This is a work in progress dedicated to better understanding a crucial period in United States history.
Background
The virtual annihilation of indigenous peoples within the continental United States by the early 1900's allowed national attention to turn outward. Interest in developing markets in China and plans for a canal through Central America set the stage for a new level of expansionist strategizing. The Caribbean was a region with a strong economic relationship to the U.S., and had long been regarded by many as a natural extension of our republic. By the late 1890's American citizens owned about 50 million dollars' worth of Cuban property, primarily in the sugar, tobacco, and iron industries.
Under Spanish rule in Cuba
had become progressively harsh and revolution broke out in 1895. President
William 
McKinley
was under tremendous public pressure to defend U.S. interests on the island.
"The media", at this point in history represented by the newspaper chains
of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, had a field day stirring
up outrage against the Spanish colonial government's many atrocities.
As rebel forces gained popular support, the military resorted to moving
entire villages into "reconcentration" sites and erecting massive
cleared and fenced demilitarized zones.
Two
events in early 1898 helped justify U.S. involvement, the publication
of a stolen private letter from Señor Dupuy de Lome (the Spanish Minister
to the United States) to a friend in Havana characterizing McKinley as
"a weakling...a bidder for the admiration of the crowd", and the sinking
of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, with a loss of 260
men. The Maine was there on a "goodwill visit", and although eventually
a board of inquiry by American naval officers determined the cause to
be a submarine mine, no persons or party were officially blamed for the
incident. However, popular opinion was clearly building against Spain,
and war frenzy was breaking out.
The
War
On April 19 Congress passed a
joint resolution proclaiming Cuba "free and independent", and when signed
by McKinley the next day amounted to a declaration of war.
The first military action
of the war was the battle for Manila in the Philippines. At the eve of
the war, a squadron of six vessels under the command of Commodore
George Dewey were in Hong Kong, and they immediately departed for the
Spanish possession of the Philippines. The Spanish fleet and the batteries
surrounding Manila were destroyed May 1 without a single U.S. casualty.
However, the conquest of Manila itself became as much a political as a
military one; the U.S. did not want the Filipinos to gain control, and
was negotiating a separate surrender with the Spanish.
Meanwhile,
the U.S. braced for war in the Caribbean. Despite the gradual buildup
of hostilities, the U.S. armed forces were ill-equipped and untrained
for war, especially one involving highly coordinated land-sea operations.
It was enormously fortuitous for the U.S. that the Spanish forces were
even less prepared. The Spanish fleet, after successfully crossing the
Atlantic, managed to trap itself in Santiago Bay, and was destroyed by
the U.S. navy a few days before U.S. ground troops captured Santiago and
they tried to flee the blockaded harbor. On July 17 the Spanish army surrendered.
For the following two weeks 3,000 U.S. troops moved on to Puerto Rico,
encountering little resistance.
Back in the Philippines, 11,000
ground troops were sent in, and an uneasy alliance between
insurgent Filipino and U.S. forces led to Spanish surrender August 14.
Although the Filipinos initially appreciated the U.S. role in helping
evict their Spanish rulers, tensions mounted as it became clear that our
interest there had less to do with protecting democracy than it did with
territorial expansion. Even before the peace treaty was signed, U.S. troops
fired on a group of Filipinos and started the Philippine-American War,
a vicious and ugly chapter in U.S. history that lasted until 1914. Openly
racist views of the Filipinos underscored public debate and policy. The
actual death toll will never be known, but estimates of the number of
civilians that perished from famine, disease, and other war-related causes
range from 200,000 to 600,000. In March 1906 an estimated 600 Muslim Filipinos
- men, women, and children - were massacred over a four-day period under
troops commanded by General Leonard Wood, who later became the Philippine
governor general.
This war had started out as
a very popular campaign, but by this time the shine had worn off and some
brave citizens began to raise their voices in protest. Among them was
the great American author Mark Twain. He pointed out the enormous contradictions
between our "benevolent" foreign policy and its brutal consequences.
As our involvement became
progressively more difficult to justify, and eventually came to be defended
on the grounds that the U.S. could not retire from it without suffering
"dishonor", Twain advocated the position that "An inglorious
peace is better than a dishonorable war."
