José Angel Hernández

HIST: 6393: “War, Empire, and Revolution”

May 11, 2000

“Final Paper, Final Reflections”

This semester’s readings and discussions cover a wide range of topics that explore the relationships between diplomatic history, capitalism, and North American philosophical constructs. By this I mean those ideals that North Americans hold to be true without ever questioning where those ideas originated. Having said that, for this paper I will do an overview of the semester and incorporate comments and reflections, particularly those having to do with my own knowledge of the subject and, of course, personal experiences. In other words, each of the students that participates interprets the intention and mood of the class differently. Therefore, I will offer my own reflections and then amplify them with readings and some common threads, particularly drawing on Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 Frontier Thesis.

During our first month in class, we started chronologically and discussed topics relating the origins of North American imperialism and, later, US exceptionalism. My first reading for the class was Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire Building by Richard Drinnon. In this particular monograph, the author begins from the start: Puritan and Native American contact and conflict. For Drinnon, racism and contrasts between civilization and nature played an important role in the formation of US empire building and consequent overseas expansion. Puritans perceived Native Americans as less than human and thus found justification for the subjugation and usurpation of Amerindian lands. As North Americans moved further west, they recreated the frontier while the frontier had a similar, if not an overwhelming impact on those first settlers. Reminiscent of Frederick Jackson Turner’s ideas about the frontier, Drinnon believes that as the frontier receded and, along with it the Native Americans, Anglo-Americans looked elsewhere for empire: The Spanish American War (1898) and later the war in Vietnam. Here, Filipinos and Vietnamese revolutionaries became the new Indians and their countries became the “new frontier,” waiting to be tamed and civilized by North American ideas of civilization and progress...ideas that flourished during this period.

This same theme is taken on with the next reading by Richard Slotkin entitled Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. Slotkin’s arguments go beyond the scope of this essay; however, suffice it say that for our purposes, the author believes that Puritan contact with Native Americans produced an exchange of violence and terror. Going beyond Drinnon’s study, this “reciprocal terror” takes place along the frontier following Puritan and Indian contact. Paradoxically, the early Puritans who idealized the freedom and egalitarian nature of Native American social life contrasted those practices with colonial English society. These ideas culminated with the so-called “American Revolution” and provided an ideological underpinning for the success of this movement. The exchanges between the two cultures, therefore, were not merely those material alterations that Turner alluded to, but included cultural perceptions that were contrary to the colonial English structure. In the process of tearing away the layers of English culture, frontier settlers took on new ideals and perceptions that included violence, bigotry, and intolerance.

During the 19th century, North Americans continued looking west for more markets in an effort to expand their “frontier.” Much like what Drinnon and Slotkin argue about the impact of the frontier on North Americans, Emily Rosenberg sees this expansion of the frontier in terms of cultural values and capital expansion. In her monograph, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945, Rosenberg argues that a US desire to expand markets overseas was not solely an effort to find an outlet for North American products, but also as an added venue to spread what she describes as “the American Dream.” Much like what William Appleman Williams lamented in his seminal monograph on the Tragedy of American Diplomacy, Rosenberg also believes that the cultural exchanges accompanying US exports were idealistic and benevolent in nature. In other words, a genuine belief that North American ideals would be beneficial to the well being of those “Third World” nations. According to Rosenberg, “this American dream of high technology and mass consumption was both promoted and accompanied by an ideology...[of] liberal-developmentalism ...this ideology matured during the twentieth century...[an ideology] that merged twentieth century liberal tenets with the historical experience of America’s own development, elevating the beliefs and experiences of America’s unique historical time and circumstance into developmental laws thought to be applicable everywhere.”

However, as we progressed through the semester, discussions involving the US role in “Third World” countries continued to influence our perceptions of US foreign policy towards Latin America. Many of the readings, of course, criticized the US in Latin America, some going as far as blaming los gringos for poverty, violence, and corruption. Other questions surfaced when a young Cuban boy was rescued from the ocean as his mother attempted to reach the shores of the United States...only to drown in the graveyard between Cuba and Miami. The young boy’s “custody case” caused an international dispute between the US and Cuba. The special relationship between Cuban Americans and other so-called “ethnic minorities” tainted the public’s perception of the Miami Cubans and thus added a much-needed vantagepoint--the discriminatory policies of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the cozy relationship between the Republicans and Cuban Americans. Moreover, questions over the 40-year trade embargo endured another public debate as both countries began to engage in heavier diplomatic mudslinging. More to the point, though, Fidel Castro’s contention that “Third World parents do not have a say in the way that they raise their children” resonated with the US public as an overwhelming majority of the population agreed that the young Cuban be returned to his father--irrespective of the government’s ideological beliefs. Castro’s reflections about the US role in the “Third World” are telling if one opts to examine the biased relationship between the US and Latin America.

Friedrich Katz’s path breaking study of Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution outlines one of the earliest efforts to control and influence a “Third World” social revolution. In his study, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, The United States, and the Mexican Revolution, the author brings the study of Latin America, North America, and Europe, full circle. Questions over diplomacy, secrecy, government corruption, behind-the-scenes corroboration, and numerous revolutionary movements are observed and analyzed in their appropriate global context. For me, however, this reading of Katz allowed me to see the “larger picture” of historical study and the importance of studying history in the larger mold. Katz argues that his work is a “case study not only of how rifts can be exploited for global ends, but of how global rifts can be exploited for local ends.” This observation provides the Mexicans with more than “agency”; it casts them in the same character usually reserved for the so-called “First World” nations.

Prior to this class, I studied at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) with a number of Chicano intellectuals that taught me the importance of community activism and social justice. My interests focused on 19^th Century Texas and the US-Mexico Border. Although I understood the significance of the border and the diplomacy involved between both countries, this class and the many questions commissioned allowed me to see that various factors play into foreign policy and economic inequity. In the case of Mexico, for instance, Katz sees the importance of the Mexican Revolution in a number of ways that go beyond the revolutionary activities taking place domestically. In other words, the first social revolution of the 20th century affected not only Mexico and the Mexicans; the outcome and evolution of the Mexican Revolution influenced North America, Europe, Germany, and WWI. Thus, revolutions in the “Third World,” as Katz illustrates, manipulate and are manipulated by global events and used to achieve goals that can only be illustrated through an understanding of diplomatic history.

It was during this reading of Katz along with John Hart’s latest effort that I truly began to see the virtues of studying diplomatic history. Moreover, not only did I begin to look at “larger histories,” but I began to ponder the environmental, militaristic, and comparative approaches to historical study. This is not to disavow or discount the importance of community or regional studies. What I am simply saying is that the additional approaches enhance and enrich the historical understanding of these regional and community studies.

In summary, I must point out some personal observations: (1) I really do feel different walking out of this class; (2) The range of readings was beneficial and enjoyable; (3) and my previous ideological beliefs were confirmed with this larger base of readings. Prior to my attending this class, I interpreted diplomatic history as something quite boring. Now, of course, I see how diplomacy plays itself out and how historical analysis serves to assist us in this historical analysis. Often times we get so involved in looking for evidence to support our arguments that we overlook the “bigger picture.” As a result, we resort to describing a collection of trees instead of understanding the historical forest: its origins, evolution, and consequences.