How the Spanish-American War Worked

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Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neuro-linguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to mind games on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to stuff you missed in history class, from howstuffworks.com. Hello and welcome to podcast. I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath. Hey there Candice. So today we have an email reply from a listener, and this one is from Andy Hartman. He wanted to know something about this Spanish-American war, which I thought was a really good excuse, because it's always been one of those mysterious corners of American history that you sort of skip over in history class, and I wanted to know more about it. So he asks about the dates regarding the Spanish-American war, because there's a monument in Sacramento, California that he's seen that gives the dates as 1898 to 1902. But if you look at the dates in history book, you'll notice that the Spanish surrendered in 1898. So it was just four months long? Exactly. It was. It was quick. Don Hay said it was a splendid little war. Showed it in sweet. Yeah, and there are a couple different answers, but before we go into that, we should talk a little about the war itself and things that led up to it. Exactly. Give you guys awesome background. So what's significant about the Spanish-American war is that it was based on the United States response to rebels in Cuba, who'd been oppressed under Spanish colonial rule for a long time, and there had been some uprisings before, but finally there was enough guerrilla action going under their leadership of, well, of many people really, but Jose Martí was really incendiary and really got the forces fired up. And what else is significant is that the United States didn't just lend a helping hand to Cuba, but by doing so, really established itself as one of the great imperial powers of the world, and in the United States there were anti-imperialists who were pretty ticked off about us. So we see that it leads to controversy just not just on the battlefield, but also in ideology and politics too. That's right. And you look back on the Age of Exploration, which is really like when Spain got all these territories in the first place. It was before the United States emerged. Obviously, the United States was kind of a result of this Age of Exploration. So Spain had gotten, it was really one of the first and most powerful countries to start colonizing places in the Americas in particular. So they got all these powers, but by the 19th century they had lost a lot of these lands. Cuba was one of those places they still held onto. Although there was lots of unrest there, as Candace was saying, there was the 10 years war between 1868 and 1878, 10 years long obviously, where the Cuba fought for independence and basically lost. And on the treaty, Spanish tried to promise, so we'll give you more powers and we'll give you more autonomy, but it didn't really work out the way they wanted. And by an 1898, there were still violence breaking out. And so Spain had control over Cuba, and they also had control over Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. And something interesting was happening at this time. And if you think about these different island nations, you'll know that they're not all in the same corner of the sea. They're pretty disparate. And President McKinley actually had a military advisor named Alfred T. Mahan, who was saying that your nation is only as strong as its navy is. And so it was important to have different naval stations throughout the Caribbean and other parts of the oceans around the world. And he even advocated for building a canal across the isthmus of Panama, which eventually happened, but not quite yet. And so the United States thought, huh, this is a pretty good idea. And sort of an auspicious turn of events, Cuba was asking for the United States how been throwing off Spain's power. And the United States was thinking, how can we throw ourselves at island nations and increase our naval strength? And so all of this came together in a perfect storm of the Spanish-American War. That's right. And so public sentiment was very geared towards getting Cuba free. And so a lot of people were arguing we should get involved, we should get involved. And nothing actually happened for real until the explosion of the main. Now the USS Maine was was a American ship that was or sorry to say United States ship that was sent towards Cuba to help look after American interests there. US interests. So it mysteriously exploded one day, February 15, 1898. And it killed all the members on board about more than 250 US soldiers, I believe. No one really knows what happened to this day. No one is exactly sure what happened with the explosion. At the time, it was kind of assumed that Spain was responsible. And not everybody believed this. President McKinley launched an inquiry into what happened. And nothing was very conclusive. And by the 1970s, actually, they looked back on it in forensic evidence show that it was probably a result of a, I believe, the coal bunker. There was a mistake there and something went wrong and exploded. But again, that's one of those cases of you get a big and tall and bold enough headline on a newspaper. And you're going to get a lot of rallying support from the public and when the public screams loudly enough, typically the president has to respond in some way. And what's interesting about press generated during the Spanish-American