US overseas bases predated the Spanish-American War by nearly a century

Evidence

When most people think about the expansion of the United States beyond North America—and the bases that went with that expansion—they generally look to 1898’s Spanish-American War. Again, however, expansion beyond the continent and the roots of our base nation go back much farther. During 1798’s Quasi-War with France, for instance, a hundred years before the Spanish-American conflict, U.S. Navy frigates operated from ports on several Caribbean islands. The Barbary Wars of 1801–5 and 1815 likewise saw U.S. Marines capture and temporarily occupy the fortress and port of Derna (marking the first U.S. occupation of Middle Eastern lands). Through the mid-nineteenth century, the U.S. Navy used temporary bases to support military operations around the globe, in Taiwan, Uruguay, Japan, Holland, Mexico, Ecuador, China, Panama, and Korea. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 62

Categorization

• XREF: Overturns the lay assumption that 1898 marks the start of US empire — connects to the reader’s framing about base nation history in this same book.
• CANDY: Nice conversation fact: US Marines first occupied Middle Eastern lands (Derna) in 1805, a century before 1898-era assumptions.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 62