page_title: Spanish Empire
section_title: Spanish–American War
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish Empire / Loss of remnants of empire (1865–1899) / Spanish–American War
caption_attribution_description: English: Spanish Empire before the Spanish-American warEspañol: Imperio Español antes del desastre de 1898
context_page_description: The Spanish Empire, historically known as the Hispanic Monarchy and as the Catholic Monarchy, was one of the largest empires in history. From the late 15th century to the early 19th, Spain controlled a huge overseas territory in the New World, the Asian archipelago of the Philippines, what they called "The Indies" and territories in Europe, Africa and Oceania. It was one of the most powerful empires of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Spanish Empire became known as "the empire on which the sun never sets" and reached its maximum extension in the 18th century.
  Castile became the dominant kingdom in Iberia because of its jurisdiction over the overseas empire in the Americas and the Philippines. The structure of empire was established under the Spanish Habsburgs, and under the Spanish Bourbon monarchs the empire was brought under greater crown control and increased its revenues from the Indies. The crown's authority in The Indies was enlarged by the papal grant of powers of patronage, giving it power in the religious sphere.
context_section_description: An increasing level of nationalist, anti-colonial uprisings in Cuba and the Philippine Islands culminated with the Spanish–American War of 1898. Military defeat was followed by the U.S. occupation of Cuba and the cession of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States, receiving US$20 million in compensation for the Philippines. The following year, Spain then sold its remaining Pacific Ocean possessions to Germany in the German–Spanish Treaty, retaining only its African territories. On 2 June 1899, the second expeditionary battalion Cazadores of Philippines the last Spanish garrison in the Philippines, which had been besieged in Baler, Aurora at war's end, was pulled out, effectively ending around 300 years of Spanish hegemony in the archipelago.
caption: The Spanish Empire in 1898
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