The Panama Canal is the shipping channel that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean It is 48 miles 77 kilometers long The Spanish-American War made the United States a colonial power for the first time The war also served to unite the country and repair the enormous damage to national esteem resulting from the Civil War In the Spanish-American War President William McKinley was careful to give high-level commissions to former Confederate officers Officers and enlisted men from the South eagerly volunteered to show their patriotism and courage Although some Americans spoke out against what they viewed as an undemocratic tendency to expand into faraway places a general surge in nationalism occurred throughout the country The construction of the Panama Canal completed in 1914 also enhanced U S status abroad Although the people in some territories are U S citizens they cannot vote for the U S president and are limited in other respects In general territorial subjects live thousands of miles from American shores and are far poorer than citizens of any state Many of them rely upon U S military spending and tourism to keep their economies healthy 6
Chapter 2 The Addition of Two More States Alaska seemed to be a useless ice box to most Americans in the nineteenth century It was home to about 40,000 Native Americans including the Aleut in the Aleutian Islands the Inuit or Eskimo in the far north and the Tlingit in the southeast section About a quarter of the state lies north of the Arctic Circle where much of the soil is permanently The Tlingit were fishermen who lived off the fish and sea mammals that they caught frozen and daylight is not visible for months at a time Temperatures in the northern parts of Alaska can average 10 degrees Fahrenheit 12 degrees Celcius in the summer and colder than 60 degrees Fahrenheit 51 degrees Celcius in the winter Clothing made from caribou fur helped the Inuits survive the extreme cold 7
Russia had claimed Alaska since 1741 when fur traders from that country discovered that sea otter and fur seal pelts from Alaskan waters could be sold for high profits In 1867 Russia surprised the United States by offering Alaska for sale William H Seward Secretary of State under President Andrew Johnson drew up an agreement for the purchase William H Seward 1801 1872 Congress was not enthusiastic Only a few hundred Americans mostly miners had ever visited Alaska People thought Seward was foolish to even consider it and the proposal became known as Seward’s Folly Nevertheless the Senate voted in favor of the purchase and on July 14 1868 the House of Representatives appropriated 7 2 million to buy Alaska Andrew Johnson 1808 1875 8
Because of its scant population Alaska was managed by the army as a customs and military district rather than a territory American fur trading and salmon canning companies began to do some business there They did not bring settlers because native workers or seasonal employees could be hired The Alaska Commercial Company ACC was given a 20-year monopoly on the seal trade The Alaska Packers Association in San Francisco controlled 90 percent of the cannery business by 1895 Therefore economic development took place in Alaska without increases in population By 1880 only 430 of the 33,426 people living in Alaska were non-native The Inuit traded furs for many things such as guns and ammunition metal tools and tobacco 9
