POD: Anti Imperialist League Convinces Pres. McKinley to Give Up New Colonies

[AmIndHistoryAuthor]

I realize the POD may be in 1899 or 1900, but its effects nearly all happen post 1900.

The Anti Imperialist League had the support of much of the US public for its goals. Problem was , they were led by extremely elderly former Abolitionists. But its membership also included the likes of Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie. Its leaders unsuccessfully lobbied McKinley to give up the colonies acquired from Spain in the Spanish-American War.

But suppose the League had chosen better strategy? Send the likes of the eloquent Twain and the very forceful Carnegie to make their case rather than themselves.

McKinley thus comes out for setting independent immediately Cuba (with no conditions), the Philippines (perhaps in exchange for bases), and Puerto Rico (also in exchange for bases). He still faces strong opposition in Congress and a country feeling euphoria over their easy victory vs Spain.

I'm esp interested to hear what people think the history of an independent Philippines and Puerto Rico would've been like.

What happens to Guam, Samoa, and Hawaii also has to be accounted for, though the last two weren't taken during the war. I've been trying to imagine how an independent or restored Hawaii might be possible.

And let's not forget the very long term effects both within the US culturally, with a very different population, and in foreign policy. Potentially Castro never comes to power, no Cuban Missile Crisis or Cuban intervention in Angola.

Possibly no Pearl Harbor base for the Japanese to bomb if Hawaii had not been a US territory.

 

[Bill Cameron]

AIHA,

There will be no real changes in Cuba. While the US won't have treaty rights to interfere in Cuban politics, it will still interfere as it routinely did with the rest of Central America.

An independent Puerto Rico with Amercian military bases isn't much different than the Puerto Rico we have now. While Puerto Rican migration to the US will be somewhat less, it will still take place under the same legal conditions that it occurred with the OTL Filipinos.

An independent Philippines will immediately suffer succession movements along religious and ethnic lines. Like nearly all former imperial colonies, the only reason the Philippines has the borders it does now is because those borders are the ones it's former rulers, Spain and the US, chose to enforce. With basing rights in this newly independent "nation", the US will have to support the central "government" and will be dragged into the same war it saw in the OTL between 1899-1901. The ATL's war will last longer, if it ends at all, and have a much less clear result.

The Philippines in this TL will also be far less developed, which is saying something when you remember the relatively low level of the OTL Philippine's development. In the decades leading up to this timeline's version of the Pacific War, there will be substantial Japanese interest in the country with the primary goal of replacing US influence and removing US bases. That should lead to a situation vaguely similar to that of the OTL's China where Japanese "investment" quickly leads to Japanese strident security demands. Just how well this ATL Philippines deals with those demands is another question.

An "independent" Guam will quickly become nothing of the sort. Wilhelmine Germany bought the rest of the Marianas from Spain after the war and would be able to add Guam to their new protectorate with little effort. After this timeline's Great War/WW1, the Japanese or some other Entente power will own Guam.

Samoa will have a similar fate. From the 1880s onward Britain, Germany, and the US all claimed Samoa either wholly or in part. If the US withdraws, Britain and Germany will either split the region or work out an understanding similar to the one in the OTL. Either way, the islands will be seized by Britain or Australia/New Zealand early during the timeline's Great War/WW1.

Hawaii is the outlier in all this. US interest in the islands dates from before the Civil War with several annexation efforts and coups predating your POD. Given that level of interest over that period of time, I cannot see the US permanently eschewing the eventual annexation of Hawaii in one form or another. If Hawaii isn't included in post-Span-Am War grab bag, it will still be annexed early on during the first Roosevelt Administration.

None of the changes wrought in these territories by a "lack" of US control will be important because, quite frankly, none of these territories are important in and of themselves. They're either too small, too backward, too poor, too remote, or some combination of those things to be of any real consequence. Their only real role in world history is when actual world powers control them or vie for control of them. Otherwise all they do is produce brightly colored stamps for philatelists.


Bill

 

[David S Poepoe]

Hawaii is the outlier in all this. US interest in the islands dates from before the Civil War with several annexation efforts and coups predating you POD. Given that level of interest over that period of time, I cannot see the US permanently eschewing the eventual annexation of Hawaii in one form or another. If Hawaii isn't included in post-Span-Am War grab bag, it will still be annexed early on during the first Roosevelt Administration.

There was an AH short story where McKinley or Roosevelt (I think it was the latter) was talking with a representative from the Republic of Hawaii. Its likely that the US could spin of Hawaii as a protectorate of sorts. It will prop up the Republic in exchange for the use of Pearl Harbor.

 

[Bill Cameron]

There was an AH short story where McKinley or Roosevelt (I think it was the latter) was talking with a representative from the Republic of Hawaii.

David,

Which means someone did away with the Hawaiian monarchy. Not that that is a bad thing.

A unified Hawaii and it's monarchy were Western creations anyway. Without the weapons and boats provided by Western traders, Kamehameha could have never unified the islands in the first place. (I always chuckle when someone boo-hoos over the Western destruction of "native kingdoms" because most of those kingdoms only existed because of earlier Western interference.)

Its likely that the US could spin of Hawaii as a protectorate of sorts. It will prop up the Republic in exchange for the use of Pearl Harbor.

Agreed, although as I pointed out that ATL protectorate will not differ substantially from the OTL's territory.


Bill