How come America didn't start any colonies in Africa during the 19th century like all the cool European powers?

How come America didn't start any colonies in Africa during the 19th century like all the cool European powers?

arguably liberia was one

Because they did reverse-colonialism in their own country.

Because it was more profitable to just expand out west.

Remember, the frontier only closed in 1890, and after that we invaded Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and annexed Hawaii, just to get it out of our system.

America was seen as a backwater that wasn't allowed at the big boys table at the time, which didn't really change till they fought the Spaniards.

America wasn't as stupid as Europe

This. Conquering Africa was never profitable for Europe. It was like a failed prisoner's dilemma, the best thing they got out of any of them was denying them to other Europeans.

I don't know, taking the Philippines was a pretty stupid idea

>Conquering Africa was never profitable for Europe.

They made a fuckton of money and industry out of it.

The main thing most of them got out of it were coaling stations on their way to more profitable colonies.

And captive markets

And access to a massive labour pool (prime reason later on disease mitigation became a thing in the colonies), exotic resources, new places of settlement, more places to tax,spurring curiosity and interest to the great unknown.

Ever hear about manifest destiny, fucktard? How about the Monroe doctrine?

>They made a fuckton of money
No they didn't

Yeah they did.

[citation needed] nigger. Congo Free State aside of course, but it wasn't a colony.

They feared the African warrior.

It was ruled like one.

See

Funny how all those things rarely even made the colonies solvent themselve, never mind returned any kind of profit to Europe.

Profit isn't the only trucking thing that matters. Fuck sake governments engage in shit that raises the quality of living that won't even net a profit because It's worth the money.

There was no reason to, they had a massive amount of land already, and US grand strategy in the 19th century dictated that they fully lock down the western hemisphere before setting their sights elsewhere.

Also, the US was in the crucial period of building up its manufacturing and consumer bases through selective protection of infant industries. Industrial capital was the name of the game, while Europe was transitioning to a period of intense financialization of their wealth. This isn't to say that the U.S. totally refrained from colonial exploits, but setting up colonies just wasn't as important for major U.S. interests as it was for the major European powers.

>Conquering Africa was never profitable for Europe
>They made .a fuckton of money out of it
>No they didn't
>Yes, they did.
>Actually they didn't
>Profit isn't the only thing that matters!
Top kek.

I didn't say hey didn't profit.

No one's even going to take note of my digits??

Excellent digits on sn excellent post.

it was very profitable - manpower, resources, markets, hell the fucking industrial revolution happened because of this abundance of resources, for the first time in history one could just get all the world resources they need, concentrate them all in a building, get dozens of workers in the building and create a series of products for the market

the colonial empires were destroyed by USA and USSR, European powers would never in a million years let them go

France certainly disagreed when WW1 happened and they suddenly had a region they could pull millions of men from to use on the front lines.

America's history of foreign imperialism is surprisingly...I don't know, milquetoast compared to what other great powers were doing at the time. I mean we certainly did plenty of terrible things to native american tribes as we marched across North America, but it's like we were never sure what to DO with people we couldn't just evict and replace.

Maybe it was the influence of a relatively free democracy, or maybe it's just because we got into the game later than anyone else but for whatever reason we just didn't exploit the shit out of our colonies the way say the Netherlands or Belgium did. Now I'm not saying we have a positive colonial legacy here but at the same time, we never wiped out entire islands to get a monopoly on nutmeg, and we didn't chop the hands off workers who couldn't keep their rubber quota. Even our legacy of slavery is relatively mild compared to what happened in the Caribbean.

>the fucking industrial revolution happened because of this abundance of resources

The first Industrial Revolution happened well before Europeans dreamed of penetrating the interior of Africa, and the second was well underway by the time they started.

America was not and has never been a colonial nation.

Hahahahaha

because we don't care about making colonies

arguable for brainlets

Take any instance of bad shit america did pre-1900, and I can point out a european power that did something way worse under the same circumstances.

The fact that Belgium exists is not a defence of American.

Again, I specifically said that we don't have a positive legacy of colonialism, it's just that compared to what europe was doing at the time, we were extremely lenient with the territories we were given. I mean, we actually gave Cuba independence pretty much right away, when really we had every legal right to turn it into our land.

America is blameless.

I don't think you're getting the kind of message I was trying to make with my original post.

I'm just a drive by poster.

I stand by what I've tossed into the thread.

America is quite blameless.

Because they liked to larp as an anti imperialist power

Overall in foreign affairs? Certainly not. In Africa when it comes to colonization? Well...kinda. We never really had any colonies there and after the colonial period we've spent a shitton of money trying to help improve things there, partly because we thought it was the right thing to do but mostly because they'd be sympathetic to us instead of the communists. And to its credit, it did work. Africa is the one place in the world that still seems to universally like America, except for Somalia for obvious reasons. Mainly because when Africans think of America they associate it with foreign aid instead of the world police.

obvious reasons eh? their crapsack country is a shithole because of tribal warlords and islam

america gives that shithole aid, and provides a home to their citizens with reckless abandon

>obvious reasons eh?
No because we killed a couple hundred if not thousands of them in the Battle of Mogadishu and they haven't had enough time to get over that. I mean the Philippinnes used to hate us to because we dismantled their government when taking over from Spain and had to basically fight a war against them to put down a rebellion, but they got over that when the japanese came and did far, FAR worse to the Flips.

Pretty much this.

Also, checked.

Murrican/10

The men were valuable but it wasnt "millions"

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee FUCKING YANKIES GET OUT OF OUR LAND

If you actually examine the political cartoon, it's criticizing the US for not upholding its founding values.

COULD pull, not did.