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The Spanish-American War

April 19, 1898-

December 10, 1898

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The Beginnings of War

• Between 1717 and 1867, Cuba saw several uprisings, however Spain was able to quell the revolts

• October 10, 1868 began the Cuban Ten Years’ War. Over 40,000 rebelled against Spanish rule

• Treaty of Zanjon ended the revolt in 1878• Due to oppressive Spanish government and falling

economy, in February 1895, war erupts again in Cuba

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Jose Marti

• Key role in the 1895 Cuban rebellion

• Marti was born in Cuba

• Organized émigré groups in US and raised money

for the rebellion

• He united various rebel factions into one front

• The Apostle of Cuba’s freedom was killed in

battle

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Reconcentrado

• Spanish General Velariano Weyler, a.k.a.. “The Butcher” a named earned during the Ten Years’ War, issues the reconcentrado order

• All rural Cubans were to relocate to the cities or concentration camps

• Any Cuban who refused was immediately executed

• Tens of thousands died in these “camps”

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Yellow Journalism

• 1890’s introduced the first colored comics

• “The Yellow Kid” comic often smeared

• People started calling all papers “the yellow press”

• The revolt in Cuba against the Spanish colonial government had been covered for several months by US newspapers

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THE YELLOW KID• With his jug ears, two

buck teeth, beady blue eyes, and yellow nightdress, the Yellow Kid hardly looks like an icon for comic and commercial success, but that’s exactly what he became in late nineteenth-century America. He was created by middle-class artist R.F. Outcault.

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THE YELLOW KID• The Kid pointed out

serious problems with tenement life and class divisions in its first installments, but devolved into fantasy slapstick that left the American urban environment.

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Yellow Journalism

• Newspapers sent hundreds of reporters, artists, and photographers to cover the war

• Wild stories of “death camps”, “Spanish cannibalism”, “inhuman torture”, and “Amazon warriors fight for rebels” were headliners

• Stephen Crane and Frederick Remington however found little to report

• “There is no war. Request to be recalled”, wrote Remmington to his boss Randolph Hearst.

• Hearst’s reply was, “Please remain. You furnish pictures, I’ll furnish the war.”

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Yellow Journalism

• Randolph Hearst launches massive campaign on horrors of Spanish rule and of the imprisonment of Evangelina Cisneros

• War correspondent Karl Decker aids in her escape

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Enrique Dupuy de Lome

• Spanish Minister in Washington

• Lome wrote a letter which was intercepted and published in the American press

• Lome wrote “McKinley was weak and a bidder for admiration of the crowd…”

• This along with other insults to the US President inflamed the American public, who demanded retribution

• It was believed however, a diplomatic solution could have been reached in Cuba if not for….

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The Sinking of the USS Maine

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“Remember the Maine-To Hell With Spain”

• The battleship USS Maine was moored in Havana’s harbor-Feb. 15, 1898 for a courtesy call

• Just past 9pm, after taps, the Maine explodes

• Spanish crew members from Alfonso XII aid in rescuing US sailors

• 262 US seamen die from the explosion

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Victims of USS Maine sinking are transported through the City of Havana

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Road to War

• McKinley attempted a settlement with Spain over the Maine incident and Cuban War

• April 11, 1898, US President McKinley delivered his War Message to the US Congress

• April 25, 1898, Congress declared a State of War between Spain and the US

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Pacific Theater• US Fleet, under command of Commodore George

Dewey, was visiting Hong Kong when war was declared

• Little time was wasted in US Fleet preparation for war against the Spanish Navy in the Philippine Islands since Dewey had received orders to prepare for war against Spain from Assistant Naval Secretary Teddy Roosevelt in January of 1898

• May 1, 1898, the US Fleet located the Spanish Fleet in the shallows of Manila Bay

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Pacific Theater

• “You may fire when ready, Gridley”

• US Fleet casualties: 1 dead 8

wounded

• The Spanish Fleet was sunk

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Faces Of War

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The Buffalo Soldiers

• The Army 9th Calvary, an African American regiment, fought side by side with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in capturing Kettle Hill just east of Santiago, Cuba.

• The 10th Calvary, another African American regiment fought and stormed San Juan Hill before Roosevelt arrived

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Faces Of War

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Theodore Roosevelt • The First United States

Volunteer Cavalry Regiment was organized by Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood, M.D.

• TR, who was Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the McKinley administration, and a leading advocate of the liberation of Cuba, the Spanish colony then fighting for its independence, asked the Department of War permission to raise a regiment after Spain declared war on the United States on April 24, 1898.

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The Rough Riders• In 1898 TR raised a

volunteer regiment which included cowboys and schoolboy (typically college athletes) as those who knew him from various times in his life joined to fight the Spanish in Cuba.

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The Rough Riders• Because he lacked military experience, Roosevelt

suggested that Leonard Wood be given command of the volunteer cavalry regiment; and accordingly Wood became colonel, and TR was made lieutenant colonel, of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, soon popularly known as the "Rough Riders.".

• The regiment, consisting of over 1,250 men, from all over the United States was mainly composed of cowboys, Indians, and other Wild West types, and Ivy League athletes and aristocratic sportsmen from the East. What did these two very different groups have in common ?

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The Rough Riders• They could ride and shoot and were in shape, and

thus could be ready for war with little training. The regiment was assembled at San Antonio, Texas in May, and shipped out to Cuba from Tampa, Florida-minus the horses-on June 14, 1898.

