Is there a way Cuba could have become a state?

Back in 1898 Cuba fell under US control after the Spanish-American war. Is there a possible way that would lead to it becoming a state in the union?
 
Well, America's goal in the Spanish-American War was kicking out the last 'big' colonial power in the Americas (Canada in 1898 was pretty much independent of Britain, and the rest were the small, indefensible, money-sink islands in the Caribbean. They were there to aid the Cubans in throwing out the Spanish. You need to somehow turn this into a series of events which leads the Americans into thinking, "Well, we do need more Catholic Hispanics."
 

Lusitania

Donor
Unless Cuba became a destination for Americans and when I say Americans it needs to be WASP then the chances a slim to none. Look at how they treated the Mexicans who lived in Texas, California or New Mexico and you realize they were 2nd class citizens.
 
There is a better chance of it in the 1850's than in 1898 (when the US was pretty much committed to Cuban independence, even if as a virtual protectorate).

The great error of the South in the 1850's was to chase the chimera of a slave state in Kansas, instead of concentrating on getting Cuba. As William Marcy wrote, "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." (Letter written July 23, 1854, quoted in David Potter, *The Impending Crisis*, p. 198)
 
I wonder if an attempt to take Cuba to make it a slave state could trigger a war with Spain and delay the Civil War by another decade or so...
 
Remembering my Victoria II lore the "Ostend Manifesto" was a chance to claim Cuba for the US, perhaps use it earlier than OTL to filibuster a war against Spain,
 
Is the confederacy won the American civil war then they intended to expand south into Latin America
 
That could be a very good idea; have the desire for Cuba to be admitted into the Union by the Confederacy in exchange for allowing Kansas to remain a Freestate. This would be supported by ofcourse, slave holders, as it would grant them a relatively densely populated slave state with more electoral votes and it would be supported by moderate republicans/whigs/northern democrats who wanted to keep the balance and negotiate another compromise. The abolitionists republicans/whigs may not be for this, but they would likely be out spoken by the majority and perhaps saited by the admittance of Kansas as a Free State. Such a notion would be supported by proponents of Manifest Destiny aswell, and the Mexican-American war would have been decent prep time. The problem would be is getting this into the mainstream thought, as invading Cuba just for the sake of a compromise seems like a very roundabout way of going about things; perhaps make Spanish-American relations worse or have Cuba hold a larger American minority?
 
hmm, maybe not a state but I could see it easily being turned into two or three territories.

If enough whites immigrate there (Take Hawaii for example) and enough of the local populace eventually starts to lean to the various protestant strains in American then I could see it being a state.

I don't think anything other than the original 13 colonies could become states without having to go through a slow digestion/assimilation phase first.
 

missouribob

Banned
No. By 1898 it was too late. I'm pretty sure in OTL that war only got funding from Congress by adding language saying they wouldn't annex the island. With a POD after 1898 the closest thing I could see happening is that the United States creates a North American Union with a confederal level of government that includes a Cuba that never went Communist. Such a union, given the size of the United States relative to the rest of the Northwestern Hemisphere, would basically be an expanded United States in all but name. That's all I can think of.
 
Top