This is what was going on before the war/explosion happened.
What was happening to the Spanish?
Revolts against Spanish rule had been endemic for decades in Cuba and were closely watched by Americans. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. By 1897–98, American public opinion grew angrier at reports of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. After the mysterious sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbor , political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war he had wished to avoid.Compromise proved impossible, resulting in the United States sending an ultimatum to Spain demanding it immediately surrender control of Cuba, which the Spanish rejected. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war.
What was happening with the Americans?
The atrocities General Weyler committed in Cuba were massively hyped and sensationalized in the US newspapers, then engaged in a practice known as "yellow journalism". The two kingpins of the press at the time were William R. Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, who were embroiled in a vicious circulation war, in which Hearst even "stole" Pulitzer's most popular writers by convincing them to defect through promises of money and positions. Hearst's major publication was the New York Journal and Pulitzer's publication was the New York World. In order to grow their circulations, both men were willing to go so far as to make up stories.
Revolts against Spanish rule had been endemic for decades in Cuba and were closely watched by Americans. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. By 1897–98, American public opinion grew angrier at reports of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. After the mysterious sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbor , political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war he had wished to avoid.Compromise proved impossible, resulting in the United States sending an ultimatum to Spain demanding it immediately surrender control of Cuba, which the Spanish rejected. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war.
What was happening with the Americans?
The atrocities General Weyler committed in Cuba were massively hyped and sensationalized in the US newspapers, then engaged in a practice known as "yellow journalism". The two kingpins of the press at the time were William R. Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, who were embroiled in a vicious circulation war, in which Hearst even "stole" Pulitzer's most popular writers by convincing them to defect through promises of money and positions. Hearst's major publication was the New York Journal and Pulitzer's publication was the New York World. In order to grow their circulations, both men were willing to go so far as to make up stories.