Spanish–American War

The Spanish–American War was a short conflict between the United States and Spain, fought from April to August 1898 in the Caribbean and the Pacific. It grew out of the Cuban struggle for independence and ended with Spain giving up Cuba and handing Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States. The war closed nearly four centuries of Spanish empire in the Americas and Asia and marked the arrival of the United States as an overseas colonial power.

Cubans had already fought one long war for independence, the Ten Years' War of 1868 to 1878. In 1895 a new rising began, organised from exile by José Martí. Spain sent General Valeriano Weyler, who forced civilians in rebel districts into "reconcentration" areas near army posts, a policy that caused great suffering. Newspapers in New York, above all those of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, reported Spanish cruelty in lurid terms. Historians still debate how much this sensational press shaped the national mood, but sympathy for "Cuba Libre" ran high, and American business interests in Cuban trade and sugar were suffering.

In January 1898 the armoured cruiser USS Maine was sent to Havana to protect American citizens. On the evening of 15 February it was destroyed by an explosion in the harbour, and about 260 men died at once. A US Navy inquiry blamed an external blast, while a Spanish inquiry concluded the explosion began inside the ship; later studies have reached conflicting results, and the cause remains uncertain. President William McKinley had tried to avoid war, but public pressure grew. Congress passed resolutions demanding Spanish withdrawal from Cuba, together with the Teller Amendment, which disclaimed any intention to annex the island. The US Navy blockaded Cuba from 21 April, and Congress declared that war had existed from that date.

The first battle came on 1 May at Manila Bay, where Commodore George Dewey's Asiatic Squadron destroyed the Spanish squadron of Admiral Patricio Montojo within hours. Dewey brought the exiled Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo back from Hong Kong, and by early June his forces controlled several provinces around Manila and had besieged the city. On 12 June Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine independence. In June the island of Guam surrendered to an American cruiser without a fight. On 13 August American troops took Manila but kept Filipino forces out of the city, a decision that badly damaged relations between the two allies.

American marines landed at Guantánamo Bay in June, and the army under General William Shafter came ashore east of Santiago de Cuba. On 1 July about 15,000 American soldiers, together with Cuban rebels, stormed Spanish positions at El Caney and San Juan Hill, where Theodore Roosevelt led his volunteer "Rough Riders". On 3 July Admiral Pascual Cervera's squadron tried to break out of Santiago harbour and was destroyed, and the city surrendered on 17 July. Disease, especially yellow fever, then struck the American army far harder than enemy fire. On 25 July US troops landed in Puerto Rico, where fighting continued until an armistice on 13 August.

The Treaty of Paris, signed on 10 December 1898, transferred Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States, which paid Spain $20 million. Cuba was placed under American military rule and became formally independent in 1902, but the Platt Amendment gave Washington the right to intervene and a naval base at Guantánamo Bay, making the island in practice a protectorate.

For Spain the defeat was a national trauma that inspired the reflective writers and artists known as the Generation of '98. The United States emerged as a world power with possessions across the globe, and the decision to keep the Philippines provoked fierce debate at home. In the islands, the clash of American rule with the Filipino independence movement of the Philippine Revolution led directly to the far bloodier Philippine–American War.

Our 1880 map shows Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines still within the Spanish Empire, while the 1900 map shows the islands after their transfer to American control.