The war resulted in other collateral imperial conquests as well. One was the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands July 7, 1898. Although U.S. interests had long coveted formal control of the islands, it was not until the government declared Hawai'i necessary as a navy base that it was formally annexed. It was also during the December 12, 1898 peace treaty signing that the U.S. added Guam to the list of controlled territories.
Aftermath
In the end, U.S. goals were overwhelmingly achieved. Cuba's struggle for independence had been hijacked to become the "Spanish-American War." The Caribbean was "secured", allowing for construction of the Panama canal. In Asia, shipping routes and military facilities were established. The U.S. finally became an international player. It was characteristic of the U.S. role in the conflict that the efforts of Cuban patriots before and during the war were belittled. Cuban forces were prohibited from attending their own surrender ceremonies, and Cuban representatives were not invited to the peace treaty signing in Paris. The army of occupation demobilized the mostly black Cuban army but appointed Spanish officers to security positions. By 1902, the Cubans accepted the Platt Amendment (which, among other things, gave the U.S. the unconditional right to intervene in Cuba's internal affairs and perpetual rights to the coaling station at Guantanamo Bay) as the only alternative to remaining under direct U.S. military rule. A cycle of dependence on U.S. approval had begun, only to be eventually broken with the revolution against Batista in 1959.On the domestic front, Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt, enjoying a rush of popularity from his exploits as a volunteer officer in the Rough Rider cavalry attacks on Kettle Hill near Santiago, became vice-president with McKinley's re-election in 1900. On September 5, 1901 he became president after McKinley was assassinated.
Notes regarding the images
Under General Valeriano
Weyeler, the Spanish adopted a novel military tactic to deal with attacks
by the insurgent Cuban forces - they partitioned up the island with barbed
wire fences and blockhouses, and they impounded suspected sympathetic
civilians in "reconcentration" camps. They perished miserably by the thousands.
Sound familiar? U.S. troops soon adopted this tactic while occupying the
Philippines. The British later did this during the Boer War in South Africa,
and United States used it in Viet Nam, calling them "strategic hamlets".
(artist not credited, from Cuba's Great Struggle for Freedom)
Major-General Joseph Wheeler, Confederate war hero and
a commander in the Cuba campaign (photo by A. Dupont, from Our Islands
and Their People)
United States troops leaving San Francisco for Manila (by
Dodge, from Cuba's Great Struggle for Freedom)
The army of occupation in Havana - "Showing a detachment
of the Tenth United States Infantry. This regiment is noted for the height
of its men, the average being six feet". (photographer not credited, from
Our Islands and Their People)
The observant viewer will note that some of these graphics are illustrations and some are photographs. This war occurred during a fascinating period of technological change during which photographs could first be easily duplicated by offset reproduction. For an excellent account of this change and its consequences for journalism during the preceding national event (and with many of the same players, including Frederic Remington), see "Pullman Strike Pictures", by Larry Peterson, in Labor's Heritage, Spring 1997.
References and Resources
- The U.S-Cuba Conflict-
My Sling is that of David; published by Editora Politica, Havana,
Cuba, 1994
-
Our
Islands and Their People, Volume 1 (Cuba, Puerto Rico), Volume 2 (Philippines);
by José de Olivares, N.D. Thompson Publishing Co., 1899 - American Military History 1607-1953 (ROTCM 145-20); published by the Department of the Army, 1956
Cuba's Great Struggle for Freedom, by Señor Gonzalo de Quesada,
Charge d'Affairs of the republic of Cuba at Washington DC, and Henry
Davenport Northrop, author, 1898 - A New American History, by W.E. Woodward, Garden City Publishing, NY, 1934.
- Cuba, Lonely Planet, 1997 [ISBN 0864424035]
- Cuba Handbook, by Christopher P. Baker, Moon Travel Handbooks, 1998 [ISBN1566910951]
- "Black'n White Filipinos
in American Popular Media 1896-1907," exhibit
at PUSOD, Berkeley, http://www.bwf.org/pusod/ - "Sitting in Darkness:
An Unheeded Message About U.S. Militarism",
by Jim Zwick, 1995, http://www.boondocksnet.com/ - White Ships and Blue Angels: The Case for Converting Fleet Week http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~lcush/PN01.htm
