During World War I, the Caribbean (including the Circum Caribbean coasts) was transformed into a contested area. The US government utilized the imperial interests of European powers to justify its own political interests in the region. Since 1823, the so-called Monroe Doctrine served as the basis for US interventions. Any efforts by European nations to colonise territories or interfere with states in the Americas were thus considered an act of aggression. The first victory was the military defeat of Spain: In the Spanish-American War of 1898, US troops intervened in the Spanish Caribbean colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico as well as in some Pacific islands where President William McKinley (1843-1901) established US military governments. In 1902, Cuba became “independent”, but, according to the Platt Amendment of 1901, under US protection. From 1880 onwards, the United States strengthened its economic interests in the Caribbean. US corporations, such as the Standard Fruit Company and the United Fruit Company, could acquire land anywhere in the Caribbean territories and thereby established many new plantation systems.
The Clash of Imperialism in the Caribbean↑
Neither US nor European interventions were something new in the Caribbean, but by the turn of the century new conflicts between the different imperial powers and their allies provoked the outbreak of a major war. Apart from traditional colonial powers like Great Britain and France, the German Empire, which had long been a second-tier colonial power, attempted to become an imperial player on a global level. One of Berlin’s major concerns was to support the construction of the interoceanic canal on the Isthmus of Panama to connect the German protectorates in the Pacific with the German Empire. After Africa and Asia, the Caribbean became more and more important. From 1870 onwards, German investments can be observed in most Caribbean countries and colonies. German agents even encouraged the government in Berlin to occupy a West Indian island, preferably Danish St. Thomas (Virgin Islands), to build a naval and cable station as part of a worldwide trading network. A secure naval station in the West Indies would have been a strong basis near any future Central American canal and would have allowed expanding trade with and investments in Central and South America.
Roosevelt’s Corollary Policy↑
President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), who governed from 1901 to 1909, feared German involvement in America's “backyard”. In October 1902, Roosevelt entered the Colombian civil war to prevent the Germans from further investments and to protect future US interests. He sent two gunboats to help the Panamanian conservative elites in their independence project and occupied the Panama Canal Zone in 1903.
Another political conflict broke out in 1902 between the German Empire and the US because of the so-called Venezuela Crisis that began after Venezuelan President Cipriano Castro (1858-1924), who governed from 1899 to 1908, refused to pay debts to the German Empire, Great Britain and Italy. The consequence was a naval blockade against the main Venezuelan ports. Roosevelt forced the German troops to withdraw and the blockading nations agreed to a compromise on 13 February 1903. Nevertheless, the Germans maintained their blockade until the last day of the negotiations.
The blockade was the reason for Roosevelt’s Corollary proclaimed on 4 December 1904. It asserted the United States’ right to intervene in conflicts between Europe and the Americas, despite legitimate European claims. Until entering World War I on 6 April 1917, the US intervened in the Dominican Republic (1905, 1907, 1916-1924), in Nicaragua (1907, 1909, 1912-1925), in Honduras (1909, 1911-1925), in Mexico (1914, 1915, 1916, 1917) and in Cuba (1906-1909, 1912, 1917-1919). The latter US intervention in Cuba started in August 1917 because of the US fear that the German Empire would support the insurgents from the Cuban liberal party who refused the declaration of war on Berlin in April 1917.
The US entered Haiti as early as 1915 when the country collapsed due to an unredeemable external debt. Most of the debts were controlled by German and French banks. Between 1901 and 1914, the German Empire had sent warships to Haiti to force diplomatic claims several times. With the outbreak of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), who governed from 1913 to 1921, became more and more concerned with the German policy in Haiti, as German traders and companies not only controlled about 80 percent of the country’s external trade but also owned and operated utilities and corrupted local governments. Hence the US government started to control Haiti’s customs duties and the National Bank. Eventually this US policy led to an invasion of Haiti to prevent Germany from taking over the country in 1915. After the withdrawal of troops in 1934, US financial sovereignty remained until 1947.
A similar series of events took place in the Dominican Republic where the US appointed a general customs administrator in 1905. This guaranteed the US control of revenue distribution and, at the same time, the Dominican Republic the amortization of debts.
