This cartoon appeared in the January 25, 1899, issue of Puck, a leading American humor magazine. It was published in support of American expansionism, which seemed to be cresting in the late 1890s. The United States had already annexed Texas, acquired California and the American Southwest as a result of war with Mexico, and purchased Alaska from Russia. Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii had come under U.S. hegemony in the 1890s as the nation was continuing to achieve its “Manifest Destiny” by expanding into the Pacific and the Caribbean.