History of USA Spanish American War (1898 - 1901) Brief Overview People Timeline Events & Qs
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Brief Overview
The immediate origins of the 1898 Spanish-American War began with the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894. The American tariff, which put restrictions on sugar imports to the United States, severely hurt the economy of Cuba, which was based on producing and selling sugar. In Cuba, then a Spanish colony, angry nationalists known as the insurrectos began a revolt against the ruling Spanish colonial regime. When Spain sent in General "Butcher" Weyler to stabilize the situation in Cuba, he put much of the population in concentration camps. The US, which had many businessmen with investment interests in Cuba, became concerned. The American public was stirred into an anti-Spain frenzy by the yellow journalism of men like Hearst and Pulitzer. Nonetheless, President Grover Cleveland promised he would not go to war.
By the time President McKinley came into office in 1897, the uproar over Cuba was continuing, even though Weyler had left. In 1898, the US dispatched the USS Maine on a "friendly" mission to Cuba. The ship was to wait, ready to rescue US citizens who might be endangered by the conflict in Cuba. On February 15, 1898 the Maine mysteriously blew up. The US blamed a Spanish mine. McKinley gave the OK for war, and by April, both the US and Spain had declared war. In order to assure the world that it was fighting only for the good of Cuba and not for colonial gain, the US passed the Teller Amendment, which promised to make Cuba independent after the war was over.
Once declared, the US fought the war on a number of fronts including Cuba itself. Upon the commencement of hostilities, on the orders of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, Commodore Dewey immediately attacked Manila harbor in the Philippines. On May 1, Dewey destroyed the old, decrepit, and rotting Spanish fleet at Manila, and the US prepared for an invasion of the Philippines. The US also invaded Guam and Puerto Rico, other Spanish island colonies, during the war.
Under the leadership of General William R. Shafter, the US ground effort in Cuba was far from organized. Nonetheless, with heroics from the famous Rough Riders and other units, the war was never in much doubt and the US defeated the Spanish with relatively little difficulty. On December 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the war. The US liberated Cuba, and got Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines as colonies for itself.
After the war, the US made improvements in Cuban infrastructure and educational systems, and prepared to leave. But in 1901, before leaving, the US forced the Cubans to insert the Platt Amendment into their constitution, which gave the US a military base on the island (Guantanamo). Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines all became American protectorates, whose people, as the Insular Cases by the Supreme Court found, did not have full rights as American citizens. Some of the people in these new colonies were understandably upset, since they expected that they would be liberated just as Cuba had. Instead, the US kept the island colonies as coaling stations for its ships. Immediately after being annexed by the US, in January 1899 the Filipinos declared themselves independent, beginning a guerilla war against the US, led by Emilio Aguinaldo. The rebellion lasted over a year, until March of 1901, when the US captured Aguinaldo.
Timeline
1895: Cuban nationalists revolt against Spanish rule
1896: Spanish General Weyler (the "Butcher") comes to Cuba.
1897: Spain recalls Weyler
Early 1898: USS Maine sent to Cuba
February 9, 1898: Hearst publishes Dupuy du Lome's letter insulting McKinley.
February 15, 1898: Sinking of the USS Maine
February 25, 1898: Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt cables Commodore Dewey with plan: attack the Philippines if war with Spain breaks out
April 11, 1898: McKinley approves war with Spain
April 24, 1898: Spain declares war on the US
April 25, 1898: US declares war on Spain
May 1, 1898: Battle of Manila Bay (Philippines)
May, 1898: Passage of the Teller Amendment. July 1, 1898: San Juan Hill taken by "Rough Riders"
July 3, 1898: Battle of Santiago Spain's Caribbean fleet destroyed. July 7, 1898: Hawaii annexed
July 17, 1898: City of Santiago surrenders to General William Shafter
August 12, 1898: Spain signs armistice
August 13, 1898: US troops capture Manila
December 10, 1898: Treaty of Paris signed US annexes Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines.
January 23, 1899: Philippines declares itself an independent republic Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, the self-declared Filipino government fights a guerilla war against the US that lasts longer than the Spanish-American War itself.
February 6, 1899: the Treaty of Paris passes in the Senate
1900: Foraker Act Some self-government allowed in Puerto Rico.
1901: Supreme Court Insular Cases
March 1901: Emilio Auginaldo captured.
1901: Platt Amendment
1902: US withdraws from Cuba
1917: Puerto Ricans given US citizenship
Key People
Emilio Aguinaldo
Partially of Chinese descent, Aguinaldo was the Philippines' revolutionary leader, first against the Spanish and then, after the end of the Spanish- American War, against the Americans.
