yellow fever

Politics of the Spanish-American War

Walter Reed, James Carroll, Aristides Agramonte, and Jesse Lazear conducted their yellow fever research as part of the American occupation force in Cuba in the wake of the Spanish-American War. A review of the cause and outcome of the war is helpful if one wishes to understand the political and social context in which the commission worked.





The Spanish-American War and the subsequent occupation of Cuba can be traced to the rapid growth of the American public’s interest in economic, territorial, and cultural expansion during the 1890s. This interest was due in part to domestic economic distress. The Depression and the dominance of monopolies such as Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel forced struggling farmers and aspiring entrepreneurs to look abroad for better economic opportunities.

The United States, ca. 1893

By 1893, only five territories had yet to be admitted as states: Utah (1896), Oklahoma (1907), New Mexico (1912), Arizona (1912), and Alaska (1959).

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Equally significant was the alleged disappearance of the American frontier. In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the frontier shaped and maintained the American democratic spirit by providing pioneers with new land to independently explore and new problems to creatively solve. By 1890, however, the “Wild West” appeared to be explored, organized, and settled. If Turner was right, and if America had truly lost its frontier, then it seemed that the federal government needed to acquire new territory in order to keep American democracy alive.
In addition, after the wars of the 1880s, Native Americans appeared to be “pacified” and ready to adapt to Euro-American culture. Many white Americans who were convinced that Native Americans were happier than they had been before European contact felt morally obligated to spread their cultural traditions elsewhere, just as the British, French, and Germans were doing in Asia and Africa.

“The Patient Citizen—‘It’s very confusing but possibly it’s all true.’”

With sensational headlines, the yellow press helped guide public opinion toward intervention in Cuba.

From The Record, Chicago, ca. 1898

The “yellow press” exploited these developments in American opinion during the Second Cuban War for Independence (1895-98). Yellow journalists such as Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal printed exaggerated reports of Spanish atrocities ordered by General Valeriano “the Butcher” Weyler in order to rally support for American intervention on behalf of the Cuban revolutionaries—and to sell their newspapers. Pulitzer and Hearst furthered their anti-Spanish campaign by publishing Spanish ambassador Dupuy de Lôme’s insulting judgment of President William McKinley as “weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd.”

Wreckage of the Maine, Havana harbor, January 1899.

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The Maine explosion provided the yellow press with its most effective headline. Sent to Havana harbor in January of 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine was destroyed by an explosion of unknown origin on February 15, killing 260 American servicemen. Many Americans believed that the Maine had been sunk by a Spanish submarine mine. Hearst’s battle cry, “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain!,” established the Maine disaster as a rallying point for interventionists. On April 25, 1898, Congress declared war on Spain.

Funeral for the Maine victims, Havana, February 1898.

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“Imperialists” and “Anti-Imperialists”

“Gomez’ army marching into Havana to lay down their arms,” January 1899

One of the leaders of the Cuban revolutionaries, General Máximo Gómez believed that the American intervention robbed his army of a victory that rightfully belonged to them. After the war, the American government effected the gradual dissolution of Gomez’ army by offering his soldiers food and employment in exchange for their weapons. Those who refused to lay down their arms were forbidden to participate in the victory celebration.

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Although many feared that yellow fever and other diseases might cripple the American army in Cuba, no one doubted that America would eventually win the war. The problem, even before war had been declared, was whether or not to keep any of the territories occupied by American troops at the end of the war. Besides the occupation of Cuba, American wartime claims included Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and the Hawaiian islands. Congress was divided between “imperialists,” who wanted to annex the newly occupied countries, and “anti-imperialists,” who did not want to add non-North American lands to the United States. The anti-imperialists were led by Senator Henry M. Teller, who included in the war bill a promise that the United States would not annex Cuba following the war. Anti-imperialists did not, however, prevent the establishment of an American military government on the island, nor did they manage to protect in advance the independence of other territories claimed during the war.

“Opening of the fishing season. Uncle Sam seems to be making a good catch!”

Imperialist cartoon showing Uncle Sam as a great fisherman reeling in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines.

From The Journal, Minneapolis, 1898

Imperialists alleged the economic advantages of annexation and stressed America’s moral obligation to “civilize” the world. One imperialist senator declared: “God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No!…He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples.”

“How some apprehensive people picture Uncle Sam after the war.”

A standard anti-imperialist argument: acquiring new territories meant acquiring new problems—in this case, the problem of “pacifying” and protecting the allegedly helpless inhabitants.

From The News, Detroit, 1899

Most anti-imperialists agreed that the world needed Euro-American civilization, but they believed that America could influence the world without directly governing it. They argued that a democratic government could not be democratic and imperial at the same time. They also claimed that the colonization of distant lands would entangle the United States in foreign wars. Some feared that annexation required the American government to eventually accept these territories as full-fledged states with representatives in Washington. One prominent anti-imperialist remarked: “The prospect of the consequences which would follow the admission of the Spanish creoles and the negroes of West India islands and of the Malays and Tagals of the Philippines to participation in the conduct of our government is so alarming that you instinctively pause before taking the step.”

American claims, ca. 1899

By the Treaty of Paris (December 1898-February 1899), the United States acquired territories from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. Imperialists hoped that the trail of Pacific claims from Hawaii to the Philippines would one day facilitate a lucrative American-Chinese trade.

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On February 6, 1899, the Senate approved the Treaty of Paris by the narrow margin of two votes. Despite anti-imperialist opposition, America emerged from the Spanish-American War as a world power, the proud owner of territories that spanned nearly 10,000 miles.