After the Spanish-American War, Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba. Following the war, U.S. forces occupied Cuba until 1902, when the United States allowed a new Cuban government to take full control of the state’s affairs. As a condition of independence, the United States forced Cuba to grant a continuing U.S. right to intervene on the island in accordance with the Platt Amendment. The amendment was repealed in 1934 when the United States and Cuba signed a Treaty of Relations.
The conflict between the United States and Spain erupted in 1898 after three years of fighting by Cuban revolutionaries to gain independence from Spanish colonial rule. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, which established the independence of Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, and allowed the victorious power to purchase the Philippines Islands from Spain for $20 million.
The war had cost the United States $250 million and 3,000 lives, of whom 90% had perished from infectious diseases. Cuba remained one of Spains two colonies in the New World until the war. The conflict, combined with the Spanish-U.S. tariff controversy of the 1890s, had destroyed two-thirds of Cubas productive capacity.
