On July 3, 1898, the Spanish Navy suffered one of the most tragic losses in its history against the US fleet off the bay of Santiago de Cuba. Very little is known about how the US Navy treated the more than 1,900 Spanish seamen and officers taken prisoner after the naval combat, and the vicissitudes that they experienced until their repatriation to Spain in September of the same year.

This study reviews some of the details of how the American sailors behaved towards the spanish prisoners of war (POW), members of Admiral Pascual Cervera’s squadron. It runs from the situation generated on Cuban beaches just after the naval combat until their transfer to different parts of the United States, and peoples’ reaction to these prisoners in the press and American public opinion.