Uncle Sam

In 1898, the United States engaged in a war against Spain, a declining imperial nation. The United States would eventually succeed in defeating the Spanish with their powerful navy and military power as well as their well-planned strategy. As a result, this secured the United States’ position as a major political player within the Pacific, which would later contribute to it’s rise and transformation into a world power. The United States’ victory produced the Treaty of Paris, which would eliminate Spain’s claims in Cuba and grant the United States’ sovereignty over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. More importantly, the United States, contradicting to their ideals, annexed the Philippines by buying it for $20 million from Spain. Thus,
For instance, in “A lesson for Anti-Expansionists” published by Judge in 1899, demonstrates an evolution of America’s expansion throughout 1783 to 1899, where after each set of years, America has more states that constitutes it. Therefore, Uncle Sam, the symbol of America, starts as a baby and grows up as his power increases. However, interestingly, in 1898, Uncle Sam starts acquiring colonies thus transforming into a man who smokes cigars and has his hands in his pockets, which ultimately symbolizes him becoming a powerful businessman. Notably, in 1899, Uncle Sam becomes fat which symbolizes the power he has acquired by annexing the Philippines. To add, the fact that he is holding a ship represents that the power that Uncle Sam has acquired comes from the colonies he has acquired, thus he holds it as a valuable possession. Accordingly, there are several hands that show up in front of Uncle Sam, particularly world powers Germany, Russia, England, France, and Italy who “are anxious to be on friendly terms with Uncle Sam.” Furthermore, the political cartoon, “Columbia’s Easter Bonnet”, published by Puck in 1901 displays Columbia, the female symbol of America adjusting her bonnet which has “world
Initially, the sources, “The White Man’s Burden” and “The Filipino’s first bath”, demonstrate how “the White Man” is superior and thus the Filipinos need to be educated and civilized, however, this quickly becomes a limitation towards become sources. Firstly, both sources are assuming that they the white race is naturally superior to the black race. Therefore, the white race is judging the Filipinos through their standards of being civilized, which then leads to the second limitation of how being civilized is defined by different cultures. Furthermore, instead of civilizing the Filipinos, the United States was killing a major portion of the population. As depicted in Life’s, “The Harvest in the Philippines” in 1899, Uncle Sam is fully armed and showing off handy work. Basically, this political cartoon is displaying that America is not helping the malnourished Filipinos nor is it supporting their fight for independence, but instead it has killed a large number of the Filipino population. Moreover, the source, “A lesson for Anti-Expansionism”, offers an insight of what occurs to a country’s power when it colonizes other countries. As stated before, the United States was afraid that other world powers would benefit from the Philippines vulnerability and