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Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida and the US has had an interest in it for a long time. Diplomats recommended to President Franklin to buy Cuba. Spain said that they would rather have Cuba sink than sell it to the US.
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October 1868 - October 1878
Cubans tried to overthrow the Spanish control on the island. They were unsuccessful, but the Cuban people were able to get some reforms passed. The Cuban casualties were around 300,000 on the Cuban sides, and the number of Spanish was unknown. This weakend Spain's control while at the same time fostering US resentmet of Spain and empathy for the rebels. -
Anti-Spanish people in Cuba went into a second war for independence. José Martí, a Cuban poet and journalist, started a revolution in 1895. Martí set up Cuban resistance against Spain, using campaign and destroying property, especially American-owned sugar mills and plantations. Which eventually went into the Spanish American war.
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Spain sent General Valeriano Weyler to Cuba to bring back order. Weyler forced all of the rural population of central & western Cuba into barbed-wire concentration camps. Civilians could not give aid to the rebels. Around 30,000 Cubans were in the camps, thousands died of hunger and disease.
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The yellow journalism was exaggerated stories and news to lure readers. Just because they were printed in the papers, people thought it was true. They were published by Hearst’s New York Journal and Pulitzer’s New York World by reporter James Creelman. This caused the public to have a lot more respect to Cuba's Civil War.
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Enrique Dupuy de Lome wrote a private letter which was published to The New York Journal. A Cuban had taken the letter from a Havana post office and had it put in the newspaper. The de Lôme letter said bad things about President McKinley, it called him “weak” and “a bidder for the admiration of the crowd.” The Spanish minister resigned and the government apologized. Americans were still mad about the insult to their president.
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After the de Lome letter was published, Spain got mad because America was treating them unfairly. In 1898, President McKinley ordered the U.S.S. Maine to Cuba was supposed to bring back American citizens in danger from the fighting. Also to protect American property. The ship blew up in the harbor of Havana, more than 260 men were killed.
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First act of war, this blocked Spanish fleets. US moved its ships from the tip of Florida all the way around Cuba, so that no one could escape. They trapped the Spaniards in Cuba. Letting the US defeat the Spaniards in Cuba.
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“Remember the Maine!” was the rallying cry for U.S. intervention in Cuba. The Spanish government agreed to almost everything the US wanted, but the US wasn’t happy. On April 11th, McKinley asked congress to use force against Spain. War was later declared on April 20th by the US. This was to free Cuba.
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George Dewey gave the command to open fire on the Spanish at Manila Bay. America had taken over so it allowed them to to land in the Philippines. It was the first major engagment of the Spanish American War. One of the biggest navy battles in history and marked the end of the Spanish colonial period.
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The US army consisting of 17,000 people went to Cuba and started to converge on the city of Santiago.
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The U.S. Army Fifth Corps fought its way to Santiago’s outer defenses, and on July 1 U.S. General William Shafter ordered an attack on the village of El Caney and San Juan Hill. This ended the Spanish American War. Roosevelt was the hero of the war. It is also one of the best known US battles in Cuba.
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The Spanish tried to escape the American blockade of the harbor at Santiago. The Spanish fleet was destroyed off Santiago by U.S. warships under Admiral William Sampson, and on July 17 the Spanish surrendered.
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The destruction of the Spanish fleet was an important event so they US could gain an entrance into Puerto Rico. We were able to gain more land and became more imperialistic.
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US got freedom from Spain. 11,000 Americans joined forces with the Filipino rebels and attacked. Spanish surrendered to the US. The ending was the treaty of peace between the two nations.
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The Spanish American war ended when Spain agreed to a peace protocol on US terms. They gave Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Manila in the Philippines to the United States. The US gets an empire.
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Real fighting in the war lasted 15 weeks. United States and Spain met in Paris to agree on a treaty. Spain sold the Philippines to the United States for 20 million. Spain also freed Cuba and gave the islands of Guam in the Pacific and Puerto Rico in the West Indies to the United States.
