1898-1902

In 1898 the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, initiating the Spanish American War. The presence of violent Spanish colonialism in Cuba already invited criticism from a significant portion of the American public. The mysterious explosion of the Maine and the death of 260 American sailors aboard exacerbated this tension. America declared war on April 25, 1898, and the War Department was inundated with over 200,000 volunteers.¹

The United States Navy acted on the declaration of war immediately.  The United States Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewy (1837-1917) attacked Manila on May 1, destroying the Spanish fleet there and blockading the harbor until the arrival of 10,000 American troops in June. On August 13 the U.S. Army troops in collusion with Philippine guerilla fighters seized the city after bombardment by the U.S. Navy. Spanish resistance quickly fell and Manila surrendered.²

Spain responded to the American declaration by sending the pride of its fleet to Santiago, Cuba, where it sat while the American Navy blockaded. An expeditionary force of 16,888 men, including the soon to be famous Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) and his First Volunteer Cavalry Division (“The Roughriders”), landed in Cuba. The expeditionary forces captured the San Juan Ridge in a gallant but abysmally planned attack. The position of the Americans prevented any escape for the Spanish forces in the city. The U.S. Navy forced capitulation after completely destroying the Spanish fleet in Santiago Bay on July 3, 1898. Although most of the American forces surrounding Santiago were undisciplined and suffering from malaria and dysentery, General Jose Toral surrendered the city on July 17, 1898.³    

In five months the United States military bludgeoned the Spanish Colonial Armies so severely that by its end the Spanish Colonial Empire had ceased to exist. Under the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, the United States inherited the Philippine Islands for $20 million, Cuban sovereignty, Guam, and Puerto Rico.⁴

America’s seizure of Spanish colonies only added to the nation’s military trouble. Of the 80,000 men in the American Army, two-thirds were overseas in 1898. Furthermore Philippine nationalists, co-opted by the United States to fight the Spanish, now desired to unyoke themselves of American colonial rule. On February 4, 1899, Philippine nationalist fighters under Emilio Aguinaldo (1869-1964) attacked occupying American forces. Aguinaldo was captured by American troops masquerading as prisoners of war on March 23, 1901. Unfortunately, Aguinaldo’s capture only radicalized Philippine nationalists who embraced guerilla tactics.⁵

American forces in the Philippines reached as many as 70,000 men in December of 1900 and more than 125,000 served abroad and 4,200 of them died. Superior American tactics, weaponry, leadership, collusion with Philippine auxiliaries, and an effort at social reform on the islands allowed the United States to successfully defeat nationalist resistance. In July of 1902 the last surviving nationalist leader still fighting the American occupation surrendered. Victory was then declared by United States President Theodore Roosevelt.⁶