AMERICA DID NOT send military forces to Cuba as a prelude to annexing the island as a colony or territory. Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado made sure of that. When legislation was introduced into Congress authorizing military incursion to put an end to revolution in Cuba, he offered an amendment whereby the United States “...hereby disclaims any disposition of intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.”

The Senate passed the amendment, 42 to 35, on April 19, 1898, and the House concurred on the same day. President McKinley signed the joint resolution on April 20th, and an ultimatum was sent to Spain. 

Some have argued that Teller fought for the proviso to protect his state's sugar beet farmers from the Cubans flooding the market with cheap cane sugar. Not only cheap, but also better. For whatever reason, the Teller Amendment laid the groundwork for paternalism rather than annexation, and the Americans focused on preparing the Cubans for independence.

Interestingly, I lived in Colorado for a few years and was given the false impression that sugar beet farming arose there following the Cuban embargo that began in 1962. Living in Fort Collins, I would pedal my bicycle past miles of fields planted in sugar beets. Most were owned by farmers of Japanese descent who had been displaced during World War II. They remained in Colorado following the war rather than return to their homes and fight to regain them. However, it was in fact the opening of trade with Cuba that American farmers feared. It was not the end of trade that drove them to grow sugar beets.

In any case, the conduct of the American military governors in Cuba supports the contention that the primary motivation of the United States in occupying the island was to prepare them for independence. They corrected every deficiency of Spanish colonial rule. The Cubans benefited immeasurably from the infrastructure that the Americans built. They had never before known justice in their courts or felt the beneficent hand of competent governance.

With the end of the period of paternalism in Cuba, American occupation ended. However, another amendment, the Platt Amendment, insured the continued presence of American forces on the island, not to subjugate the Cubans, but rather to protect American interests on the island as well as the approaches to the Panama Canal.

THOSE WHO ACCUSE America of imperialism have a hard case to approve. America has never acquired colonies. Nations follow America or not of their own volition. Unfortunately, they are blinded by America's economic success. They mistake the fundamental nature of the American experiment that makes it successful. They confuse America's Puritanical drive to achieve as greed. They emulate greed instead of honest labor. Thus, they attract the worst elements of America, charlatans and gangsters. Those who are forced to operate in the shadows, outside the law inside America, operate openly in nations that envy America. That is what happened in Cuba.

When Leonard Wood's term as territorial governor ended in Cuba after just two years, only four years of American paternalism had transpired. Wood honestly thought that the American's had done enough. By 1901, under American tutelage, Cuban rural guardsmen returned to the countryside to enforce law and order. Local law enforcement received payment from local governments. Cuban soldiers assumed command of coastal defenses. Democratic elections were held and Cubans were franchised with the vote if they were twenty-one, had no criminal record, and possessed either literacy, an honorable discharge from the Cuban military, or $250 in property. Wood was justifiably proud of the occupation and its accomplishments: fair administration, treasury surpluses, equitable enforcement of the laws, public schools, hospitals, asylums, highways, and railways. The Americans had built a new Cuba.

It was time to grant Cuba its freedom. However, the American's wanted safeguards in place to insure that Europeans didn't take advantage of the inherent weakness of a fledgling nation. There was no fear of Spain returning. It was bereft of the will as well as the resources to risk another confrontation with the United States. France and England were too distracted with problems in other parts of their far-flung empires. However, Germany was beginning a rise to power. It had a modern navy and seemed interested in establishing bases in the Caribbean to support adventures in South America.

Some American statesmen argued that the Monroe Doctrine would discourage German incursions. Others argued that it was only policy. A law was needed. The first such law they advanced was the Teller Amendment, to be embedded in the thread of war against Spain. It announced America's intentions, not only to the Spanish, but also to the rest of the world.

We see this same mistake echoed throughout history. Most recently, America was accused of invading Iran to seize its oil. Even now that American forces have been withdrawn and not one drop of oil was purloined, people, even in the United States, continue to make the charge. They seem incapable of imagining any motivation other than greed. Is it possible that they are misguided by their own base intentions?

ALTHOUGH THE FIRST American military governor of Cuba, General John Brooke, saved Cuba from starvation, former rebel leaders accused him of violating the spirit of the rebellion. He had simply replaced Spanish rule with American rule. He had even left former Spanish bureaucrats in key government positions. Thus, the second generation of American leaders in Cuba would guide the Cubans towards responsible self-government with parental care. They would be led by the new military governor, Leonard Wood.

