Question - could the US have acquired Cuba earlier than 1898?

JJohnson

Banned
I have a few alternate times in mind, but the main question is: could the US have purchased or seized Cuba earlier than 1898, and when/how might this have occurred?

I was thinking:
* 1819 - Adams-Onis Treaty - a weak point in Spain's colonial power
* 1848 - Polk purchases the island
* 1860s - Confederates seize the territory, and the US claims it in its defeat of the Confederacy.
* 1898 - OTL Spanish-American War - when the US got the island in our timeline.

Any other possibilities that I might have missed?

I'm asking so that I can have Cuba assimilate into the United States and become a state by the end of the 19th century.

Thanks!
 
* 1819 - Adams-Onis Treaty - a weak point in Spain's colonial power

This is IMHO the best time to do it and nearly happened if not for Monroe balking at the last minute for reasons I can't remember

* 1848 - Polk purchases the island
Not likely because we had to deal with Texas and Mexico, but possible and a fairly novel suggestion

* 1860s - Confederates seize the territory, and the US claims it in its defeat of the Confederacy.

NO they didn't have the naval capability to do an invasion of that size.

* 1898 - OTL Spanish-American War - when the US got the island in our timeline.

Butterfly the Platt Amendment and you got your wish

I'm asking so that I can have Cuba assimilate into the United States and become a state by the end of the 19th century.

Thanks!

Your Welcome, If you want it by the end of the 19th century than the Adams treaty in 1819 is your best bet.
 
This is IMHO the best time to do it and nearly happened if not for Monroe balking at the last minute for reasons I can't remember
Negotiations to fix disputed boundaries of (largely empty) territories in the West lead to American Cuba? !?!? What?

Any cites on that? THat'd be like the Asburton-Webster negotiations on borders of Maine leading to the US getting Ontario...... Or NAFTA leading to the US getting Chiapas or something.
 
I actually think it's harder than it looks.

Take the 1840s and 1850s. By this point, slavery is far too big of an issue to just snaffle up the territory; the Ostend Manifesto, for instance, was greeted with outrage in the North.
 
Negotiations to fix disputed boundaries of (largely empty) territories in the West lead to American Cuba? !?!? What?

Any cites on that? THat'd be like the Asburton-Webster negotiations on borders of Maine leading to the US getting Ontario...... Or NAFTA leading to the US getting Chiapas or something.

This is exactly what I was wondering. In 1819 Florida was more or less ethnically American anyways with 1783 leading to the Loyalist exodus and virtually no new Spanish/Cuban colonists replacing them (all Hispanophones had been gone since... the voluntary Hispanic 1763 exodus :p). Cuba itself...is a frigging well-defended administrative and commercial jewel of Spain from its colonization to 1898.

I have to lulz at all those who make the CSA take Cuba thanks to them magically having it in How Few Remain onwards, too.
 

Glen

Moderator
I have a few alternate times in mind, but the main question is: could the US have purchased or seized Cuba earlier than 1898, and when/how might this have occurred?

I was thinking:
* 1819 - Adams-Onis Treaty - a weak point in Spain's colonial power
* 1848 - Polk purchases the island
* 1860s - Confederates seize the territory, and the US claims it in its defeat of the Confederacy.
* 1898 - OTL Spanish-American War - when the US got the island in our timeline.

Any other possibilities that I might have missed?

I'm asking so that I can have Cuba assimilate into the United States and become a state by the end of the 19th century.

Thanks!

1763 - British do not exchange Cuba for Florida at the end of the Seven Years' War. Charleston merchants set up shop in Havana, influx of Colonial American money and population. During ARW, Cuba sides with the Rebels. Though Havana under British occupation, Rebels hold the rest of the island. Americans sieze Bahamas near end of Revolutionary war, trade back to Britain in return for Cuba. Cuba becomes one of the early US states.

How's that for early assimilation!:eek:
 
Ironically, many Bahamians were sympathetic to Americans in the ARW-if the rebels can get naval contact with Cuba during the ARW, they will be able to entice the Bahamians to join them. Being sandwiched between Georgia and Cuba would just be too much to resist for Patriot Bahamians.
 
.Or 1820s:

Wikipedia said:
After the opening of the island to world trade in 1818, Cuban-United States trade agreements began to replace Spanish commercial connections. In 1820 Thomas Jefferson thought Cuba "the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States" and told Secretary of War John C. Calhoun that the United States "ought, at the first possible opportunity, to take Cuba."
 
What about a possible invasion by Americans during the War of 1812? In support of the French who at the time are bogged down in the Peninsular War with the Brits and Spanish the Americans hit Cuba to try and disrupt the Caribbean trade income of England and Spain. Something along those lines perhaps?

It would be a tricky operation owing to the power of the English fleet, but Andy Jackson landing at Havana supported by Old Ironsides might make for a handsome tale ;).
 
ZACH: Jefferson, bless whatever else good he's done, had a childish Ameriwank attitude like that. He once mentioned hope Spain would weaken but not TOO much so America could take Latin America piece by piece. :rolleyes:

In slight fairness, in his lifetime Anglo-Americans went from the coastal thirteen colonies circa his birth in 1750 to just past the Mississippi River into Missouri, Louisiana, and Thunder Bay in Canada; giving major WASP population boosts to the westernmost West Indies (Jamaica/Bahamas/Bermuda, natch); and majority-anglicizing the Maritimes by death in 1820. That is pretty spectacular, so maybe he had a point. :rolleyes::p

COWBOY: As awesome as the concept sounds (and yes it does), America was not at all in accordance with Imperial France. Had it been we'd have seen some sort of communication in the OTL War of 1812.
 
During the Ten Years' War in Cuba from 1868-1878, one of the leaders, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, called for Cuba to be annexed by the United States as one of the goals of the war. Get more Cubans to support this idea and you could see the US intervene. This is also the war which got Spain to remove slavery from the island, so there shouldn't be many issues with that.
 

Glen

Moderator
During the Ten Years' War in Cuba from 1868-1878, one of the leaders, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, called for Cuba to be annexed by the United States as one of the goals of the war. Get more Cubans to support this idea and you could see the US intervene. This is also the war which got Spain to remove slavery from the island, so there shouldn't be many issues with that.


Ah, what land hasn't someone called for annextion by the US of?;)
 
Negotiations to fix disputed boundaries of (largely empty) territories in the West lead to American Cuba? !?!? What?

Any cites on that? THat'd be like the Asburton-Webster negotiations on borders of Maine leading to the US getting Ontario...... Or NAFTA leading to the US getting Chiapas or something.


I can't find any cites although I swear when the US bought Florida they offered more for Cuba and Spain countered and we decided it was to much money. I don't know I could be mixing up AH with Real History. :mad:
 
I can't find any cites although I swear when the US bought Florida they offered more for Cuba and Spain countered and we decided it was to much money. I don't know I could be mixing up AH with Real History. :mad:
The US 'bought' Florida to legitimize their possession of it after conquering it. Spain 'sold' it to get SOMETHING out of the loss.

That the US would make an offer for Cuba, I can believe. That Spain would seriously consider it, I find difficult to believe. Oh, I suppose they might have said 'we'll sell it for 2 bazillion dollars in gold', as a polite way of saying 'no'...

And, as you say, occasionally remembering what's AH and what's H can be a problem (I have occasionally misremembered the terms imposed on the South in the ACW, for instance:))
 
Napoleon never invades Spain, Louisiana remains Spanish: a US-Spanish war seems fairly inevitable at some point - any bets on when?

Bruce
 
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