Roosevelt persuaded the US Congress that this “big stick policy” would protect the Caribbean from any European military intervention. In 1907, the Dominican Republic and the US signed a treaty reserving the US the right to intervene in order to protect the customs receivership. Like Cuba, the Dominican Republic was thus converted into a “legal” protectorate. When it became clear that the US wanted far more influence, the Dominican Congress rejected Wilson’s aims in 1915, upon which US Marines landed in Santo Domingo in 1916, where they established a US military government.
The First World War↑
Already in April 1914, US Marines had occupied the Mexican port of Veracruz, practising landing operations that they later adopted during World War I. The so-called secret Zimmermann Telegram of January 1917 was a very important motive behind Washington’s decision to enter the war. The attack of German submarines on Allied merchant vessels and submarines in the Atlantic gave the Americans another reason to enter the war. Due to the fact that German submarines operated as far as in the Caribbean, the US feared a long-planned German invasion of the Danish Virgin Islands. To prevent this, they concluded a treaty with Denmark and purchased the islands for $25,000,000. In the same vein, Washington also tried to buy other Caribbean territories, such as Jamaica and Trinidad, from Great Britain and France.
Christian Cwik, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Section Editor: Frederik Schulze
Approved on May 22, 1903, the Platt Amendment was a treaty between the U.S. and Cuba that attempted to protect Cuba's independence from foreign intervention. It permitted extensive U.S. involvement in Cuban international and domestic affairs for the enforcement of Cuban independence.
U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898 produced a peace treaty that compelled Spain to relinquish control of several overseas territories, including Cuba (see the de Lôme letter). In April of 1898, Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado proposed an amendment to the U.S. declaration of war against Spain, which stated that the United States would not establish permanent control over Cuba. The Teller Amendment asserted that the United States "hereby disclaims any disposition of intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people." The Senate adopted the amendment on April 19.
Nonetheless, U.S. troops occupied Cuba for several years after the war ended. Under Gen. Leonard Wood, the military government organized a school system, ordered the finances, and made significant progress in eliminating yellow fever.
When the Constitutional Convention of Cuba started its deliberations in July 1900, it received notification that the U.S. Congress intended to attach an amendment to the Cuban Constitution. The following year, Secretary of War Elihu Root drafted a set of articles as guidelines for future United States–Cuba relations. This set of articles became known as the Platt Amendment, after Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut, who presented it. Platt was a U.S. senator from 1879 to 1905 and influenced the decision to annex Hawaii and occupy the Philippines. As chair of the Senate Committee with Relations on Cuba, he sponsored the amendment as a rider attached to the Army Appropriations Bill of 1901. Cubans reluctantly included the amendment, which virtually made Cuba a U.S. protectorate, in their constitution. The Platt Amendment was also incorporated in a permanent treaty between the United States and Cuba.
The Platt Amendment stipulated the conditions for U.S. intervention in Cuban affairs and permitted the United States to lease or buy lands for the purpose of establishing naval bases (the main one was Guantánamo Bay) and coaling stations in Cuba. It barred Cuba from going into debt, making a treaty that would give another nation power over its affairs, or stopping the United States from imposing a sanitation program on the island. Specifically, Article III required that the government of Cuba consent to the right of the United States to intervene in Cuban affairs for “the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba.”
The Platt Amendment supplied the terms under which the United States intervened in Cuban affairs in 1906, 1912, 1917, and 1920. By 1934, rising Cuban nationalism and widespread criticism of the Platt Amendment resulted in its repeal as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy toward Latin America. The United States, however, retained its lease on Guantánamo Bay, where a naval base remains in operation today.
Whereas the Congress of the United States of America, by an Act approved March 2, 1901, provided as follows:
Provided further, That in fulfillment of the declaration contained in the joint resolution approved April twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, entitled "For the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba, and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect," the President is hereby authorized to "leave the government and control of the island of Cuba to its people" so soon as a government shall have been established in said island under a constitution which, either as a part thereof or in an ordinance appended thereto, shall define the future relations of the United States with Cuba, substantially as follows:
"I.-That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes or otherwise, lodgement in or control over any portion of said island."
"II. That said government shall not assume or contract any public debt, to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the island, after defraying the current expenses of government shall be inadequate."
"III. That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba."
"IV. That all Acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected."
"V. That the government of Cuba will execute, and as far as necessary extend, the plans already devised or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein."
"VI. That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty."
"VII. That to enable the United States to maintain the independence
of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon with the President of the United States."
"VIII. That by way of further assurance the government of Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the United States."