In the United States, people read about Cuba’s struggle for freedom. Americans had sympathy for Cuba, because the United States had been England’s colony and had to fight for its independence, just as Cuba was Spain’s colony and was now fighting for its independence.
Although America had sympathy for Cuba, it did not immediately help Cuba with military aid in its struggle. Two events would change the minds of Americans: First, newspaper reports revealed that Spain had begun rounding up Cubans, placing them into concentration camps, and committing inhumane atrocities. Second, an American battleship parked in a Cuban harbor met a tragic end.
In January 1898, the naval ship USS Maine was sent to Cuba by President William McKinley. The ship was there to protect U.S. citizens who were in Cuba, and also to take some or all of those citizens back to the United States, so that they could be safely away from the fighting in Cuba.
The United States was still not part of the fighting. The ship was in Havana Harbor simply to protect and transport U.S. citizens. That changed suddenly, as historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write:
On the night of February 15, 1898, a Marine bugler played “Taps” aboard USS Maine, anchored in Havana’s harbor since late January. Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, the ship’s commander, finished writing a letter as the notes drifted off into the evening stillness. Just as he reached for an envelope, “a bursting, rending, and crashing roar of immense volume” rocked the ship, which trembled, listed to port, and settled into the mud. Out of 354 officers and men on board, 266 died in the explosion. What caused the disaster? No one knew for sure, but one thing was certain: The incident made war between the United States and Spain more likely.
More than 100 years later, the exact cause of the explosion remains uncertain. Did Spain attack the ship, fearing that the U.S. would use it to support the Cuba rebels? Did the Cubans themselves do it, hoping that the U.S. would assume it was done by Spain? Or was it simply an accident, a mechanical failure in the ship which allowed the coal and gunpowder in the ship to catch fire?
The ship’s destruction caused increasing tensions between Spain and the United States. In April 1898, the U.S. Congress confirmed a decision that the U.S. would not attempt to annex Cuba. (To “annex” means to take possession of land: Congress was saying that America wanted Cuba to be free and independent, and not controlled by the U.S.) At the same time, Congress also said that Spain must stop its military aggression toward Cuba. This was an application of the Monroe Doctrine.
In that same month, as a response, Spain declared war on the United States. The Spanish-American War had begun.
The war was brief. It ended in August 1898.
At war’s end, Cuba became a free and independent nation, and would enjoy that freedom for the next sixty years, until it was taken over by the international communist conspiracy.
Spain also surrendered three other territories to the U.S.: Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico.
The United States developed a plan to make the Philippines into its own independent country, so that it would not be a part of the United States.
In the United States at the time, there was a strong anti-imperialist political movement, which argued that America should help small nations become independent, and that America should not try to annex these small nations. So, when America had a chance to take over Cuba and the Philippines, it didn’t. Instead, it helped those nations become their own countries.
Guam and Puerto Rico, on the other hand, remained part of the United States.
The Spanish-American War was brief: it lasted less than four months. But it changed the world, and today places like Guam, Cuba, The Philippines, and Puerto Rico are still shaped by this war.
