US History
Spiconardi
The Spanish-American War:
The Fighting and Results
The Teller Amendment
• Prior to the start of the
war, Congress passed the
Teller Amendment
• Teller Amendment 
Under Sen. Teller of
Colorado, the amendment
vowed that the U.S. would
not annex Cuba after the
war’s conclusion, but rather
“leave control of the island
to its people”
Based on what we have learned about
the US this unit, do you think the US
followed through on its promise?
Sen. Henry Teller (R-Co)
The War
• Fighting occurred in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and
the Philippines
• Problems
• The U.S. Army was depleted after the Civil War some
35 years earlier, as it only had 28,000 members.
• The U.S. had to rely on the National Guard and
volunteers to boost its numbers to 263,000
• This led to many untrained and undisciplined soldiers
• Enter Theodore Roosevelt…
The War
• The Rough Riders
• A group of volunteer infantry soldiers who, as
Roosevelt stated, were “children of the dragon’s
blood” and eager for war
• Many were too young to remember the horrors of the
Civil War and saw war as an adventure
Segregation in the army
Black troops were segregated from their white counterparts.
When many white soldiers contracted malaria and yellow fever,
the were evacuated, but blacks were left behind to fight under
the belief that being use to the South’s climate would make
them immune from diseases.
The War: Casualties and Losses
The United States
• 5,452 deaths
• Only 379 from combat
• The rest died of malaria, yellow fever, and food poisoning
• Embalmed beef Scandal
• A medical officer wrote, "Much of the beef I examined arriving on the
transports from the United States ... was apparently preserved by
injected chemicals to aid deficient cold storage…It looked well, but had
an odor similar to that of a dead human body after being injected with
preservatives, and it tasted when first cooked like decomposed boric acid
..."
The War
• So despite disease and a predominately volunteer army, how the
heck did the U.S. win this war?
• The Navy  The U.S. had a superior navy
• U.S. blockaded Cuba to prevent Spanish from reinforcing and
resupplying its army on the island
• Rebels  Cubans and Filipinos teamed up with U.S. soldiers to fight he
Spanish
• Writer Sherman Anderson noted that fighting Spain was “like
robbing an old gypsy woman in a vacant lot at night after a fair”
The Treaty of Paris
• Spain, after being beaten so badly, agreed to the following:
• Spain must give up all claims to Cuba
• The U.S. will maintain peace and protect life & property on
the island
• Spain must give the U.S. control of Puerto Rico & Guam
• Spain will sell the Philippine Islands to the U.S. for $20
million
The Platt Amendment
• The Platt Amendment replaced the
Teller Amendment
• In exchange for withdrawing U.S.
Troops from Cuba:
• The U.S. had an open door to
intervene in Cuban affairs
• Cuba also agreed to sell or lease
to the United States "lands
necessary for coaling or naval
stations”
• Cuba leased Guantánamo Bay to
the United States
The Philippine-American War
• Like Cuba, the U.S. took control of the Philippines and
intended to “uplift and civilize” the Filipinos
• In 1899, the Philippines declared independence and took arms
against the United States
• After 3 years of fighting, 200,000 dead Filipinos, 5,000 dead
Americans and unspeakable atrocities, the U.S. had
suppressed the rebellion
• U.S. promised Philippines self government in 1916
• Philippines was granted independence in 1946