Spanish Misrule Cartoon from Puck

• This is a political cartoon from the mid-1890s depicting how Spanish misrule in Cuba was fanning the flames of rebellion.

Illustration by Grant Hamilton, Judge, July 9, 1898

The Rough Riders

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African-American Soldiers in Cuba

N. Daniels. “A Valiant Negro Soldier. Dislodging a Spanish Sharpshooter on the eight-mile march toward San Juan

Hill,” (ca. 1898). • Renderings such as this of valiant and decisive African American actions in the war were proudly cherished by black families. Popular prints highlighted the crucial intervention of black troops in the battles of the Santiago campaign. These images promoted a countercultural reaction against attempts to restrict war glory to white

regiments.

Emilio Aguinaldo Cartoon from Puck

Savage Acts: Wars, Fairs, and Empire1. What developments contributed to the United States’ rise as a world power during the 1890s? Why did a more aggressive foreign policy emerge after 1893? How would you ultimately describe U.S. imperialism?

2. What argument is the documentary Savage Acts trying to make about the connection between citizenship and imperialism around the turn of the century?

3. How did the supposed “end” of the frontier influence the United States’ attitudes toward imperialism?

4. Not all Americans were enthusiastic about the United States’ new imperial ventures. Why? Were their criticisms of imperialism particularly enlightened? Explain.

5. How did African-Americans view the prospect of war with Spain? What helps to account for African-American leaders’ divisions in their view of the Spanish-American-Cuban war?

6. Filipinos initially welcomed United States’ intervention as a way of getting rid of their Spanish overlords. Soon, however, the Americans and Filipinos started fighting each other at the cost of at least 200,000 Filipinos’ lives, as well as 4,200 Americans’ lives. What happened? How did the United States justify continued intervention in the Philippines? What questions regarding the nature of U.S. expansion abroad did the U.S.-Philippine War raise?From waterboarding to the murky, ever-changing war aims and an increasingly dismayed and disinterested public, the Philippine War reveals some fairly uncomfortable parallels with a certain contemporary war – or does it? Something to think about…

Here’s the address for the website that accompanies the documentary Savage Acts – definitely worth a look: http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/video/acts-guide.html