NASHVILLE HISTORY CORNER

The Spanish-American War

More than 120 years after the Cuban constitutional convention

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

The sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on Feb. 15, 1898, which killed 268 American sailors, was the primary reason causing the United States to join the Cuban rebels in their fight for Independence from Spain. America claimed that the Spanish had sunk Maine by a mine.

Two Naval investigations, one in 1898, and the other in 1974, came to different conclusions. The first investigation concluded that the ship was sunk by an external explosion caused by a mine. The Admiral Hyman Richover investigation in 1974 concluded that bituminous coal in the ship’s hold released firedamp, a mixture of gasses that is prone to spontaneous explosions, caused the sinking of the ship.

Secondary causes for American intervention were possibly exaggerated reports of Spanish atrocities against insurgent Cubans. Even before the sinking of the Maine, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, assistant Secretary of the Navy, called himself “a quietly rampant ‘Cuba Libre’ man.” A month after the sinking, President William McKinley, who wanted to avoid war, instructed his Ambassador to Spain to offer to buy Cuba.

The Spanish refused. McKinley then attempted to negotiate a peace by calling for a cease-fire. Spain agreed but the Cubans, who were generally thought to be near victory, refused to lay down their weapons, which they felt would mean “the dissolution and disintegration of their army.”

McKinley requested authority from Congress to declare war on Spain on April 11, 1898. Colorado Senator Teller successfully introduced an article, known as the Teller Amendment, that disavowed any intention of the United States, “exercising sovereignty or jurisdiction over Cuba and asserted that, when pacification was accomplished, the United States would, “leave the government and the control of the island to its people.” He was afraid that, were Cuba to become a state, the enormous Cuban sugar crop would decimate the beet sugar industry in Colorado.

With war approved on April 20, 1898, conservative Southern Senators were disappointed as they had looked forward to a freed Cuba becoming a segregated state of the United States.

When Americans think about the Spanish-American War, most think of the Roughriders, commanded by Teddy Roosevelt and Leonard Wood. The Roughriders were primarily young men from New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and the Indian Territory-none of which were yet states.

American forces landed on Cuban soil on June 22, 1898. The war ended a month later with only 400 American casualties. After Santiago, Cuba’s second largest city, fell to the American Army in July, Spanish and American officials met to negotiate a peace agreement. No Cuban was invited to attend. General Calixto Garcia, head of the Cuban Liberation Army, learned of the meeting in the newspapers. His army was also not allowed to enter Santiago. General William Shafer, commander of the U.S. forces in Cuba, said of the Cubans “Why, these people are no more fit for self-government than gunpowder is for Hell.”

The Treaty of Paris in December 1898 granted the United States control over four Spanish territories: the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, none of which were represented in the negotiations.

At noon, on Jan. 1, 1899, every Spanish flag in Cuba came down, replaced not by a Cuban flag but by the Stars and Stripes. At the flag swapping ceremony at Morro Lighthouse in the Havana harbor, an American Senator predicted “That flag will never come down in this island.” Absent at Morro Lighthouse were the soldiers of the Liberation Army. US authorities had forbidden their presence in the capital city.

The Cuban War of Independence, the third in 30 years, had been given a new name by the North Americans, the Spanish-American War, from which the Americans, not the Cubans, emerged victorious.

The question in the minds of Cubans was whether or not the Americans would leave the island, as promised, now that Cuba was pacified. The answer was “No.” General Leonard Wood was installed as military governor until such time as the Cubans proved that they were capable of governing themselves. His job was to “prepare the Cuban people for self-government.”

In 1901, Senator Platt introduced a resolution that obligated the United States to leave Cuba only after the Cubans established a government under a constitution that explicitly defined the “future relations of the United States with Cuba.” Cuban capacity for self-government could be proven only through acceptance of the Platt Amendment, which replaced the Teller Amendment.” The new amendment restricted the Cuban government’s ability to sign treaties with third nations, set aside Cuban territory for American use as a naval base and coaling station (Guantanamo Bay), and gave the United States the right to intervene militarily in Cuba uninvited.

Cubans were furious. Nevertheless, on June 12, 1901, seeing no other option, a Cuban constitutional convention, by a vote of 16 to 11, voted to accept the Platt Amendment in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba as an amendment. American soldiers occupied Cuba for three years (1899-1902). The Platt Amendment would not be nullified until 1934.

Today, Guam, Guantanamo Bay and Puerto Rico remain American territories. The Philippines gained its independence in April 1945.

The American Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, which originally had 779 prisoners, mostly Afghans, in January 2002, now has only a handful. I think the Guantanamo Detention Center, where we have, in the past, tortured prisoners, particularly through water-boarding and sleep deprivation, should be closed, the few prisoners who have never been given a trial released, and the territory given back to Cuba.

On Wednesday, June 1, 2022, the Biden administration lifted travel restrictions to Cuba that were established during the Trump administration. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also announced that restrictions on the amount of money that immigrants can send to people in Cuba were also being lifted. I wholeheartedly support these actions.