A Look at The Treaty of Paris

The Treaty of Paris was between the United States and Spain. It was written by representatives by both nations including William R. Day, Cushman K. Davis, William P. Frye, George Gray, and Whitelaw Reid, from the United States and Don Eugenio Montero Rios, Don Buenaventura de Abarzuza, Don Jose de Garnica, Don Wenceslao Ramirez de Villa-Urrutia and Rafael Cerero from Spain. The treaty was created on December 10th, 1898 and its purpose was to end the Spanish-American War. The main articles of the treaty focus on Spain giving the United States control of the island territories; Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.

The treaty proceeds to go about its purpose through a series of various articles. The articles are written briefly and in declarative form. Spain seems to take an apologetic tone for their actions in many of the articles; they tend to give more power to the United States in this treaty than they do themselves. Often, throughout the treaty they give the U.S. control of a territory without any significant restrictions or boundaries. They allow the United States to adjudicate on their own terms. The entire feel of the treaty leads the reader to believe that the United States was indeed victorious and that Spain is trying to graciously concede especially when they start articles with the words “Spain relinquishes…”. Further evidence that leads to Spain’s loss is presented in Article XIV where Spain states that they will set up “consular officers”. The aforementioned statement is shocking because in the dusk of a war that no one won cleanly because there was a treaty to cease the violence, Spain surrenders their territories nearly completely without leaving so much of a lasting mark for their trouble other than a few officers who are supposed to “advise” the incoming nation. Spain hands everything from religious freedom to political rights over to the United States.

The Treaty of Paris definitely remarks on the fall of Spain’s international empire and the rise of U.S. foreign land acquisition. The treaty was written shortly after numerous American victories on the acquired islands and in this time in history, Spain would definitely see the Treaty of Paris as paperwork for a surrender not a pact to bring two evenly matched nations to peace. American has retained some sort of control of these countries even to this day, save for a few of the countries that have become independent nations. This agreement between American and Spain has lasted longer than a century without any significant changes to the original articles except for granting some of the islands rights as their own nation. This document was probably written for the government and its officials who are actually carrying out what was declared but surely the treaty could have been written to be seen by all due to its short and to the point presentation.