AHC and Question on the Phillipines

This is a two part post. My first part, the Alternate history challenge, is for the posters to create a scenario in which the USA buys/ takes over Cuba before the American Civil War. The second part to this is something that I have been curious about. If the USA were to have obtained Cuba this early, could Spain have kept the Phillipines until modern day, as there would have been no Spanish-American War to break up their holdings?
 
First, welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy your time here.
Second, considering upon the question of Cuba, I think there are several possibilities:
One is to have a POD make Cuba try to become independent during the fall of the Spanish government in the 1800s. Then America annexes Cuba.
the Ten Years' War between Cuba and Spain is one possibility that I'd consider. Maybe have the US support such a movement and then quietly smother the revolutionary government, like IOTL Philippines.
Third, the Philippines would already be a lost cause for the Spaniards - integration was already hard for the British upon Canada, and that was just across the Pond. Imagine how much money would go into administering a country across three oceans.
"Let it go" would be a proper use of the quote here.
 
First, welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy your time here.
Second, considering upon the question of Cuba, I think there are several possibilities:
One is to have a POD make Cuba try to become independent during the fall of the Spanish government in the 1800s. Then America annexes Cuba.
the Ten Years' War between Cuba and Spain is one possibility that I'd consider. Maybe have the US support such a movement and then quietly smother the revolutionary government, like IOTL Philippines.
Third, the Philippines would already be a lost cause for the Spaniards - integration was already hard for the British upon Canada, and that was just across the Pond. Imagine how much money would go into administering a country across three oceans.
"Let it go" would be a proper use of the quote here.

I tend to agree on both points:

1. Another option is that Cuba becomes increasingly rebellious during the Carlist Wars and Spain is incapable of maintaining order. They defacto rule themselves (whether they do this well is up for debate).

Think of Haiti in the 1790's or Corsica in the 1770's.

Eventually Spain realizes they can't afford the resources to bring this old colony to heel (and it no longer is relevant as it was primarily used as a way station for the treasure ships from now indepedent Mexico and Peru), and Spain sells the rights to the US and wishes them luck in trying to control it. Maybe Puerto Rico goes too or maybe it doesn't.

2. As for the Philippines, Spain never had a good grasp in the first place. Another way station for the Spanish galleon from Mexico trading for Chinese goods, Manila has no more value. In spite of Spanish indolence in governence, the Philippines eventually would rebel at some point just for something to do and Spain would have no chance of stopping this.

Maybe this happens in 1900, maybe 1950. Independence was the fad at that point and I doubt the Philippines would be any different than Vietnam or Indonesia.
 

Driftless

Donor
I don't think the desire for self-determination/independence would be described as a fad. Certainly there was an increase in revolutionary movements to throw off both imperial and internal established orders across the globe over the last 200+ years.

The Philippine efforts to maintain independence after 1898 developed into a war against the US that was a long running and decidedly vicious fight.

There were numerous Filipino revolts against Spanish rule, so an earlier POD where a revolt succeeds is very plausible.
 
I don't think the desire for self-determination/independence would be described as a fad. Certainly there was an increase in revolutionary movements to throw off both imperial and internal established orders across the globe over the last 200+ years.

The Philippine efforts to maintain independence after 1898 developed into a war against the US that was a long running and decidedly vicious fight.

There were numerous Filipino revolts against Spanish rule, so an earlier POD where a revolt succeeds is very plausible.

I was being a little tongue in check but you have to understand the context of Spanish Rule in the Phillippines. Basically, Spain never truly controlled much of the archipeligo.

the Philippines was a collection of ethnic and religious groups whose colonial master never bothered to truly exploit the natural resources. Spain cared about nothing but using Manila as a way station. Once the annual galleon to China halted, I'm not sure if people in Madrid even remembered the Philippines. Filipinos literally had nothing to revolt against.

When America took over, they (we) tried to impliment all sorts of changes in governance/economic policy which were very popular/unpopular depending on point of view. But certainly it changed the game for the locals and made resistance more general and helped unify the nation by increasing political conscienceness.
 
