US acquires Cuba in 1850s by purchase or war - plausible or not?

Paul Spring

I've been doing some reading about the history of slavery in the United States and the debate that it generated, and one thing that gets mentioned a lot but is never gone into in depth is the desire of many white Americans from the slave states, and some from the free states as well, to acquire Cuba from Spain in the early to mid 1850s. In the mid-19th century, Cuba was Spain's richest remaining colonial possession and its economy was booming due to the growth of slave sugar plantations, which paralleled the boom in slave cotton plantations in the deep southern states of the US at the same time. There were several reasons why many in the US wanted Cuba:

- acquiring it would add at least 1, and possibly 2, slave states to the US, at a time when proslavery southerners were desperate to gain increased representation in both houses of Congress to balance the North's rapidly growing population

- the economic benefits of acquiring what was then the world's largest sugar producer, and the opportunity for some southern slaveholders to move to Cuba with slaves and start new plantations, plus the opportunity for northerners to invest more money in the Cuban sugar industry

- fears that the Spanish government in Cuba would abolish slavery, which it was feared would inspire slave resistance and uprisings in the USA and further isolate the slave states by removing one of the few other places in the Western Hemisphere where slavery was still legal

- general "Manifest Destiny" sentiment in all parts of the country, which was at a high peak at the time

In 1852, the Democrat Franklin Pierce won the presidency on a platform that included the acquisition of Cuba as one of the administration's goals. Unfortunately for those in the US who wanted Cuba, there were a couple of things working against this goal:

- Spain really didn't want to lose the island, which was the most profitable remaining part of its much-shrunken empire. It especially didn't want to lose it to the United States, which had already been the base for several attempts by small armed parties to overthrow Spanish rule in Cuba - the so-called filibusters. The Spanish rejected several offers from the US to purchase Cuba, leaving war as the only alternative for the US.

- Those northerners in the US who were more worried about slavery than manifest destiny really didn't want to see more slave territory added to the US, and really didn't want to fight another war that would help expand US slavery


In the end, Cuba fell by the wayside in US politics, at least partly because a completely different battle opened up between pro- and anti-slavery expansion forces over the issue of whether slavery should be allowed in territories of Kansas and Nebraska. When these territories, which had been reserved as non-slave territory since the Missouri Compromise in 1820, were opened up to the possibility of slavery in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska act, the outrage in the Northern states was so great that the Whig party ended up disintegrating while the Democrats lost most of their seats in the House of Representatives in Northern states. As anti-slavery expansion sentiment rose in the northern states, it became politically difficult to impossible to acquire Cuba even if Spain had been willing.

My questions are - was there any way plausible way that the US could have ended up with Cuba in the 1850s? Would there have been anything that would have made Spain more willing to sell? Would there have been anything that could have generated broader support for a war in the US? Who would have been likely to win such a war? If the US was winning, would Britian or France have intervened to prevent Cuba from falling in US hands? Could the acquisition of Cuba either peacefully or by war have replaced the Kansas-Nebraska Act as the final straw that broke northern willingness to agree to slavery's expansion? Would there still have been a US Civil War with Cuba as part of the US, and what would have happened to the island in such a war? What would have been the long-term effects on both Cuba and the US as a whole?
 

FillyofDelphi

Banned
Paul Spring said:
I've been doing some reading about the history of slavery in the United States and the debate that it generated, and one thing that gets mentioned a lot but is never gone into in depth is the desire of many white Americans from the slave states, and some from the free states as well, to acquire Cuba from Spain in the early to mid 1850s. In the mid-19th century, Cuba was Spain's richest remaining colonial possession and its economy was booming due to the growth of slave sugar plantations, which paralleled the boom in slave cotton plantations in the deep southern states of the US at the same time. There were several reasons why many in the US wanted Cuba:

- acquiring it would add at least 1, and possibly 2, slave states to the US, at a time when proslavery southerners were desperate to gain increased representation in both houses of Congress to balance the North's rapidly growing population

- the economic benefits of acquiring what was then the world's largest sugar producer, and the opportunity for some southern slaveholders to move to Cuba with slaves and start new plantations, plus the opportunity for northerners to invest more money in the Cuban sugar industry

- fears that the Spanish government in Cuba would abolish slavery, which it was feared would inspire slave resistance and uprisings in the USA and further isolate the slave states by removing one of the few other places in the Western Hemisphere where slavery was still legal

- general "Manifest Destiny" sentiment in all parts of the country, which was at a high peak at the time

In 1852, the Democrat Franklin Pierce won the presidency on a platform that included the acquisition of Cuba as one of the administration's goals. Unfortunately for those in the US who wanted Cuba, there were a couple of things working against this goal:

- Spain really didn't want to lose the island, which was the most profitable remaining part of its much-shrunken empire. It especially didn't want to lose it to the United States, which had already been the base for several attempts by small armed parties to overthrow Spanish rule in Cuba - the so-called filibusters. The Spanish rejected several offers from the US to purchase Cuba, leaving war as the only alternative for the US.

