The Spanish–American War in two minutes
- Cubans had fought Spain since 1895, newspapers publicized Spain's reconcentration camps, and on February 15, 1898 the battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor, killing more than 260 Americans.
- After the Teller Amendment pledged not to annex Cuba, Congress declared war on April 25, 1898; Dewey destroyed Spain's fleet at Manila Bay on May 1, and fighting ended in August.
- Under the 1898 Treaty of Paris, Spain gave up Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and, for $20 million, the Philippines; the Senate ratified it in 1899 with one vote to spare.
- Emilio Aguinaldo's Filipino republic resisted American rule in the Philippine–American War (1899–1902), which killed more than 4,200 Americans, more than 20,000 Filipino combatants and far more civilians.
- The Foraker Act (1900) gave Puerto Rico an appointed governor, the Insular Cases (1901) limited constitutional rights in the new territories, and the Platt Amendment (1901) allowed intervention in Cuba.
- John Hay's Open Door notes (1899–1900) sought equal access to China's trade, and Theodore Roosevelt's Panama Canal treaty (1903) and Roosevelt Corollary (1904) expanded American control in the Caribbean.
- On the exam: Topic 7.3 tests sourcing and causation, often through a document or cartoon about the Philippines; link it to Topic 7.2 and to later intervention in Latin America.
Topic 7.3 key terms
- Reconcentration
Spain’s 1896 policy of forcing Cuban country people into fortified towns to cut off the rebels. Hunger and disease in the camps killed at least 100,000 by historians’ estimates, and American newspapers made the camps a cause.
- Yellow journalism
Sensational, often exaggerated news written to sell papers. In the 1890s Pulitzer’s World and Hearst’s Journal used Cuba’s war to win readers.
- de Lôme letter
A private letter from Spain’s U.S. minister that insulted President McKinley. Cuban sympathizers stole it, the Journal printed it on February 9, 1898, and it inflamed American opinion against Spain.
- Teller Amendment
Colorado Senator Henry Teller’s amendment to the April 1898 war resolution. The United States disclaimed any intention to annex Cuba and promised to leave its people in control once the fighting was over.
- Emilio Aguinaldo
Leader of the Philippine revolution against Spain. Exiled in 1897, he came home on an American ship in May 1898 and proclaimed independence on June 12.
- Rough Riders
The 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, raised in 1898 by Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt from cowboys, ranchers and college athletes. It fought dismounted at Kettle Hill.
- Buffalo Soldiers
Black regulars of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry, regiments formed after the Civil War and led by white officers.
- Annexation by joint resolution (Newlands Resolution, 1898)
A resolution passed by simple majorities of both houses instead of a treaty needing two-thirds of the Senate. Hawaiʻi was annexed this way: House 209–91 on June 15, Senate 42–21 on July 6, signed July 7, 1898.
- Imperialists (1898–1899)
Americans who wanted to keep the Philippines. They cited new markets, a duty to “civilize” and convert other peoples, racial theories, rivalry with Europe's empires, and a frontier the census had called closed.
- Treaty of Paris (1898)
The treaty that ended the Spanish–American War, signed December 10, 1898. Spain gave up Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and Guam, and ceded the Philippines in return for $20 million. The Senate ratified it on February 6, 1899.
- Ratification (two-thirds rule)
The Constitution requires two-thirds of the senators present to approve a treaty. On February 6, 1899, that meant 56 of the 84 senators voting.
- Anti-imperialists
Americans who opposed taking colonies. They cited the Declaration's “consent of the governed,” the tradition of avoiding entanglements abroad, and, in some cases, racial theories of their own.
- The White Man's Burden
Rudyard Kipling's 1899 poem, addressed to Americans, calling on them to take up the duty of governing and 'civilizing' other peoples. Supporters of expansion quoted it as a moral case for empire. It rests on a racial hierarchy, and opponents saw the empire it was selling.
- Anti-Imperialist League
Organized in Boston in 1898 by Americans who opposed annexing the Philippines. Members argued that ruling a people without its consent betrayed the Declaration of Independence. Its members included Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain.
- Insular Cases (1901)
Supreme Court rulings in 1901 that the Constitution did not fully apply in the territories won from Spain. Congress could govern them differently from the states, and their people did not automatically gain the rights of citizens.
- Foraker Act (1900)
The 1900 law that set up civil government in Puerto Rico. The president appointed the governor and the upper house; Puerto Ricans elected only the lower house. They were not U.S. citizens.
- Platt Amendment (1901)
A law Congress attached to an Army bill in 1901. It let the United States intervene in Cuba's affairs, limited Cuba's treaties and debts, and gave the U.S. land for naval stations, including Guantánamo. U.S. troops would leave only if Cuba put it in its constitution.
