Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Unravelling of US Empire
August 1, 2019
To be a law-abiding nation, the U.S. must grant self-determination in areas it has stolen, write Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers.
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
PopularResistance.org
The results of centuries of U.S. empire, which began with Manifest Destiny that crossed the North American continent and grew into a global empire, are coming home to roost in Puerto Rico and Hawaii.
Puerto Ricans had an important victory in July with the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló after more than one million people protested to demand his removal. This was a powerful display of people power, but changing the head of state does not confront the real issues for Puerto Rico: ending colonialism and ensuring self-determination.
There is confusion after Rosselló’s resignation. The next in line has already resigned and Secretary of Justice Wanda Vázquez, who is in line after that, does not want the job. Puerto Rico’s economy is a mess after Hurricane Maria, Wall Street theft and domination by a federal financial control board. The Control Board, known as la junta, is seeking to expand its power with the support of The Washington Post editorial board, to further dominate the island. This is the opposite of the next essential steps, which require decolonizing the island and empowering the people of Puerto Rico.
Hawaii, which was an independent nation that became a state in 1959 after the U.S. stole it, is facing protests against a telescope on its tallest mountain, a sacred area. While the telescope is the focus of the protests, the real issues are much deeper and point to a growing demand for independence. This is not being reported in U.S. media or noted by U.S. political leaders.
More:
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/01/puerto-rico-hawaii-and-the-unravelling-of-us-empire/
= new reply since forum marked as read
It covers material we just didn't get in public schools, and it's all totally important to anyone who realizes the need for an accurate grasp of what has happened.
Wanted to mention that for a long time, the U.S. saw Puerto Rico in exactly the same light as Cuba, and it was assumed the U.S. would control Cuba forever, just as it has with Puerto Rico.
It sounds as if "How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States" could reward a reader with some important information which could go a long way toward putting together a much more accurate foundation for understanding the US and Latin American policy.
Thanks for the recommendation.
The Annexation of Hawaii Previous Next
Digital History ID 3159
After a century of American rule, many native Hawaiians remain bitter about how the United States acquired the islands, located 2,500 miles from the West Coast.
In 1893, a small group of sugar and pineapple-growing businessmen, aided by the American minister to Hawaii and backed by heavily armed U.S. soldiers and marines, deposed Hawaii's queen. Subsequently, they imprisoned the queen and seized 1.75 million acres of crown land and conspired to annex the islands to the United States.
On January 17, 1893, the conspirators announced the overthrow of the queen's government. To avoid bloodshed, Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Liliuokalani yielded her sovereignty and called upon the U.S. government "to undo the actions of its representatives." The U.S. government refused to help her regain her throne. When she died in 1917, Hawaii was an American territory. In 1959, Hawaii became the 50th state after a plebiscite in which 90 percent of the islanders supported statehood.
The businessmen who conspired to overthrow the queen claimed that they were overthrowing a corrupt, dissolute regime in order of advance democratic principles. They also argued that a Western power was likely to acquire the islands. Hawaii had the finest harbor in the mid-Pacific and was viewed as a strategically valuable coaling station and naval base. In 1851, King Kamehameha III had secretly asked the United States to annex Hawaii, but Secretary of State Daniel Webster declined, saying "No power ought to take possession of the islands as a conquest...or colonization." But later monarchs wanted to maintain Hawaii's independence. The native population proved to be vulnerable to western diseases, including cholera, smallpox, and leprosy. By 1891, native Hawaii's were an ethnic minority on the islands.
More:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3159
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SEP 22, 2017
Puerto Rico’s Complicated History with the United States
Over a century ago, the U.S. prevented Puerto Rico from gaining autonomy.
BECKY LITTLE
In February 1898, Puerto Ricans had a lot to celebrate. After centuries of Spanish colonial rule, they had just become an independent part of Spain, complete with a Constitution and voting rights. But within only a few years, the U.S. would throw all that asunder, paving the way for Puerto Rico’s nonvoting territory status today.
It all started with the Spanish-American War, which began in the spring of 1898, when Puerto Rico was a Spanish territory. The U.S. invaded Puerto Rico not only because it was a Spanish territory, but also due to its interests in developing a sugar market there, says Lillian Guerra, a history professor at the University of Florida.
“When the Americans arrived, General [Nelson] Miles issued, very famously, a decree manifesto in which he promised to protect the life, liberty, and happiness of Puerto Ricans, and their property,” she says. “A lot of Puerto Ricans who were poor, who were working-class, who were peasants, took this as an invitation to side with the Americans in what was still a war against Spain.”
To support the U.S., Puerto Ricans began to attack Spanish-owned businesses and property. But “to their great shock and awe,” Guerra says the Americans did not keep their promises after they won the war, when Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris. The U.S. ignored the new, democratically-elected local parliament of Puerto Rico in favor of creating its own colonial system.
With the westward expansion of the 19th century, the U.S. established “incorporated territories” that could and did become formal American states—like the Colorado Territory. But in 1901, a series of legal opinions known as the Insular Cases argued that Puerto Rico and other territories ceded by the Spanish were full of “alien races” who couldn’t understand “Anglo-Saxon principles.” Therefore, the Constitution did not apply to them, and Puerto Rico became an “unincorporated territory” with no path forward to statehood.
In addition, the U.S. disrupted Puerto Rico’s coffee industry, implementing a sugar economy and creating massive poverty among the population. “Within the first 10 years of the U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico, U.S. sugar interests had pretty much taken over, and the Puerto Rican coffee class has been displaced entirely,” Guerra explains.
Puerto Ricans were outraged after the war. Instead of becoming citizens, Puerto Ricans were in limbo. “They didn’t even have a passport; they didn’t have any legal standing in the U.S. system until 1917.”
That year, Puerto Ricans became U.S. citizens under the Jones-Shafroth act—this way the U.S. could deploy them as troops during World War I (similar to how the Emancipation Proclamation legalized the Union’s use of black troops). The federal government believed that white people weren’t suited to fight in tropical climates because they didn’t have immunity to the diseases found there. Instead, the U.S. sent Puerto Rican “immunes,” as they were called, to defend the Panama Canal.
Although they were now U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans could not vote for president or elect voting senators or representatives to the U.S. Congress. In fact, they still can’t.
More:
https://www.history.com/news/puerto-ricos-complicated-history-with-the-united-states
These links are superficial. The deeper you bother to look, the more painful it was for the citizens.
A quicky book for people who don't want to spend much time reading, covers material superficially but clearly a damned sight better than many US citizens seem to realize:
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq Paperback – February 6, 2007
by Stephen Kinzer
Can be purchased in the twinkling of an eye online. Superficial, of course, as is anything which can be read quickly, but it's still far, far better than imagining things which never happened, courtesy of whitewashing through popular mass perception management by the powers who don't want anyone asking real questions.
