European Possessions in the Americas

1962 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-405
Author(s):  
E. Taylor Parks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
Mississippi River ◽  
New World ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Defense ◽  
Strategic Value ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Antarctic

The United States of 1783 was composed of thirteen former English colonies and their hinterland extending to the Mississippi River. Except on the Atlantic side, the new republic was surrounded by European possessions. In fact, the remainder of the New World was claimed by European nations. It was inevitable, therefore, that the United States from the beginning would concern itself with these European possessions.The degree of concern has been determined largely by three factors: (1) the geographic location of the areas, (2) their economic and strategic value, and (3) the relative power and prestige of their current or prospective possessors. As regards the geographic location of the areas, the interest of the United States has expanded roughly in broad concentric arcs: (a) contiguous continental lands (Florida, Louisiana, Texas, California, Oregon Territory); (b) Alaska, Central America, and the Caribbean; (c) South America and off-shore islands; and (d) the Antarctic. This expansion of interest has been concomitant with the territorial and economic growth of the United States, the development of ever-more-rapid means of transportation and communication, and the changing concepts of national defense.

A BIOSYSTEMATIC REVISION OF THE GENUS MUSCIDIFURAX (HYMENOPTERA: PTEROMALIDAE) WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF FOUR NEW SPECIES

1970 ◽  
Vol 102 (10) ◽  
pp. 1268-1290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Kogan ◽  
E. F. Legner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Central America ◽  
New World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Additional Species ◽  
Local Populations ◽  
Morphological Studies ◽  
Scanning Electronmicroscopy ◽  
United States Mexico

AbstractExtensive collections of synanthropic fly parasitoids in animal excrement accumulations in the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Chile, Denmark, Israel, and South Africa yielded seven forms of a Muscidifurax complex which were totally or partially reproductively isolated. Morphological studies of female and male parasitoids coupled with biological and zoogeographical information permitted the identification of five sibling species. Muscidifurax raptor Girault and Sanders 1910 is redescribed and four additional species are described as new: M. zaraptor, from the southwestern United States; M. raptoroides from Central America and Mexico; M. uniraptor from Puerto Rico, and M. raptorellus from Uruguay and Chile. Biological notes are added to the descriptions, and it was postulated that the genus is undergoing a process of speciation with local populations slowly becoming reproductively isolated and eventually giving rise to morphologically distinguishable entities. Most evidence suggests the establishment of Muscidifurax in the New World, concomitant with or shortly following the establishment of muscoid flies in accumulated excrement. Scanning electronmicroscopy was used in the analysis of some morphological structures.

The Civil War in an Atlantic Context

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don H. Doyle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
New World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Santo Domingo ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
The Caribbean

America’s Civil War became part of a much larger international crisis as European powers, happy to see the experiment in self-government fail in America’s “Great Republic,” took advantage of the situation to reclaim former colonies in the Caribbean and establish a European monarchy in Mexico. Overseas, in addition to their formal diplomatic appeals to European governments, both sides also experimented with public diplomacy campaigns to influence public opinion. Confederate foreign policy sought to win recognition and aid from Europe by offering free trade in cotton and aligning their cause with that of the aristocratic anti-democratic governing classes of Europe. The Union, instead, appealed to liberal, republican sentiment abroad by depicting the war as a trial of democratic government and embracing emancipation of the slaves. The Union victory led to the withdrawal of European empires from the New World: Spain from Santo Domingo, France from Mexico, Russia from Alaska, and Britain from Canada, and the destruction of slavery in the United States hastened its end in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil.

The New “Black Death”: Cholera in Brazil, 1855-1856

1986 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-488
Author(s):  
Donald B. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
North Africa ◽  
River Basins ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Death ◽  
Northern Province ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Intense Heat ◽  
Effective Buffer

On repeated occasions in the nineteenth century, Asian cholera irrupted from its traditional center in the great river basins of India and spread in pandemic waves throughout parts of Europe, North Africa, and North America. In Spain alone 600,000 deaths resulted from cholera during four great invasions (Cárdenas, 1971: 224). The United States experienced terrifying outbreaks beginning in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Rosenberg, 1962) which also touched parts of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Initially South America escaped the onslaught. Some Brazilians speculated that the intense heat of the equator, or the vast expanse of the Atlantic ocean, somehow offered an effective buffer to the southward spread of cholera (Rego, 1872: 84). But this “sweet illusion” was shattered in 1855. Indeed the first city in Brazil struck by Asian cholera was Belém, capital of the vast northern province of Pará located astride the equator at the mouth of the Amazon river.