- Those northerners in the US who were more worried about slavery than manifest destiny really didn't want to see more slave territory added to the US, and really didn't want to fight another war that would help expand US slavery


In the end, Cuba fell by the wayside in US politics, at least partly because a completely different battle opened up between pro- and anti-slavery expansion forces over the issue of whether slavery should be allowed in territories of Kansas and Nebraska. When these territories, which had been reserved as non-slave territory since the Missouri Compromise in 1820, were opened up to the possibility of slavery in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska act, the outrage in the Northern states was so great that the Whig party ended up disintegrating while the Democrats lost most of their seats in the House of Representatives in Northern states. As anti-slavery expansion sentiment rose in the northern states, it became politically difficult to impossible to acquire Cuba even if Spain had been willing.

My questions are - was there any way plausible way that the US could have ended up with Cuba in the 1850s? Would there have been anything that would have made Spain more willing to sell? Would there have been anything that could have generated broader support for a war in the US? Who would have been likely to win such a war? If the US was winning, would Britian or France have intervened to prevent Cuba from falling in US hands? Could the acquisition of Cuba either peacefully or by war have replaced the Kansas-Nebraska Act as the final straw that broke northern willingness to agree to slavery's expansion? Would there still have been a US Civil War with Cuba as part of the US, and what would have happened to the island in such a war? What would have been the long-term effects on both Cuba and the US as a whole?
Click to expand...

Overcoming the second "limitation" is fairly simple. A great deal of Free Soil and Popular Soverginity sentiment that drove such political backlash against historical pushes for slavery's expansion (Such as Anti-Scott v. Stanford and the Wilmont Manifesto) was based on a desire to keep slavery out of territory where it already was banned or unwanted by its residents for the benefit of free white labor. Cuba, being already so deeply engrained with the institution, could easily get around those arguments especially if it reduced the push by Southern slaveholder to open up Continental lands. The war issue is far more problematic, but could potentially be solved by having chaos in Spain that causes their hold on the island to slip... perhaps a more successful Carlist Uprising that leads to arch-Conservative policies and a fleeing of Liberal forces to the Caribbean, who try to free the slaves in exchange for their support in establishing a court-in-exile and get loyal black troops?
 

Deleted member 2186

Paul Spring said:
I've been doing some reading about the history of slavery in the United States and the debate that it generated, and one thing that gets mentioned a lot but is never gone into in depth is the desire of many white Americans from the slave states, and some from the free states as well, to acquire Cuba from Spain in the early to mid 1850s. In the mid-19th century, Cuba was Spain's richest remaining colonial possession and its economy was booming due to the growth of slave sugar plantations, which paralleled the boom in slave cotton plantations in the deep southern states of the US at the same time. There were several reasons why many in the US wanted Cuba:

- acquiring it would add at least 1, and possibly 2, slave states to the US, at a time when proslavery southerners were desperate to gain increased representation in both houses of Congress to balance the North's rapidly growing population

- the economic benefits of acquiring what was then the world's largest sugar producer, and the opportunity for some southern slaveholders to move to Cuba with slaves and start new plantations, plus the opportunity for northerners to invest more money in the Cuban sugar industry

- fears that the Spanish government in Cuba would abolish slavery, which it was feared would inspire slave resistance and uprisings in the USA and further isolate the slave states by removing one of the few other places in the Western Hemisphere where slavery was still legal

- general "Manifest Destiny" sentiment in all parts of the country, which was at a high peak at the time

In 1852, the Democrat Franklin Pierce won the presidency on a platform that included the acquisition of Cuba as one of the administration's goals. Unfortunately for those in the US who wanted Cuba, there were a couple of things working against this goal:

- Spain really didn't want to lose the island, which was the most profitable remaining part of its much-shrunken empire. It especially didn't want to lose it to the United States, which had already been the base for several attempts by small armed parties to overthrow Spanish rule in Cuba - the so-called filibusters. The Spanish rejected several offers from the US to purchase Cuba, leaving war as the only alternative for the US.

