Summary
Cuba had long been a colony of Spain, with almost its entire economy based on
sugar production. As the second half of the 19th century wore on, many people in
Cuba, which had been a Spanish colony, became dissatisfied with the ruling
Spanish regime. The Spanish government was riddled with corruption, inefficient,
and unwilling to grant the Cuban population any concessions.
Despite obvious Cuban dissatisfaction, the Spanish authorities refused to grant
any amount of self-government to the Cubans. As a result, Cuban Nationalists,
who wanted to end Spanish rule, fought the Ten Years' War against the Spaniards
from 1868-1878. The rebellion finally petered out, though the dissatisfaction
motivating the fighting did not disappear. After the war, the Spanish promised
reforms, but the Nationalists considered this too little, too late.
When a Nationalist-initiated conflict broke out again in Cuba in 1895, the
Spanish, remembering the lengthy Ten Years' War, sent 200,000 troops to Cuba.
The Cuban insurrectos responded by wrecking Spanish property in hopes that
the Spanish would leave, or at least hoping for US intervention (since the US
had significant economic investment in Cuba). The insurrectos directed their
destructive rampage at both sugar mills and sugar fields.
In 1896, the Spanish sent the infamous General Weyler, known as "The
Butcher," to Cuba to put down the insurrection. Weyler lived up to his name. To
prevent the insurrectos from leading the population against Spanish rule, Weyler
built concentration camps in which he imprisoned a large portion of the
population. Under the harsh and unsanitary conditions in the concentration
camps, Cuban prisoners died rapidly, especially from disease.
Segments of the US public, outraged by reports of atrocities in Cuba,
immediately cried out for action. President Grover Cleveland (1893-1897),
however, was dead set against going to war. He issued an ultimatum: even if
Congress passed a declaration of war, he vowed as commander-in-chief of the army
to never send the military to Cuba.
Commentary
The Cuban Nationalists moved against Spain partly because they thought the US
likely to come to their aid. The US was investing increasing amounts of money
into Cuban sugar production ($50 million by 1895) and conducted a trade with
Cuba worth $100 million annually. From the 1860s on, the US had even tried
to purchase Cuba from Spain several times.
Other causes underlying the 1895 Cuban revolt include a general opposition to a
long history of Spanish control, and the more immediate effects of the American
Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894. The tariff, which raised prices on sugar
imported from Cuba in order to protect US sugar growers, ended up hurting the
Cuban economy significantly. Hard times in Cuba led to public unrest and
conflict with the Spanish regime. However, it should be noted that although
Spanish atrocities against the Cubans are often emphasized, both sides in the
Cuban conflict beginning in 1895 killed civilians and destroyed private
property.
The US was alarmed by developments in Cuba and had sympathies with the
insurrectos from the beginning. First and foremost, the US was always concerned
about having a strong European power just offshore the Florida coast. The
Spanish, who were considered (wrongly) to have a powerful Navy at the time,
posed a potential threat to US trade in the Caribbean. With the Panama Canal on
the collective US drawing boards, US policymakers were particularly concerned
with the future of maritime shipping in the Caribbean. And of course, the US
had financial reasons for wanting to stop the conflict. As mills and plantations
went up in flames, American leaders and businessmen increasingly feared that
American investments in Cuba might be harmed, not to mention American citizens
currently in Cuba.Less specific to the region, the US had long held a position
of anti-colonial tradition, originating fromt he fact that the US had once been
a set of colonies that had themselves #revolted against their British
overlords##. Americans quickly drew parallels
between themselves and the Cubans, seeing the Cubans as facing a similar
situation to the one the 13 colonies had faced. For all these reasons, the US
was happy to have an excuse to oppose the Spanish.
None of the above events or commentary seem to suggest that the after the
Spanish-American War in 1898 the US would annex several territories (taking
colonies). However, in many ways, the early 1890s were the perfect incubator
for imperialist expansion at the end of the decade. The Depression of 1893-1897
and the continuing switch from a predominately agricultural export economy to
one in which manufactured goods were the primary export combined to fuel the
search for foreign markets. The actions of the US during and just after the
Spanish-American War can thus be seen as a redefinition of values, or as an
illumination of the separate values simultaneously animating American policy and
public debate.
