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HIST 112 US 1877- present Chapter 19 Part 2 Spanish American War — Transcript

by History Class with Dr. W · 1,663 words · 317 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:01[Music]
0:12and so it is into
0:13this setting that the united states
0:15launched
0:17into the war that would really transform
0:20american diplomacy and america's place
0:23in the world
0:24the spanish-american war or as i have it
0:27phrased here the spanish cuban-american
0:29war which a number of historians
0:32have begun uh inserting cuban
0:35into the title of this the war for
0:37reasons i'll discuss momentarily
0:40this war took place in 1898 and
0:44as we approached the war uh the year or
0:46two leading up to it
0:48american diplomacy uh by this time was
0:52hinging on two significant and
0:56in some ways opposing
0:59ideas one of them was the thought of
1:02continued
1:03expansion uh the the continued
1:07thought of this idea of manifest destiny
1:09which we've talked about
1:11a number of times earlier in the course
1:14this is also in keeping with frederick
1:17jackson turner and the frontier thesis
1:20what are we going to do now well in fact
1:22we're going to
1:23continue expanding we're going to look
1:26for further
1:27places to expand into
1:30meaning the pacific ocean and out across
1:33the pacific to places like hawaii and
1:35the philippines
1:37and elsewhere the other theme
1:40uh is the continued emphasis on the
1:44monroe doctrine
1:46meaning the protection of the american
1:48hemisphere
1:49and so both of these themes play a role
1:52in the outbreak of
1:54this spanish-american war because it is
1:56in fact
1:57um growing spanish
2:00activity in cuba that is going to spark
2:04american involvement in this but as we
2:07look at the
2:08background of this war it actually
2:10begins
2:12as a cuban struggle for
2:15independence cuba was in fact one of the
2:18oldest
2:19colonies on earth it had fallen under
2:22spanish control this goes literally all
2:25the way back to the days of
2:26columbus uh in the early 1500s who had
2:31planted the spanish flag in cuba
2:34and from that point to the late 1800s
2:38spain had controlled
2:39cuba but the cubans had begun
2:43fighting for their independence and by
2:46the 1890s in fact
2:48they were
2:52doing well in this war against spain and
2:55they were coming close
2:56to winning their independence from spain
3:01and so the spanish response is to
3:04crack down viciously against the cubans
3:08and in some ways to cling to their
3:10dominance
3:11uh in any way they could think of
3:15the spanish sent a vicious
3:19general whose name was valeriano
3:23butcher weiler valeriano weiler
3:27and butcherweiler determined that he
3:30would control the cubans
3:32by any means necessary this is in the
3:35mid to late 1890s
3:37and it installed a brutal and
3:41vicious regime to keep the cubans under
3:44control one of the things that butcher
3:47weiler did
3:48was he instituted what were called the
3:52reconcentrator the concentration camps
3:55in essence
3:56they were not necessarily death camps in
3:59the sense that people were
4:00systematically killed
4:02but conditions in these camps were
4:05horrific
4:05and tens of thousands hundreds of
4:07thousands of cubans
4:09were put into these prison camps where
4:12disease ran rampant and starvation was
4:15common
4:17torture was common and conditions were
4:21simply awful more than a hundred
4:24thousand
4:25cubans were killed during this period of
4:28rule
4:29under butcher weiler
4:33what does any of this have to do with
4:35the united states you might wonder
4:37well in some ways this relates to the
4:40monroe doctrine
4:41and the protection of the american
4:43hemisphere in other ways there
4:45this goes back to a long tradition of
4:48american interest
4:49in cuba if any of you have been down to
4:52key west
4:53for instance um in florida
4:57you might note there's a sign there at
4:59the tip of florida
5:00pointing in the direction of cuba and it
5:03says cuba
5:0490 miles away in certain ways cuba
5:08is right there it's a very near neighbor
5:11of ours the united states had
5:15toyed off and on with the idea of
5:17annexing or taking over cuba
5:19making it a united states state
5:24so we're always interested in what's
5:25happening in cuba and especially when
5:27there's
5:28something so chaotic as this so awful
5:31and horrific as this
5:32the united states attention is going to
5:34be turned
5:35uh to what's going on in cuba
5:42the president of the united states
5:44during this period was william mckinley
5:47and william mckinley as i've mentioned
5:49showing this
5:50concern for what's going on in cuba
5:53opened
5:54a line of communication with spain in
5:561897
5:58and continuing in 1898 to try to get the
6:01spanish
6:02to curb uh the activities that they were
6:05engaged in
6:06in cuba we didn't mind honestly that
6:09cuba was a colony of spain we weren't
6:12trying to take
6:13cuba away from spain merely to
6:17get the spanish to cease
6:20the horrific tactics that they were
6:23using
6:24in their control of spain
6:27what we see is that the spanish were not
6:29terribly responsive
6:30or open to american suggestions at that
6:33time
6:34and so in fact in 1898 relations between
6:38spain and the united states broke down