War or actually right before the Spanish-American War is that there were two competing newspapers at this time. And the men behind them William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer, they wanted to get their copy sold. And so you've probably heard of yellow journalism. And this comes from the idea of embellishing stories and creating untruths about what was going on in the world at that time. And Cuba was a perfect place to make splashing news like this. And so supposedly, Hurst even told one of his reporters, "You furnished the pictures and I will furnish the war." Because the newspapers were receiving pictures of Cubans who'd been put into concentration camps and other outlets. And they were being tortured supposedly by the Spanish. And they were awful images. But when he sent reporters over there, there wasn't actually a whole lot going on. There wasn't much of a story to write. We knew that there were injustices, but we couldn't exactly put our hands on what was happening and how the United States should help because it was so unclear. And so the newspapers were able to create the story themselves and get people involved. And shortly after the main, and this cry of remember the main, US Congress drafted a declaration of war against Spain. That's right. And Hurst is really interesting also because he not only sort of made up these stories, he capitalized on this imminent war as much as he could. And Hurst actually made a card game called War with Spain. And he started a fun to build a main memorial dedicated to the USS Maine. And he actually offered a $50,000 reward for anyone who could solve the mystery of the explosion. Yeah, exactly. And when War was all out called, like you said, Candace, he actually referred to it as the Journal's War as if he started it himself. Here, Brace, Italian. But it worked. It worked. It got a reluctant United States into war with Spain. And I created John Hay earlier saying it was a splendid little war. It was just four months long. And really that's how it went. I mean, there were these US troops who started getting shuffled out the different island nations that Spain still owned. And the Cuban campaign was one of the dirtiest and most awful because the troops that got sent were so ill-equipped to deal with the conditions there. They sent one of the first black infantry's to Cuba to fight. This was shortly after the military had been somewhat desegregated. They were moving toward desegregation. And they found there was not adequate food. They were given really heavy, willing uniforms. And obviously it's way too hot in Cuba for that. And the fighting was just pretty bloody. And the troops were outnumbered against the Spanish troops. And so victory for them really came on the seas because the Spanish navy was very, very poor compared to the state of the art ships that the American troops had. Yeah. And adding to the food problem, there was also problems with the actual food. Soldiers were complaining about it. And they said the beef tasted horrible. And there was this scandal that broke out in the US at the time that they were eating and bombed beef. And somebody said this word and it caught fire in people like what the heck is that? And that turned out to be a rumor, I believe. But basically they think the heat of like the Cuban summer made it so the meat did not last very well. And they were not eating very well over there in Cuba anyway, so. And a lot of them contracted yellow fever and other diseases from being in Cuba and being exposed to these conditions. And numbers that I've heard range, but they approximate that 5400 died in the Cuban campaign. And of that, only about 380 if these deaths were actually due to battle and combat with the Spanish forces. So if you can imagine, that's what was going on. And one of the more interesting parts to me at least, and some people say they're sort of overrated. But it's fun to imagine, you know, Teddy Roosevelt on a horse, you know, as a rough writer. Oh yeah. The rough writers came in. And this was a very, very sort of a popery of men, everyone from artists to very wealthy men, to politicians, and Roosevelt at that time, felt that he had to do something to help out with the Cuban campaign. And so they all got together, and they wrote on their horses, and the African-American soldiers from the ninth cavalry were very instrumental in helping them to take the battle at Kettle Hill. And they were able to outmaneuver the Spanish again, even if they were outnumbered. That's right. And that's partly what made this war so quick. One of the major battles we should mention, the first battle that happened in the war, was it happened actually not in Cuba or near it. It happened all the way over in the Philippines in Manila Bay. And Admiral George Dewey, basically, it was Teddy Roosevelt, like you mentioned, he was involved with the rough writers. But before that, he was actually giving out orders for Admiral George Dewey to bring his squadron over to Hong Kong to get ready to go to the Philippines. And when Dewey actually got to the Philippines, it was basically hand down a victory for the United States, and that really set the tone for the war, I think. It did. It did, because there was that chain of success. Once the United States had won enough victories in Cuba, and then once they started winning more victories, and the Philippines, everyone was happy because they could see the beginning of the end. And a really key figure from the Philippines was Emilio Aguinaldo. And he was very, very excited about the prospect