War On Spain Research Paper

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Shortly after the attack on the U.S.S. Maine America officially declared war on Spain however, there was one major problem. The United States was not prepared to go to war. On May 1, 1898 the American’s led by Admiral George Dewey attacked the Spanish fleet in the Philippines in the battle of Manila Bay. Dewey who according the course textbook only “handful of marines on board, his ships and no other American soldiers closer than San Francisco” defeated the Spanish fleet in a day with surprisingly no causalities. This is due in part that the Americans warships were far superior to the Spanish. However, now Dewey was put in tough spot because he now had to control the territory when reinforcements were months away from arriving. Halfway across the world in Cuba the American’s were not so lucky. According the course textbook “6,000 Americans died in the entire Cuban, campaign, less than 400 of them in combat” (Magee) which just goes to show the lack of preparation the Americans had going into Cuba and going into the war with Spain as a whole. With the Americans now in control of the former Spanish territories it is safe to say that the Americans were extremely fortunate to only lose a few thousand men in the war because of the lack of preparation.…show more content…
The United States already had taken notice to the economic benefits of controlling the Philippians. However, America did not what want to be like the other European countries that had colonized countries and mistreat those living in the colonies. So McKinley began talking about it was his goal to according to the textbook “To educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them”. This is the first example of Americanization; now that United States had control of the Philippians they felt it was there duty to the world to teach the Filipinos the American

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