“Don't Die Here:” The Death and Burial of Protestants in the Hispanic Caribbean, 1840-1885

1992 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Martínez-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Hispanic Caribbean ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
The Caribbean

As early as the first decades of the sixteenth century, when English and Dutch corsairs and privateers began to challenge Spain's exclusivist claims to the New World, the struggle for control over the Americas began to be couched in terms of a holy war. The Caribbean, in particular, became the arena in which the commercial, ideological and military forces of Protestant Northern Europe and Catholic Southern Europe clashed. Spanish officials commonly referred to the English and Dutch intruders as “heretics” and “Lutheran corsairs,” while Francis Drake and his fellow Elizabethan sea dogs believed that their penetration of the New World was a crusade against Popery, Catholic fanaticism and idolatry. These rivalries continued for centuries as new actors, the United States in particular, inherited some of the old roles.

Seeking Influence Abroad

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-253
Author(s):  
Atul Kohli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Pacific Asia ◽  
The Caribbean

Born an anticolonial nation, the United States burst upon the global scene as an imperial power at the end of the nineteenth century. This chapter analyzes the American expansion into the Caribbean, Central America, and Pacific Asia. When the United States became a major industrial power in the late nineteenth century, it sought profit and power overseas, especially new economic opportunities. The United States experimented with colonialism but settled on creating stable but subservient regimes in peripheral countries as the main mechanism of control. Benefits to the United States included gains in trade, opportunities for foreign investments, and profitable loans. Countries under US influence, including the Philippines, Cuba, and Nicaragua, experienced some economic growth but became commodity exporters with sharp inequalities and poor-quality governments.

The Belize Triangle: Relations with Britain, Guatemala and the United States

1990 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Payne
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Central American ◽  
Democratic Change ◽  
Electoral Defeat ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Central American Isthmus

Within the international politics of the Caribbean Basin attention is only rarely paid to the position of Belize. This neglect is the more remarkable since Belize epitomizes — more precisely than any other territory of the region — the characteristic geopolitical problem of the Caribbean caught, as it were, uneasily between the United States, Latin America and Europe. Yet, despite being threatened by the Guatemalan claim to sovereignty over its territory, which delayed its independence until 1981, Belize has skillfully taken advantage of its British colonial past to carve out for itself a distinctive geopolitical space in Central America and the Caribbean. This has allowed it not only to remain relatively undisturbed by the conflicts which have riven the other states of the Central American isthmus, but also to display a commitment to democratic change strong enough to sustain the electoral defeat — in December 1984 — of a regime which had held power in the country for more than thirty years, as well as the defeat of its successor — in September 1989 — after just one term in office.

scholarly journals Projected Changes in Temperature and Precipitation Over the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean in CMIP6 GCMs

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Mansour Almazroui ◽  
M. Nazrul Islam ◽  
Fahad Saeed ◽  
Sajjad Saeed ◽  
Muhammad Ismail ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mean Annual Temperature ◽  
Reference Period ◽  
Monsoon Region ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Projected Changes

