AP®︎ US History: Topic 7.2 Flashcards

Extending a nation’s power over other lands and peoples through annexation, colonial rule, military occupation, economic dominance, or political control

Naval strategist who argued that national power required a modern navy, merchant marine, overseas bases, and control of major sea routes

Historian who argued in 1893 that the frontier had shaped American democracy, individualism, and national character

The misapplication of evolutionary ideas to societies and nations, portraying imperial competition as a struggle in which conquest proved superior fitness

The belief that English-speaking white Protestants were especially fit for self-government and destined to spread their institutions to other peoples

Protestant minister who argued that Anglo-Saxon Americans had a providential mission to spread Christianity and their idea of civilization

The imperialist claim that American rule would bring Christianity, education, technology, commerce, and orderly government to supposedly less civilized peoples

Treating domination as benevolent guardianship by claiming colonized peoples were not mature enough to govern themselves

Kipling’s 1899 poem portrayed colonial rule over supposedly less civilized peoples as a difficult moral duty of white imperial powers

Expansionist leader who embraced naval preparedness, strategic bases, and the “strenuous life” as expressions of national strength and international influence

In his 1898 speech, Beveridge defended expansion through new markets, racial and religious mission, nationalism, and competition with other empires

Organization founded in 1898 that opposed colonial rule as hostile to liberty, consent of the governed, and republican government

The right of a people to choose its own political status and government rather than be ruled by an outside power

The principle that legitimate government derives authority from the people it rules, used to argue that colonial government violated American founding ideals

A preference for avoiding permanent alliances, overseas power struggles, and extensive foreign military commitments—not complete withdrawal from trade or diplomacy

Imperialists saw America’s special mission as spreading its institutions; anti-imperialists saw it as rejecting empire and preserving government by consent

Prominent Anti-Imperialist League member who used satire to expose the contradiction between claims of benevolent civilization and the violence of conquest

Industrialist and anti-imperialist who opposed annexation and offered to help purchase Philippine independence

American Federation of Labor leader who opposed annexation partly from fear that lower-paid colonial labor would undermine American workers

Supporters of overseas expansion who cited markets, naval security, imperial competition, racial theories, and the closed frontier

Opponents of colonial rule who invoked self-determination, isolationist tradition, economic costs, and both egalitarian and exclusionary racial arguments

The perception after 1890 that continental expansion was complete, used by imperialists to argue that the nation needed new overseas outlets

The belief that American expansion was a natural or divinely favored mission, extended by imperialists from continental growth to overseas expansion