Step by Step bloodshed arose from a series of actions known as The American-Spanish War. “Imperial America developed economic benefits in Cuba, and by 1894, 90% of Cuba exports went to the U.S and in return, it provided 38% of Cuban imports” (Adderson). Unfortunately, when Spain regained their interest in Cuba, they invaded, which led the Cubans to revolt. The Spaniards began putting some Cubans in concentration camps that were meant to keep them safe, but ultimately deteriorate their strength. These camps, when witnessed, described to be “impossible to forget” (Doc E), with a “complete accumulation of bodies dead and alive, so that it was impossible to take one step without walking over them” (Doc E). People in Cuba began to fight for their Yellow journalism was used to make other people, usually an enemy, look foolish and made fun of. William Randolph Hearst deliberately displayed an act of yellow journalism in the New York Journal, explaining how “the brutal act of the Spaniards” (Doc A) caused the destruction of The Maine, and that they killed 258 American men. He also stirred up war ferment by portraying the aspiration to fight the Spaniards. Hearst sent Frederic Remington, a talented artist, to Cuba to analyze and “draw sketches of reporters’ stories” (War Fever Escalates). Hearst told Remington “you furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war” (War Fever Escalates). This naturally triggered an outrage on the Spaniard's point of view, which led to an evoked desire for war. Today, it is unknown what truly caused the explosion of The Maine, but the results which came out of it are immutable. The Spanish-American War still confines hidden information tucked away in history. Indicators of war consisted of the De Lome Letter, the explosion of The Maine, and yellow journalism. No One knows for sure if the Spaniards truly sank the famous warship, The Maine, or if everyday occurrences were held to blame. The results of the war, however, led to gaining control of Cuba, but also giving it its own independence, and additionally building a military base there. Americans once again demonstrated their power and strength, which has led to more respect
The French and Indian War (1754-63) altered the political, economic, and ideological relations between Britain and its American colonies. It changed the political relationship between England and its colonists because the English forced taxes on the colonies, due to their economical struggles, and impose regulations on colonial life. Ideologically, the war brought up feelings of anger from the colonies toward Britain
In 1898, three big events got in the way of any peaceful resolution in Cuba. The New York Journal received a letter from the Spanish minister in Washington, Enrique Dupuy de Lo...
In the late 1800’s the American people and their government became more willing to risk war in defense of American interests overseas, support for building a large modern navy began to grow. Supporters argued that if the United States did not build up its navy and acquire bases overseas, it would be shut out of foreign markets by Europeans. Captain Alfred T. Mahan observed that building a modern navy meant that the U.S. had to acquire territory for naval bases overseas. This would enable them to operate a navy far from home. A country needed bases and coaling stations in distant regions, which was exactly what they did by having Havana, Cuba be one of its ports. Another factor that was part of the Navy’s modernization was the USS Maine, which was probably the most famous ship of its era. The USS Maine was one of the Navy’s first armored battle ships. It was one of the first U.S. naval vessels with electrical lighting. It had a top speed of 17 knots and a crew of 392 officers and enlisted men. On the evening of February 15, 1898 the USS Maine exploded. Of the 345 officers and sailors aboard the Maine, 266 died. There were many ideas of how this explosion occurred, namely: the ship’s ammunition supplies blew up, a fire accidentally ignited the ammunition, and that a mine detonated near the ship set off the ammunition. At the time Cuba was a Spanish colony, but it was in the midst of a revolution. The Cuban people were fighting for independence from Spain. During this Cuban revolt against Spain and the American battleship Maine dropped anchor in the Havana harbor to protect American interests in Cuba. Many Americans regarded the Spanish as tyrants and supported the Cubans in their struggle. This immediately made Americans jump to the Conclusion that Spain blew up the Maine. American’s felt that since they were allies with Cuba that Spain was trying to harm America, as to not interfere with Cuba’s revolt against them. Within a matter of weeks, Spain and the U.
For four hundred years Spain ruled over an immense and profitable global empire that included islands in the Caribbean, Americas, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. After the Napoleonic Wars (1808-1815) many of Spain’s colonies followed the US’s lead, fighting and winning their independence. These revolts, coupled with other nations chipping away at Spain’s interests, dwindled Spain’s former Empire. By 1860, only Cuba and Puerto Rico were what remained of Spain’s former Empire. Following the lead of other former Spanish colonies, Cuban fighters started their campaign for independence, known as the Ten year war (1868-1878). This war developed into a Cuban insurgency which fought a guerilla war against the Spanish occupation.2
Long before our involvement, the Cubans had been leading revolts and revolutions against Spain. The Spanish empire considered Cuba to be its jewel, not only for its beauty but also for its economics. Cuba’s main source of income was from its expansive sugar plantations that greatly contributed to its wealth (more so to the Spanish Empires wealth). Ironically, even due to the high regard to Cuba, it was neglected and oppressed, as the Spanish Empire began its decline in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Empire was falling due to it slowly loosing its control over its territories, closer to the US then to Spain, because of a lack of industrializing. The Spanish would claim ownership, but never contribute back to their land. This opened the door for what is known as the 10-year war and the struggle for Cuban Independence. The United States never got directly involved, but it sympathized greatly with the Cuban’s cause, for ...