AbstractThe Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) dataset is used to examine projected changes in temperature and precipitation over the United States (U.S.), Central America and the Caribbean. The changes are computed using an ensemble of 31 models for three future time slices (2021–2040, 2041–2060, and 2080–2099) relative to the reference period (1995–2014) under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs; SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5). The CMIP6 ensemble reproduces the observed annual cycle and distribution of mean annual temperature and precipitation with biases between − 0.93 and 1.27 °C and − 37.90 to 58.45%, respectively, for most of the region. However, modeled precipitation is too large over the western and Midwestern U.S. during winter and spring and over the North American monsoon region in summer, while too small over southern Central America. Temperature is projected to increase over the entire domain under all three SSPs, by as much as 6 °C under SSP5-8.5, and with more pronounced increases in the northern latitudes over the regions that receive snow in the present climate. Annual precipitation projections for the end of the twenty-first century have more uncertainty, as expected, and exhibit a meridional dipole-like pattern, with precipitation increasing by 10–30% over much of the U.S. and decreasing by 10–40% over Central America and the Caribbean, especially over the monsoon region. Seasonally, precipitation over the eastern and central subregions is projected to increase during winter and spring and decrease during summer and autumn. Over the monsoon region and Central America, precipitation is projected to decrease in all seasons except autumn. The analysis was repeated on a subset of 9 models with the best performance in the reference period; however, no significant difference was found, suggesting that model bias is not strongly influencing the projections.

Tricksters in African, African American, and Caribbean Folktales and Cultures

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
New World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Pan African ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Rich

The trickster is one of the most complex and widespread archetypes of Pan-African literatures and cultures, such as those from Africa, the United States, and the Caribbean. It is a folk character who invokes a multiplicity of meanings, including transcendence of boundaries between good and bad, morality and immorality, truth and lie, and many other entities. Dwelling on third, sacred, innocuous, and marginalized spaces, the trickster is a universal figure whose location in crossroads or other unusual spaces epitomizes the forced or voluntary alienation of individuals and communities from around the world. Therefore, the trickster is more than the childlike character who enjoys duping other pranksters and being “naughty.” In Pan-African traditions, the trickster is an animal or human character whose situation and movements symbolize the harsh conditions of millions of people of African descent due to brutal historical forces such as slavery, colonialism, and other oppressions. In the Americas, Europe, and other locations where they were brought, enslaved Africans carried knowledge of the trickster persona from their folktales and cultures, and later blended this tradition with lore and customs of Europeans and Native Americans in the New World. Thus, although it was one of the most brutal human experiences, the transatlantic slave trade led to the formation of hybridity, or cultural mixing, embodied in the rich spoken and written Pan-African narratives in which trickster figures deploy various strategies to resist oppression, assert their humanity, and gain freedom. The works mentioned in this study reflect the historical, social, political, and cultural backgrounds out of which trickster icons of selected Pan-African folktales came. Such works reveal the hybridism and survival strategies that enslaved Africans developed in the United States and the Caribbean by mixing their African traditions with Native American, European, and other customs. Understanding such cultural diversity will enable scholars and students of Pan-African folklore to have the open-mindedness that is necessary to study the vast traditions that influenced such customs. To guide readers, this bibliography gives a comprehensive list of major collections of African, African American, and Caribbean folktales, tale-types, motifs, and scholarly studies of such narratives published since the early 20th century. The bibliography shows that enslaved Africans did not come to the New World as blank slates. Instead, these populations had folklore, knowledge, memories, and practices that helped them to resist oppression and affirm their humanity.

Yellow Fever

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-122
Author(s):  
Michael B. A. Oldstone
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Yellow Fever ◽  
American Indians ◽  
New World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Westward Expansion ◽  
Black African ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

This chapter examines the history of yellow fever, the role it played in shaping slavery in the United States, and its part in the country’s westward expansion. Yellow fever was an endemic disease of West Africa that traveled to the New World and elsewhere aboard trading ships with their cargoes of slaves. The black African peoples, although easily infected, nevertheless withstood the effects in that fewer died from the infection than Caucasians, American Indians, or Asians. Ironically, as smallpox and measles devastated natives along the Caribbean coast and islands, growing numbers of African slaves were brought to replace those plantation laborers. When the value of Africans over natives became apparent, by virtue of the blacks’ resistance to yellow fever, the importation of these Africans increased still further. Because it was so lethal to susceptible humans, yellow fever actually disrupted exploration into the Caribbean. In fact, American expansion became possible only after a team led by Walter Reed arrived in Cuba to combat the disease and prove it was transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

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