The noted American statesman, Elihu Root, defined the guidelines of future American policy in Cuba. He said that America must provide political instruction “to bring about conservative Cuban leadership and thus avoid internecine factional strife, electoral training to create a respect for the ballot, and financial tutelage to teach the Cubans how to balance the budget.” (I suspect that we could use these things in America today.)

Education was the key, Root continued. Unlike several other cynical observers, Root was convinced that a large Negro element in Cuba “posed no insurmountable barriers to educational advancement.” The erection of public schools throughout the island would “herald a new era for the Cuban republic, its citizenry... instructed to respect law and order by American guidance, [they] would then assume the reins of power.”

Leonard Wood agreed to a point. To him, Cuba constituted an excellent opportunity to carry out the credos of American middle-class progressivism. His prescription for Cuba's ills was material progress, not politics. In his view, the function of his administration was “a temporary paternalism until the Cubans learned the prerequisites for stable government.” Wood believed that good government was founded “not in political theory, but in the minutia of day-to-day public services.” He focused his attention on training the police, reforming the courts, and inculcating bureaucrats with a sense of public duty. Under Wood's direction, Americans continued to provide for the defense of Cuba, but Cubans themselves would be employed in the civilian branches of the occupation under American supervision, of course.

Public works projects sprouted up throughout the island. Roads and bridges were built in Matanzas, Cienfuegos, and Guantánamo. In Havana, the harbor was dredged and military barracks were converted into schools and hospitals. The educational system which had previously glorified Hispanic culture was replaced by one that taught nationalism and instructed students in the practical and agricultural skills.

Woods rooted out corruption with missionary zeal. Judges were transferred from one city to another to prevent favoritism. In 1900, a scandal erupted in the postal system and Woods reacted with an intense investigation that punished the offenders. However, American businessmen attempted to circumvent Woods, seeking economic concessions and lobbying for perpetual American rule in the island. No matter how long Woods remained in the post of military governor, Havana businessmen and their co-conspirators in America were prepared to wait him out.

THE END OF The Spanish-American War marked the beginning of American paternalism in Cuba. President McKinley delegated his authority to rule the island to General John Brooke, who became the island's first military governor. Brooke was supposed to gain the affections of the natives, mitigate their political rivalries, keep them from starving, protect the unfortunate, and promote local reforms. 

Since the Spanish had provided few public services, Brooke began by cleaning up the island. Elihu Root, who would serve as Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of State, wrote in a War Department Report for 1899, that sanitation was unbelievably backward: “garbage littered the streets, animals were kept in dwellings, and disease was rampant.”

Brooke dispatched troops to inspect homes. A sanitary corps was established. Sewers and streets were cleaned. Water sources were bettered. Both private and public structures were disinfected.

The military governor made sure that such conditions didn't recur. He declared rules and imposed fines and punishments for all who failed to comply.

One of Brooke's subordinates was Leonard Wood, a trained surgeon who had won the Medal of Honor for bravery during the wars with the Apaches. He also served as personal physician to Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley. In Cuba, he was the commanding officer for the eastern part of the island. From July to December, 1898, Wood's command distributed 25,000 rations daily. The number leaped occasionally to 50,000.

Other commanders adapted Brooke's proscriptions to the needs of the people in their districts. For example, in Matanzas, near the center of the island, General Wilson distributed food and animals needed by farm families.

One of Brooke's failures during his two-year term as military governor is that he did not replace the Spanish bureaucrats that remained on the island following the Treaty in Paris. Brooke was inclined to agree with the Spanish that the Cubans made better subjects than rulers. It was an attitude that I found eerily similar to the French who left Chinese police, imported by the Japanese conquerers, in Vietnam following World War II. Just as the Chinese reminded the Vietnamese of their subjugation, Spanish officials were an irritant to the Cubans, and a serious flaw in Brooke's administration of the island.

Although Brooke's administration of the island lasted just two years, it was considered the first generation of American paternalism in Cuba. The second generation would be administered by his replacement, Leonard Wood.

CUBA SUFFERED FROM four hundred years of Spanish mismanagement until the Americans arrived. They had never invested in the island. They had only taken from it. There was no trace of infrastructure remotely resembling a late nineteenth century nation; no utilities, no sanitation, no public education, except in tiny enclaves where Americans had purchased plantations and built railroads and sugar mills to support their business operations.

The islanders were destitute. More than 200,000 had died during the most recent installment of revolution. Some from combat. Many from disease and starvation in the reconcentrado centers that the Spaniards had established to deny the rebels of their popular support. The future didn't bode well either. Barely eight percent of the population was age four or younger. Thus, it would take decades to repopulate the island sufficiently to make it self-sustaining.

