During the Spanish-American War of 1898, Mark Twain was incensed that a war for “liberation” quickly became a naked quest for territorial expansion.
“And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”
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Many intellectuals in Europe regarded America’s foray into imperialism as a natural — even welcome — evolution. Rudyard Kipling famously penned the poem “White Man’s Burden” in 1899, celebrating that the US was taking up the “civilizing mission” alongside Old World empires.
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Twain, however, was incensed by Spain's cession of the Philippines to the US for $20 million. He saw the war and subsequent occupation for what it was: a brutal effort to conquer an alien nation and create an American Empire. He joined the American Anti-Imperialist League.
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“We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . . It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way.”
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Jan 17, 2026 20:16In 1901, Twain wrote “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” a satirical riposte to Kipling’s “Burden.” “There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him... then kills him to get his land.”
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The Anti-Imperialists believed a just republic derives its legitimacy from consent of the governed, an ideal incompatible with the forcible acquisition of foreign lands. They cited the non-interventionism of George Washington’s Farewell Address as a key principle of the US.
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Twain ends the essay writing, “And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one — our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.”
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