No Spanish-American War. What happens to Puerto Rico?

Say, that, the Maine doesn't explode and there is no Spanish-American War. From what I know, both Cuba and the Philippines were mostly already under rebel control and Spain would eventually have to give up on them. However, there was no rebellion in Puerto Rico, that was fully under Spanish control. Apparently, Puerto Rico was far more happy under Spain than Cuba and the Philippines were. Due to its size, it was also much easier to control. If the war hadn't happened, would it still be part of Spain today?


Without Spanish-American war, the Philippines would get balkanized into revolutionary states like the tagalog republic(luzon) and the federal republic of visayas because no foreign ruler wants to support aguinaldo who wants to conquer visayas and mindanao and dies in exile while cuba becomes a country of its own.
 
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Say, that, the Maine doesn't explode and there is no Spanish-American War?

Maine explosion or no Maine explosion, there is no way for Spain to avoid war with the US in 1898 except by agreeing to immediate independence for Cuba. It's not like there could even be some face-saving "decent interval" phase of autonomy--that had been tried and failed. There is an obvious reason why the Spanish government didn't agree to that--it would be tremendously unpopular, more so than even a losing war.
 
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Marc

Donor
Maine explosion or no Maine explosion, there is no way for Spain to avoid war with the US in 1898 except by agreeing to immediate independence for Cuba. It's not like there could even be some face-saving "decent interval" phase of autonomy--that had been tried and failed. There is an obvious reason why the Spanish government didn't agree to that--it would be tremendously unpopular, more so than even a losing war.

Actually, just go back a couple of years and have William Jennings Bryan win the 1896 election. While Bryan strongly was in favor of Cuban independence, I think it would be unlikely for him to push for a war with Spain just for that reason.
And we never get Teddy... sigh...one of my flawed favorite presidents.
 
Actually, just go back a couple of years and have William Jennings Bryan win the 1896 election. While Bryan strongly was in favor of Cuban independence, I think it would be unlikely for him to push for a war with Spain just for that reason.


"Yes, the time for intervention has arrived. Humanity demands that we shall act. Cuba lies within sight of our shores and the sufferings of her people cannot be ignored unless we, as a nation, have become so engrossed in money making as to be indifferent to distress.

"Intervention may be accompanied by danger and expense, but existence cannot be separated from responsibility and responsibility sometimes leads a nation, as well as an individual, into danger. A neighbor must sometimes incur danger for a neighbor, and a friend for a friend.

"War is a terrible thing and cannot be defended except as a means to an end, and yet it is sometimes the only means by which a necessary end can be secured. The state punishes its own citizens by imprisonment and even death when counsel and persuasion fail. War is the final arbiter between nations when reason and diplomacy are of no avail.

"Spain might not resist intervention; it is to be hoped that she would recognize the right of the United States to act, and immediately withdraw from Cuba, but whether she resents intervention or not, the United States must perform a plain duty..." https://books.google.com/books?id=lTk-B-lwmnUC&pg=PP19
 
Say, that, the Maine doesn't explode and there is no Spanish-American War. From what I know, both Cuba and the Philippines were mostly already under rebel control and Spain would eventually have to give up on them. However, there was no rebellion in Puerto Rico, that was fully under Spanish control. Apparently, Puerto Rico was far more happy under Spain than Cuba and the Philippines were. Due to its size, it was also much easier to control. If the war hadn't happened, would it still be part of Spain today?
I might see Spain selling the Philippines to either Germany ore Japan.
 
Could be, but if Germany comes with a lot of gold it might be tempting for Spain to sell.

I think the Tagalog republic would still end up as a client of the Americans since the Americans expanded in Hawaii already and having them as an american client would cause the americans to have bases in the East and having more closer relations with Japan.

The Germans don't have the same strategies as the Americans which united the Philippines, the Philippines would end up balkanized ITTL, the Germans could help innovate the government of Visayas since they have the same type of government.

Visayas resources like Oil and Dueterium might help German economy, however in WWI, the British might get what the Germans are able to get from the Spanish.
 
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Marc

Donor

"Yes, the time for intervention has arrived. Humanity demands that we shall act. Cuba lies within sight of our shores and the sufferings of her people cannot be ignored unless we, as a nation, have become so engrossed in money making as to be indifferent to distress.