- Those northerners in the US who were more worried about slavery than manifest destiny really didn't want to see more slave territory added to the US, and really didn't want to fight another war that would help expand US slavery


In the end, Cuba fell by the wayside in US politics, at least partly because a completely different battle opened up between pro- and anti-slavery expansion forces over the issue of whether slavery should be allowed in territories of Kansas and Nebraska. When these territories, which had been reserved as non-slave territory since the Missouri Compromise in 1820, were opened up to the possibility of slavery in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska act, the outrage in the Northern states was so great that the Whig party ended up disintegrating while the Democrats lost most of their seats in the House of Representatives in Northern states. As anti-slavery expansion sentiment rose in the northern states, it became politically difficult to impossible to acquire Cuba even if Spain had been willing.

My questions are - was there any way plausible way that the US could have ended up with Cuba in the 1850s? Would there have been anything that would have made Spain more willing to sell? Would there have been anything that could have generated broader support for a war in the US? Who would have been likely to win such a war? If the US was winning, would Britian or France have intervened to prevent Cuba from falling in US hands? Could the acquisition of Cuba either peacefully or by war have replaced the Kansas-Nebraska Act as the final straw that broke northern willingness to agree to slavery's expansion? Would there still have been a US Civil War with Cuba as part of the US, and what would have happened to the island in such a war? What would have been the long-term effects on both Cuba and the US as a whole?
Click to expand...
What about a Spanish-America War in 1873 due a diplomatic dispute that occurred from October 1873 to February 1875 between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain (then in control of Cuba), during the Ten Years' War.

What if: Spanish-America War of 1873
 
Skallagrim

Skallagrim

Banned
Pierce might be persuaded to use a Cuban expedition as leverage over the addition of free states in the West. To the tune of: the South accepts that Kansas and Nebraska (both north of the existing Compromise Line) become free states, but Cuba will be conquered and subsequently divided into two slave states (West and East Cuba) -- and the Missouri Compromise Line is retained.

Absent 'bleeding Kansas', the run-up to the Civil War changes significantly. In fact, the Republican party may well be slower to coalesce successfully, I think. Regardless of ill feelings on both sides, the South would feel safer, too, since the USA just fought a war to gain more slave territory. The Civil War would be postponed, probably. For the moment, the existing Compromise would stand, Still, at most three slave states could realistically be carved out of New Mexico Territory and Indian Territory. The lands north of the Line could easily accomodate far more new (free) states. So at some point, there's going to be trouble...

On that note, keep in mind that time favours the North in every way. The later a Southern secession occurs, the 'easier' a Northern victory becomes. An unlikely, but certainly interesting, ATL scenario would be for a latter-day CSA to lose, but to set up a government on Cuba (and managing to hold on to the island). This is unlikely, but if US landings on Cuba are beaten back with very high casualties for the US forces, then the USA might decide to let Cuba exist, in a Taiwan-like situation. A reason for the USA to tolerate this might be that Cuba would become a rallying point for disgruntled Confederates-- that would handily rid the USA of all such trouble-makers, just as the loyalist emigration to Canada managed to rid the USA of them.

(Let it be clear that I do not mean to equate either the people or Taiwan or the American loyalists to a bunch of slavers.)
 
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha

Koprulu Mustafa Pasha

Gone Fishin'
I was thinking about the 1830s when the Carlist War broke out. Spain is in no position to defend it nor to give attention to it.

Ofcourse, the policemen of the world aka UK is what may hinder them in these times.

Either buying it or a war in between 1830 and 1859. It might delay the abolishment of Slavery but so will the Civil War.
 

snerfuplz

I do wonder what a Cuba under American control would be like. Unlike the South, which as a whole had a black population of 37.3% in 1850, Cuba’s non-white population was 58.5% in 1841.
 
Skallagrim

Skallagrim

Banned
snerfuplz said:
I do wonder what a Cuba under American control would be like. Unlike the South, which as a whole had a black population of 37.3% in 1850, Cuba’s non-white population was 58.5% in 1841.
Click to expand...

Do note that the 37.3% is an average for the entire South, and that the Deep South had considerably higher percentages in this regard. (still lower than Cuba, but South Carolina came very close.)
 

