19 Century Military Hardware

Point of View

The last years of the 19th century were filled with exercises of power for the United States and its Caribbean neighbors.  Above all, Cuba was affected by strong US colonialist leanings.  While many would resist calling the US a colonial power, that era had the effect of spreading US power for the benefit of the US nation.  It seemed as if the US, through application of gunboat diplomacy, was set on a course of acquiring and maintaining hegemony over foreign lands.

In the late 1890's, the Spanish colony of Cuba was fighting its third war of independence against its Spanish rulers.  This war was going better for the Cubans than the first two wars.  While Cuba made gains on the ground, in 1898, the world was shocked by the sinking of the US battleship Maine in Havana's harbor with the loss of 268 lives.  It seemed most likely the Maine was sunk by the Spaniards, but some felt the Cubans did it to bring the US into the war.  To this day, there is not universal agreement on who did it, despite many investigations.

But the US entered the war, and that entry spelled defeat for Spain.  Spain had once been among the most successful colonial powers in the world with huge holdings in North and South America and in the Pacific.  By the late 19th century, it had fallen on hard times, and their former success had devolved into a hodge-podge of rebellious colonies and former colonies.  They had already lost all of South America, stripping the continent clean of their influence.  In the Western Hemisphere Spain was left with only Cuba and Puerto Rico under the Spanish fist.

The most famous part of the Spanish American War was surely Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders taking San Juan Hill, but the decisive naval victories really won the war.  Spain's navy was old, poorly maintained, short on coal, preoccupied with European rivalries, and completely overmatched by the modern US fighting ships.  Beyond Cuba, decisive US wins in Puerto Rico and The Philippines settled the fate of Spain as a colonial power.

The US occupied Cuba for five years for five years after the Treaty of Paris, which stopped the war.  Finally the US used its power to exact a new treaty called the Platt Amendment.  That treaty gave the US the right to intervene militarily in Cuba if it (the US) took a dim view of foreign or domestic events.  Cuba could not contract debt to a foreign country without US approval.  Also, we compelled the granting of perpetual occupancy of a naval base on the island.  That occupancy continues to this day as the naval base at Guantanamo.

Thus the 20th century began with Cuba free of Spanish rule but with severe new restrictions giving the US say so over foreign relationships.  In the decades after the end of the war, the US saw fit to intervene with troops at least three times.  A late as 1917, the US intervened with troops sometimes after corrupt elections had installed Cuban leaders not to US liking.

Recently, when I started reading about the Spanish American War, I began with my standard high school American History class's understanding of the war and its aftermath.  Needless to say, my high school teachers didn't devote much time to how we got into the war or what happened after the war.  They surely didn't lead my class and me to an appreciation of how all this looks to Latinos all over the Caribbean, Central, and South America.

In my view as an American schoolboy, we had really helped the Cubans.  We ended the Spanish mistreatment of Cuba.  On the sinking of the USS Maine, we entered the war on Cuba's side and made short work of "freeing" the country.  Also on Cuba's behalf we punished Spain not only by "freeing" Cuba, but also by kicking the Spanish out of Puerto Rico and Guam, and we forced them to sell the Philippines to us at a bargain price.  We drove the final nails in the coffin of Spanish colonialism in the Western Hemisphere

The war and the win were the stuff of Teddy Roosevelt's dreams, and his popularity, along with William McKinley's assassination, propelled him into the White House and to a place on Mount Rushmore.  Toward Cuba, the US assumed the role of kindly old Uncle Sam, guiding Cuba on a path we prescribed.

However in a typical Latino's view, the US entry into Cuba's third war of independence was not really gratuitous.  The Latino would note that we waited three years after the start of the war until Cuba had almost won the fight.  We allowed the Cubans to do as much of the heavy fighting as we could, and then we applied naval power to finish the war off in our favor.  We used this war to start the US on a plan of colonial domination, and evidence of this is the huge percentage of Cuban businesses owned by Americans.  Even in 1959, when Castro's Revolution triumphed, US interests owned over 70 percent of Cuban enterprises.  Finally, our Latino observer would say, when the fighting stopped, we occupied the island for five years and then forced the Cubans to let the US intervene whenever it liked.  We also took, apparently in perpetuity, the 46 square mile Guantanamo naval base.

So what one thinks is colored by one's point of view.  A patriotic US kid would be justified to see the US involvement in the war as a friendly rescue mission, while  a Latino kid of the same age would see something far more sinister in Uncle Sam's trying to keep peace in the world.  If such opposed views can happen here in our own backyard, it's easy to imagine why large numbers of people in Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, and Iraq don't subscribe to our present day self-appointed role as world policeman.

Les Inglis