Answer
Explanation:ne interesting thing about America’s 19th-century Pacific expansion is that it happened during, and even before, its more famous western settlement. American missionaries and sugar planters were in Hawaii in the 1820s, a generation before the California Gold Rush or Mormon Trek to Utah. The reason is that, while oceans can be deadly in strong winds, water is normally easier to traverse than land — even the long and torturous pre-Panama Canal sea route around Cape Horn from the East Coast to the Pacific. By 1890, when the Census Bureau declared the western frontier closed, the U.S. had already laid claim to territory in the Pacific. By 1902, America controlled Hawaii, Alaska, the Philippines, Guam, Midway Island, part of Samoa and several smaller islands in the Pacific (e.g. Palmyra Atoll and Wake, Jarvis, Howland & Baker Islands). Since its revolution and initiation of the Old China Trade routes starting in 1783, the U.S. coveted trading with Asians the way it had traditionally with Europeans. In the 1850s, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed the U.S. Navy to China and Japan to increase trade. By the turn of the 20th century, America was digging a canal shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific and was in combat defending its interests in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In this chapter, we’ll cover why and how America stepped out onto this world stage.
