Well, this is a very important exhibition. Its titled 18 1898 us imperialism, visions and revisions and it really marks a milestone in our efforts to shine a light on overlooked aspects of u. S. History that have been crucial to determine our present and that have been really unexamined. And so in this case, we are taking a look at the events that turned the United States into a world power in 1898. Those events were what u. S. Textbooks called the spanishamerican war, which my cocurator, kate clarke lemay, and i prefer to call the war of 1898, because that way we can consider other countries that were part of that conflict. Right. Not just the us and spain, but also guam, cuba, the philippines, puerto rico, the joint resolution to annex hawaii, which happens during the war of 1898 and the philippineamerican war, which happens on the heels of the war of 1898. And as a consequence of the United States not recognizing the claims of independence, that for the philippines that Emilio Aguinaldo had stated. So we are telling the story of these events that happened 125 years ago through portraiture. Why do we make that decision to do it that way . Well, that way we can make this history personal. We can understand the agency of different individuals in this history. I think the us public is perhaps more familiar with figures such as theodore roosevelt. You know, who was second in command of the roughriders, for example. And theres a whole mythology around him, right . Or president william mckinley. But what we do in this exhibition is that we put those portraits in conversation with portraits of figures from cuba, from puerto rico, from guam, from the philippines, from hawaii. In order to complete that narrative, to complete the history, to present the different perspectives, and really to provide a panoramic outlook into these history. Well, we do start with president mckinley. Hes right here, 25th, president of the United States. Why is he important to this story . Well, he was the president of the United States during the war of 1898. And this is a fascinating portrait. Its a portrait that was painted by the preeminent 19th century puerto rican artist francisco estatal, who is really known for his intention to create a vocabulary of puerto. We can visual identity through portraits of puerto ricos intellectuals, through landscapes of the island, through still lifes of tropical fruit. Here, however, hes doing something very different. He has created he has painted a portrait of the president of the United States and in his hand, he is holding a map of puerto rico. You can see the west coast of the island and it says east la ville, puerto rico, julio de cinco miller, jose antonio intellectuals. So it has a date. July 25th, 1898, which is the day that the United States invaded puerto rico through the coast of blanca. In other words, order is chronic in this moment of transition. When puerto rico passed from being under spanish sovereignty to being under us sovereignty and he is positioning himself in front of mckinley as a possible portraitist under the new regime. Hes an artist that has to negotiate his own place there to feed himself. Right. So hes hes looking for a job, but hes also depicting this moment through his own eyes. And what fascinates me about this work is that you could replace that map by a map of cuba by a map of the philippines, by a map of guam. And it becomes a metaphor of this whole geopolitical turning point. You know, the the destiny, the fate of these islands and archipelagos are in the hands of the United States. So was the United States already a superpower or thinking about this before mckinley, or is mckinley the one that leads us to to think about expansion . He is one of the leaders of that moment who leads us to think about expansion. But its very complicated because he wasnt initially for u. S. Intervention in cuba. However he was, he became convinced that it was the right thing to do. Over the course of several months. There are, however, several politicians around him who are very much proposing a new vision of the United States as a country that is ready for something to occupy a new position in the world as a as a world power. Well, speaking of those politicians, this isnt necessarily one of them, but i know one of the doctrines that they were definitely talking about was probably the Monroe Doctrine. Right. And monroe is also in this exhibit. Yes. Hes right over here. Yes. Yes. And for my cocurator, kate lemay and i, it was very important to present the prequel to this moment of overseas expansion. This is not something that happens out of the blue. Territorial expansion is foundational to the United States, even since the 13 colonies and when the u. S. Becomes an independent nation. One of the touchstones of what will become exploring policy is what will be called the Monroe Doctrine, which was a message uttered by president james monroe, the fifth president of the United States, in december of 1823. At the tail end of the wars of independence of latin america, where he states that the United States will oppose the recolonization of those new republics of latin america by europe. So its an anti colonial message, but at the same time, he asserts that the United States will be the main power in the western hemisphere. So he asserts the United States sphere of influence over the western hemisphere and that message will become really crucial for politicians later in the 19th century to once a mid19th century and late 19th century as a guide to assert that influence. And one of the times when they thought about the Monroe Doctrine to assert that