Cuban Wars of Independence and Spanish–American War: A Visual History

Cuba's struggle against Spain ran from the Ten Years' War (1868-1878), begun by Carlos Manuel de Cespedes freeing his slaves, through the Little War (1879-1880) to the War of Independence launched by Jose Marti in 1895 and led by Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo. Spain's General Weyler herded the rural population into 'reconcentration' camps where over 150,000 died. When the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbour in February 1898, American pressure and yellow-press outrage led to the Spanish-American War: Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay, Roosevelt's Rough Riders charged San Juan Hill, Cervera's squadron was sunk at Santiago, and Spain surrendered in ten weeks. The Treaty of Paris (December 1898) freed Cuba under US tutelage and gave the US Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Cuban wars of independence and Spanish-American War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Deaths in the Cuban wars, 1895-1898

Timeline of the Cuban wars of independence and Spanish-American War

1. 1868
   Grito de Yara; Ten Years' War begins
2. 1878
   Pact of Zanjon
3. 1895
   War of Independence; Marti killed
4. 1896
   Weyler's reconcentration; Maceo killed
5. 1898
   Maine explodes; war; Manila Bay; San Juan Hill; SantiagoFebruary to July.
6. 1898
   Treaty of Paris10 December.
7. 1902
   Cuba formally independent under the Platt Amendment

The Ten Years' War and Marti

Cespedes proclaimed independence at his sugar mill on 10 October 1868, freeing his slaves; the war dragged through the eastern provinces with 200,000 dead until the Pact of Zanjon in 1878, which Maceo protested. Spain abolished slavery in 1886. Jose Marti, poet and exile in New York, organised the Cuban Revolutionary Party and launched the new war on 24 February 1895; he died in a skirmish at Dos Rios in May. Gomez and Maceo swept west to Havana province, burning sugar estates; Maceo was killed in December 1896.

Weyler and the Maine

Valeriano Weyler's reconcentration policy from 1896 forced peasants into fortified towns where starvation and disease killed at least 150,000; Hearst's and Pulitzer's newspapers made 'Butcher Weyler' notorious. Spain recalled him and offered autonomy in 1897. On 15 February 1898 the battleship Maine blew up in Havana, killing 266 Americans; a court blamed a mine, and 'Remember the Maine' swept the US into war on 25 April, with the Teller Amendment disclaiming annexation of Cuba.

The splendid little war

Dewey sank the Spanish squadron in Manila Bay on 1 May without losing a man; the US invaded Cuba at Daiquiri in June, took El Caney and San Juan Hill on 1 July with the Rough Riders and black regulars, and destroyed Cervera's fleet as it fled Santiago on 3 July; Santiago surrendered on 17 July and Puerto Rico was occupied. Cuban rebels who had made it possible were excluded from the surrender. The armistice of 12 August and Treaty of Paris of 10 December ended Spain's empire; the US bought the Philippines for 20 million dollars, sparking the Philippine-American War, and the Platt Amendment of 1901 gave it the right to intervene in Cuba and the base at Guantanamo Bay.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1976)
• United States (1776 to present)
• Second French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)
• Empire of Japan (1868 to 1947)
• Dutch Empire (1602 to 1975)

Wars of the same era and region

• Philippine-American War (1899 to 1902)
• Colombian War of Independence (1810 to 1825)
• Mexican War of Independence (1810 to 1821)
• World War I (1914 to 1918)
• Burmese-Siamese wars (1547 to 1855)
• First Indochina War (1946 to 1954)

8 surprising things about the Cuban wars of independence and Spanish-American War

1. John Hay called it 'a splendid little war'; the fighting lasted ten weeks.
2. The cause of the Maine's explosion is still debated; a 1976 US Navy study blamed a coal bunker fire.
3. Weyler's reconcentration camps predate and possibly inspired the British camps in South Africa.
4. The Rough Riders charged Kettle Hill on foot; their horses had been left in Florida.
5. Black 'Buffalo Soldier' regiments played a major and under-credited part at San Juan Hill.
6. Cuban generals were barred from the surrender ceremony at Santiago; Calixto Garcia protested.
7. The US kept Guantanamo Bay under a 1903 lease that Cuba's government has refused to recognise since 1959.
8. Jose Marti's poem 'Versos Sencillos' provided the lyrics of Guantanamera.

Sources

• Spanish-American War Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Cuban War of Independence Wikipedia
• Spanish-American War Wikipedia
• Louis A. Perez Jr, The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography (1998) University of North Carolina Press

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