David T

An old soc.history.what-if post of mine:

***

My POD is the "Black Warrior affair" leading to war with Spain in 1854. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0807810.html It might have done so--there were calls for the suspension of the neutrality act, which would mean unleashing filibusters on Cuba--except that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was pending in Congress, and anti-Nebraska forces raised a violent outcry that the administration was looking for war as a way out of its sectional troubles.

The turning point was probably May 30, 1854. On that day, Senators Mason, Douglas, and Slidell--in short, the Democratic majority on the foreign relations committee--met with President Pierce and urged him to support legislation calling for a suspension of the neutrality act. Instead of doing so, Pierce proposed to his callers "the creation of a three-man commission to go to Madrid to present to the government in all seriousness the desire for Cuba and to warn that probably only cession would stop the filibusters. The three visitors accepted this plan, though far from eagerly. As a part of the arrangement, [Secretary of State William] Marcy was called upon to telegraph to the district attorney in New Orleans that decisive measures were on the way. This was to help him hold the filibusters in line. Pierce also promised that before the session ended he would explicitly ask for a big appropriation, big enough for war purposes, in case the commission was unsuccessful. On May 31, i.e., the next day, Pierce issued a proclamation calling for an observance of the neutrality laws." Ivor Debenham Spencer, *The Victor and the Spoils: A Life of William L. Marcy* (Providence, RI: Brown University Press 1959), p. 323.

The result of Pierce's decision was to kill off the filibuster movement. Its leaders, including Mississippi's ex-governor John Quitman, were even required to give bond for their good conduct. Another result was a more conciliatory attitude toward the Black Warrior incident. By midsummer, as it turned out, Pierce had not dared to send Congress the proposal for the commission, though that body was still in session; and the Senate foreign relations committee decided not to ask for an emergency appropriation, though Pierce had indicated his willingness to do so.

This does not by any means indicate that Pierce had given up on Cuba. Something like the originally-planned commission was eventually created and issued the famous "Ostend Manifesto" http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Ostend/ostend.html but by that time the Democrats had suffered drastic defeats in elections in the North--due largely to a backlash against the Kansas-Nebraska Act--and even Pierce (let alone the more conservative Marcy) had to repudiate the Manifesto.

So basically my POD for US acquisition of Cuba is *no Kansas-Nebraska Act*. Without this, Pierce and the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress would probably have approved a quick suspension of the neutrality act after the Black Warrior affair. And as I stated in a post a few years ago, organization of Nebraska without repeal of the Missouri Compromise was by no means inconceivable. For a while, even David Rice Atchison, despairing of getting repeal through Congress, was willing to accept this, but when other southerners showed an unwillingness to organize the territory on this basis (giving, among other reasons, their well-known respect for Indian land titles :)) and when his bitter enemy Thomas Hart Benton started to mock him for his retreat, he swore that he would see the territory "sink in Hell" before giving it to the free-soilers. If just a few Upper South senators had gone along with Atchison's temporary retreat, there would have been no Kansas-Nebraska Act as we know it. There might still be a controversy over slavery in Kansas--the Missourians there might still try to establish it, arguing the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and a Dred Scott-like test case would make its way to the Supreme Court--but at least the political explosion of 1854 would be delayed. (Of course another way to have the Kansas-Nebraska bill as we know it not come up is to have the Black Warrior affair happen a few months before it did in OTL--in short, have the US get to the brink of war with Spain *before* the Kansas-Nebraska bill is introduced. The war scare would doubtless delay any decision about what to do about Nebraska.)

Secretary of State Marcy, never a great enthusiast for Cuba (and especially opposed to taking it by force) pretty much summed up the situation in a letter to Senator Mason on July 23, 1854:

"To tell you an unwelcome truth, the Nebraska question has sadly shattered our party in all the free states and deprived it of that strength which was needed and could have been much more profitably used for the acquisition of Cuba." Quoted in Spencer, *The Victor and the Spoils*, p. 324

The South in 1854 was strong enough to get Cuba--or to get the Missouri Compromise repealed in a futile effort to make Kansas a slave state. She was not strong enough to get both, and disastrously chose the Kansas shadow over the Cuban substance. (Of course the real disaster of Kansas for the South was that it led to the rise of the Republican Party. I doubt very much that a war with Spain, provoked by the Black Warrior incident, would be enough to do so, even if it led to the acquisition of Cuba as a slave state. Unlike Kansas, Cuba already had slavery, so slavery would not be extended by its acquisition; it was even argued that acquisition of Cuba would help stem the illegal African slave trade to that island. And in any event, unlike Kansas, Cuba was not a place where northern farmers were planning to settle.)