influence is actually when we talked about our westward expansion right here in the United States, right . Yes. And so it was very important for us as cocurator was to to allude to the different ways through which the United States accomplished that territorial expansion. Certainly the displacement of native americans, the persecution of native americans was one main way in which the United States government accomplished that. And so this is a portrait of sitting bull, who was papa lakota and who was a main leader, who one of the many Indigenous Leaders who oppose that u. S. Territory expansion. In this exhibition, we counter pose his portrait with that of nelson miles, who persecuted the lakota us after the battle of greasy grass and captured sitting bull. This portrait was taken in captivity. And the juxtaposition of both portraits allows us to point to the indian wars of the 1860s, seventies and eighties as an important moment of training, if you will, for many of the main military figures who led the war of 1898 and the philippineamerican war and who had cut their teeth, if you will, persecuting native americans and subjugate them before then going overseas. Right. So you said that the story of sitting bull and nelson miles were intertwined and you also included him in the exhibit. But hes important not not just because, as you mentioned, he was entwined with sitting bull, but he actually starts off this entire war of 1898, as you mentioned before. Yes. Well, he is the commanding general of the us army in 1898 and he will be in charge of the puerto rico campaign. And hes one of the many generals who have experience. If you will, persecuting native americans and who will implement that he even. Its very interesting because on this label we found even we included a reference where he compared the ships, the us ships going around the island of puerto rico to his experience in the plains in the indian plains, persecuting native americans. Who is this gentleman . And so we have here Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who was a very prestigious political figure from the end of the 19th century, towards 1890. He became he started becoming very prominent as a politician. And really pushing a new vision for the United States as a country that at the dawn of the new century had the possibility of positioning itself as a world power. It was time for a new stage in the history of the country where we had to stop looking inwards and sort of take, you know, the United States had to take its rightful stage in the world. And so he thought that in order to accomplish that sea power was crucial. Well, lets talk about sea power in the u. S. So at this time, the United States was deciding it wanted to be a naval power. Tell us why naval power was important at that time. Well, operating in my hand, the naval theorist had written these very important treaties that became a bestseller worldly. It was translated into 12 languages. The influence of sea power upon history was titled right, and it was a book that traced how world powers had achieved their status by conquering overseas outposts. And it established sort of a blueprint for the United States to become also a naval power through the modernization of its navy. Its, you know, modernization of its ships, its construction of new steel ships, and through claiming outposts overseas that would allow would allow it to have trading posts, to have a naval presence there. And so that theory became absolutely crucial to that moment. People like Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and his political ally, theodore roosevelt, were very much seduced by it and said, okay, this is our plan. This is what we need to do. Its very interesting, you know, how history happens, right . Sort of a confluence of events across places at the same time as these figures were thinking about naval power, strengthening the us navy, modernizing it. Cuba was fighting its third war of independence over the course of the last, you know, since 80, 68, it had been involved in several wars of independence. And in 1895, it had started a new war that was having some success. And the United States was sort of keeping a close eye on it, because it had a lot of commercial interests there. The u. S. Was the main purchaser of cuban sugar since the 1850s, and it was also the main refiner of cuban sugar. So there were a lot of economic interests of the us in cuba. So in cuba, the as the cuban war of independence is happening, the United States sends the uss maine, a warship to the coast of havana, to protect us interests from all from the conflict, from the from the war between the spaniards and the Cuban Liberation Army. And this is in early 1898, as the ship is there on february 15. It explodes right. And so it probably explodes because there was people think that well, there were several investigations. Probably there was a fire in the furnaces. But the yellow press rushes to blame spain for sabotage and it says it was probably a mine. And and then certain politicians, including theodore roosevelt, align with that theory that it was spain and push for a war that has the potential of yielding. Colonial outposts or or territories that the us could where the us could assert its sea power. So the uss maine explode in havana harbor and there are several months of intensive raid over the whether the United States should intervene in the cuban war of independence. And the result is that indeed, on april in late april of 1888, the United States declares war against spain, and it does so with the pretext of helping cubans shed or liberate themselves from the