Tag: Spanish-American War

#OnThisDay: The Florida Purchase Treaty, 1819. Consider the US without it!

Here I am, with another little history lesson. I hope I’m not losing my audience. My blog is about my journey as a writer. I write history and historical fiction, so continuing to study history and sharing some of what I learn is an integral part of my blog.

Last week I admitted how little I knew about the Spanish-American War. In today’s blog, I’ll admit how little I knew, or at least remembered, about the Florida Purchase. If history could be taught in story form instead of lists of battles and dates, I think we’d all retain more of it later in life.

As you read my post, I want you to think about what the map of the United States would look like today if not for this 1819 treaty.

In case you’re ever on “Jeopardy!”

The Adams-Onis Treaty was negotiated and signed by U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams on February 22, 1819. That’s 202 years ago today. Luis de Onis, the 1809-1819 Spanish Envoy to the United States, negotiated and signed for Spain; hence, the name Adams-Onis Treaty. It’s also known as the Florida Purchase Treaty, the Treaty of 1819, and the Trans-Continental Treaty.

What the treaty accomplished

The United States was still in its infancy as a nation in 1819. It had won two major wars against Great Britain, but it was just 40 years old. The map of the United States was still in flux. In fact, it still is with the possibility of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico possibly gaining statehood status. In 1819, the vast West was still occupied by native peoples and enormous herds of bison and other native animals.

Under this treaty, Spain gave up its claim to the Florida peninsula as well as the panhandle of Florida, the coastal lands of Alabama and Mississippi, and part of Louisiana. The United States temporarily gave up Texas. The boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were more accurately defined, and the boundary between Spanish Mexico and the United States was settled. Spain relinquished its claim to the lands north of the 42nd parallel known as the Oregon Territory. (The 42nd parallel later formed the northern boundaries of California, Nevada, and Utah.)

What if…?

When I’m writing fiction, I often ask myself, “What if…?” Asking myself that questions leads to plot twists in my fiction, but it can lead to some fascinating theories of how history could have turned out differently if certain events had not happened. I touched on this question in last week’s blog post, #OnThisDay: Remember the Maine! What you might not know, when I asked how history would have unfolded if the Americans had known that the sinking of the Maine was an internal accident and not an act of war by Spain.

Imagine how the United States would look today if the Adams-Onis Florida Purchase Treaty hadn’t been signed and ratified.

There would be no Disney World or Cape Canaveral. Or, if there were, they’d be in Spanish Florida.

Photo credit: Justin Novello on unsplash.com

There would be no white sandy Gulf of Mexico beaches in the United States.

There would be nowhere in the southeast for people from the cold northern states to retire to or spend their winters.

The 55th Super Bowl wouldn’t have been held in Tampa, Florida earlier this month.

There would be no American Floridians creeping along at a snail’s pace on the curvy mountain roads in western North Carolina because they’re terrified of curves and hills. They’d be Spanish Floridians.

All jokes aside, we’d be importing lots of vegetables and citrus fruits from Spain because that’s who would still own what we know now as the state of Florida. And perhaps Spain would still control the Oregon Territory. The map of the United States would look quite different than it does today. Our history would be quite different, and we would lack many of the natural and cultural resources we enjoy today that make our country what it is.

I have given a simplified description of the Adams-Onis Florida Purchase Treaty in this blog post, but on this 202nd anniversary of its signing, I believe we Americans can be glad it was negotiated and signed.

Since my last blog post

I’ve been reading, writing, and enjoying both. The part of North Carolina I live in, dodged the snow and ice that much of the U.S. has been dealing with. The people of Texas and other areas without electricity and safe drinking water are in my prayers. Mississippi was hit hard, too, but hasn’t received much national publicity.

The first crocus of the year opened near our side porch and the daffodils are coming up. I look forward to spring with great anticipation.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading Soroosh, a new novel by Laleh Chini, and listening to The Unwilling, by John Hart.

Find time for your favorite pastime.

Even if you won’t wear a mask to protect yourself, please wear one out of respect for others. We’re all in this Covid-19 pandemic together and it will take all of us working together to get out of it faster.

Note to my neighbors and friends in Canada (including author Laleh Chini): This is “Freedom to Read Week” in your country.

Thank you for dropping by my blog.

Janet

#OnThisDay: “Remember the Maine!” What you might not know.

If asked what the slogan, “Remember the Maine!” was about, I could have told you it referred to a ship that was sunk and caused the Spanish-American War. I minored in history in college, but some of the details are a little blurry now. Today is the 123rd anniversary of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in the Havana, Cuba harbor.

USS Maine three weeks before it sank in Havana harbor.
The USS Maine passing Morro Castle as she entered the harbor of Havana, Cuba 25 January 1898. Photo credit: US Naval History & Heritage Command photograph. Catalog#: NH 48619. 

Manned with a crew of 350 men, the Maine was a 393-foot-long battleship. It had been sent to Havana to protect Americans living there in the event that Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain spun into a full-scale war. At 9:40 p.m. on Tuesday, February 15, 1898, there was an explosion and the ship sank. Only 84 crew members survived. It was quickly concluded that the ship had been hit by a Spanish torpedo or that it had hit a Spanish mine.

“Remember the Maine!” became the battle cry in the United States, and the US Congress declared war on Spain ten weeks later on April 25, 1898.

U.S. Navy diving crew with wreckage of USS Maine in 1898, from aft looking forward. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph. Catalog#: NH 46774.

Fast forward to 1976

In 1976, U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover investigated the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine and concluded that the ship sank due to a probable coal bunker fire. That deflates the rallying cry, “Remember the Maine!” in a heartbeat.