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/DuMqtoRZaSc/-q-sFvXC_3YJ
 
Last edited:

Dathi THorfinnsson

If the US did get Cuba, with the intent of it being a slave state, it would be a massive bleeding ulcer.

But I'm highly doubtful that the US could pull it off.
 

Paul Spring

David T said:
An old soc.history.what-if post of mine:

***

My POD is the "Black Warrior affair" leading to war with Spain in 1854. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0807810.html It might have done so--there were calls for the suspension of the neutrality act, which would mean unleashing filibusters on Cuba--except that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was pending in Congress, and anti-Nebraska forces raised a violent outcry that the administration was looking for war as a way out of its sectional troubles.

The turning point was probably May 30, 1854. On that day, Senators Mason, Douglas, and Slidell--in short, the Democratic majority on the foreign relations committee--met with President Pierce and urged him to support legislation calling for a suspension of the neutrality act. Instead of doing so, Pierce proposed to his callers "the creation of a three-man commission to go to Madrid to present to the government in all seriousness the desire for Cuba and to warn that probably only cession would stop the filibusters. The three visitors accepted this plan, though far from eagerly. As a part of the arrangement, [Secretary of State William] Marcy was called upon to telegraph to the district attorney in New Orleans that decisive measures were on the way. This was to help him hold the filibusters in line. Pierce also promised that before the session ended he would explicitly ask for a big appropriation, big enough for war purposes, in case the commission was unsuccessful. On May 31, i.e., the next day, Pierce issued a proclamation calling for an observance of the neutrality laws." Ivor Debenham Spencer, *The Victor and the Spoils: A Life of William L. Marcy* (Providence, RI: Brown University Press 1959), p. 323.

The result of Pierce's decision was to kill off the filibuster movement. Its leaders, including Mississippi's ex-governor John Quitman, were even required to give bond for their good conduct. Another result was a more conciliatory attitude toward the Black Warrior incident. By midsummer, as it turned out, Pierce had not dared to send Congress the proposal for the commission, though that body was still in session; and the Senate foreign relations committee decided not to ask for an emergency appropriation, though Pierce had indicated his willingness to do so.

This does not by any means indicate that Pierce had given up on Cuba. Something like the originally-planned commission was eventually created and issued the famous "Ostend Manifesto" http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Ostend/ostend.html but by that time the Democrats had suffered drastic defeats in elections in the North--due largely to a backlash against the Kansas-Nebraska Act--and even Pierce (let alone the more conservative Marcy) had to repudiate the Manifesto.

So basically my POD for US acquisition of Cuba is *no Kansas-Nebraska Act*. Without this, Pierce and the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress would probably have approved a quick suspension of the neutrality act after the Black Warrior affair. And as I stated in a post a few years ago, organization of Nebraska without repeal of the Missouri Compromise was by no means inconceivable. For a while, even David Rice Atchison, despairing of getting repeal through Congress, was willing to accept this, but when other southerners showed an unwillingness to organize the territory on this basis (giving, among other reasons, their well-known respect for Indian land titles :)) and when his bitter enemy Thomas Hart Benton started to mock him for his retreat, he swore that he would see the territory "sink in Hell" before giving it to the free-soilers. If just a few Upper South senators had gone along with Atchison's temporary retreat, there would have been no Kansas-Nebraska Act as we know it. There might still be a controversy over slavery in Kansas--the Missourians there might still try to establish it, arguing the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and a Dred Scott-like test case would make its way to the Supreme Court--but at least the political explosion of 1854 would be delayed. (Of course another way to have the Kansas-Nebraska bill as we know it not come up is to have the Black Warrior affair happen a few months before it did in OTL--in short, have the US get to the brink of war with Spain *before* the Kansas-Nebraska bill is introduced. The war scare would doubtless delay any decision about what to do about Nebraska.)

