The Spanish-American War (12 April-13 August 1898) was a colonial conflict fought between the United States and Spain in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The war was caused by yellow journalism in the USA, with publishers such as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst agitating US public opinion towards war with Spain after several war scares; the American people were disgusted by Spanish brutality in suppressing the Cuban uprisings, while sugar companies sought to expand their markets to new colonies.
The battleship USS Maine was sent to the Cuban port city and capital of Havana, ostensibly to protect fleeing Cuban refugees, only to explode in the harbor on 15 February 1898. The US newspapers were quick to blame Spain when, in fact, the explosion had been caused by a coal fire, and the US government issued an ultimatum that demanded that Spain surrender Cuba to the USA. Spain responded with a declaration of war on 12 April 1898, and the USA declared war on Spain. In a ten-week war, US Army expeditionary forces disembarked on Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and in the Philippines in the Pacific and fought alongside local insurgents, with the Americans beating the Philippine freedom fighters to capturing Manila in the Philippines. In Cuba, the Spanish Army was already weak due to a yellow fever outbreak and Cuban guerrilla attacks, and the Americans forced the Spanish stronghold of Santiago de Cuba to surrender after sinking the Spanish fleet in the harbor. On 13 August 1898, Spain decided to pay an indemnity of $20,000,000 (now $575,760,000) to the USA and to cede Puerto Rico, Guam, and Philippines to the United States while granting temporary control of Cuba to the USA. The war was one of only five formally-declared wars by the USA against a sovereign nation, and the war destroyed the Spanish Empire and raised concerns of American imperialism among the European powers. In 1902, Cuba was granted its independence from the USA as a republic, while the Philippines would remain a US protectorate until it was granted independence in 1946. Puerto Rico and Guam are still US territories.
Background[]
By the end of the 19th century the US had become a major naval and trading power in the Caribbean and the Pacific. In 1867 the US purchased Alaska from the Russian government for $7.2 million, confirming its role as a Pacific power. In 1867, it annexed the island of Midway, in the central Pacific, and gained rights to open a naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In 1898 it annexed the entire Hawaiian island group.
By the end of the 19th century the Spanish Empire had shrunk to just Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, the Philippines in East Asia, and Guam and other islands in the western Pacific. Discontent with Spanish rule led to a war for independence, from 1868 to 1878, and a further uprising that began in 1895.
History[]
The Cuban rebellion of 1895 was caused by growing discontent with incompetent Spanish rule and resentment against restrictions placed by Spain on Cuban trade. The revolt, led by Jose Marti and his Cuban Revolutionary Party, began on the east of the island, but by 1896 it had reached the outskirts of Havana in the west. The response of Cuba's governor, General Valeriano Weyler, was brutal. Aiming to isolate the rebels from the rest of the population and to cut off their supplies, he set up a series of fortified towns (reconcentrados), protected by Spanish troops, in which to intern the rural population. Intended as havens, these towns were effectively concentration camps in which, within a year, some 300,000 Cubans died of starvation and disease, an atrocity that caused an outcry in the US, where Cuban emigres were agitating for intervention.
For the Americans, there were many reasons to support military action. Some politicians believed that Cuban independence would increase trade between the two nations nd thought it their duty as democrats to suppport the island's struggle for independence. Others saw it as an opportunity for the US to extend its sphere of influence and to evict a major colonial power from the Caribbean - and to reap new colonies for the US as a result.
Military action became inecitable on 15 February 1898, when the USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor with the loss of 266 meen. The ship had arrived at the end of January, allegedly to offer protection to the 8,000 American citizens in Cuba. A US naval eqnuiry was unable to pin responsibility on anyone in particular, but Spanish culpability was assumed, which gave the Americans the justification for military action that they required. The US Congress called for war against Spain, which began on 21 April.
The Pacific[]
The first battles took place in the Pacific. The US Asiatic Squadron, which lacked a base of its own in the Far East, was ordered to proceed from its anchorage off China to engage the Spanish in the Philippines. Commanded by Commodore George Dewey, the six warships and three support vessels entered Manila Bay on the night of 30 April, oepning fire on the moored Spanish fleet at dawn the next day. Despite concerns about lack of ammunition, and facing attack from shore batteries, the US made swift work of the Spanish, destroying six of their seven warships by midday; the seventh was scuttled by its captain. With the Spanish Navy neutralized, US and Filipino troops overran the Philippines, but collaboration between the two allies ended on 13 August when the US took the Philippine capital, Manila. Determined to keep the port as a base for their fleet, the Americans prevented Filipino troops from entering the city, an event that outraged the Filipinos and led to the Philippine-American War (1899-1913).
In the western Pacific Captain Henry Glass on board the cruiser USS Charleston was ordered to capture the island of Guam. When he arrived on 20 April, he fired a few cannon rounds at Forta Santa Cruz, and a Spanish officer, not knowing that war had been declared, came out to ask for some gunpowder so that he could reutrn the American salute. Captain Glass informed the officer that they were at war, then took him prisoner and sent him back to the island under escort to discuss surrender terms. The next day the 54 Spanish infantry stationed on the island were disarmed and Guam was taken.
The Caribbean[]
In Cuba the US planned to capture the city of Santiago de Cuba, in the far southeast, and to destroy the main Spanish army and fleet stationed there. On 1 July some 15,000 US troops and 4,000 rebel Cuban forces attacked Spanish positions at El Caney and San Juan Hill in the hill soverlooking Santiago. Thte US force included regular infantry and cavalry regiments, African-American regiments (notably the Buffalo Soldiers), and the 1st Volunteer Cavalry, known as the Rough Riders. The latter were recruited, trained, and led by Theodore Roosevelt, who had recently resigned as Assistant Secretary to the Navy in the US government to fight in the war. At El Caney some 500 Spanish troops held up more than 8,000 US troops for nearly 12 hours, preventing them from joining in the main attack on San Juan Hill. That main atttack was difficult, as the heat was intense and the Spanish, secure in their trenches on the hill, were excellent marksmen. The Rough Riders took their first target, the smaller Kettle Hill, during the day, and eventually US infantry managed to cut through the barbed wire surrounding the Spanish positions and take San Juan Hill.
At sea the US Navy and marines secured Guantanamo Bay as a base in early June, and the US fleet sailed on to blockade the main Spanish fleet anchored at Santiago de Cuba. On 3 July, the six ships of the Spanish fleet tried to evade the blockade but were caught and either destroyed or grounded by US firepower. To the east, on Puerto Rico, a squadron of 12 US ships bombarded the capital, San Juan, on 12 May and blockaded its harbor. Approximately 3,300 US troops landed in July and encountered some resistance, but military actions were suspended when peace was agreed on 12 August.
Aftermath[]
The Treaty of Paris that ended the war in December 1898 gave the US control of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, and temporary command of cuba. In August 1898 11,000 US troops arrived in the Philippines to replace the departing Spanish. The ensuing war with Filipino rebels left 1 million Filipino civilians dead. The US won the war in 1902, but resistance continued until 1913.
The end of the war saw Cuba under US military control. The island became independent in 1902, the US gaining a perpetual lease on the naval base at Guantanamo Bay. The new Cuban constitution gave the US the right to supervise Cuban affairs, but the Americans relinquished this in return for a trade deal in 1914.
The year after the war ended, the US gained control of the eastern Samoan islands in the south Pacific. US support for Panama in 1903 secured Panama's independence from Colombia, and the new government gave the US ownership of a thin strip of land across the isthmus on which to build the Panama Canal.