The United States defeated Spain before the end of August and signed a peace treaty in December. For Spain, the terms were severe: Cuba gained its independence, and Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the US.34 In the aftermath of the war, historian and Roosevelt confidant Brooks Adams declared that the events of 1898 would become “the turning point in our history.” Looking ahead, he predicted that “we may dominate the world, as no nation has dominated it in recent time . . . I look forward to the next ten years as probably the culminating period of America.”