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Theodore Roosevelt• The Rough Riders landed at Daiquiri, Cuba on

June 22, and saw their first action in the Battle of Las Guasimas on June 24. The Rough Riders were part of the large American force that assembled for the assault on the Spanish fortifications protecting the city of Santiago. On the night of June 30, the eve of the big battle, Colonel Leonard Wood was promoted in the field to Brigadier General and Theodore Roosevelt was made Colonel of the Rough Riders.

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Theodore Roosevelt• On July 1, 1898 TR on horseback led the Rough

Riders and elements of the Ninth and Tenth Regiments of regulars, African-American "buffalo soldiers," and other units up Kettle Hill. After that hill was captured, TR, now on foot, led a second charge up the San Juan Heights. .This was what TR called his "crowded hour," his great moment.

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A Big Turkey Shoot

• The Americans blockade the harbor of Santiago,

Cuba

• The Spanish naval commander is ordered to attack

the US blockade of ships that are four times larger

than the attacking Spanish fleet

• July 3, 1898 the Spanish attack and lose all 7 of

their warships along with 350 KIA and 160 WIA

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The Real Killer

• 986 American soldiers died in actual combat

• Over 5,000 soldiers died from disease

• Yellow Fever mortality rate was known to have reached 85%

• US 24th Infantry, an African-American regiment had 1/3 of its 460 men die from yellow fever or malaria in less than 40 days.

• Tropical diseases killed more men than bullets on both sides of the war.

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Peace and Results

• August 12, 1898-Peace Protocols are signed ending hostilities in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines

• December 10, 1898 in Paris, France- the Treaty of Peace is signed between the US and Spain

• Spain renounced all claims to Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the US, gave up its possessions in the West Indies and sold the Philippine Islands for 20 million to the US.

• US begins the Philippine-US War

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A New World Power

• The US merges as a new world power

• US imperialism extends into the Caribbean

and Pacific waters

• Platt Amendment gave US the right to

intercede in Cuban affairs

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PLATT AMENDMENT• The road to Cuban self-determination was

prepared under United States guidance. In 1900 a new electoral law was passed that established a limited franchise for Cubans to elect officials at the municipal level. A constituent assembly convened and drafted a constitution that provided for universal suffrage, a directly elected president, a bicameral legislature, and the separation of church and state. The United States conditioned its approval of the constitution on the acceptance of a series of clauses that would preserve its upper hand in future dealings with "independent" Cuba.

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PLATT AMENDMENT

• These clauses, which were to be appended to the draft of the constitution, were prepared by United States secretary of war Elihu Root and attached to the arms appropriation bill of 1901; they became known as the Platt Amendment. It provided that Cuba should not sign any treaties that could impair its sovereignty or contract any debts that could not be repaid by normal revenues. In addition, Cuba had to accept the legitimacy of all acts of the military government, permit the United States to purchase or lease lands for coaling and naval stations, and give the United states special privileges to intervene at any time to preserve Cuban independence or to support a government capable of protecting life, property, and individual liberties.

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PLATT AMENDMENT

• The Platt Amendment represented a permanent restriction upon Cuban self-determination. Cuba's constituent assembly modified the terms of the amendment and presented it to the United States only to be turned down. The United States-imposed amendment was a tremendous humiliation to all Cubans, whose political life would be plagued by continual debates over the issue until its repeal in 1934.

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PLATT AMENDMENT

• On June 12, 1901, Cuba ratified the amendment as a permanent addendum to the Cuban constitution of 1901 and the only alternative to permanent military occupation by the United States. Nevertheless, the United States acquired rights in perpetuity to lease a naval coaling station at Guantanamo Bay into the 1980s, under the terms of the May 1903 Treaty of Relations (also known as the Permanent Reciprocity Treaty of 1903) and the Lease of Agreement of July 1903.

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•1868-1878: Ten Years' War in Cuba •1893: Turner's Thesis •1895: Cuban War for Independence •February, 1896: Reconcentration Policy •August 1896: Revolt in the Philippines •March 4, 1897: President McKinley Inaugurated •April 16, 1897: T. Roosevelt Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy •December, 1897: McKinley Asks Congress for Aid to Cuba •February 9, 1898: Dupuy de Lôme Letter Scandal •February 16 1898: Battleship U.S.S. Maine Explodes •March 17, 1898: Senator Proctor Exposes Spain's Brutality in Cuba •April 25, 1898: Congress Declares War •May 1, 1898: Commodore Dewey's Victory in the Philippines •May 15, 1898: Theodore Roosevelt resigns as Ass. Sec. of the Navy •June 22, 1898: U.S. troops land in Cuba

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•July 1, 1898: Victory in San Juan Heights •July 17, 1898: Spanish surrender Santiago •August 12, 1898: Spain signs Peace Protocol •December 10, 1898: Treaty of Paris signed •January 1899: Senate Debate over Ratification of the Treaty of Paris •February 6, 1899: Treaty of Paris ratified •March 4, 1901: •McKinley inaugurated for 2nd term •Roosevelt becomes Vice-President•March 23, 1901: Aguinaldo captured by U.S. troops •September, 1901: President McKinley assassinated •July 4, 1902: Philippine War declared over

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Works Used

• Buffalo Soldiers at San Juan Hill • http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/spanam/BSSJH/Shbrt-BSSJH.htm

• Chronology

• http://loweb.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/chronology.html

• Emergence to World Power, 1898-1902 http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/AMH/AMH-15.htm

• History of the Conflict http://www.uidaho.edu/~melle922/History.html

• The Spanish-American War http://www.simplenet.com/imperialism/gift.html

• Troop B, In the Porto Rico Campaign http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/spanam/b2cav.htm