Secretary of State Marcy, never a great enthusiast for Cuba (and especially opposed to taking it by force) pretty much summed up the situation in a letter to Senator Mason on July 23, 1854:

"To tell you an unwelcome truth, the Nebraska question has sadly shattered our party in all the free states and deprived it of that strength which was needed and could have been much more profitably used for the acquisition of Cuba." Quoted in Spencer, *The Victor and the Spoils*, p. 324

The South in 1854 was strong enough to get Cuba--or to get the Missouri Compromise repealed in a futile effort to make Kansas a slave state. She was not strong enough to get both, and disastrously chose the Kansas shadow over the Cuban substance. (Of course the real disaster of Kansas for the South was that it led to the rise of the Republican Party.) I doubt very much that a war with Spain, provoked by the Black Warrior incident, would be enough to do so, even if it led to the acquisition of Cuba as a slave state. Unlike Kansas, Cuba already had slavery, so slavery would not be extended by its acquisition; it was even argued that acquisition of Cuba would help stem the illegal African slave trade to that island. And in any event, unlike Kansas, Cuba was not a place where northern farmers were planning to settle.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/DuMqtoRZaSc/-q-sFvXC_3YJ
Click to expand...

Excellent post! I agree totally - a push to acquire Cuba by war would only happen if the Kansas-Nebraska Act can be avoided. The Black Warrior incident followed by unleashing more filibuster expeditions could definitely lead to war. Question is - would the US win a war? I know nothing about the relative military strengths of Spain vs. the US at the time.
 

raharris1973

Paul Spring said:
I've been doing some reading about the history of slavery in the United States and the debate that it generated, and one thing that gets mentioned a lot but is never gone into in depth is the desire of many white Americans from the slave states, and some from the free states as well, to acquire Cuba from Spain in the early to mid 1850s. In the mid-19th century, Cuba was Spain's richest remaining colonial possession and its economy was booming due to the growth of slave sugar plantations, which paralleled the boom in slave cotton plantations in the deep southern states of the US at the same time. There were several reasons why many in the US wanted Cuba:

- acquiring it would add at least 1, and possibly 2, slave states to the US, at a time when proslavery southerners were desperate to gain increased representation in both houses of Congress to balance the North's rapidly growing population

- the economic benefits of acquiring what was then the world's largest sugar producer, and the opportunity for some southern slaveholders to move to Cuba with slaves and start new plantations, plus the opportunity for northerners to invest more money in the Cuban sugar industry

- fears that the Spanish government in Cuba would abolish slavery, which it was feared would inspire slave resistance and uprisings in the USA and further isolate the slave states by removing one of the few other places in the Western Hemisphere where slavery was still legal

- general "Manifest Destiny" sentiment in all parts of the country, which was at a high peak at the time

In 1852, the Democrat Franklin Pierce won the presidency on a platform that included the acquisition of Cuba as one of the administration's goals. Unfortunately for those in the US who wanted Cuba, there were a couple of things working against this goal:

- Spain really didn't want to lose the island, which was the most profitable remaining part of its much-shrunken empire. It especially didn't want to lose it to the United States, which had already been the base for several attempts by small armed parties to overthrow Spanish rule in Cuba - the so-called filibusters. The Spanish rejected several offers from the US to purchase Cuba, leaving war as the only alternative for the US.

- Those northerners in the US who were more worried about slavery than manifest destiny really didn't want to see more slave territory added to the US, and really didn't want to fight another war that would help expand US slavery


In the end, Cuba fell by the wayside in US politics, at least partly because a completely different battle opened up between pro- and anti-slavery expansion forces over the issue of whether slavery should be allowed in territories of Kansas and Nebraska. When these territories, which had been reserved as non-slave territory since the Missouri Compromise in 1820, were opened up to the possibility of slavery in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska act, the outrage in the Northern states was so great that the Whig party ended up disintegrating while the Democrats lost most of their seats in the House of Representatives in Northern states. As anti-slavery expansion sentiment rose in the northern states, it became politically difficult to impossible to acquire Cuba even if Spain had been willing.

My questions are - was there any way plausible way that the US could have ended up with Cuba in the 1850s? Would there have been anything that would have made Spain more willing to sell? Would there have been anything that could have generated broader support for a war in the US? Who would have been likely to win such a war? If the US was winning, would Britian or France have intervened to prevent Cuba from falling in US hands? Could the acquisition of Cuba either peacefully or by war have replaced the Kansas-Nebraska Act as the final straw that broke northern willingness to agree to slavery's expansion? Would there still have been a US Civil War with Cuba as part of the US, and what would have happened to the island in such a war? What would have been the long-term effects on both Cuba and the US as a whole?
Click to expand...


Sounds like a binary question. Why not add a poll?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top