THE SPANISH 1898 Disaster

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THE SPANISH 1898
“DISASTER”

• General ideas on the Topic: the
problem
 Two interrelated ideas are developed in this essay: first, that
the consequences for the aggregate Spanish economy of
loosing the last colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the
Philippines) at the end of the nineteenth century were
relatively small, and that it hardly can be regarded, as many
historians have done as the Disaster01 J898. Second, that
despite its small overall direct impact on the Spanish
economy, the independence wars fought with the colonies,
and the defeat at the hands of the Americans in 1898,
started a process of intense political nationalism that
resulted in the adoption of western Europe's most stringent
autarchy at the beginning of the XX th century.

General ideas on the Topic: the
problem
 Thecolonial Disaster was therefore, an
indirect one. Its economic consequences
were first felt by Bentham's "ruling few"--in
Spain's case, the wheat, flour, and textile
traders of Castile and Catalonia--and later
reached the "subject many" by way of their
influence on the adoption of extreme
protective measures ("integral protection",
as it became known by Spanish nationalists)
facilitated by thegeneral climate caused by
the colonial loss.

General ideas on the Topic: the
problem
 The essay is divided in five parts. After this
introduction, a brief section surveys the
commercial involvement of European
countries with their colonial (or ex-colonial)
possessions, and establishes the fact that
only Spain and Portugal, and to a certain
extent, Turkey, had a significant volume of
trade (higherthan ten or twelve percent of
all exports) with their colonies

General ideas on the Topic: the
problem
 The third part of the essay analyzes the trends and cycles of
the most important series affected by the Disaster--foreign
trade, capital flo\V, and some sectoral indexes--to conclude that
far from the disastrous impact usual1y assigned to the colonial
losses of 1898, the independence ofCuba, Puerto Rico and the
Philippines had, in fact, beneficial consequences for the Spanish
economy, specially through the inflow of capital that the war
produced. The fourth section examines the losses suffered by
special interest groups--Castillian wheat and flour traders, and
Catalan textile producers--that enjoyed the colonial monopoly;
and the last part focuses on the political impact of theDisaster
and its economic consequences.

General ideas on the Topic: the
problem
 An econometric analysis of Spanish aggregate and sectoral data
reveals that the loss of the last colonial possessions in 1898 was not,
in fact an economic disaster of the catastrophic proportions sorne
traditional historians had held. Both at the aggregate level and in
the sectors most directly involved in the colonialtrade, the events of
1898 were not a specially relevant watershed. However, the
nationalistic sentiment, and the climate of public opinion created by
the defeat in the 1898 Spanish-American War induced a favorable
institutional framework for the adoption of autarkic measures,
especially high tariffs. This produced in subsequent years a
progressive separation of the Spanish economy frominternational
markets. This indirect and institutional effect, rather than the direct
loss from the war itself, was the real economic disaster of 1898.

Texts





U.S.A. Ultimatum
Treaty of Paris
Sagasta Speech in Congress
General Valeriano Weyler intervention in the
Senate

U.S.A. Ultimatum

“Considerando que las horribles condiciones que han existido en la isla de Cuba, tan
próxima a nuestrascostas, por más de tres años, condiciones que han ofendido el sentido
moral del pueblo de los EE UU [...], y que han culminado en la destrucción de un acorazado
de los EE UU durante una visita amistosa al puerto de la Habana [...], no pueden soportarse
por más tiempo como lo afirma el presidente de los Estados Unidos en su mensaje de 11 de
Abril de 1898, sobre el cual el Congreso ha sido invitado a...
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