While the interest in the war had caused New York newspaper sales to reach over 1 million daily, promoting the war's popularity at the cost of losing the truth had ravaged the reputation of the press. As Pulitzer tried to make his World engrossing enough to keep up with Hearst's fantastical stories, he strayed from his long standing mandates about always being factual. As a result, his credibility was deeply damaged. Likewise, while Hearst came out on top at the end of the newspaper war, he did so with a terrible reputation. Both men reached the climax of their lives during the war and spent most of the time after the war in secluded mansions, managing their editorial empires from afar. Pulitzer and Hearst are often accused of exaggerating the news in order to sell more papers. Nevertheless, their impact on the Spanish-American War cannot be underestimated. A Cuban rebel leader once said, “Without a press, we shall get nowhere.” The Cubans were fully aware of their need for the news, and they found their salvation in the powerhouses Pulitzer and Hearst, ushering in an age where America fought not only with a military but also with the power of
The struggle of Cuba to gain its independence from Spain, which began in 1895, has captured the attention of many Americans. Spain’s brutal repressive measures to halt the rebellion were graphically portrayed for the U.S. public by American newspaper publishers, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer which caused to shape the national mood of agitation against Spain. Hearst and Pulitzer exaggerated the actual events in Cuba and how did Spanish brutally treated their prisoners by adding sensational words to catch the emotions of readers. However, publishing stories against the atrocities of Spain did not convince President Cleveland to support the intervention with Spain. When President McKinley held the office in 1897, he wanted to end the revolt peacefully, and he tried to avoid the involvement of America to the conflict between Cuba and Spain. McKinley sent Stewart Woodford to Spain to negotiate for peaceful Cuban autonomy and it all went smoothly and the independence of Cuba was supposed to be awarded after the negotiation. However, the peaceful settlement suddenly vanished after the incident of February 1898 when a private letter for a Cuban friend written by the Spanish minister Enrique Dupuy de Lome was stolen by a Cuban age...
“A revolution is not a bed of roses ... a revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.” – Fidel Castro, 1961. This statement was certainly true for Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries during the Cuban Revolution, an armed revolt that took place between July 26th 1953 and January 1st 1959, which ended successfully. During this revolt, many of Fidel Castro’s fellow revolutionaries were killed in this process of violent revolution (My Life, p133, 2006). However, Castro and his accompanying revolutionaries, of which he was the leader, also caused their fair share of deaths using brutality in the name of revolution and political justice. Using various combat tactics, the most prominent being guerrilla warfare, the Cuban Revolution was certainly won through the use of violence and brutality.
For 113 days during the summer of 1898, the United States was at war with Spain. Neither the president of the United States, nor his cabinet, nor the the queen of Spain, nor her ministers wanted the war wanted the war. It happened eventhough they made their best efforts to prevent it. It happened because of ambition, miscalculation, and stupidity; and it happened because of kindness, wit, and resourcefulness. It also happened because some were indifferent to the suffering of the world’s wretched and others were not (O’Toole 17). By winning the war the United States proved the the rest of the world and to itself that it could and would fight against foreign nations. For many years, world power had been concentrated in the countries in Europe. Nations such as Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain had the most influence in global affairs. But a shift in power was gradually taking place as the United States matured. The young nation gained wealth and strength. Its population grew immensely, and many people believed it would become a major world power (Bachrach, 11) Spain was one of the many European countries that had territory in the United States. Spain controlled mostly some islands off the coast of Central America. The most important of these were Cuba and Puerto Rico. The United States was led to believe that the Spanish mosgoverned and abused the people of these islands. In fact, Spain did overtax and mistreat the Cubans, who rebelled in 1868 and again in 1895. Thus, the American people felt sympathetic toward the Cuban independence movement. In addition, Spain had frequently interfered with trade between its colonies and the United States. Even though the United States had been a trading partner with Cuba since the seventeenth century, Spain sometimes tried to completely stop their trade with Cuba. In Spain doing so, this sometimes caused damage to U.S. commercial interests. The United States highly disagreed with Spain’s right to interfere with this trade relationship. (Bachrach, 12) The United States was also concerned that other trading and commercial interests were threatened by the number of ships and soldiers Spain kept in the area. If the United States had to fight a war with Canada or Mexico, these Spanish forces could quickly mobilize against the United States.
