This essay details the context behind my project and why I did it. It also talks in depth about my questions coming into this project and it talks about my primary sources. To see the individual primary sources go to the “documents” section and for my secondary sources go to my historiography.
Here is my essay:
I went into this project asking several questions: how did the US capture Guam and what did Guam look like in the years following? The question that my primary sources answer is the first question. First, when Americans talk about the Spanish-American War, they tend to talk about the Caribbean and/or Teddy Roosevelt. Americans talk about those things for good reason: the main fighting in the war happened in the Caribbean and Teddy Roosevelt went on to become a very famous US president. But one of the stories that gets left out is the story of Guam. I hope to fix that. I looked through many documents to piece together the story of what happened on that island and I hope to share that research.
To start, one of the main troves of documents that I picked were original letters to and from US Navy officials and the Governor of Guam at the time. Because there were no battles fought on the island and the island just surrendered, these letters provide a good window into how the surrender process played out. Let’s just say, it did not happen without some arguments. These letters answer my question of how the US captured Guam. My secondary sources help with his question a lot as well but these letters are the big piece of information, as they help me understand the surrender process. Two other primary sources that I picked were not about Guam, but instead about why the US entered the war and what the US populace was doing to help the war. I had held these questions as side questions when going into this project but I still wanted some answers. This will help me understand more about the context and how the US got to capturing Guam. Because my main project is about Guam, I am thinking that I need to do some extra explaining for the sources I picked to answer these questions.
I knew and I assumed a lot of people knew about the USS Maine, so I did not pick any sources related to that, but I found a source that stated another reason for the US to consider joining the war: humanitarian reasons (Thurston, 1898). This source was a speech given by Senator John Thurston in 1898 before the war. It detailed a humanitarian crisis in Cuba under Spanish rule and Thurston said that the US should enter the war and save Cuba. Whether he was genuinely concerned or he just wanted to find an excuse for the US to invade Cuba is a debate that’s not very relevant here. But what is relevant is that this was a reason that was presented for the US to go to war.
The second source that I have that is not really about Guam is a document that was made by the New England Woman Suffrage Association (New England Woman Suffrage Association, 1898). This document was created during the war and details what New England women were doing to support the war effort. This source helped me answer the question of what the US population was thinking at the time. Now, the New England Woman Suffrage Association was just one group in the US population and if I continued this project, I would try to find other perspectives from more American civilians, because I bet there were many who did not support the war.
Now, to add some historical context to my project, because this is a contextual essay. The Spanish-American War started on April 21, 1898, and ended with the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. After the war, the US gained Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, and the Spanish left Cuba. The US took Guam on June 21, 1898, but the island was officially transferred to the US during the Treaty of Paris on December 10. Guam went down without a fight because the Island only had 54 Spanish troops and very little ammo (Duarte, 1898). In fact, the island did not even know about the war until US ships arrived off the coast. The Spanish had mostly abandoned the island a few months before the war, so the officials on the island had no knowledge of the war. The main fort on the island was also in disrepair. As I found in my research, once the US ships arrived off the coast, there was discussion among the Spanish officials about how to defend the island but they quickly concluded that it was a lost effort. The US ships were well supplied and carried around 600 troops—many more than the Spanish. Plus, the main fort was in ruin (Duarte, 1898).
In all, these primary sources helped me answer a lot of my questions and I hope they teach my reader some things as well. As I said, my secondary sources go into detail about what happened during US rule but my primary sources where about how the US captured Guam. It’s also nice to have some historical context as to what happened.
Sources
Duarte, Pedro. “Manila, November 3 of 1898.” University of Guam. (1898).
The New England Woman Suffrage Association. “Woman Can and Do fight.” American Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. (1898).
Thurston, John M. “We Must Act!” American Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. (1898).