Why did President McKinley send the USS Maine to Cuba?

The relations between the United States and Spain were strained over several events regarding Cuba in the late 1800s. The United States was concerned about how the Spanish were treating the people of Cuba. News reports of the Spanish mistreatment of the Cubans were exaggerated in a practice that was known as Yellow Journalism. Americans, not having any other major source besides newspapers to get their news, believed the newspaper stories they were reading. They were outraged by the alleged Spanish mistreatment of the Cubans.

When the Spanish ambassador to the United States wrote a letter that was very critical of President McKinley, our relations with Spain deteriorated further. This letter, which was supposed to be a private letter, was intercepted and given to one of the newspaper companies that then published the letter. This letter outraged the American people.

The USS Maine was sent to Havana harbor to protect American interests in Cuba as the relationship with Spain deteriorated. We were very concerned about what the Spanish were doing in Cuba. Sending the USS Maine to Cuba reminded the Spanish of our concern regarding the situation in Cuba. When the USS Maine exploded, Americans immediately blamed Spain. Ultimately, pressure increased on President McKinley to declare war on Spain. This declaration of war occurred in April 1898.

Why did President McKinley send the U.S.S. Maine to Havana?

President McKinley's deployment of the USS Maine sent out two very clear messages to the world: first, that the United States would use armed intervention to defend its own interests abroad; and second, that Cuba was very much within the American sphere of influence.

Although policymakers in Washington and their cheerleaders in the yellow press presented the United States' intervention as an attack on the evils of Spanish imperialism, the deployment of the USS Maine was a response to the inability of the Spanish authorities to maintain civil order on the island. Any kind of uprising on Cuban soil could potentially represent a serious strategic threat to the United States and its interests in the region.

Though American public opinion was on the whole sympathetic to the Cuban rebels' cause, one suspects that armed intervention would not have taken place had the Spanish colonial authorities been able to keep a lid on the simmering discontent.

In addition to the information above, William Randolph Hearst, newspaper magnate and yellow journalist extraordinaire, had widely published reports of the atrocities against the Cuban people at the hands of the Spanish.  While the reports were exaggerated, they were more or less true, and a moral outcry that began in the churches of the northeast and among socialists and progressives put some populist pressure on McKinley to send a message to Spain, or take some action that would suggest America would not stand idly by no matter what Spain did.

McKinley's primary motivation was, as stated above, to protect Americans and their business interests in Cuba, but there was a public political motivation and benefit for him as well.

In the 1890s, Cuban rebels were fighting against the Spaniards who ruled the island.  The fighting eventually led to riots in the city of Havana in 1898.  McKinley worried that these riots might lead to the destruction of property owned by Americans or even to the death of American citizens.  He was especially concerned about this because many of the Cubans who supported the Spanish were upset with the United States for supporting the rebels.  In order to protect the US citizens and their property, McKinley dispatched the Maine to Havana.

What motivated President McKinley to send USS Maine to Havana in 1898?

By 1898, the Cubans wanted sovereignty over their own island and they were tired of Spanish rule.  The Spanish, who were frustrated with Cuban insurgency, started to rule over Cuba more directly and forcefully.  Tensions were on the rise in a place that was only ninety miles from American soil. President McKinley understood that American business interests were at stake in Cuba.  By 1890, American businesses had a $50 million dollar stake on the island.

President McKinley felt that after riots broke out in Havana, he needed to send the USS Maine back to protect American business and military interests. The Maine was the largest battleship ever produced at an American naval yard and was a symbol of American military power.  When the battleship exploded in the Harbor, it was a devastating symbolic blow to the United States.