Spanish American War

Spanish American War

Throughout American history, the United States has been involved in a number of wars. One particular war which made the United States an imperialistic state was the Spanish-American War in 1898. On March 4, 1897, William McKinley was inaugurated as President of the United States. During his time in office, along with Secretary of the State John Jay and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, they led the United States through a period of hard decisions.
There were many factors that led up to the eruption of the war. Cuba was fighting for its independence from Spain with the help from the United States. The Spanish colonies in North and South American became independent from Spanish rule in the early 1900’s but Cuba and Puerto Rico remained Spanish. As a superior country, American felt the need to help the suffering state. On February 15, 1898, the American battleship U.S.S. Maine anchored in Havana Harbor exploded. Two hundred and sixty six of the American sailors were killed. This was another factor that fueled the fire of war. As stated in WBA, “Congress blamed Spain and declared war in April, vowing in the Teller Amendment that the United States would guarantee Cuban independence.” (Rosenzweig, Page 159) Although the war might have seemed focused on freeing Cuba from Spain and gaining independence for Cuba and the Philippines, it was also stimulated by nationalism and commercialism. Commercialism was a major factor when declaring war because the United States depended on Cuba and the Philippines for trade and business with other countries, especially in Asia and Latin America. Another major factor for the war was that the United States wanted to spread Christianity around the world and emerge as a world-wide power.
Long before the Spanish-American war occurred, the United States always believed in a system of expansionism. People spoke of American expansionism which was euphuism because they didn’t want to use the word “imperialism”. This was a...