Two-thirds of the island's population was illiterate. This was important to Americans. Most agreed with Thomas Jefferson who preached that only an educated people could support and maintain a free, democratic nation.

Cuba was deeply in debt. Spain accounted that Cuba owed them for its fight against the revolution. The bills had been charged to the Cuban colonial treasury. Furthermore, Cuba had accrued the costs of Spain's Mexican expedition of 1898, the Santo Domingo experiment of 1861-1865, the Peruvian War of 1866, and the Carlist wars in Spain, as well as the financial burden of its consular and diplomatic corps for the entire hemisphere, pensions paid to Columbus's heirs and, finally, the administration of the island. The total cost of these debts far exceeded the total value of all real estate on the island.

Spain approached Washington with the bill following the Spanish-American War. A delegation from Cuba followed close on their heels requesting a loan to pay the insurrectionists who had participated in the revolution.

Spain agreed in The Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish-American War, that it would evacuate Cuba and the United States would exercise authority in their place. Little was said about an independent Cuba. Also, the treaty stipulated that Spain would relinquish title to the island. During the treaty negotiations, the Spanish tried to attach the Cuban debt to the United States, but the American Secretary of State argued that the debt resulted from their misrule. America, he announced, had ended the mounting cost to property and life by ending their mismanagement.

Even the most steadfast foes of imperialism had to concede that there must be some form of transitional involvement by the United States to maintain order in Cuba and insure its success.

AMERICAN SOLDIERS SERVING in Cuba during the Spanish-American War were greatly disillusioned by the insurgents fighting alongside them. They had come to the island with romantic notions of the Cuban rebels inspired by tales printed in American newspapers. The reality they discovered was far different.

Civilized warfare is a luxury when you face a well-trained and disciplined militia armed with modern firearms, and you have little more than a cane knife in your hand. The knife used to harvest sugar cane is a heavier version of its cousin, the machete. Most are rectangularly shaped with a hook at the end for pulling the felled stalks away from the area being harvested. Although not intended as a weapon, it served that purpose well if you could get close enough to the enemy. Many insurgents were killed as they attempted to close ranks with Spaniards firing well-aimed volleys.

The Americans were also shocked when they found that the insurgents treated noncombatants brutally. They thought that behavior was the sole provenance of the Spaniards. However, Cubans who failed to join the rebel forces or supply them were considered loyalists even if they were innocent. Thousands were hacked to death for no better reason than they had nothing to offer the rebels when the insurgents visited their villages.

Whatever good intentions the Americans had brought to the island with them were quickly dissipated as they got to know their new brothers in arms. By the time the Spaniards sued for peace, few could be found who supported the Cubans' bid for self-government.

American military and political leaders were similarly disenchanted with the rebel leaders. Although a few had proven themselves in combat, none were seen as having any practical political leadership skills. Thus, it quickly became evident to the Americans that they would have to train the Cubans to govern themselves and help them build the infrastructure of a modern nation.

However, there is no real evidence that the Americans ever intended to permanently annex the island. Indeed, there is every sign that they expected that their job in Cuba would be accomplished within a generation and that they would leave thereafter.

The Americans feared leaving Cuba to fend for itself at the end of the Spanish-American War. They didn't have to look far to the south of the island to see an example of the problems that would probably arise. Haiti had purchased its freedom from France a few decades earlier and its people were among the most destitute in the Caribbean. Having the same thing occur in Cuba, just a few miles off the southern coast of the United States was unacceptable. Disease and poverty could well spread to America's shores unless they were eradicated in Cuba.

Also, there were American investments in the island to be considered. The potential for profit there was too great to abandon.  

SOME MAY ARGUE that the Cubans could have won their fight for independence without any help from the Americans. Indeed, I made that case in my novel, Rebels on the Mountain. The Spaniards were exhausted and the cost of the revolution was bankrupting them. Only pride kept them going, false pride. But, would it have made any difference if America had stayed out of it?

Whoever ruled the island would be partnering with the Yankee businessmen. Americans purchased vast plantations for pennies on the dollar from Spaniards who feared that they were going to lose their property when the Cubans drove them off the island. Selling out to the Americans before that happened gave them something to take to the bank. As a result, Americans were already investing heavily in Cuba before the Spaniards lost control. 

