasants alike, the U.S. occupation resurrected images of the French expeditionary force driven out more than a century before.

U.S. military and economic involvement in the Caribbean during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was accompanied by the development of organized tourism in the region. Perceptions of the Caribbean as a leisure destination continue to shape American images of the region up to the present.

Letter from Charles Dickinson (Boston, Mass.) to Thomas J. Hammond (Northampton, Mass.). September 23, 1911. The Taco Bay Commercial Company was an American-owned agricultural enterprise with extensive property holdings in Oriente Province, Cuba, from 1903 to 1920. This letter addresses concerns that the Bethlehem Steel Company and the Spanish-American Iron Company were attempting to steal land from Taco Bay. Letter from U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to the President of Haiti. June 15, 1914. In this letter, President Wilson announces his appointment of Arthur Bailly-Blanchard as a special U.S. envoy to Haiti to “cultivate to the fullest extent the friendship which has so long subsisted” between the two countries. (The letter is signed by Wilson and William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State.) One year later, the U.S. occupied Haiti.

Frank R. Crumbie and M. Carrié, Haiti. 1930s. Frank R. Crumbie served in several government positions in Haiti during the period of the U.S. occupation. Unlike most American officials or military personnel, he had a deep respect for the Haitian people and became a life-long student of their history and culture. Frank R. Crumbie Notebook 1. 1934. Frank Crumbie assembled several notebooks with documentation of Haitian life. Shown here are symbols of loa (spirits) associated with Vodou, a religion that combines West and Central African, Catholic and indigenous Haitian traditions.

Next: Credits

Caribbean Collage Home | Introduction
Caribbean Collections at the University of Florida | British Imperialism in the Caribbean
The Haitian Revolution |The Cuban Wars of Independence
U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean |Credits

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