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SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

1790

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

are a part of Spain for administrative purposes). The area of these possessions, which are the last fragments of Spain's once world-wide colonial empire, is 80,580 square miles, though some authorities who

five an enormous extension to Spanish ahara give the area as 243,890 square miles; and the population is 291,946. Rio de Oro and Adrar cover 70,000 square miles and have 130,000 inhabitants, governed from the Canary Isles. Rio Muni extends over 9,800 square miles, and possesses a population of 140,000, including 300 Europeans. The coast is low and marshy, luxuriant in vegetation and covered by huge forests. There are commercial agencies and mission-stations of Roman Catholics and American Presbyterians, but harbors are wanting and the rivers are inaccessible to ships. The islands in the Gulf cover 780 square miles and have 21,946 inhabitants. The North African possessions are used chiefly as convict-stations. Ceuta's population, included in that of Cadiz, Spain, is 13,000, Melilla's 9,000. The Spanish army in Africa is recruited wholly from Spain, and comprises 6,200 men. Spain has given France the right of preemption in case it should sell any of the Spanish colonies or adjacent islands.

Spanish=<Anier'ican War. The people of the United States had long watched the struggle of the Cubans (see CUBA) against the tyranny of Spain (q. v.), and with deep sympathy and indignation had witnessed the inhuman cruelties with which the war had been waged on the part of Spain. The devotion of the Cubans to their cause, the brutality with which the peaceable inhabitants of the island were treated and the inability of our government to induce Spain to adopt reforms that would be acceptable to the Cubans made intervention a duty the United States could not evade. The tension of the situation was increased by the destruction of the United States battleship Maine by an explosion while on a friendly visit in the harbor of Havana (q. v.), on the i$th of February, 1898. Of her crew, 266 men, including two officers, were killed. A naval court of inquiry after thorough investigation declared it to be their opinion that the Maine was destroyed by a submarine mine. The American people, while not asserting that the act was one of treachery on the part of the Spanish government, did believe that without complicity on the part of Spanish officials at Morro Castle the vessel would not have been blown up by mines operated by electric batteries located within that fortification.

Matters now drifted rapidly toward war. On April n, 1898, President McKinley sent a message to Congress in which he declared that he had exhausted every effort

to prevent a resort to arms. On April 19 Congress passed the following preamble and resolutions:

WHEREAS, The abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian civilization, culminating as they have in the destruction of a United States battleship, with^66^ of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit in the harbor of Havana, and cannot longer be endured, as has been set forth by the President of the United States in his message to Congress of April n, 1898,.upon which the action of Congress was invited; therefore,

Resolved, i. That the people of the island of Cuba are and of right ought to be free and independent.

Resolved, 2. That it is the duty of the United States to demand, and the government of the United States does hereby demand, that the government of Spain at once relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters.

Resolved, 3. That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States and to call into actual service of the United States the militia of the several states, to such extent as may be necessary to carry these resolutions into effect.

Resolved, 4. That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or ^control over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.

On April 21 the American minister at Madrid received passports from the Spanish government, and on the same day the Spanish minister left Washington. On April 24 Spain issued a declaration of war with the United States, and next day the American Congress issued a similar declaration. The president issued a call for 125,-ooo volunteers, and the equipment of army and navy was vigorously pushed. The first action of importance was the naval battle in Manila Bay. At daybreak on May i Commodore Dewey, in command of the Asiatic squadron of the United States navy, entered the harbor. His squadron consisted of the cruisers Olympia (flagship), Raleigh, Baltimore and Boston and gunboats Concord and Petrel and the revenue-cutter McCulloch, with two transports. Here he met the Spanish fleet, consisting of the Reina Cristina, Castilla, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Isla de Luzon, Isla de Cuba, Gen. Lezo, Marquis de Duero, Cano, Velasco, Isla de Mindanao, some small gunboats and a transport. The result of the battle was the entire destruction of all the Spanish vessels and the silencing of the land-batteries. Commodore Dewey did not lose a ship nor a man, while the Spanish lost their entire fleet and from 600 to 700 men.

Spain sent to the defense of Cuba a fleet under command of Admiral Cervera (q. v.), which took a secure position in the harbor of Santiago (q. v). The city was also garrisoned by a Spanish army under General Linares. This city and harbor thus became the objective point of American attack.