William Jennings Bryan
Democratic presidential candidate of 1896 and 1900, against McKinley. Bryan, a gifted orator, was famous for his "Cross of Gold" speech advocating Free Silver. Over the course of his career he ran for President, and lost, four times. He also argued the Scopes Monkey Trial against Clarence Darrow, as immortalized in the play Inherit the Wind.
George Dewey
Navy Commodore who commanded the US surprise attack on the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila.
William R. Hearst
Newspaper publisher and leading example of yellow journalism. His New York Journal started a public hysteria for war with Spain by publishing incendiary articles and illustrations by Remington. Hearst once said to Remington, "You provide the pictures and I'll provide the war."
Dupuy du Lome
Spanish minister in Washington, whose letter insulting President McKinley was intercepted and published in Hearst's papers. He resigned after the incident.
John D. Long
Secretary of the Navy under McKinley's administration, beginning in 1896.
Alfred T. Mahan
American naval officer who published The Influence of Sea Power Upon History in 1890. His views, advocating the importance of a strong Navy and a worldwide network of coaling stations to protect trading routes, held great influence on military thought in both the US and Europe around the time of the Spanish-American War (1898).
William McKinley
US President from 1896 to his assassination in 1901. Backed by Mark Hanna and American business interests, McKinley championed high, business-protecting tariffs and opposed Free Silver. Under McKinley, the US engaged in a period of imperialism, epitomized by the Spanish-American War.
Joseph Pulitzer
Competitor against Hearst in circulation war, and practitioner of yellow journalism.
Walter Reed
US Army bacteriologist and pathologist sent to Cuba. He was the first to link yellow fever to mosquito bites, helping to eliminate the disease.
Frederic Remington
Painter and illustrator working for Hearst who went to Cuba during the Spanish-American War. One of Remington's famous works is a painting of the Rough Riders charging up San Juan Hill. His paintings and illustrations are known for their immediate, reporter-like quality.
Theodore Roosevelt
26th President of the United States, elected in 1901 and re-elected in 1905. During the Spanish-American War, he first served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and then quit to join the Rough Riders. Born a weakling, the near- sighted Roosevelt built himself into robust shape by a lifelong program of exercise and vigorous activities. Always seeking to expand American power in international affairs, Roosevelt was a prominent hawk who gave Dewey the order to attack at the Battle of Manila.
William R. Shafter
General who led the US Army ground invasion of Cuba. Survivor of the Civil War, Shafter was so fat and his gout was so bad that he was carried around by his men on a door.
General "Butcher" Weyler
Spanish General sent to Cuba in 1896 to put down the insurrectos' rebellion. Called the "Butcher", Weyler put much of the Cuban population into unsanitary concentration camps. He was recalled to Spain in 1897.
Leonard Wood
Colonel, and commander of the volunteer Rough Riders. Wood remained in Cuba as the governor during the brief US occupation following the war. As governor, Wood oversaw the improvement of sanitation, the building of schools and roads, and the deepening of Havana harbor.
Terms
Anti-Imperialist League
A group including such luminaries as William James and Mark Twain that argued against to combat American imperialism. Disliked the American annexation of Spanish territories.
Coaling Station
Coaling Stations were necessary in the late 19th century so that steamships that burned coal could refuel en route. A worldwide navy (that could protect worldwide trade interests) required worldwide coaling stations. The need for coaling stations was one of the reasons the US annexed several islands during and after the Spanish American War, especially Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines.
Foraker Act
1900 Act providing a civil government for Puerto Rico; a main goal of the act was to prepare Puerto Rico for free trade with the US. It gave most power in Puerto Rico to US-appointed officials.
Insular Cases
A series of Supreme Court cases in 1901, in which the Court ruled that the Constitution and American laws did not all necessarily apply to colonies. Instead, Congress would decide which laws applied where, allowing the US to keep citizenship out of the grasp of the inhabitants of its new territories.
Insurrectos
Cuban Nationalists who fought against Spain's colonial regime in Cuba.
Jingoism
An attitude of wildly enthusiastic, often excessive nationalism. Often, jingoists or jingoes push for war with other countries.
Platt Amendment
1901 amendment to the Cuban constitution by which the US was allowed certain concessions, including the right to indefinitely maintain Guantanamo naval base in Cuba.
Rough Riders
A group of cavalry volunteers in the US Army who fought in the Spanish-American War. Although termed the Rough Riders, most of their horses did not arrive in Cuba, and the Rough Riders actually walked. The group was led by Colonel Leonard Wood, with Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt also leading a contingent. The Rough Riders made a heroic charge up San Juan Hill that cost them heavy casualties.
