Guenvili Espinosa
3­24­15
During the Spanish­American war there were many of spain colonies trying to fight for their freedom. Because of that, the United States took advantage and decided to take over of those colonies, since we would really benefit from them in many ways such as economically because of natural resources. The Spanish­American war lead to many good and bad things.
To start it off, imperialism was the time where america will expand into the rest of the world. The reason being, the Great Depression of 1893. Since the United States did not have a market outside of the country, american companies were producing more than american people can consume. This leads to people getting fired and stores closing, which leads to the great depression. So to solve this issue america begins to trade with the rest of the world in 1893. As
Brinkley states “Some Americans feared that their nation would soon be left out of all these potential markets”(534). So America starts trying to colonize the world because a colony will not only give them natural resources to exploit but also a marketplace for manufactured goods. But the only problem at the time was that many of the colonies were restricted because they were already taken over by a mother country. Asia was the only market open at the time. Yet the U.S faced another problem and that is that there were no planes, so it took a longer time getting there.
Since ships had to travel a long way by the time the ships got there the goods would already be spoiled. So instead the Americans made a route there which was a trade route through the spanish colonies. Since the Spanish­American war was going on, spanish colonies were vulnerable, which allows america to attack.
“The Spanish­American war emerged out of events in Cuba” (Brinkley 539). Cuba was a

colony in the Spanish­American war and a reason why it started. The war had been going on for ten years and the United States did not intervene, but once the U.S got involved the war was over within three months. The reason for Americans joining was because of the ship “ Maine” mysteriously blowing up, which was an excuse to get on war with Spain. After that explosion it gave the yellow press a chance to take advantage and write about it and convince everyone that it was Spain's fault without any evidence. Soon it was everywhere and Spain agreed to “ stop the fighting and eliminate its concentration camps; but it refused to negotiate with the rebels and reserved the right to resume hostilities at it’s discretion”(Brinkley 541). Another way Americans were motivated to create an empire was by conquesting Hawaii.
As the Americans were going into to spanish colonies, they finally made their way to Hawaii.
Hawaii was already a place where many Americans and other people stopped on their ships for resources so the hawaiians had familiar faces with the whites. In the 1830’s missionaries and business men went to Hawaii looking for business opportunity. Although, natives in Hawaii began being suspicious of these foreigners. So they wouldn't interact with whites, which was a big problem because it restricted them from the land and made it hard for them to do business.
Along the way they managed their way into getting the land. One way was marrying women because they were usually left with a dowry that was the piece of land. But the more effective way Americans got what they wanted was by using violence. They forced the king to accept constitution that gave foreigners rights. This then leads into a war with the princess Liliuokalani because she was a very popular girl who was well respected by the hawaiians, She was angry that hawaiian people subjugated to serve American business, so she was