I was being a little tongue in check but you have to understand the context of Spanish Rule in the Phillippines. Basically, Spain never truly controlled much of the archipeligo.

the Philippines was a collection of ethnic and religious groups whose colonial master never bothered to truly exploit the natural resources. Spain cared about nothing but using Manila as a way station. Once the annual galleon to China halted, I'm not sure if people in Madrid even remembered the Philippines. Filipinos literally had nothing to revolt against.

When America took over, they (we) tried to impliment all sorts of changes in governance/economic policy which were very popular/unpopular depending on point of view. But certainly it changed the game for the locals and made resistance more general and helped unify the nation by increasing political conscienceness.

The main reason why the Spanish conquered the Philippines so easily is that Nakhoda Ragam attacked Tondo and replaced its house and nobility with Bruneians I think without that Spanish trying to conquer the Philippines would be as difficult as conquering OTL Indonesia.
 
I was being a little tongue in check but you have to understand the context of Spanish Rule in the Phillippines. Basically, Spain never truly controlled much of the archipeligo.

the Philippines was a collection of ethnic and religious groups whose colonial master never bothered to truly exploit the natural resources. Spain cared about nothing but using Manila as a way station. Once the annual galleon to China halted, I'm not sure if people in Madrid even remembered the Philippines. Filipinos literally had nothing to revolt against.

When America took over, they (we) tried to impliment all sorts of changes in governance/economic policy which were very popular/unpopular depending on point of view. But certainly it changed the game for the locals and made resistance more general and helped unify the nation by increasing political conscienceness.

That tongue in your cheek seems to be causing you to stutter in a hyperbolic way. "Literally nothing to revolt against?":eek:

You also exaggerate somewhat the total neglect of the archipelago by the Spanish. It is a fair description of the nature of Spanish rule for most Filipino history to be sure--but during the later part of the Nineteenth century the government in Madrid did give some thought to making the islands pay better; this very likely has something to do with the rise of Filipino nationalist consciousness, at least in Luzon.

During the last century of Spanish rule also, we can see clear tendencies for the formation of a Filipino national identity. I don't know if you are aware of various revolts and uprisings in that time, or if the fact that they tended to be involved in millenarian religious cultism causes you to dismiss them as being relevant to Westphalian nationalism as we understand it today--but movements like that are a classic way of forming a broader identity than the divided groups Magellan found; syncretism of Catholicism with indigenous spiritualism is one of the strands of modern Filipino identity after all, at least in symbolism if not current religious devotion.

I also think it is curious how you mention the role of Manila as Spain's entrepot to the China trade as though it is some sort of footnote of trivial importance. Getting a foot in the door of Far Eastern trade was in fact the major motive for the Spanish to try to claim the islands in the first place; the trade loop between Spanish-ruled New Spain and the Chinese market was one of the major historical instances of the roots of modern globalism and of very great importance to the Spanish Empire as a whole, particularly so in Manila and even in Mexico of course. In fact, when the Yankees horned in on the Filipino revolt and seized the place for themselves, that was again the main motivation--American imperialists were, much like the Spanish of several centuries before, desperate for a stronghold giving them better access to China. It is quite true that having conquered the place, but very clearly as a secondary matter, they proceeded, with more system and above all more capital in hand, to elaborate the economic opportunities the islands themselves offered--but this was clearly quite secondary to the main thing, which was to secure a strong naval and military presence in the Far East that they controlled. So while the focus on an outpost oriented toward interaction with quite other territory they did not control does make the point that the Spanish were somewhat neglectful of the Philippine archipelago itself, the Americans really only appear in a more energetic light mainly because they had extra funds to spare on secondary priorities.