Some historians have disputed Adm. Rickover’s conclusions, so we maybe haven’t heard the end of this story.

One has to wonder how differently the course of Cuban and American history would have gone if everyone had known at the time that the sinking of the U.S.S, Maine was a self-inflicted accident and not an act of war. The next time you read or hear, “Remember the Maine!” remember what can happen when a nation’s government jumps to the wrong conclusion.

How the US got Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines

The first battle of the Spanish-American War took place on May 1, 1898. The war lasted only several months, ending on August 12, 1898. Through the peace treaty, which was worked out in Paris the following December, Spain gave Cuba its independence and gave Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. Let that sink in for a minute. What a turn of events!

When I was in school, we never studied the details of the Spanish-American War. Every year we studied U.S. history from colonial times through the Civil War. It was just through living, watching TV, and having an early interest in history that I absorbed through osmosis the stories of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and Teddy Roosevelt and “The Rough Riders.”

In other words, I couldn’t give you a definitive summary of the Spanish-American War. I couldn’t have told you that Puerto Rico, Guam, or the Philippines had anything to do with that war. If I ever knew they did, those facts were lost to me over time. It was only in researching “Remember the Maine!” for today’s blog post that I learned of those connections.

Through my interest in genealogy, I’ve just in recent years learned that one of my great-uncles fought in the Spanish-American War. This made me realize that it’s not ancient history. It makes me realize today that I should have known more about it. I’m not as far-removed from it as I thought.

In the big scheme of things, United States history covers but a tiny fraction of world history. So how is it that we do such a poor job of teaching our citizens U.S. history?

Since my last blog post

I was able to get my first Covid-19 vaccine shot on Saturday. I thought I’d have to wait until March, but some more appointments opened up in my county. It is encouraging to get that first shot. I got the Moderna shot. My arm is sore, but that’s the only side effect I’ve had.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m listening to Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson. Having it on CD from the public library was a blessing the 48 hours I had a sick headache last week and couldn’t stand any light. I highly recommend this nonfiction book. Mr. Larson has a talent for bringing history alive in his writing.

I hope you have time to enjoy a hobby or favorite pastime this week.

Note: Next Sunday, February 20, is World Storytelling Day. Are you a good storyteller?

Janet

They’re All Uncertain Times

Events of the last week prompted me to write about uncertain times for today’s blog post. It soon occurred to me that all times are uncertain because we cannot see into the future.

We tend to think the time we’re living in is more unpredictable than any other time, but if you’ll stop and think about it, you might see that life is and always has been full of doubts, worries, and stress. The unknown can do that to you.

I think about the uncertain times my known ancestors lived through:

English-speaking Lowland Scots being taken into the Gaelic-speaking Kintyre Peninsula in the southwest of Scotland to be tenant farmers in the 1600s and being required to attend a church where only Gaelic was spoken;

Scottish immigrants crossing the Atlantic and settling in the Carolina backcountry/wilderness in the 1760s; and

Those Scottish immigrants facing the American Revolution and not knowing what the outcome would be.

On December 23, 1776, in “The Crisis,” Thomas Paine wrote the following:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

My ancestors lived through those times. The deaths of my Morrison great-great-great-great-grandparents during the American Revolutionary War left my great-great-great-grandfather orphaned at the age of nine. He and his siblings were cared for thereafter by his uncles and their wives, but it must have been more than frightening.

Then came the following trying times:

War of 1812;

American Civil War;

Reconstruction Era in The American South;

My maternal great-grandmother’s death in childbirth in 1881;

My paternal great-grandfather’s accidental death while felling a tree for lumber to build a kitchen in 1886;

Spanish-American War;

World War I;

The Great Depression;

My paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather both dying as young adults;

World War II;

Korean War; and

Illnesses and epidemics.

Living in the age of modern medicine and miracle drugs, it’s difficult for most of us to empathize with our ancestors who lived with the possibility of dying or watching their children die of typhoid fever, tetanus, flux, or polio.

When the Salk polio vaccine became available in the late 1950s, I did not fully appreciate what it meant to my parents. For me, as a child, I just remember our family going to the gymnasium lobby at Harrisburg High School on three Sunday afternoon after church to get an oral vaccine on a sugar cube.

The 1960s and years since have brought the following times of uncertainty:

Vietnam War;

Civil Rights Movement in the United States;

Numerous wars in the Middle East;

Rumors of more wars;

Terrorism; and

Incompetency and recklessness in The White House. (Don’t blame me; I didn’t vote for him!)

All of my ancestors down through my grandparents were farmers. I can’t imagine a life full of more uncertainties than one in which one’s livelihood is at the mercy of the weather.

I believe that God created the world with everything we need to not only survive but thrive. Human beings have brought on many uncertainties by not being good stewards of the world that God has entrusted to us – its animals and natural resources. Come to think of it, we have created most of the uncertainties ourselves – war, poor planning, poor agricultural practices, greed, and envy.

Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes, and wildfires happen, but even many floods and wildfires are caused by man’s carelessness.

I attended two funerals in less than 48 hours last week. One was expected after a long battle with cancer, but the other one was quite sudden. Life is full of uncertainties.

Reviewing some of the events and hardships my ancestors faced, and the things I’ve witnessed in my 64 years has helped me put recent events and concerns in perspective.

The sun comes up. The sun goes down. The world keeps spinning around and revolving around the sun. What an amazing world!

simon-hesthaven-216108 (2)
Photo by Simon Hesthaven on Unsplash

 

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading Killers of the Flower Moon:  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann and Among the Living by Jonathan Rabb.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have lots of productive writing time.

Janet