Americans who owned property in Cuba before the Spanish-American War invested heavily to improve their holdings. They built railroads and factories to serve their own business needs. Their investments added value to the island for the benefit of everyone. Jobs were created. Productivity and exports were up. New products and services were arriving, and Cubans as well as island creoles were able to purchase them with money that they were earning from the Americans. After the war, American investment spread over the rest of the island.

Cuba had known such prosperity only once before in its history, during the few brief months that England had ruled the island after defeating the Spanish. Unfortunately, Britain traded the island back to the Spaniards in exchange for Florida, and Cuba returned to the economic doldrums. Spain never invested in the island or its people.

All that changed when the war ended and Cuba became an American protectorate. Granted, there were Americans who flooded the island. Their energy and industry overwhelmed the native islanders. Regardless of how much money they may have had, these Yankees were there to prosper and, as far as they were concerned, it didn't matter who had to get out of their way. The officials who had been sent by the United States government to administer the island didn't see anything wrong with this. Indeed, they likely hoped that the Cubans would learn the Puritanical work ethic from living and working with the Americans. Of course, Jose Marti's ghost must have recoiled in horror at the death of his beloved Cuban heritage.

However, just for the moment, let's consider what might have happened had America remained neutral and allowed Cuba to win its own independence.

Would the new government of Cuba have forced the Americans as well as the Spaniards to leave? It's highly unlikely. The Cubans needed investment capital to recover from the losses incurred during the revolution, and to begin building a modern country with a stable economy. Americans hardly would have been likely to pump more money into the island if they had been forced out. Furthermore, there was no other Latin American country with the means to help them at that time, and European nations couldn't be expected to help out a distant island that wasn't their own colony.

Would a free Cuba have been able to survive without outside investment? Possibly. However, they would have become another Haiti. That island struggled for centuries to survive let alone prosper. Indeed, it hasn't succeeded even yet. Of course, Haiti was saddled with the debt of purchasing itself and its people from the owners in France. That debt was only recently paid off.

Interestingly, a few months prior to the Spanish-American War, a group of American financiers crafted a plan for the Cubans to buy their independence from Spain using funds that would be loaned by the Americans. Had the Cubans availed themselves of this offer, they would have put themselves in the same position as the Haitians, and probably still be paying the debt.

It's fun to speculate, but it's hard enough to know what actually happened. Fathoming a history that never happened is not only more difficult, but also a meaningless intellectual exercise.

AMERICA FREQUENTLY IS accused of behaving badly. We went to war in Iraq to steal their oil. We went to war in Vietnam to steal their rubber. President Obama, raised to embrace his father's antipathy for colonialism, spent the early part of his Administration traveling the world to apologize for our country's misdeeds. The Spanish-American War was no exception. Although it began as America's most popularly supported war in history, some turned against it quickly.

Mark Twain saw it as a war of conquest. He wrote and spoke out against it frequently as in this essay:

“I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with the Rockies.

“Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do.

“I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

“But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . .

“It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”

Was Twain correct? Actually no. As events played out, America attempted to woo the islanders, but never coerced them into annexation.

You may be surprised to learn that leading businessmen who had substantial investments in Cuba stood with President McKinley in opposition to the war. However, once it began, they supported its quick and decisive end. The truth is that America's ideology has always borne a close relationship to its economy. It is not a matter of conspiracy so much as a matter of free men and women pursuing their own interests. Others frequently fail to recognize the prominence of the work ethic in America's psyche and often mistake it for greed and avarice. After all, most of the wealthy in other countries either inherited or stole their riches.

Ultimately, America did not wage war against Spain in 1898 to replace Spanish domination with its own. It fought to free Cuba and lay the foundations of freedom and democracy by which the Island and its people and their American partners could become prosperous. The proof is in the history of the period of American paternalism that followed the Spanish-American War.

Unfortunately, most Cubans rejected these opportunities. Those that didn't were forced to emigrate to America.

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR was a lop-sided win for the United States. Although some Spanish infantry fought gallantly, they were pitifully overwhelmed in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. When the smoke cleared, America had gained possession of Cuba and the Philippines. They also purchased Guam and Puerto Rico from Spain at a fraction of their value.

Spain attempted to avoid the conflict by acceding to President McKinley's demands at the last minute. Unfortunately, their pride caused them to delay too long, and both the Americans and the insurgents in Cuba had advanced their strategy too far to pull back. The ease with which the Americans destroyed their fleet at Manila Bay and overran their defenses in Cuba left the Spaniards despondent. 

Although little is remembered of this war, other than Teddy Roosevelt's famous charge with the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill, there is one story which has been told and retold more often than any other military adventure in modern history: A Message to Garcia.

