As the American frontier “closed,” many in America pushed for new frontiers of an empire for exploration, settlement, and new markets. Stimulated by a closing frontier and an expanding economy at home, the United States became increasingly interested in the worldwide scramble for colonies in the latter nineteenth century. Advocates of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority exhorted expansion of American trade and dominion as both our duty and destiny in “civilizing” the less advanced regions of the world. The Hawaiian and Samoan Islands attracted Americans primarily as stepping stones to the valuable trade of the Far East and as strategic locations for South Pacific naval bases. American residents in Hawaii instigated a revolution and the creation of a republican government in 1893, but the United States resisted annexation of the islands until 1898. After first acquiring a naval station in Samoa in 1878, the United States divided the island chain with Germany in 1899. Congress and the American public responded enthusiastically to war. More soldiers volunteered to fight than could be trained, fed, or equipped. The war lasted only ten weeks and resulted in relatively few American deaths—more too tropical diseases than battle—prompting the soon-to-be secretary of state John Hay's famous observation of the conflict as “a splendid little war.” Many of the units that fought in the war were National Guard units, and they mirrored many of the changes in American society. Certain that African-American men could resist tropical diseases, United States military officials recruited them as soldiers. Although subjected to segregation and discrimination, these “smoked Yankees” (as the Spanish troops referred to them) responded bravely and played a crucial role in the American invasion and takeover of Cuba. American military operations began with a stunning naval victory directed by Commodore George Dewey over the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, resulting in the U. S. occupation of the Philippine Islands. In the Caribbean, the United States