Abstract
Since 1776, when their Declaration of Independence listed their lengthy grievances against British colonial rule and argued eloquently for self-government based on ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God’, Americans have professed to lead the world’s decolonization struggle.1 They have professed to do so, and sometimes have actually done so, but at critical junctures in the past two centuries, they have easily sacrificed the principles of decolonization for the practices of imperial conquest and global hegemony. Americans, to paraphrase St Augustine’s famous prayer, have often demanded decolonization, but then added they do not want it quite yet.
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Notes
In this chapter, a colony, as the dictionary phrases it, is considered to be a group of people who form a settlement subject to a mother state, or as any people or area separated but subject to a ruling power. ‘American’ is used in the essay interchangeably with United States for purposes of word variation. ‘Irony’ is used in the title for one of its dictionary definitions: an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected. These definitions are from Random House College Dictionary (New York, 1984). A working definition of decolonization is given by Tony Smith, ‘Decolonization’, in Joel Krieger (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World (New York, 1993), p. 217. Smith states that it ‘is commonly defined as a change in sovereignty, in which a state recognises the independence of a segment of the people formerly under its rule and their right to government formed according to procedures determined by them’. This definition needs the qualification that a colonizer of ten does not voluntarily recognize such ‘independence’, but is brought to do so by force.
Quoted in Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York, 1950), p. 358.
The quotes and interpretation in this and the following paragraph are drawn from Walter LaFeber, ‘An Expansionist’s Dilemma’, Constitution, V (Fall 1993): esp. pp. 10–11.
Charles Francis Adams (ed.), Memoirs of John QuincyAdams, 12 vols (Philadelphia, PA, 1874–7), V, pp. 323–6.
FDR’s view and the citations can be found in Walter LaFeber, ‘Roosevelt, Churchill, and Indochina, 1942–1945’, American Historical Review, LXXX (Fall 1975): pp. 1277–95.
J. D. Richardson (ed.), Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 10 vols (Washington, DC, 1896), II, pp. 209, 218–19.
The text, taken from the original Adams speech, can be found in Walter LaFeber (ed.), John Quincy Adams and American Continental Empire (Chicago, IL, 1965), pp. 42–6.
The quotes and analysis can be found in Michael K. Donoghue, ‘Colonialism’, in Bruce W. Jentleson and Thomas G. Paterson (eds), Encyclopedia of US Foreign Relations, 4 vols (New York, 1997), I, p. 291; and
This story, and the links, can be found in the important analysis by Walter L. Williams, ‘US Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine Annexation’, Journal of American History, LXVI (March 1980), pp. 819–31.
An influential account that stresses US decolonization and well represents pre–1950s interpretations is Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, 7th edn (New York, 1964), esp. pp. 456–64.
Breakthrough accounts were Margaret Leech, In the Days of McKinley (New York, 1959), that first exploited the papers of McKinley’s personal secretary, George Cortelyou;
William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (Cleveland, OH, 1959); and
H. Wayne Morgan, William McKinley and His America (Syracuse, NY, 1963).
The story of the open door and its application to China in the 1893 to 1901 years is told in Thomas J. McCormick, China Market (Chicago, IL, 1967).
Elting E. Morison (ed.), The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1951), I, pp. 685–6.
Louis Perez, Jr, Cuba: between Reform and Revolution, 2nd edn (New York, 1995), esp. pp. 161–5.
The story was detailed initially by David Healy in The United States in Cuba, 1898–1902 (Madison, WI, 1963).
James Chace and Caleb Carr, America Invulnerable (New York, 1988), pp. 138–40;
Henry Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, a Biography (New York, 1931), pp. 684–5.
Michael L. Conniff, Panama and the United States (Athens, GA, 1992), esp. pp. 32–5.
Different perspectives, and the quotations, can be found in Dana G. Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900–1921 (Princeton, NJ, 1964), pp. 57–8; and
David S. Patterson, Toward a Warless World: the Turmoil of the American Peace Movement, 1887–1914 (Bloomington, IN, 1976), pp. 124–5.
Arthur S. Link, Wilson, 5 vols (Princeton, NJ, 1947), V, pp. 265–74.
The quote and a succinct discussion are in Lloyd Gardner, et al., The Creation of the American Empire, 2nd edn (Chicago, IL, 1976), p. 340.
The cmcial contexts for the debate over colonialism at Paris are spelled out in Arno Mayer, Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917–1918 (New Haven, CN, 1959);
Lloyd Gardner, Safe for Democracy (New York, 1984), esp. chapters 10–12; and
Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars (New York, 1992).
A classic British account by a conference participant that emphasizes these specific constraints on Wilson is Harold Nicolson, Peacemaking, 1919 (Boston, 1933).
A fine succinct account from which these lists and part of the interpretation are drawn is Harold K. Jacobson, ‘Mandates’, in Jentleson MUI and Paterson MUI, (eds) Encyclopedia of US Foreign Relations, III, pp. 99–103.
Thomas A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace (New York, 1944), p. 170.
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LaFeber, W. (2000). The American View of Decolonization, 1776–1920: an Ironic Legacy. In: Ryan, D., Pungong, V. (eds) The United States and Decolonization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333977958_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333977958_2
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