February 15th, 1898, all is quiet in Havana Harbor. The crew of the USS Maine is sound asleep less a few solitary watchmen. The brackish sea air and the calm ocean breeze are soothing and peaceful. This would hardly suggest the terror about to erupt on this “peaceful” visit to the Spanish-controlled Cuban harbor. At 9:45PM, a violent explosion rips the Maine apart sending it plummeting down to the muddy sea floor and killing nearly all of her crew. All of the Spanish boats in the harbor rushed to the aid of the American vessel and its survivors: the commander, Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, and a few lucky crewmembers. Even though Captain Sigsbee, a favorite of the Naval Department, urged President McKinley not to react in an aggressive manner toward Spain, the media, namely New York newspaper editors Pulitzer and Hearst, already inflating current issues relating to the Cuban revolution, spin the incident out of control. The American public goes mad with suspicion of Spanish fowl play and the sinking of the USS Maine serves as the immediate catalyst to the Spanish-American war.
Spain was conquering territories all around the world. Although one made the United States more nervous than the rest; Cuba. The United States feared spain controlling a territory so close to home. It was clear it was not the best idea that a Eastern country controlled something so close, so they kept a close eye on it. Once they realize their differences United States discharged a battleship from the Great White Fleet to Cuba, the U.S.S. Maine. Once the maine arrived there was a few more conflicts between the two countries. After 2 weeks of arriving in Havana Harbor in Cuba, The Maine was mysteriously destroyed by an explosion. As soon as the Yellow press was informed they forced the thought of the explosion being an act of terrorism. This is supported in “Document A: New York Journal”. The New York Journa...
Yellow journalism is a type of journalism that focuses on writing pretty much anything in an effort to make big sales instead of writing from an impartial standpoint. It wasn’t until the final days leading up to the Spanish-American War that yellow journalism reared its ugly head. The idea of yellow journalism started with a comic strip printed by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, in which there was a little yellow man nicknamed “The Yellow Boy”. William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Journal, hired out the cartoonist who designed the “Yellow Boy” comic strip, thus causing hostility between the two owners and their newspapers. They were always at competition with each other when it came to selling big headlines. Their headlines would always contain human interest columns, dramatic crime stories and a heavy dose of cartoons that would make the paper sell well, not to mention the decrease of the price of a paper to one cent. In 1895, a revolt broke out in Cuba against the Spanish government, with America coming in to help Cuba soon after. During the war, America built the U.S.S. Maine, a ninety-nine meter battleship that had been built and sent to Cuban waters to match the growing Brazilian navy as well as to protect American assets. The two men saw this war in Cuba as an opportunity to write emotionally stirring stories. They both wrote horrific tales concerning the condition of the people in Cuba. Suddenly, on February 15, 1898, the Maine suddenly exploded, killing two hundred sixty one sailors and wounding nineteen others. Both Hearst and Pulitzer, among other newspapers, saw this catastrophic event as a chance to make it big in the media world. Without any concrete evidence, they wrote up headlines declaring that Spain ...
The public was further angered by something called “yellow journalism”. Yellow journalism refers to writers such as Joseph Pullitzer and William Hearst trying to outdo each other with screeching headlines and hair raising “scoops”. Where there were no headlines, the yellow press would exaggerate and fabricate stories to get readers interested in their newspaper. For example, Hearst once wrote about Spanish Customs Offic...
On this day 191 years ago John Quincy Adams expressed his prediction for the future of Cuban-American contact. The Cuban wars of independence were only 15 years away from his prediction when he estimated. These independence wars continue to influence Cuba’s cultural and political attitude toward Europe and the United States; This in part due to the externalities involved in the remodeling of social structure in the aftermath of the revolution. The intentions and motives of each faction: rebels, United States government, Spanish government, United States public, and the Cuban public, varied widely to an extend that caused even more concern in the future. Depending on the point of view of an outsider the situation in Cuba seemed to be a continuation of revolution...
The tropical island of Cuba had been an object of empire for the United States. Before the Missile Crisis, the relationship between Castro and the US were strained by the Bay of Pigs occurrence in 1961. This was where counterrevolutionary Cubans were American funded and tried to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. However, the counterrevolutionaries failed. Castro then found an alliance with the Soviet Union and an increase of distrust that Castro had on the US. On January 18, 1962, the United States’ Operation Mongoose was learned. The objective would be “to help the Cubans overthrow the Communist regime” so that the US could live in peace. Consequently, Castro informed the Soviet Union that they were worried about a direct invasion on Cuba, thus longed for protection against th...