Others have raised their eyebrows at the cavalier dismissal of rising Filipino nationalism, and I've already questioned if you know what you are talking about when you say they had nothing to rebel against. Those millenarian risings in the early 19th century I mentioned...they were defeated, you know, and it takes an army that has rather more than "literally" no existence to do that. As in the American territories they lost nearly a century before, the Spanish couldn't seem to refrain from setting their own "pure-blooded" and Spanish-born selves as a higher tribe of overlords; they could and did recruit native assistance--indeed the Philippines could hardly be secured for the Spanish crown without coopting native peoples, for the invading forces, at the far end of a literally (really this time:rolleyes:) hemispheric supply line, via Mexico and all the way across the Pacific, could hardly come in great force, nor did they find as they had in Mexico or Peru large regions of developed agricultural lands they could control as a power base--the Filipino peoples were scattered, cultivating small holdings barely sufficient for themselves, with no centralized empire paving the way. The would-be conquistadors very nearly starved to death just trying to scrounge up enough rice to survive!:p It was the missionaries who were key to the Spanish claims to rule; drawing the various, numerous language groups under that rule. But not so much the language--the missionary friars tended to keep Spanish as well as Latin a mystery, and dealt in the dozens of native languages they learned instead--this is one reason the missionary orders held power versus a regular "secular" pattern of parishes under bishops; each order specialized in the language of the peoples they ministered to.

If you take a serious look at Filipino history you'll find some interesting complexities; you will also find both the roots of a native identity, the basis of it merging (at least among some of the larger groups in Luzon) into a more general one, and ongoing conflict between Spanish rule in various modes and manifestations. There was the long struggle to get the Catholic Church in the islands (present more in a dozen or so missionary monastic orders than in a regular church hierarchy, remember) to accept and ordain native Filipinos as priests for instance. By the time that was beginning to happen at last, in the meantime a native middle class (whose hopes for social advancement ran headlong into Hispanic bigotry) was rising, the "illustrados." Some wished to co-opt to European culture--but were of course snubbed by the Europeans.:rolleyes: Others picked up on the revolutionary currents of the 19th century, and integrated them with native ideology to form a revolutionary Filipino identity.

All of this happened long before Dewey showed up in Manila bay.

You are quite right to suggest that the Americans had a very profound influence on what happened next and on what sort of nation the Philippines became. You are quite wrong to suggest the roots go no deeper than that, and that Spanish rule in the islands was in some combination apparently in your view either benign or a fiction. It was a bit like that, in both respects, compared to other imperial holdings.

But to say they had no identity before and had nothing at all to rebel against (until we Americans gave them something to) is not only an exaggeration; it flies in the face of the massive uprising and collapse of Spanish rule that the Americans took advantage of to take the Philippines for themselves. Not to mention the long, costly, brutal war of repression they then had to wage, not against Spain, but against these allegedly unconscious, grievance-free Filipinos.
 
If the USA were to have obtained Cuba this early, could Spain have kept the Phillipines until modern day, as there would have been no Spanish-American War to break up their holdings?

It depends on what happens in Spain.

If Spanish proceeds as OTL, highly likely, with more troops (which should've been on Cuba) available to repress the populace. But if they went to war with another great power (other than America) while remaining the same as OTL, they're going to lose the islands for sure.
 
I'm a bit at sea regarding the divergence of the USA getting ahold of Cuba so very early; it needs to be worked up at the very least. Some points to consider:

The attitude of Britain;

The political balance between slave and free state;

The fact that, apropos that, Cuba was not as much a slave society in the early century as it would become later--clearly slavery was not abolished (as it would be in Mexico for instance) but the sugar plantations of the later century were yet to be developed, and it was these that made Cuban slavery so widespread.

How will US society react to absorbing an island with a large, Spanish-speaking, Roman Catholic population? Will the outcome be ethnic cleansing, or the wooing away of the Cuban populace from their language and faith? Or will the Cubans perhaps react strongly upon the US identity itself? When Americans seized other Hispanic territory later in the century, they tended to pretty much displace or suppress the Latino layer--but circumstances are different here. Texas and California were distant peripheries of Spanish and then Mexican society, very thinly settled (by peoples loyal to Mexico anyway) and only recently, whereas by the 1840s the USA had grown immensely from its late 18th century origins. Here however, a much younger and smaller USA is trying to absorb a long-established and fairly populous Hispano-Caribbean island, quite a large one too. I don't think the examples of Texas and California are much good here. Even the example of New Mexico--where a strong group of Spanish-identified people live on to this day--is not really appropriate. I think it would turn out a lot more like Puerto Rico, which is of course predominantly Spanish speaking. I suspect rather more fusion of the cultures than happened there--but it will happen on largely Cuban terms.