"Intervention may be accompanied by danger and expense, but existence cannot be separated from responsibility and responsibility sometimes leads a nation, as well as an individual, into danger. A neighbor must sometimes incur danger for a neighbor, and a friend for a friend.

"War is a terrible thing and cannot be defended except as a means to an end, and yet it is sometimes the only means by which a necessary end can be secured. The state punishes its own citizens by imprisonment and even death when counsel and persuasion fail. War is the final arbiter between nations when reason and diplomacy are of no avail.

"Spain might not resist intervention; it is to be hoped that she would recognize the right of the United States to act, and immediately withdraw from Cuba, but whether she resents intervention or not, the United States must perform a plain duty..." https://books.google.com/books?id=lTk-B-lwmnUC&pg=PP19

Interesting, were those quotes before the start of the Spanish-American War?
 
Interesting, were those quotes before the start of the Spanish-American War?

Yes. They were developed on March 31, 1898. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1898/04/01/102109373.pdf "On April 11, 1898, President McKinley asked Congress for permission to use military force in Cuba. By the middle of April, the U.S.S. North Atlantic Squadron had fully blockaded Cuba; by early May, Commodore Dewey and his U.S. Asiatic Squadron had defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. The official declaration of war occurred on April 25, 1899 when President McKinley sent an official request to Congress." https://www.pbs.org/crucible/tl12.html
 
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Maine explosion or no Maine explosion, there is no way for Spain to avoid war with the US in 1898 except by agreeing to immediate independence for Cuba. It's not like there could even be some face-saving "decent interval" phase of autonomy--that had been tried and failed. There is an obvious reason why the Spanish government didn't agree to that--it would be tremendously unpopular, more so than even a losing war.

How would the USA justify going to war, if there was no Maine explosion?
 
Assuming that the constitutional link between Spain and Puerto Rico was maintained and not disrupted by anything like the Spanish civil war, I think Puerto Rico would most likely end up as an overseas territory of Spain. There is the precedent of the Canaries OTL, and there isn't anything like the ethnoracial split between Portugal and Cape Verde that resulted in that archipelago becoming an independent state.
 
Assuming that the constitutional link between Spain and Puerto Rico was maintained and not disrupted by anything like the Spanish civil war, I think Puerto Rico would most likely end up as an overseas territory of Spain. There is the precedent of the Canaries OTL, and there isn't anything like the ethnoracial split between Portugal and Cape Verde that resulted in that archipelago becoming an independent state.

Regarding Puerto Rico, most Puerto Ricans are mixed European, Subsaharan African and Taíno, so there is an ethnoracial split.
Regarding Cape Verde, despite the ethnoracial split, its independence was really due to luck, as there was no war there and most Cape Verdeans appeared to be indifferent towards Portuguese control, if the provisional governments following the Carnation Revolution had remained more moderate or if there had been a coup or a revolution years earlier, it wouldn't have become independent, it would most likely have become an autonomous region, like the Azores and Madeira. The same applies to São Tomé and Príncipe. It should be noted, that, most Cape Verdeans and São Tomenses are mulattos and not fully African in ancestry.
 
Regarding Puerto Rico, most Puerto Ricans are mixed European, Subsaharan African and Taíno, so there is an ethnoracial split.

Perhaps, but not that much. There's nothing like the situation in the French Caribbean, where Creole is the main language of home and French is the language of officialdom. There was also not such a deep split as in Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, where Portuguese colonial racism created the preconditions for a split. (I'm inclined to think that, in the case of those two ex-Portuguese archipelagoes, autonomy within Portugal would have provided better outcomes for locals than independence.)
 
Even, close to the end of the war, when they had more importance, the moderate, Segismundo Casado managed to coup them.
Yeah so close to the end of the Civil War that it ended less than a month later. The communists weren't all that important when the war was already lost.
 
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Worth pointing out two things. Firstly, Puerto Rico isn't an independent country today so the idea that it needs to beer independent in a Spanish held timeline seems on the face of it slightly suspicious.

But also, there is a tendency to perceive the future of colonialism in this timeline as following a similar trajectory to OTL which is by no means certain. WWI and perhaps more importantly WWII did much to economically distress the colonial powers, and later undermine the philosophical underpinnings of territorial government.

Theoretically we could see a future where many colonies are fully integrated into the parent country and where calls for independence is seen as eccentric and fanciful.

If France and the UK can hold onto some significant extra territory to OTL it makes Spain and others more likely to be able to hold onto some of theirs.
 
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