Spanish American War

Spanish American War

The cause of the Spanish American War was the fact that Spain mistreated its subjects in Cuba. Demands by Cuban patriots for independence from Spanish rule made U.S. intervention in Cuba a paramount issue in the relations between the United States and Spain from the 1870s to 1898. Sympathy for the Cubans ran high in America. The Spanish military commander instituted the concentration camp system in 1896; Cuba's rural population was forcibly confined to centrally located garrison towns, where thousands died from disease, starvation, and exposure.
Although the majority of Americans, including President McKinley, wished to avert war and hoped to settle the Cuban question by peaceful means, a series of incidents early in 1898 intensified U.S. feelings against Spain. The first of these was the publication by Hearst of a stolen letter that had been written by the Spanish minister at Washington, in which that incautious diplomat expressed contempt for McKinley. This w...