Explosion of the USS Maine in 1898

By the 1870s, tensions between the United States and Spain were growing. Once a vast empire, Spain had lost much of its overseas territory over the nineteenth century. The decline of the Spanish Empire left Cuba as one of its last remaining footholds in the Western Hemisphere. But Madrid’s grasp had begun to slip there as well. Starting in 1868, Cubans waged three successive liberation wars, culminating in the 1895 Cuban War of Independence. To quell the rebellion, Spanish forces acted harshly to suppress the revolutionary fervor on the island. The Spanish forcibly relocated hundreds of thousands of Cuban civilians to concentration camps and practiced scorched-earth tactics to starve the rebels of supplies. More than two hundred thousand Cuban civilians died as a result of this policy. Back on the mainland, U.S. journalists were quick to bring the story of Cuban liberation to American readers. The American media stoked widespread sympathy for the Cuban cause and anger toward the Spanish empire. As the war dragged on, public outrage began to spur calls for U.S intervention on behalf of the Cubans.

Although public interest in Cuba was mainly humanitarian, the United States had economic interests in the island as well. In the wake of a major depression in 1873, the United States sought economic opportunities to aid recovery. Spain’s waning power in Cuba gave U.S. businesses a chance to invest in the island’s lucrative sugar and tobacco industries. Consequently, the U.S. and Cuban economies grew increasingly interconnected. By the 1890s, U.S. investments in Cuba amounted to roughly $50 million. At that time, nearly 95 percent of Cuban sugar exports went to the United States. Some Americans feared that continued Cuban imports would hurt certain domestic producers. However, most U.S. policymakers were more concerned that instability in Cuba would endanger U.S. investments and harm the overall U.S. economy. Intervention, therefore, offered an opportunity to protect U.S. economic interests. Moreover, the United States would also benefit from  strengthened ties with a newly independent Cuba by aiding in the defeat of Spanish forces. 

Policymakers also had strategic interests in Cuba. Specifically, the United States was eager to expand its sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba presented a strategically valuable location for a naval outpost. An expanded U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean could protect regional trade. Moreover, a military presence in Cuba would aid U.S. efforts to develop a canal through Nicaragua or Panama to connect trade routes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Spanish domination over the island, though, curtailed the United States’ ability to advance its political and strategic ties with Cuba. Some policymakers hoped that the removal of Spanish control in Cuba could enable a long-term U.S. presence in the region. Others, however, worried that intervention in Cuba was not worthwhile. In addition to the immense cost of a war, the United States had no way to ensure that intervention would lead to an independent Cuba friendly to U.S. interests. Policymakers, therefore, needed to consider how to prioritize various U.S. interests to determine how Washington’s relationship with a newly independent Havana would look.