of the Philippines gaining independence from Spain. And along with the Filipinos, there were about 11,000 US troops that came along to help out Aguinaldo. And he actually declared independence from Spain on behalf of the Philippines. And he was able to commission the US troops to help him out. And once they were able to declare victory there, the United States moved on to Guam. But then things got kind of messy when Spain eventually surrendered, they were like, "Okay, you've got us. You're in Guam now. We can easily see Puerto Rico is next, and we're going to be losing all of our territories." So they agreed to sign a peace treaty, but then Aguinaldo got upset because now the United States was in a position where it could have control of the Philippines. And he thought, "Well, who are these men? I was fighting alongside," and even the anti-imperialists, getting too excited and speaking too fast, even the anti-imperialists in America, were saying, "Who is America anymore? Our nation had been founded on the precept of freedom from tyranny and freedom from imperial powers, and now we've become one of them ourselves." So it was a really big struggle that went up to the Supreme Court about how to disseminate these lands, the US had gained. Yeah, and it's a controversial issue even to this day because you could make the argument, and they did it at the time as well, that the countries that they just liberated from Spanish rule needed to get on their feet now, and are we going to just let them be, and what would happen if anarchy ensues or whatever, they don't have a very stable transition, and maybe we should stick around and try to make that work. Sounds like a pretty familiar story, doesn't it? Exactly. A lot of connections to the day. Today, of course. And so that was the ultimate question, what do we do with these territories? So the US Supreme Court ultimately made a couple of decisions. Puerto Rico was incorporated. The Philippines remained unincorporated, and the Cubans were allowed to write their own constitution, but the United States was so allowed to send troops there, and ultimately, Cuba became a protectorate of the United States. That's right, and this was principally because of something called the Teller Amendment, which was attached on to the permission that Congress gave McKinley when they originally said, "Yes, go ahead and use whatever you can to go protect Cuba and liberate them from the Spanish." They tacked on the Teller Amendment to say, "When you're done, liberating the Cubans, you need to leave them alone." And there were, of course, like, provisions that, like, "Okay, you can make sure that it's stable there," but by 1902, the US mostly had left there, and they had relinquished their military government control over Cuba by that time. So this brings us back to the question of the monument. I found one book called "Lies Across America" by James W. Loan, and he points to this idea to where some monuments say, like Andy Hartman, our listener said, that they give the dates of the war from 1898 to 1902, and he claims this is because it's actually looping in the war of the Philippine American war, where the Filipinos wanted to ask the Americans after the Americans ousted the Spanish, and that didn't settle or stabilize until 1902. And so, I mean, I don't know if I agree with Loan on this point, because you could also say that the monuments are looping in the idea that Cuba wasn't exactly left alone until 1902. But at least it's an attempt at answering that question. That's true. That's true. But either way, I think the monument is wrong. Yeah. Well, maybe people take about a collection and go out there and fix it. Anybody? Anybody at all? I'd like to go to California. I know I could use it right now. It's sort of cloudy and gray and atlanta these days, but I'm so glad that Andy wrote an asset question because it gave us an opportunity to talk about an oft forgotten war, and I didn't know that much about it, so it was really fun to explore. So if anyone else has any fun ideas or questions that they would like answered, be sure to email us at [email protected], and in the interim you can crunch your thirst for history knowledge by visiting the website at howstuffworks.com. In the middle of the night, Sasuke awoke in a haze. Her husband Mike was on his laptop, but was on his screen would change Sasuke's life forever. I said I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing, and immediately the mask came off. You're supposed to be safe. That's your home, that's your husband. Listen to Petrile season five on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This Black History Month, the podcast I didn't know, maybe you didn't either, digs into the moments, perspectives, and experiences that don't always make the textbook. Let me tell you about Garrett Morgan, for I had to pretend he didn't even exist just to sell his own invention. Listen to I didn't know, maybe you didn't either, from the Black Effect podcast network, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or simply wherever you get your podcasts. 1969 Malcolm and Martin are gone, America is in crisis, and at Morehouse College, the students make their move. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King's senior, is the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Manalick Lemomber. Listen to the A building on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Mind games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neuro-linguistic programming. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.