Platt Amendment

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Platt Amendment

Platt Amendment

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(1901) Rider appended to a U.S. Army appropriations bill stipulating conditions for withdrawing of U.S. troops remaining in Cuba after the Spanish-American War. The amendment, which was added to the Cuban constitution of 1901, affected Cuba's rights to negotiate treaties and permitted the U.S. to maintain its naval base at Guantánamo Bay and to intervene in Cuban affairs "for the preservation of Cuban independence." In 1934 Pres. Franklin Roosevelt supported abrogation of the amendment's provisions except for U.S. rights to the naval base. See also Good Neighbor Policy.

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(1901)

In 1901, U.S. Senator Orville Platt introduced an amendment to the U.S. Army appropriations bill specifying several conditions for the American military evacuation of Cuba. The two key provisions of the Platt Amendment, first proposed by Secretary of War Elihu Root, required that Cuba cede territory for American military and naval bases and also grant the United States the right to intervene in the island to preserve order, life, property, and liberty. In Congress, even proponents of Cuban independence like Senators Joseph Foraker and George Hoar supported the amendment, which President William McKinley signed into law on 2 March. In early June, the Cuban Constitutional Convention acceded to American demands, and the amendment came to regulate Cuban‐American relations until it was abrogated in 1934.

The Platt Amendment addressed a fundamental problem for the expanding United States. In 1898, the U.S. government had pledged under the Teller Amendment to withdraw from Cuba once Spain had been defeated in the Spanish‐American War. But after the U.S. military victory, Washington wished to maintain the strategic gains of 1898 and did not trust the Cubans to establish a government friendly to American interests. The Platt Amendment resolved this contradiction by in essence making Cuba a U.S. protectorate. However, the amendment also poisoned Cuban‐American relations and encouraged U.S. expansionism in the Americas in the early twentieth century.

Bibliography

David F. Healy, The United States in Cuba, 1898–1902: Generals, Politicians, and the Search for Policy, 1963.
Louis A. Perez, Cuba Under the Platt Amendment, 1902–1934, 1986

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An amendment signed by President William McKinley on March 2, 1901 to specify conditions for the removal of U.S. troops from Cuba. Proposed by Secretary of War Elihu Root and presented to the Senate by Sen. Orville H. Platt, it required that Cuba cede land for U.S. military and naval bases, allow U.S. intervention to preserve Cuban independence, and agree not to transfer land to any other power. Cuba incorporated the provisions into its constitution, and the amendment regulated Cuban-American relations until it was abrogated in 1934.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

US History Encyclopedia: Platt Amendment

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Platt Amendment, a rider attached to the army appropriations bill of 1901. It made Cuba essentially a protectorate of the United States until 1934. The amendment began as a series of eight articles drafted by Secretary of War Elihu Root in 1901 as guidelines for United States–Cuba relations. Congress passed the amendment, sponsored by Senator Orville Hitchcock Platt of Connecticut, in an attempt to address the relations between Cuba and the United States in the shadow of the U.S. occupation of postwar Cuba. After Spanish troops left Cuba in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War, the United States occupied Cuba until the provisions of the amendment were incorporated into the Cuban constitution in 1902. The Cuban convention was resistant to passage, and it was only under the threat of continued U.S. occupation that it agreed to accept the amendment, on 13 June 1901. On 22 May 1903, the articles were written into a formal treaty. The terms of the amendment allowed the United States "the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty." The amendment also permitted the United States to lease lands for the establishment of a naval base in Cuba. The amendment was abrogated on 28 May 1934.

Bibliography

Pérez, Louis A., Jr. Cuba under the Platt Amendment, 1902–1934. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986.

Suchlicki, Jaime. Cuba: From Columbus to Castro and Beyond. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 2002.

Wikipedia: Platt Amendment

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Page one of the Platt Amendment.

