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Honors U.S. History 2009/2010 Mr. Irwin Week 23 Name: Period: LECTURE 18 EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR In 1868, Cubans rose up against Spanish control of Cuba. Spain was able to put down this rebellion, but anti-Spanish sentiment would simmer and grow over the next several decades. In 1895, Cubans once again, rose up against Spanish control. This time, Spain sent military man, Valeriano Weyler to put down the rebellion. In an effort to crush the Cuban revolt, he killed many people. He also developed a strategy geared towards keeping civilians from giving aid and supplies to the rebels, which involved the use of “reconcentration camps.” Weyler rounded up large numbers of civilians and moved them into barbed wire “reconcentration camps.” It is estimated that over a two year period, approximately 200,000 people died in these camps from starvation, disease and other forms of maltreatment. As the result, Weyler received the nicknamed “The Butcher” in the American press. During this time, Yellow Journalism was thriving and two key newspaper barons began to use the crisis in Cuba as a means to sell more newspapers. Joseph Pulitzer was the owner of the well established, New York World. William Randolph Hearst bought a paper called the New York Morning Journal and began to build readership to rival Pulitzer’s publication. Both newspapers printed sensationalistic stories about atrocities in Cuba, sometimes using false information, in order to attract the New York public to buy their papers. Around this same time, there were a number of Cuban exiles living in the United States. One such exile was Jose Marti, a poet, who took up residence in New York, where he began writing articles and organizing support for the rebels in Cuba. Between 1893 – 1998, U.S. Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley stayed out of the crisis in Cuba. In an effort to get the United States into the fight, Cuban rebels destroyed American owned sugar plantations and processing facilities, thinking that it would draw the U.S. military into protecting American owned property in Cuba. As the result of the destruction of American property in Cuba, U.S. businessmen put pressure on the U.S. government to intervene in Cuba. Finally, when riots broke out in Havana in 1898, President McKinley sent the U.S.S. Maine on a mission to assess the situation, and to be in position to protect American lives www.mirwin.weebly.com and property in Cuba. On the evening of February 15, 1898, while anchored in Havana Harbor, the Maine exploded and sank. Ultimately 266 Americans died as the result of the explosion. By the time of the Maine incident, American sympathy for Cuban independence had grown through the many sensationalistic articles that had been printed in magazines and newspapers, and the call for U.S. intervention hit its peak after a stolen internal memo from Spanish ambassador to the United States, Dupuy de Lome was published in U.S. newspapers. The de Lome letter was critical of U.S. President McKinley, and it characterized him as weak. As a result, anti-Spanish sentiment in America overflowed. An enraged American public called for war against Spain but President McKinley still resisted going to war. Around this same time, the people in the Philippine Islands were getting their own rebellion going against Spain. Assistant Secretary of War (at that time) Theodore Roosevelt put U.S. commanders in the Pacific on high alert and instructed them to prepare for war against Spain. President McKinley initially tried to avoid war with Spain be sending a list of demands, which included compensation for the loss of the Maine, an end to the reconcentration camps in Cuba, a truce in Cuba, and independence for the people of Cuba. Spain agreed to all of the terms except for the independence of the Cuban people. Using the refusal to allow for the independence of Cuba as the basis for going to war with Spain, President McKinley and the U.S. Congress finally gave the American public what it wanted. In April 1898, Congress recognized the independence of Cuba and authorized the U.S. Military to use force against Spain in order to free Cuba. Did the Spaniards really blow up the U.S.S. Maine? Today, most historians believe that the explosion was caused by an extreme build up of pressure in the engine room boiler, creating an explosion large enough to ignite the ship’s ammunition storage area. Surprisingly, the first shots of the Spanish-American War were not fired in Cuba, but in the Philippines. On May 1, 1898, U.S. Admiral George Dewey launched a surprise attack, and over the course of seven hours, he destroyed or disabled the entire Spanish fleet that was anchored in Manila Bay. - End of Lecture - www.mirwin.weebly.com