What about Florida, by the way? How likely is it that the Yankees will get control of the old, long settled island of Cuba but neglect to seize the only marginally held continental enclave between Cuba and such American states as Georgia and Alabama?

We have to pay attention to a rather kaleidoscopic sequence of events too--one where I have come to realize, as AH challenges often cause, that I'm pig-ignorant!:eek::eek: Florida was Spanish, but the British took it in the peace settlements of 1763--then suddenly it was Spanish again. Was that simultaneous with the British ceding Louisiana to Spain? Why did the British abandon their claims on the southern border of the USA anyway--did they deem them not worth the cost (despite their obvious value as bases to harass the upstart colonials from), did the USA twist their arms at the peace talks (demanding the territories go to a third party rather than remain under British control) or what?

Anyway now Florida is again also Spanish, and if the USA is going to seize Cuba by main force, surely they'd sweep up Florida too? But then again--the reason Spanish Florida ever stood any kind of chance up against a bunch of greedy Americans (whom I can't exactly call "Yankees" since the proximate pillagers would in fact have been from as deep as the South gets, Georgia and Alabama--note that Alabama is just barely getting settled and probably isn't even a state yet) was that the British were backing them. OTL the Spanish would be conceding Florida to the USA anyway just a couple decades hence, and I don't recall hearing about the British opposing it. But again those couple decades represent growth of American power, and despite the quite recent second rupture of Anglo-American relations in 1812, the development of new attitudes of the British toward the USA. Jumping the gun some quarter century, I think British displeasure is going to be in play--it might not be effective, especially if they are bogged down fighting Napoleon or some such, but anyway the consequences of a US/Spanish war probably resonate far beyond just the match of power in the Caribbean sphere between those two alone. Heck, Napoleon Bonaparte might get involved!

Indeed, perhaps a seizure of Cuba might somehow butterfly away the Louisiana Purchase!

Say it happens before 1800--John Adams is President, and he doesn't want the USA to absorb Cuba. But his Federalist supporters are split on the matter, and so are the Democrat-Republican opposition; a coalition of convenience on this issue exists in Congress in favor of taking Cuba, one strong enough to overcome Presidential opposition--perhaps even in effect taking away the role of Commander in Chief of the military from the President if Adams won't get with the program. In that case I fear Adams goes down in disgrace--considering that he is only the second President this could mean major changes in the Constitution (as pragmatically interpreted anyway if not as written). Letting supreme military command slip to other hands at Congress's direction for instance (in flat contradiction of the text of course). Or establishing the principle that it is Congress that adjusts American territorial claims, not the President.

But then what happens in Jefferson's first term (assuming Jefferson got on the Seize Cuba bandwagon, or anyway stood aside and didn't let it run him over like Adams) when Napoleon's envoy offers on a silver platter (in return for some actual silver) enough territory to double the size of the USA; complete control of the whole Mississippi valley system; even access to the Pacific--but Jefferson and his party as well as some Federalist allies have just established that only Congress can handle the deal--but Congress can't act fast enough; Napoleon, hungry for money immediately, gets impatient and takes the deal off the table...goodbye Louisiana Purchase, it would have been unconstitutional to act fast enough to say yes!:p Presumably the USA gets control of all or most of that territory eventually but there might have to be a number of ugly and relatively expensive wars first. And it might not permit a fast enough leapfrog to the Pacific to secure an early claim on Oregon; the Pacific coast might be preempted by the British as well as Mexico, or even the Russians might hang in.

I'm hardly saying this is a sure and probable result of an early conquest of Cuba, I'm just saying the doors of possibility and unforeseen consequences are flung wide open. The whole pattern of international politics in the Western Hemisphere is completely torn up and randomized. For one thing, the USA is certainly going to be known for military adventurousness. Will other Latin American peoples, struggling for their own liberation from Spain, view El Norte as a ravening werewolf as bad as the Castilian vampire? Or will they see the incorporation of Cuba into the Union as a sign of a new era of hemispheric Federalism, with the Anglos as cousins in a fraternal New World of collegial and cooperative republicanism?

Just about any crazy thing can happen now!:p

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But while that does certainly mean that your favored scenario of the Philippines going on a different path and perhaps even being drawn into more fraternal association with Spain in permanent union might possibly happen--it doesn't seem particularly probable either. Just another of a near-infinite variety of permutations.

