The 1890s were trying times for the United States. Labor disputes, race conflict, and economic depression were realities that formed the backdrop of an event that would help define this country as an international power in the early twentieth century: the Spanish-American War.
This war, declared in 1898 first by Spain and then by the U.S., had its source with events in Cuba. Spain had colonized that country since the early sixteenth century, and it held in the Spanish mind a special place as God's New World gift for driving the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Two major conflicts in the middle and late nineteenth century threatened Spanish sovereignty, however. The latter, beginning in 1895, involved a three-pronged invasion by Cuban rebels and was intended to deliver a decisive blow to Spanish control there. While only one of the rebel forces actually landed on the island, however, the rebel leader Jose Marti decided to pursue the insurrection anyway. The result was a protracted conflict in which neither side gained ground.
With no quick victory in sight, both sides took to indirect warfare to weaken the other side. Rebel leaders like Calixto Garcia burned sugar cane fields to reduce the profit Spain could receive from its trade there, while the Spanish General Valeriano Weyler forced Cuban farmers and peasants into concentration camps to remove local support for the rebels, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands from disease and starvation.
In the meantime, a war of another kind was taking place in the United States. Two newspaper publishers, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, were vying for U.S. readership with accounts of Cuban events. Playing to U.S. sympathies, their newspapers focused on Spanish atrocities, which helped to stoke an already-present anger toward Spain for its treatment of the Cubans.
That anger grew more intense with two events in early 1898. The first involved the discovery of a private letter written by a Spanish minister to the United States, Enrique Dupuy de Lome. In this letter addressed to Spanish Foreign Minister Don Jose Canelejas, de Lome criticized President McKinley as "weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd besides being a would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party." The letter was published in Hearst's New York Journal, and although many others in the United States shared de Lome's sentiments, U.S. citizens balked that a member of the Spanish foreign ministry had insulted their president. Still, the letter did not have the political impact of another event just days later, an event that thrust the United States ever closer to war: the sinking of the USS Maine.
The Maine had been sent to Havana to protect U.S. property and citizens after a riot broke out there in response to local media criticism of General Weyler. While in harbor, however, an explosion detonated the ammunition in the front hull of the ship, sinking the vessel and killing 266 U.S. sailors. While Spanish and American reports differed over whether the initial explosion occurred outside or inside the vessel, many in the United States concluded that-- at the least-- it was Spain's responsibility to protect the vessel, and favored war.
In late April, 1898, they received it. Naval Commodore Dewey was the first to strike, destroying a Spanish fleet in the Philippines, while later, ground forces-- many of whom were local units of the National Guard-- invaded from Tampa, Florida, leading to the eventual forfeiture of Santiago by the Spanish and to U.S. control of the island (2).
While the United States had promised to grant Cuba its independence, however, it had not done so for Spain's other colonies, which the United States now controlled. Foremost among these was the Philippines, which promised military and economic rewards with both a naval base in East Asia and a valuable position for trade with China.
While there was intense debate over the U.S. decision to annex the Philippines, that debate ended with President McKinley's support of annexation. The result would be a new war, the Philippine-American War, in which Filipinos who had rebelled against Spanish rule now turned against their American colonizers. Although not as well-known as the Spanish-American War, it was much more costly in American lives. Equally disturbing was events that took place during the war, as U.S. soldiers treated Filipino civilians and prisoners of war with increasing brutality, created concentration camps for some island locales, burned villages, and executed prisoners of war. In 1901, William Howard Taft took civilian control of the country and groomed it for independence, which it gained later in 1946.
The Spanish-American War revealed to the United States its military weakness. The effort to invade Cuba proved inefficient and disorganized, with local National Guard units directed by local leaders. As a result of its failures, the federal government took control of this branch of the military, and also increased the size of the army fourfold, to 100,000. The United States had thus become a world power, not alone for its greater military strength, but also for its imperial ambitions (3).
Much of this information comes from Trask, David F. The War with Spain in 1898. New York: The Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster, 1981.
2. Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People, Second Edition. New York: 1997, p. 567.
3. Brinkley, p. 580.
This war, declared in 1898 first by Spain and then by the U.S., had its source with events in Cuba. Spain had colonized that country since the early sixteenth century, and it held in the Spanish mind a special place as God's New World gift for driving the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Two major conflicts in the middle and late nineteenth century threatened Spanish sovereignty, however. The latter, beginning in 1895, involved a three-pronged invasion by Cuban rebels and was intended to deliver a decisive blow to Spanish control there. While only one of the rebel forces actually landed on the island, however, the rebel leader Jose Marti decided to pursue the insurrection anyway. The result was a protracted conflict in which neither side gained ground.
With no quick victory in sight, both sides took to indirect warfare to weaken the other side. Rebel leaders like Calixto Garcia burned sugar cane fields to reduce the profit Spain could receive from its trade there, while the Spanish General Valeriano Weyler forced Cuban farmers and peasants into concentration camps to remove local support for the rebels, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands from disease and starvation.
In the meantime, a war of another kind was taking place in the United States. Two newspaper publishers, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, were vying for U.S. readership with accounts of Cuban events. Playing to U.S. sympathies, their newspapers focused on Spanish atrocities, which helped to stoke an already-present anger toward Spain for its treatment of the Cubans.
That anger grew more intense with two events in early 1898. The first involved the discovery of a private letter written by a Spanish minister to the United States, Enrique Dupuy de Lome. In this letter addressed to Spanish Foreign Minister Don Jose Canelejas, de Lome criticized President McKinley as "weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd besides being a would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party." The letter was published in Hearst's New York Journal, and although many others in the United States shared de Lome's sentiments, U.S. citizens balked that a member of the Spanish foreign ministry had insulted their president. Still, the letter did not have the political impact of another event just days later, an event that thrust the United States ever closer to war: the sinking of the USS Maine.
The Maine had been sent to Havana to protect U.S. property and citizens after a riot broke out there in response to local media criticism of General Weyler. While in harbor, however, an explosion detonated the ammunition in the front hull of the ship, sinking the vessel and killing 266 U.S. sailors. While Spanish and American reports differed over whether the initial explosion occurred outside or inside the vessel, many in the United States concluded that-- at the least-- it was Spain's responsibility to protect the vessel, and favored war.
In late April, 1898, they received it. Naval Commodore Dewey was the first to strike, destroying a Spanish fleet in the Philippines, while later, ground forces-- many of whom were local units of the National Guard-- invaded from Tampa, Florida, leading to the eventual forfeiture of Santiago by the Spanish and to U.S. control of the island (2).
While the United States had promised to grant Cuba its independence, however, it had not done so for Spain's other colonies, which the United States now controlled. Foremost among these was the Philippines, which promised military and economic rewards with both a naval base in East Asia and a valuable position for trade with China.
While there was intense debate over the U.S. decision to annex the Philippines, that debate ended with President McKinley's support of annexation. The result would be a new war, the Philippine-American War, in which Filipinos who had rebelled against Spanish rule now turned against their American colonizers. Although not as well-known as the Spanish-American War, it was much more costly in American lives. Equally disturbing was events that took place during the war, as U.S. soldiers treated Filipino civilians and prisoners of war with increasing brutality, created concentration camps for some island locales, burned villages, and executed prisoners of war. In 1901, William Howard Taft took civilian control of the country and groomed it for independence, which it gained later in 1946.
The Spanish-American War revealed to the United States its military weakness. The effort to invade Cuba proved inefficient and disorganized, with local National Guard units directed by local leaders. As a result of its failures, the federal government took control of this branch of the military, and also increased the size of the army fourfold, to 100,000. The United States had thus become a world power, not alone for its greater military strength, but also for its imperial ambitions (3).
Much of this information comes from Trask, David F. The War with Spain in 1898. New York: The Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster, 1981.
2. Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People, Second Edition. New York: 1997, p. 567.
3. Brinkley, p. 580.
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