No military maneuver is more fraught with danger than a beachhead landing. The success of the allied invasion of France on D-Day may lull some into complacency. However, had the Germans not been misdirected by false intelligence and a feint to another landing zone, the allies might easily have been thrown back into the sea. Think of how much more dangerous a beachhead assault is when the army lacks specialized landing craft, and airborne troops to land behind enemy lines and disrupt their communications and logistics. During the Spanish-American War, U.S. Army soldiers were rowed ashore in wooden longboats.

As the Americans prepared to storm the beaches of Cuba during the Spanish-American War, they had only one asset to prevent the enemy from decimating their ranks as they rowed from the ships to shore: The Cuban insurgents then under the command of General Garcia. When President McKinley met with his military commanders, he asked how they planned to coordinate their assault so that the rebels would keep the Spanish from intercepting them. There was only one answer. Someone had to get a message to Garcia.

Garcia and his force were encamped somewhere in the rugged mountains at the eastern end of the mountain. No one knew exactly where. As Elbert Hubbard related in his telling of the tale, “No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly. What to do! Someone said to the President, 'There is a fellow by the name of Rowan who will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.'”

Thus began the tale of Rowan's search for Garcia, a tale wherein he lands on a beach in the middle of the night and slips into the jungle. Three weeks later he emerges on the other side of the island, “having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia.” 

Hubbard dashed off his rendition of Rowan's adventure for a monthly periodical, The Philistine. Requests for reprints began to arrive almost immediately: a dozen, fifty, a hundred, a thousand. The New York Central Railroad then ordered one hundred thousand copies in pamphlet form with their ad on the back cover. It was then translated into Russian by order of Prince Hilakoff, Director of Russian Railroads, and a copy given to every employee in Russia. Other countries republished it in their own language. Rowan's heroism, endurance, and determination became a model to be emulated by men everywhere.

I knew that I had to include a modern version of the tale in my novel, Rebels on the Mountain, as an homage to Rowan. Thus, my hero, Nick Andrews, a U.S. Army Ranger, takes a message to Castro. 

DON'T WORRY IF you don't “Remember the Maine!” It's one of those dim moments from history, a rallying cry during the Spanish-American War. But, it wasn't the casus belli, the justification for the war, as most of us were taught. The U.S. Battleship Maine sank in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. The resolution of war against Spain wasn't passed in Congress until April, a full two months following the sinking. Most believed that the explosion that destroyed the Maine was triggered accidentally. Later investigations would prove them correct.

Congress was pressured to authorize war with Spain by the accumulated frustration in the United States over the Cuba issue. Some Americans were outraged by the depredations of revolution and the suffering of the islanders. Others were fearful for their business investments in the island. 

When the revolution began in 1895, Spain had just 14,000 soldiers and four warships defending the island. The Spanish forces, poorly led by Martinez Campos, were being beaten back steadily by the insurgents. Spain lost confidence in their chief administrator of the island and sent a new governor-general, Valeriano Weyler, to plot a new strategy.

Weyler had an interesting perspective on insurrection in Cuba; he had fought on both sides of it. During the Ten Years War, he led creole volunteers who fought against the insurrectionists. Later, he served beside Máximo Gomez, a rebel general.

As Chinese Communist Chairman Mao Zedong advised guerrillas decades later, Weyler knew that the rebels were hiding among the non-belligerents all over the countryside like “fish swimming in the sea”. Thus, he instituted the reconcentrado program, moving islanders into more populated towns and cities. He also had the army destroy homes, crops, and live stock to deprive the rebels of any succor.

The reconcentrado program was eerily similar to the same strategy employed by American forces in South Vietnam. However, unlike the Americans, Weyler didn't have the resources to feed, clothe and shelter the reconcentrados. Death and disease ran rampant.

Correspondents filed lurid tales of the plight of the reconcentrados with their newspapers in America. Images of bodies laying unburied in the streets, an infant sucking at its dead mother's breast, and other equally horrific scenes stoked the indignation of U.S. Citizens. It wasn't difficult to motivate Congress to act.

President McKinley resisted the tides of war as long as he could. He directed American diplomats to protest directly to the government in Madrid. They blamed the government there for the depredations of uncivilized and inhumane acts of war perpetrated by their chief administrator in Cuba. Weyler, they added, was also held responsible for the destruction of Cuban productivity. Thus, they linked capitalism and humanitarianism. The tactic worked. The Spanish-American War became one of the most popularly supported in American history.