How did Valeriano Weyler get his nickname during the Spanish American War?

Answer 1

Captain General Weyler gained his nickname as "The Butcher" in 1888, long before the Spanish American War. In trying to quell the activities of Philippine Rebels he used brutality to an extreme. When he was ordered to Cuba to end the Cuban struggle for Independence his nickname came with him and his reputation for cruelty, graft, bribery and reconcentration camps drew the attention of the American Press.

Cuban reconcentration camps in Cuba held 300.000 people by the end of 1897 and the Hearst papers routinely reported the conditions of disease, squalor, maltreatment and starvation that had killed thousands. Support for Independence for Cuba was growing in the US and would quickly escalate to War.

Answer 2

In 1896 the Spanish general Valeriano Wayler was named Captain General of the Spanish army in Cuba.His war strategy was to create areas of concentration where compulsory moved so most of the rural population of western and central parts of the island of Cuba, with the aim of preventing them from providing aid to the rebel troops, who escaped from concentration areas were hunted down and executed, the houses and plantations were burned. The result was disastrous, hundreds of thousands of civilians died during the Weyler's re-concentration, it is estimated that in only two years between 25 to 30 percent of the population of the island of Cuba was eliminated, that is over 300,000 human beings died by hunger and disease during the reconcentration, this was how Spanish general Valeriano Weyler earned his nickname "The Butcher".

Nicolas C Perez-Pacheco

Answer 3

The Butcher is what he was known as.