- Open Door policy
The U.S. demand, set out in Hay's notes of 1899 and 1900, that every nation trade with China on equal terms and that China not be carved up. The powers had to go along; the U.S. could not force them.
- Boxer Rebellion
A 1900 Chinese uprising against foreign influence and Christian missions. Boxers besieged Peking's foreign legations until an eight-nation force, including U.S. troops, arrived in August.
- Big Stick diplomacy
Roosevelt's way of dealing with other nations: talk calmly while keeping strong military force ready. It came from his saying 'speak softly and carry a big stick.' In Panama the warship was the stick.
- Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty
The 1903 treaty giving the United States a canal zone ten miles wide 'in perpetuity,' with a sovereign's powers, for $10 million plus a yearly fee. Bunau-Varilla signed it; Panama ratified it weeks later.
- Roosevelt Corollary
Roosevelt's 1904 addition to the Monroe Doctrine: the United States would act as an 'international police power' in Latin America to head off European intervention. It was used to justify U.S. interventions in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti.
Transcript
Quotes are from the historical record and name their source. Lines marked Dramatized are reconstructions.
Remember the Maine
1895–April 1898
Key terms: Reconcentration, Yellow journalism, de Lôme letter, Teller Amendment
Ninety miles from Florida, Cubans were fighting for independence from Spain.
The war began in 1895. An American tariff had just slashed Cuba’s sugar profits, and rebels burned cane to break Spain’s hold.
Spain’s general, Valeriano Weyler, herded country people into guarded towns to cut the rebels off. Historians estimate that 100,000 to 170,000 Cubans died in those camps, of hunger and disease.
In New York, Joseph Pulitzer’s World and William Randolph Hearst’s Journal fought for readers with Cuba’s suffering. The suffering was real. Some of the stories weren’t.
The most famous story: Hearst cabled an artist, “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” It comes from a reporter who wasn’t there. No one has ever found the telegram.
In February 1898 the Journal printed a stolen letter from Spain’s minister. He called McKinley “weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd.” The minister resigned.
She had come on a friendly visit. On February 15, at 9:40 at night, the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor.
266 men died. Two days later, a New York newspaper said it knew why.
The country didn’t wait for the Navy. “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!”
McKinley had seen the dead at Antietam. He tried diplomacy. Congress wanted war.
William McKinley
In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization,
William McKinley
in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act,
William McKinley
the war in Cuba must stop.
Congress authorized force with a promise attached: the United States would not keep Cuba. Hold on to that promise.
Splendid
February–August 1898
Key terms: Emilio Aguinaldo, Rough Riders, Buffalo Soldiers, Annexation by joint resolution (Newlands Resolution, 1898)
Ten days after the Maine, the Navy secretary took an afternoon off. His assistant, Theodore Roosevelt, cabled Commodore Dewey in Hong Kong.
Theodore Roosevelt
Keep full of coal.
Theodore Roosevelt
…offensive operations in Philippine Islands.
John D. Long
…the very devil seemed to possess him yesterday afternoon.
Neutral Britain ordered Dewey out of Hong Kong. With no American coaling station in Asia, he bought a British coal ship and took it along.
Commodore George Dewey
You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.
In the line was the Boston, the cruiser from Honolulu.
At 7:35 Dewey broke off on a false report of low ammunition. The story given out was breakfast.
About 380 Spanish were killed or wounded. No American died in the fighting.
An American ship had carried the exiled revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo home. On June 12, Filipinos declared independence at Kawit…
…under the protection of the Powerful and Humanitarian Nation, the United States of America.
In June a U.S. cruiser fired a few shots at Guam's empty fort. The Spanish officers who rowed out hadn't heard there was a war.
Roosevelt quit the Navy Department to fight with the Rough Riders. Their horses mostly stayed in Tampa, so the cavalry fought on foot.
On July 1 they charged up Kettle Hill beside the Black troopers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry. The Black 24th Infantry helped take San Juan Hill.
Those soldiers came home to Jim Crow. That November, a white mob overthrew the elected government of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Far more soldiers died of typhoid, malaria and yellow fever than of Spanish bullets.
John Hay
It has been a splendid little war; begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by that Fortune which loves the brave.
In July, Congress annexed Hawaiʻi by joint resolution, a simple-majority vote. On August 12, Spain agreed to stop fighting.
That same day, in Honolulu, the Hawaiian flag came down. The Hawaiian members of the band had asked to be excused.
One Vote to Spare
August 1898–February 1899
Key terms: Imperialists (1898–1899), Treaty of Paris (1898), Ratification (two-thirds rule), Anti-imperialists
Now the hard question: what to do with the Philippines.
