Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire, 1901-1907

This dissertation seeks to be the most systematic and comprehensive study yet undertaken of Theodore Roosevelt's diplomacy towards Great Britain and of the place of the British Empire in Roosevelt's foreign policy thinking. It looks closely at Roosevelt's views of and responses to British positions and actions during the many important diplomatic episodes in which the United States and England were involved as primary or secondary players. These episodes include the Anglo-German attack on Venezuela, the Alaskan boundary dispute, the Russo-Japanese war, the Moroccan crisis, and the Newfoundland fisheries trouble. Particularly careful attention is given to the previously untold story of the Jamaica incident (or "Swettenham incident") of January 1907 and its intriguing diplomatic aftermath. This thesis also investigates how Roosevelt's perspectives on the Anglo-American rapprochement evolved as his presidency unfolded. And it explores Roosevelt's outlook on the British Empire's contributions to the maintenance of international peace, and to the progress of "civilization."; The dissertation confirms, by developing in greater depth, the prevailing view that Theodore Roosevelt successfully promoted--in the face of a number of difficult challenges--an even closer Anglo-American tie. The thesis argues that Roosevelt, although an American nationalist, saw the British Empire and the British navy as unthreatening partners in America's quest for a stable international order in which its vital interests would be upheld. This perspective contrasted sharply with Roosevelt's much warier feelings about Germany, Japan, and Russia. Moreover, Britain's empire, like America's, was, in Roosevelt's eyes, largely ruled in an enlightened manner, and was contributing mightily to the advance of civilization. The resolution in 1903 of the Alaskan boundary quarrel eliminated the last truly dangerous source of Anglo-American discord. By 1906 the bond between the two English-speaking powers was extremely tight. The Jamaica affair, due to its peculiarly sensitive nature, provided a uniquely revealing test of the solidity of the friendship as of 1907. The Jamaican diplomacy both of Roosevelt and of the British government, especially considering the complications that arose, demonstrated the strength and durability of the Anglo-American rapprochement in the final years of Roosevelt's presidency.