The Platt Amendment was a rider append to the Army Appropriations Act presented to the U.S. Senate by Connecticut Republican Senator Orville H. Platt (1827-1905) replacing the earlier Teller Amendment. The amendment stipulated the conditions for the withdrawal of United States troops remaining in Cuba since the Spanish-American War, and defined the terms of Cuban-U.S. relations until the 1934 Treaty of Relations. The Amendment ensured U.S. involvement in Cuban affairs, both foreign and domestic, and gave legal standing to U.S. claims to certain economic and military territories on the island including Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

1 American occupation of post-war Cuba
2 Conditions of the Amendment
3 Aftermath
4 External links
5 References

American occupation of post-war Cuba

The Platt Amendment came in 1899 from the United States to expand its sphere of influence in Cuba and protect American investments by pacifying the state. During the Spanish-American War the United States maintained a military arsenal in Cuba to protect US holdings and mediate Spanish-Cuban relations.^[1] In 1899, a formal policy of occupation was adopted after fears of an unmanageable revolutionary government in Cuba circulated among the McKinley administration in the wake of the fallen Spanish regime.^[2]

In an effort to shape Cuba into a "self-governing colony"^[3], the United States established a Rural Guard composed of ex-rebel fighters charged with reducing theft and protecting foreign property^[4]. Further, under appointed military general Leonard Wood, sanitation systems, road works and a Cuban education system were implemented (all programs and reforms were financed from the Cuban treasury).^[5] Franchise was extended to literate, adult, male Cubans with property worth $250. This restricted the largely Afro-Cuban population from participating in the newly-formed government while enforcing American hegemony in Cuba.

Conditions of the Amendment

Formulated by the American Secretary of War Elihu Root, the Platt Amendment passed through the U.S. Senate by a vote of 43 to 20.^[6] Though initially rejected by the Cuban assembly, the amendment was accepted by a vote of 16 to 11 with four abstentions and integrated into the Cuban Constitution.^[7]

The amendment stipulated that Cuba would not transfer Cuban land to any power other than the United States, mandated that Cuba would contract no foreign debt without guarantees that the interest could be served from ordinary revenues, and ensured U.S. intervention in Cuban affairs when the United States deemed necessary. It also prevented Cuba from negotiating treaties with any country other than the United States that would either "impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba" or allow "any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes or otherwise, lodgement in or control over any portion", thus greatly reducing Cuba's power.^[8]

The Platt Amendment allowed Cuba only a limited right to conduct its own foreign and debt policies. It gave the United States an open door to intervene in Cuban affairs and define land claims. The Isle of Pines (now called Isla de la Juventud) was deemed outside the boundaries of Cuba until the title to it was adjusted in a future treaty. Cuba also agreed to sell or lease to the United States "lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon." The amendment leased Guantánamo Bay to the United States and provided for a formal treaty detailing all the foregoing provisions.

After U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt withdrew federal troops from the island in 1902, Cuba signed the Cuban-American Treaty (1903) outlining U.S. power in Cuba and the Caribbean. Tomás Estrada Palma, who had earlier favored outright annexation of Cuba by the United States, became President of Cuba on May 20, 1902.

Aftermath

Following acceptance of the amendment, the United States ratified a tariff pact that gave Cuban sugar preference in the U.S. market and protection to select U.S. products in the Cuban market. As a result of U.S. action sugar production dominated the Cuban economy while Cuban domestic consumption became increasingly dependent on U.S. producers.

With the exception of U.S. rights to Guantánamo Bay, the Platt Amendment provisions were repealed in 1934 when the Treaty of Relations was negotiated as a part of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor policy" toward Latin America. The long-term lease of Guantánamo Bay still continues, and according to the treaty, that right can be revoked only by the consent of both parties, or by abandonment of "the said naval station". The Cuban government under Castro strongly denounces the treaty on grounds that article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties declares a treaty void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force. However, Article 4 of the same document states that Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties shall not be retroactively applied to any treaties made before itself.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Platt Amendment

Modern History Sourcebook: The Platt Amendment, 1901 (full text)

References

^ Lars Schoultz. Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Towards Latin America(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 128.
^ Benjamin Keen and Keith Haynes. A History of Latin America: Volume 2 Independence to the Present.(Boston: Houghton Mifflen Co., 2004),427.
^ Ibid.
^ Schoultz, 144.
^ Keen and Haynes, 428.
^ Schoultz, 150.
^ Schoultz, 151.
^ http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/platt.htm

Cuba – United States relations

Bay of Pigs Invasion · Brothers to the Rescue · Cuban American · Cuban-American lobby · Cuban Five · Cuban Missile Crisis · Cuban opposition since 1959 · Elian Gonzalez affair · Guantanamo Bay Naval Base · Helms-Burton Act · List of Cuba-US aircraft hijackings · Luis Posada Carriles · Mariel boatlift · Operation Peter Pan · Platt Amendment · Spanish–American War · United States Ambassador to Cuba · United States embargo against Cuba · United States Interests Section in Havana

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	Cuba, Relations with
	Spanish-American War
	U.S. Military Involvement in the Caribbean and Latin America

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