whats all this Spanish American War stuff???

Too late to know or say very much other than it involved Spain the US and the Phillapines and Cuba and Puerto Rico, amoung others.

In Cuba:

Tomás Estrada Palma was an important Cuban general in the Ten Years' War(1868-1878).
Estrada Palma was captured by Spanish troops and sent into exile. While in exile, he traveled to New York where he worked with José Martí.

Marti:
http://www.spanamwar.com/Marti.htm
http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/marti.pensamientos.10797.html

his thoughts on freedom:
We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political state that we profit from. We must say no once more. Man is not free to watch impassively the enslavement and dishonor of men, nor their struggles for liberty and honor.

We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it. If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.
-José Julián Martí y Pérez (January 28, 1853- May 19, 1895)

here is an interesting rumor: Some believe that Martí and Carmen (Carmita) Miyares de Mantilla had a child in 1880 when he was separated from his wife. The child, María Mantilla, in turn had children, one of whom was the actor Cesar Romero.

After Martí's death, Estrada Palma became the new leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
When the revolutionaries established a Government in arms, Estrada Palma was sent to Washington as its diplomat. With the help of an American banker, he tried offering Spain $150 million to give up the island, a plan that failed.
He was, however, successful in getting the US Congress to pass the Joint Resolution. This bill was one of the factors that led the United States to declare war on Spain, demanding that Cuba be freed from Spanish colonial rule.

first term
On December 31, 1901, Estrada Palma was elected President. His politics have been likened to those of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
American troops left after the Cuban government signed a bill lowering tariffs on American products and incorporated the Platt Amendment into their constitution. Many American companies came to do business in Cuba.
On February 16, 1903, Estrada Palma signed the Cuban-American Treaty, agreeing to lease the Guantanamo Bay area to the United States, in perpetuity, for use as a naval base and coaling station.His presidency ended in 1906. (source: wikipedia.org)