On August 13, Americans took Manila. Dewey had cut the cable, so nobody there knew the war was over.
The Spanish commander signaled he'd put up only a show of resistance if Filipino troops were kept out. They were.
Gen. James F. Rusling
…we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government…
Gen. James F. Rusling
…there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them…
Rusling printed it more than three years after the visit. He had told a nearly identical story about Lincoln. And most Filipinos had been Catholic for three centuries.
The Treaty of Paris. Spain gave up Cuba. Puerto Rico and Guam went to the United States. So did the Philippines, for twenty million dollars.
On January 23, 1899, Filipinos inaugurated their republic in a church at Malolos. It had a written constitution.
On February 4, American and Filipino soldiers began shooting outside Manila. Two days later the Senate voted, behind closed doors. It needed two-thirds.
Eight days later, a promise of eventual Philippine independence tied the Senate, 29 to 29. Vice President Hobart voted no.
Does the Constitution Follow the Flag?
1899–1902
Key terms: The White Man's Burden, Anti-Imperialist League, Insular Cases (1901), Foraker Act (1900), Platt Amendment (1901)
Historians call it the Philippine–American War. Americans at the time called it an 'insurrection.' An insurrection is a revolt against your own government.
Rudyard Kipling urged Americans to 'take up the White Man's burden.' Roosevelt sent it to Lodge with a review.
Theodore Roosevelt
…rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion standpoint.
Pitched battles gave way to guerrilla war, and the fighting moved into the villages.
In 1902, soldiers told a Senate committee about the 'water cure.' It meant forcing water down a prisoner's throat until he talked.
In 1901, at Balangiga on Samar, Filipino fighters attacked an American company. Forty-eight of its 74 men were killed or missing.
A court-martial found that General Jacob Smith then ordered:
'I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better you will please me.'
Asked for an age limit, Smith said ten.
In Batangas, American officers forced civilians into guarded zones. Less than four years earlier, Americans went to war partly over Weyler's camps in Cuba.
The war's dead
Over 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants died. As many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died of violence, famine and disease.
Aguinaldo was captured in March 1901. Roosevelt declared the war over on July 4, 1902. Fighting went on in the Moro south.
The North American Review printed a letter from Aguinaldo's representative, signed 'Semper Vigilans.'
'Semper Vigilans'
…abandoned her traditions and set up a double standard of government—government by consent in America, government by force in the Philippine Islands.
Source it the way the exam asks: point of view, purpose, situation, audience. One side, arguing to Americans, mid-war. That limits what it can prove.
At home, the Anti-Imperialist League's platform spoke of 'the slaughter of the Filipinos as a needless horror.'
Mark Twain proposed a flag for the Philippines.
Mark Twain
…we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.
Does the Constitution follow the flag? The Court said: not fully. Justice Brown called Puerto Rico 'belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United States.'
In Chicago, Finley Peter Dunne's fictional bartender, Mr. Dooley, had a theory.
Mr. Dooley
…no matther whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme coort follows th' iliction returns.
Spain had granted Puerto Rico self-rule in 1897. Eugenio María de Hostos asked for a plebiscite. The Foraker Act had Washington pick the governor. The Navy ran Guam.
The Platt Amendment let Washington intervene in Cuba and take land for naval stations, like Guantánamo. Cuba had to write it into its own constitution before the Army left.
Speak Softly
1899–1904
Key terms: Open Door policy, Boxer Rebellion, Big Stick diplomacy, Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, Roosevelt Corollary
With the Philippines came a door to China.
In 1899 John Hay asked the powers to keep China open to all traders. Their replies were vague. Hay announced they had agreed.
In 1900 about 2,000 American troops, most shipped from the Philippines, helped break the Boxers' siege of Peking.
In 1901 an assassin killed McKinley. Theodore Roosevelt, forty-two, became president. His favorite proverb: speak softly and carry a big stick.
Remember the Oregon? In 1898 it steamed around South America to Florida in 66 days. Roosevelt wanted a canal.
Colombia's senate rejected America's terms. In November 1903 Panama rebelled, with a U.S. warship offshore. An American-managed railroad wouldn't carry Colombia's troops.
A Frenchman, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, signed Panama's treaty two hours before Panama's delegates reached Washington. The United States got the canal zone forever.
Later he put it himself.
Theodore Roosevelt
I took the Isthmus, started the canal, and then left Congress—not to debate the canal, but to debate me.
In 1904 he added a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine:
Theodore Roosevelt
…in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.
The Senate, the Court and the voters said yes. Hawaiʻi's queen, the Philippine Republic and the Anti-Imperialist League said no.
One of those coaling stations would matter more than the rest.