Spanish Colonial yoke. Its very interesting that the first battle of the war of 1888, or the socalled spanishamerican war does not happen in cuba. However, it happens in manila bay. In the philippines. The philippines was also a possession of of spain and the United States thought that it was important to defeat spain, not just in cuba, but along its crumbling empire. So assistant secretary of the Navy Theodore roosevelt, gives the order to Commodore George dewey, who is in charge of the asiatic squadron in hong kong, to move his ships to manila. And then he defeats the spanish flotilla. So here in this painting that we have behind us, we see the as yet the the asiatic squadron defeating the spanish flotilla, which is all in disarray and smoking in the background. As you can see. So lets go into cuba now and find out what happened there. This gentleman has quite a presence. Tell me about him. Yeah, well, that is to say, marty, in a portrait by artist miranda de niro, who was a cuban artist, who in the 1940. So posthumously after a long after marty had died, was one of the main responsible artists to cement the image of marty in cuban art history. He created many, many portraits of him in different guises as an intellectual, as a member of the Cuban Liberation Army, where he died fighting the war very early on in that last war of independence in 1895. Marty was the ideologue, the person who conceived that last war of independence. He was hes a very important intellectual of cuba and of latin america. He was a diplomat. He was someone who dedicated his life to fight against the Spanish Colonial regime. And in since 1880, he had lived in the United States, in new york, he spent the last 15 years of his life in exile in new york, where there was a very important, very fast Cuban Community of people who objected to the Spanish Colonial regime and who were organizing to gain independence. And actually, this was not just a circle of cubans, but also of Puerto Ricans. It was cubans of Puerto Ricans were collaborating together in new york to achieve that. And so he puts forward the idea of a war that is necessary. And lagouranis, this idea, he calls it, and he works together with maximo gomez and antonio maceo, who are two generals of the first war of independence of cuba. And they lead the third working dependance. Theyre making significant progress to which the spaniards respond with very retaliatory measures, very repressive measures. In 1896, for example, general, a waiter establishes a system of concentration of non part of the non fighting population who lives in the countryside and who is suspected of aiding the Cuban Liberation Army. And so theyre all moved to fortified, surveilled towns that dont have proper sanitation, proper food, and so there is, you know, hundreds of thousands of people die. So it becomes a human rights crisis. The United States is watching over wondering whether it should intervene. The us has made explodes and then that becomes the pretext, you know, to declare war against spain, to help the cubans achieve their independence. That idea has a certain support within cuba, within the Cuban Liberation Army. And so thats what happened. So us intervenes and we help from the Cuban Liberation Army with intelligence from the Cuban Liberation Army, theyre able to defeat the spaniards. And even though the war had been billed as an effort to help cubans reach independence, the United States does not turn the island to the cubans immediately. It establishes a military government. And leonard wood, who was the leader of the rough riders and who had come in, come up in the ranks, in the military ranks before that, during the apache wars. And here he is wearing his medal of honor that he won for his service in the apache wars, becomes in december of 1899. The military governor of cuba and the one who will be in power for the longest. He will be also crucial for establishing the us oversight over Cuban Affairs after the us turns the island to the cubans and gives them their independence. In 1902. And thats what jose marti had been wanting all along. Exactly. Well, lets go and see whats happening in the next exhibit. So weve decided to get involved in affairs across the water with everyone in favor of this . Not at all. Its very interesting that 125 years from the war, you have the impression that this was sort of unavoidable, perhaps. But there was a lot of opposition to the war. There was an organization that got together in november of 1898 that was called the antiimperialist league, and it assembled a very wide range of people that opposed the annexation of lands that could come as a result of the war of 1898 and of the philippine american war that followed in the heels of the war of 1898. And so whats very interesting is that even though the many different figures that came together under this organization action had the main argument that the United States should not become a it should not annex all these lands because it was a republic, and that would turn the republic into an empire. They had different rationales for doing so. So we had people, for example, like samuel clemens, mark twain, right. Who had more of an internationalist antiimperial perspective. He had traveled through the world and he had considered the theme of imperial power very deeply. Its very interesting that initially when the us declared war against spain to liberate the cubans, he was in favor of the war. But once the treaty of paris that ended the war was signed, he saw that the United States intended to keep the philippines puerto rico. And so he said, he said, this is not what we signe