6:43there are a number of different things
6:44we can look at and examples
6:47leading to this breakdown in relations
6:49i'll mention
6:50three specific things here
6:54one of them was the growing prominence
6:58of newspapers and journalism during this
7:01time i spoke in an earlier lecture very
7:04briefly about the penny
7:05press and the growing
7:08prominence of newspapers even some early
7:11magazines during this time
7:13one aspect of those newspapers
7:17we might describe as yellow journalism
7:20this was a phrase that was
7:23developed out of this time particularly
7:25because of one of the
7:27comic strips at that time in the ink in
7:29the in the paper was yellow
7:34this yellow journalism was typical of
7:37the very competitive
7:39nature of the newspapers during that age
7:43particularly new york newspapers there
7:46were two
7:47that kind of headlined this battle for
7:51readership the new york journal and the
7:54new york
7:54world papers like this would do
7:58almost anything to attract
8:01readers and so the idea behind yellow
8:03journalism
8:04is a kind of sensationalism almost
8:06tabloid style journalism when you go to
8:08the
8:09grocery store and you see uh newspapers
8:12like the inquirer this kind of faux
8:14journalism um you know all kinds of
8:18crazy stories you know batboy
8:21uh flying through new york city i think
8:24that
8:25stories that many of which are not true
8:27others of them are the
8:29these kind of celebrity based stories
8:31that may be true maybe not they're sort
8:33of
8:35a germ of truth to them but the papers
8:38try to grab your attention whether
8:41they're true or not
8:42and you kind of get sucked in and the
8:44next thing you know you're buying
8:46one of these papers
8:49journalism and not quite sunk to the
8:52levels of that kind of tabloid
8:55journalism that we see today
8:58but the papers in the 1890s were trying
9:01to grab
9:02our attention and get us to buy their
9:04papers and so if we look at newspapers
9:06from that era
9:07they implemented large headlines they
9:10implemented
9:11lots of very interesting um cartoons
9:14which we will
9:16look at several of these anything they
9:19could do
9:19and so they were very drawn to the story
9:23in cuba because it was so intriguing
9:26uh rape torture death
9:29mayhem war listen these are awful things
9:34but they also grab our attention
9:36and americans were buying these papers
9:38by the millions
9:39and the message that began to come
9:41across in these newspapers
9:43is why aren't we doing anything about
9:47this
9:47why is the united states standing by
9:51and allowing this to happen and so we'll
9:53see these
9:54these newspapers the media begin to push
9:57president mckinley in the direction of
10:00intervening
10:01in cuba a second
10:05episode that contributed to the
10:07breakdown in relations
10:09was known as the dilom letter
10:12this was a letter that was sent from the
10:15spanish
10:15minister or diplomat stationed in
10:18washington dc whose name was
10:20dilom and dalome wrote this letter back
10:25to spain as was commonly done but it was
10:28intercepted
10:30by american uh intelligence and
10:33ultimately it was leaked
10:34to the media and on february 9th this
10:37letter was published in the newspapers
10:40and it created a firestorm
10:43of controversy in the letter the spanish
10:46minister
10:47uh spoke in derogatory or insulting
10:51terms
10:51about the united states and especially
10:54its president
10:55william mckinley among other things
10:57dilom
10:58described mckinley as weak and
11:01a bitter for the admiration of the crowd
11:05well my goodness our own media tears
11:08apart our presidents today in far worse
11:10terms than that
11:11but at that time this was thought to be
11:14a grave
11:15insult and there is a sense of um
11:18that you might recognize you know sort
11:20of defending your own family you can
11:22pick on your brothers or sisters but if
11:24someone else
11:25calls them a name you're going to stick
11:27up for them so you know we might insult
11:29mckinley on our own terms but
11:31when this piddling little spanish
11:34minister insults the president
11:36we need to do something about it and so
11:39this began to get the country really
11:42fired up
11:43uh with this kind of anti-spanish
11:47sense and the next event
11:51the destruction of the maine
11:54pushes the country over the brink uh and
11:57so
11:57six days later on february 15 1898
12:02the uss warship the main
12:05exploded in havana harbor
12:08um 260 american sailors
12:11were killed now the united states had
12:14sent the maine
12:15down to cuba to havana as
12:18something of a warning to the cubans you
12:21need to get your act together you need
12:23to stop this
12:24these methods that you've been
12:26implementing or
12:28we have this battleship at the ready to
12:31do something
12:33on february 15th the main exploded
12:36and everyone in the united states was
12:39certain
12:41how had this happened well the spanish
12:43of course had attacked
12:45and destroyed our warship and so
12:49after this the calls for war grew to
12:52just an
12:53incredible level and in fact uh the
12:55president william mckinley found
12:57he could no longer prevent the country
13:00from going to war
13:01uh there was just too much um
13:06[Music]
13:25you

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