Meanwhile, I read your OP as somehow suggesting there is a necessary and logical linkage of some kind between Yanqui aggression in Cuba and in the Philippines. And there certainly are linkages--but the way I would bet, if the absorption of Cuba does not send either the USA or the whole world onto courses completely different from OTL but that events still proceed largely as OTL for deep-seated reasons...then I don't think that the Americans taking Cuba a century earlier has any bearing whatsoever on whether or not they are in a mood to try to conquer the Philippines pretty much on schedule.

As I have posted above, the Americans at that point, around the end of the 19th century, included some very hungrily ambitious people with imperialist notions, and this view had the backing of particularly powerful and influential Americans as well as a fair sized popular following. A place that more or less met the conditions the Philippines did OTL at that time--in or near the action of East Asia; under some kind of weak control--would draw American eyes and elicit stomach growling.

Perhaps, for random reasons, or for reasons that follow with iron logic from the failure of early 19th century Spain to hold Cuba, the Philippines no longer meet that description in the ATL. Maybe the reformist desire to get more value out of the Philippines takes hold earlier and stronger in Spain an ingenious viceroys and ambitious and clever Spanish subjects multiply their grip and start enriching both Spain and themselves--so it is an ugly, racist, iron-fisted regime in the Philippines perhaps--but a richer and stronger one that can fight off an opportunistic US battle group while handily suppressing the natives.

Or the Spanish turn over a new leaf and take another tack, and effectively recruit the Filipinos, integrating them into a more collegial empire that they have a stake in.

Or inspired by the liberation of Cuba, the Filipinos win a precocious victory much earlier in the 19th century; a combination of luck and their own pluck keeps third party vultures from swooping down on them or fights them off when they do (probably mainly by playing the colonial imperial powers off against each other) and the awakening American giant finds the Philippine federal republic a tough-looking mouthful on its own.

All of these things are possible but none of them seems particularly probable, and an OTL type trajectory does seem the path of least resistance for the Philippines.

And so the Americans might wind up seizing them anyway--and in this timeline there would be no perception of any linkage whatsoever between this case and the case of Cuba most of a century before.
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Looking at other comments going on, I see that the major linkage you seem to consider relevant to the question of whether Spain can hold the Philippines is a matter of troop strength. That is--if they don't have Cuba to hold as well as the Asian/Pacific holding, they can double down on the latter and therefore hold it.

That seems dubious to me; the Filipino rising as it was evolving OTL had breadth and depth and the Spanish would have had to send in some pretty vast armies indeed to hold them down by main strength. In my nasty scenario above, the main strength comes from more Spaniards resident in the Philippines, not as troops but as locally resident magnates of a successful colonial mini-powerhouse--some sort of Draka-apartheid sort of nightmare, but while a Spain these honorary Peninsulares help enrich can afford to send more force, some of it also comes from the islanders themselves, coopted into an imperial hierarchy--one opposed, probably, by an insurgency, but perhaps one that never overturns the hierarchy.:eek: Here, avoiding such hyperbolic if dark fantasies, you seem to be dealing in essentially as OTL but with more Spanish boots on the ground. IMHO, that just escalates the fight, but the native people will win--and if the Yankees aren't butterflied away or onto a different path, their white fleet is lurking right there waiting for the rebels they perhaps have aided to pull American chestnuts from the Spanish fire--and in comes some ATL cousin of Dewey to eat them.
 
This is a two part post. My first part, the Alternate history challenge, is for the posters to create a scenario in which the USA buys/ takes over Cuba before the American Civil War. The second part to this is something that I have been curious about. If the USA were to have obtained Cuba this early, could Spain have kept the Phillipines until modern day, as there would have been no Spanish-American War to break up their holdings?

It totally depends on how the Spanish wil deal with thee Philippines after a pod of 1860 loss of Cuba.

If the Spanish were to give what the locals ask like equality and autonomy, Philippines might remain loyal to Spain indefinitely.

However, if you retain the same Spanish otl policies, then the Philippines will just Throw the Spanish out, with only the circumstance and date being the difference before you even reach modern day.
 
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