-
Period: to
Spanish American War
-
You Won't Get Cuba
Diplomats reccomended that president Franklin Pierce buy Cuba from Spain, but Spain said that they would rather see Cuba sink in the ocean. -
Cubans Rebel
Cubans rebel against Spain between 1868 and 1878, American sympathies went out to the Cuban people. -
No More Slavery
The Cuban revolt wasn't succesful but they did force Spain to stop slavery. After that the Americans started investing in sugarcane on the island. -
A New Revolution
José Martí organized Cuban resistance against Spain, using an active guerrilla campaign and deliberately destroying property, especially American-owned sugar mills and plantations. Martí counted on provoking U.S. intervention to help the rebels achieve Cuba Libre!—a free Cuba. -
Stopping the Rebellion
Spain responded to the Cuban revolt by sending General Valeriano Weyler to Cuba to restore order. Weyler tried to crush the rebellion by herding the entire rural population of central and western Cuba into barbed wire concentration camps. Here civilians could not give aid to rebels. -
Exaggeration War
Weyler’s actions fueled a war over newspaper circulation that had developed between the American newspaper tycoons. Stories of poisoned wells and of children being thrown to the sharks deepened American sympathy for the rebels. This sensational style of writing, which exaggerates the news to lure and enrage readers, became known as yellow journalism. -
Dupuy de Lôme
the New York Journal published a private letter written by Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, the Spanish minister to the United States. A Cuban rebel had stolen the letter from a Havana post office and leaked it to the newspaper. The de Lôme letter criticized President McKinley, calling him “weak” and “a bidder for the admiration of the crowd.” The embarrassed Spanish government apologized, and the minister resigned. -
Thar She Blows
American resentment toward Spain turned to outrage. Early in 1898, President McKinley had ordered the U.S.S. Maine to Cuba to bring home American citizens in danger from the fighting and to protect American property. On February 15, 1898, the ship blew up in the harbor of Havana. More than 260 men were killed. -
US Declares War
Despite the Spanish concessions, public opinion favored war. On April 11, McKinley asked Congress for authority to use force against Spain. After a week of debate, Congress agreed, and on April 20 the United States declared war. -
Landslide Victory
On April 30, the American fleet in the Pacific steamed to the Philippines. The next morning, Commodore George Dewey gave the command to open fire on the Spanish fleet at Manila, the Philippine capital. Within hours, Dewey’s men had destroyed every Spanish ship there. Dewey’s victory allowed U.S. troops to land in the Philippines. -
Going to Cuba
American forces landed in Cuba in June 1898 and began to converge on the port city of Santiago. The army of 17,000 included four African-American regiments of the regular army and the Rough Riders, a volunteer cavalry under the command of Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, a New Yorker, had given up his job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to lead the group of volunteers. He would later become president of the United States. -
Peace Treaty
United States and Spain met in Paris to agree on a treaty. At the peace talks, Spain freed Cuba and turned over the islands of Guam in the Pacific and Puerto Rico in the West Indies to the United States. Spain also sold the Philippines to the United States for $20 million. -
Treaty of Paris
The annexation question was settled with the Senate’s approval of the Treaty of Paris. The United States now had an empire that included Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The next question Americans faced was how and when the United States would add to its dominion.