Teller Amendment
A resolution by Congress in 1898 promising to grant Cuba independence after the war. The Teller Amendment provided the US with justification for its actions while allaying fears that the war was simply an imperialist land grab.
USS Maine
American warship sent to patrol Cuban waters at the beginning of 1898. When the ship mysteriously exploded on February 15, 1898, it gave the US a final reason to go to war, even though the cause of the explosion is still debated today.
Wilson-Gorman Tariff
This tariff passed by Congress in 1894 restricted US sugar imports. The tariff led to an economic downturn in Cuba, and in turn helped to increase the anger of Cuban natives against colonial Spain.
Yellow journalism
The type of sensationalist (sometimes fictitious) journalism practiced by newspapermen such as Hearst and Pulitzer in order to boost circulation.
Events
Battle of Manila
On May 1, 1898, Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet at Manila in a surprise attack in which not a single American was killed. The Spanish ships were old and rotting, and were defeated easily by the newer American steel ships.
San Juan Hill
On July 1, 1898, the Rough Riders, supported by two black regiments, charged this hill. Although the Rough Riders took heavy casualties, the public saw the charge as a success.
Treaty of Paris
Signed on December 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris officially ended the Spanish- American War. According to the Treaty, Cuba went free, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines were ceded to the US, and the US agreed to pay Spain an indemnity of $20 million.
Study Questions
What factors led into the conflict between Spain and the Cuban Nationalists (insurrectos) in 1895?
The Cuban Nationalists moved against Spain partly because they thought the US was likely to aid them. The US was investing increasing amounts of money into Cuban sugar production (50 million dollar by 1895) and conducted a trade with Cuba worth $100 million annually. From the 1860s on, the US had even tried to purchase Cuba from Spain several times. Other causes behind the Cuban revolt in 1895 include a general opposition to a long history of Spanish control and the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894. The tariff, which raised prices on sugar imported from Cuba in order to protect US sugar growers, ended up hurting the Cuban economy significantly. Hard times in Cuba led to public unrest and conflict with the Spanish regime.
How did yellow journalism manipulate public opinion? Why did newspapermen like Hearst engage in such journalism?
The whole point of yellow journalism was to produce exciting, sensational stories, even if the truth had to be stretched or a story had to be made up. These stories would boost sales, something very important in this period, when newspapers and magazines were battling for circulation numbers. In regard to the situation in Cuba in the mid-1890s, yellow journalism sought to exploit the atrocities in Cuba to sell more magazines and newspapers. Spanish behavior was always represented as exaggeratedly bad, and political cartoons depicted "Spain" as a nearly subhuman and brutal monster, while "Cuba" was usually depicted as a pretty white girl being pushed around by the Spanish monster. As soon as conflicts erupted in Spain, the yellow presses knew they had a story. Once US opinions were inflamed over Cuba, Hearst in particular tried to do everything he could to whip the public into such a frenzy that a war would start. Once at war, Hearst knew his papers would have no end of interesting and sensational articles to publish, and would profit from this.
Why did the USS Maine explode?
The explosion of the Maine is still a topic for debate today. At the time, the US claimed a Spanish mine had blown it up, while the Spanish investigation team said it blew up because of internal mechanical problems. At the time, Americans accepted the mine hypothesis, and went to war. However, a 1970s study by the US Navy suggested that an internal boiler room problem may have caused ammunition and weapons magazines to explode. Other recent studies, by the Smithsonian and National Geographic, have suggested other possibilities. To this day, the real reason for the explosion of the Maine remains a mystery.
Why did Congress pass the Teller Amendment?
In order to prove the righteousness of the US cause in the war against Spain, Congress decided to send a message to the European powers, which thought the United States was just making an imperialistic land-grab for Cuba. Congress passed the Teller Amendment, in which the US promised not to annex Cuba, but to liberate it as an independent state. Thus, the US claimed to be fighting the war not for selfish gain, but to liberate an oppressed people and promote justice in the world. As events would show, US behavior in the war did not remain so totally pure and idealistic.
Why was Theodore Roosevelt so eager to have Dewey attack the Spanish fleet in the Philippines, a move that certainly would not help in the liberation of Cuba? Furthermore, why would the cautious McKinley ever approve such a move?
