The Spanish American War 1898 (Part 1): The War of Empires w/ Drew Dornstadter

Jun 10, 2025

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The Spanish American War 1898: The War of Empires w/ Drew Dornstadter

The sun was setting on the Spanish Empire—bloated, brittle, and running on fumes. Four hundred years of conquest and gold, galleons and God, unraveling like an old coat in a storm. And just as the curtain was falling, America showed up. Young, loud, hungry.

1898. The Spanish-American War. It lasted only four months, but it changed everything. One empire dying. Another one being born. Not with ceremony—but with guns, headlines, and a healthy dose of manifest destiny.

They said it was about liberation—Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico. Freedom from tyranny, all that jazz. But let’s be honest: it was about markets, military bases, and planting flags on islands most Americans couldn’t find on a map.

This wasn’t just about Teddy Roosevelt’s rough riders or stirring speeches in Congress. It was about sugar, about strategy, about making damn sure America wasn’t left behind in the global game of empire.

And when the dust settled, Cuba got a sort-of freedom, wrapped in American strings. Puerto Rico became a possession. But in the Philippines, things went dark fast.

Because the war didn’t end there. It morphed—into an ugly, brutal, years-long insurgency. The same U.S. troops who claimed to be liberators turned occupiers. Villages were torched. Civilians slaughtered. Concentration camps. Water torture. The same tools of empire the Spanish once used—now painted red, white, and blue.

This episode isn’t just about a short war with a big legacy. It’s about the moment the United States became an empire and Spain, well, Spain was no longer an empire.