The Spanish American War

“Splendid!”

Places of Importance

Cuba

• Spanish Colony Since 1515• Home to massive Sugar & tobacco plantations• Very profitable, Spain doesn’t want to give it

up.• Slavery a big business, only abolished in 1886.• Native Cubans want independence, war

fought between 1868-1878, Spain Wins, keeps Cuba.

US Interest in Cuba

• Monroe Doctrine: Europe to the Europeans, America to the Americans, US Influence.

• US offers to buy Cuba 1854, Spanish say no.• US interested in sugar, tobacco plantations, fat

stacks of cash.

Say You Want A Revolution

• Between 1878-1895, seventeen years of peace in Cuba, American investment boom, island becomes more dependent on US.

• In 1895 Cubans try again at the revolution thing, lead by Jose Marti, expat who lived in the US. Didn’t want American Involvement.

The Rebels

WAR!!!!

• Marti is killed shortly after the beginning of the war, however it grinds on, becoming a guerilla conflict.

• Eventually the Spanish call on Valeriano “the butcher” Weyler. He separates rebels from civilians with use of concentration camps, thousands die.

Yellow Journalism

• American sentiment is tilted towards the Cubans in part because of exaggerated stories of Spanish cruelty peddled by newspaper magnet William Randolph Hurst, a Practice called “yellow journalism”

• Hurst once said “give me the pictures and I will give you the war”

Remember the Maine!!!!

• With tensions boiling the USS Maine is sunk by a mysterious explosion in Havana Bay. It was in Cuba to protect American lives and property. No one knows exactly what happened, but Hearst thinks it was the Spanish.

• The US president asks for a declaration of war against Spain & gets one.

• The cry rings out, “remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!”

American Entry

• In response to the Declaration of war Commodore Dewy steams a USN fleet not to Cuba, but to another Spanish possession, the Philippines, which was also facing a native rebellion, beats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay and with native help takes the Philippines.

Riding Rough

• After Manila US Army Forces Land in Cuba and Puerto Rico.

• Colonel Theodore Roosevelt leads his cavalry unit to victory at the battle of San Juan Hill.

• The US wins the War in only a few months.• Spain Cedes Rico and the Philippines to US,

Cuba becomes US protectorate.

Questions• Imperialism….• • Progress, Social Darwinism, Trade, Industrial Revolution,

Christianity, A.T. Mehan• • 1) Pick one of the above topics and connect it to the Spanish

American war. • • 2) 2 big terms, Yellow Journalism and the Monroe Doctrine, a)

define both terms b) do you think these will come back up in future history?