Traitorous Republic or Friendly Nation. Images of the United States, Patriotic Mobilizations and Nationalisms in the Basque Country in 1898

The Spanish-American War of 1898 produced a wave of Anti-Americanism in all Spain, very closely associated with a heated Spanishist rhetoric. It was also expressed in the Basque Country, but at the same time triggered the discovery by Basque nationalism of the United States as a “friendly nation” (an interpretation present in Basque nationalism throughout all its history). Both Spanish and Basque nationalisms, that existed then in this territory, reacted differently to the outbreak of the war and built opposite ideas of the symbolic meaning of the United States: a traitorous republic or a freeing referent. The aim of this article is to explain, through the Basque press of the period, divergent points of view, as well as the patriotic rhetoric and the popular mobilizations –expression of informal sociability– against the United States raised by the war.