The reason involves Mahan's theories. In order to protect trade and influence throughout the world, Mahan advocated a series of island coaling stations throughout the world. (Since US ships ran on coal at the time, they needed places to stop and refuel) In taking the Philippines from the Spanish, the US hoped to gain a coaling station to help the US Navy patrol in the Far East, keeping Asian markets open to US traders and merchants. Here, with the move against the Philippines, the initial goal of liberating Cuba expressed in the Teller Amendment seemed to be giving way to a war for imperialist expansion.
Discuss America's imperialist episode in 1898, when it took four colonies. Was this an aberration or the beginning of a new trend?
The switch to imperialist behavior and the taking of colonies that happened in 1898 has been a topic of great historical attention. After all, the US has generally claimed to be against colonies, and an advocate of freedom, democracy, and self-government for all. Some historians believe that this imperialist period was a "Great Aberration", a mistake that the US would never repeat, and one that goes against everything the US stands for. Others think that America really continued to have a kind of "informal colonial" influence throughout the twentieth century. By "informal colonialism", they mean that the US has promoted democracy to open markets for its manufactures and sources of raw materials, in the same economic relationship that European powers had with their colonies. Under this view, the colony grabbing of 1898 (Guam, Hawaii, Philippines, Puerto Rico) was only the most obvious episode of American imperialism before it discovered more subtle methods of economic domination, known as "informal imperialism" or "neo-imperialism".
What single factor led to the greatest number of US deaths during the Spanish-American War?
Disease. Although the US defeated the Spanish army handily, disease came close to defeating the US Army. Malaria, typhoid, dysentery, and yellow fever plagued American troops, who were fighting in the tropics for the first time in US history. In all, while the Spanish only killed about 400 American soldiers, around 5,000 US soldiers died from disease. As a result of the Spanish-American War, Walter Reed, a pathologist and biologist working for the US Army, began groundbreaking work into the causes of yellow fever.
What reasons were behind the US annexation of the Philippines under the Treaty of Paris?
The American annexation of the Philippines in order to "Christianize" the Filipinos seems to make little sense, since the Filipinos were almost entirely Catholic, and had been for centuries. Partially, this US desire was based on the American public's ignorance. Many people just assumed that the Filipinos were all "heathens". While plenty of Americans knew the Filipinos were Catholics, zealous American Protestants, who considered Catholicism only barely removed from heathenism, still largely dominated in the US. The decision to annex the Philippines was also justified in terms of an American adoption of the British idea of a "white man's burden," which required that "racially superior" nations such as the United States had a duty to share their wisdom and government with their "little brown and yellow brothers" all over the world. Arguments made for the annexation of Philippines in 1898 represent some of the most racist and paternalistic strains in American thought. But as is usually the case with the United States, business interests also supported annexation of the Philippines. While Wall Street and business insiders like Mark Hanna had originally opposed the war, they all argued for the annexation of the Philippines. The Philippines, they said, had a population of 7 million people, which was a sizeable new market for American manufactured goods. Also, following Mahan's theories, the Philippines would provide an American coaling station and naval base to protect US trade interests and maintain stability throughout Asian waters. With both the public and big business largely behind annexation, McKinley pushed for the acquisition of the Philippines.
Why did William Jennings Bryan (A Democrat) help the Treaty of Paris (pushed by the Republicans) pass the Senate in 1899?
Bryan knew that if the treaty passed, the nation would see the Republicans, the majority party at the time, as responsible for annexation. In the election of 1900, Bryan hoped to run against McKinley on an anti-Imperialist platform, and by passing the treaty, he hoped to associate the Republicans with Imperialism. Bryan expected imperialism to quickly become unpopular, giving the Democrats an issue to criticize the Republicans over. Unfortunately for Bryan, not enough voters were upset about imperialism by 1900 to aid his cause: he still lost to McKinley. Bryan also suggested that the sooner the US annexed the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, the sooner the US could prepare them for independence.
Why did the Filipinos revolt against American rule? What role did Emilio Aguinaldo play?
During the Spanish-American War, the Filipinos had fought with the Americans against the Spanish, thinking that the Americans were there to liberate them, just as the Americans were liberating Cuba. When they learned that the Americans were not going home, they felt betrayed. On Jan 23, 1899, the Filipinos proclaimed an independent republic and elected long-time nationalist Emilio Aguinaldo president. The US sent in reinforcements to put down this "rogue" government. Fighting against the Filipino nationalists, who were using guerilla warfare, lasted for about three years. Ironically, the war against Aguinaldo's guerilla fighters was much more difficult and bloody for the US than the relatively easy Spanish-American War. On March 23, 1901, the US finally put down the Filipino revolt by capturing Aguinaldo. After being forced to take an oath and accepting a pension from the US government, Aguinaldo retired, and never led further revolutions.
