What if Cuba was ceded to the US after the 1898 war

I was reading the wiki article on Puerto Rico and it mentioned how it was ceded to the US along with Guam and the Phillipines after Spain's defeat in the 1898 war but Cuba wasn't. My question is what would have happened if Spain had ceded Cuba to the US after the war and became a US administrative territory?
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I suspect the experience would be a little like the Phillipines in that it would result in a guerilla war - after all, the Cubans were fighting an independence war from Spain.
 
I was reading the wiki article on Puerto Rico and it mentioned how it was ceded to the US along with Guam and the Phillipines after Spain's defeat in the 1898 war but Cuba wasn't. My question is what would have happened if Spain had ceded Cuba to the US after the war and became a US administrative territory?

It would be tricky as it would be illegal. Congress had voted that they were not going to annex Cuba. Plus there is the issue of all the Cuban administrative debts the Spanish might claim the U.S. should take if they are taking the land. But yah, I do not see Congress approving the treaty. And I believe that the treaty specified not Puerto Rico being annexed, but every Spanish island in the Carribean not part of Cuba. Which is why there was a dispute for some years about the Isle of Pines/Juventud. Both claimed it as their own, Congress later gave it to Cuba despite all but five percent of the land being owners being Americans. Suggesting the U.S. didn't care for holding every scrap of land. It was more that settlers would ask for annexation or something. And really, I don't think the U.S. would have wanted to make Cuba a state. Too many undesirable people. Being tanned, black, Catholic, socialists(?), Spaniards-who-they-just-fought...
 
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The US entered thecwar explicitly to help the Cubans gain their indepence (which is, more orcless, why the Maine was there in the first place). And there was a fairly vocal pro-Cuba voice in the American press at the time, with a fair number of Cuban expats making their position heard.

And, this is often forgotten, but Americans were fully capable of distinguishing being whote Cubans and other Cubans. The xenophobia was not nearly as universal as some would suggest.
 
While the USA did have (in general) the ability to distinguish between the "white" Cubans and those who were not "white", when you throw in the language difference and the Catholic religion of Cubans, actually "owning" Cuba was problematic. The same ethnoracial and religious issues had been a big factor in the USA not annexing a chunk of northern Mexico after the Mexican-American War, which some factions had wanted to do. The USA took over Puerto Rico for geostrategic reasons. The Philippines were taken over basically because the USA did not want anyone else to control them, seeing an immediately independent PI as too weak to prevent becoming subservient or even property of somebody else, and the plan with the PI was for them to become independent fairly quickly - it was never seen as a long range acquisition.
 
USA didn't want Cuba. they wanted a splendid little war in which they could take some easy pickings and show the world they were a power. they goofed in the phillipines when they found out it wasn't an easy colony. but they were correct in Cuba which they knew wasn't going to be easy. They very astutely let Cuba be free, gave them some assistance, and then used and abused them for 50 or so years, at which point communism seemed a good idea.

IF they accepted ownership of Cuba, they would most likely have been stuck with a 'Vietnam' - an endless insurgency.
 
While the USA did have (in general) the ability to distinguish between the "white" Cubans and those who were not "white", when you throw in the language difference and the Catholic religion of Cubans, actually "owning" Cuba was problematic. The same ethnoracial and religious issues had been a big factor in the USA not annexing a chunk of northern Mexico after the Mexican-American War, which some factions had wanted to do. The USA took over Puerto Rico for geostrategic reasons. The Philippines were taken over basically because the USA did not want anyone else to control them, seeing an immediately independent PI as too weak to prevent becoming subservient or even property of somebody else, and the plan with the PI was for them to become independent fairly quickly - it was never seen as a long range acquisition.

The fact that the U.S. annexed Puerto Rico and Philippines suggests that the race/religion of Cubans probably wasn't that big of an issue. The more fundamental problem was that the U.S. had fought the war on the pretext of granting Cuba its independence.
 
The fact that the U.S. annexed Puerto Rico and Philippines suggests that the race/religion of Cubans probably wasn't that big of an issue. The more fundamental problem was that the U.S. had fought the war on the pretext of granting Cuba its independence.

It is an issue if you are nearby and would be expecting statehood.

And yah about not wanting to give the Phillipines up someone mentioned. The Germans had apparently been heading with a fleet towards the islands and were wanting to get the Spanish to sell it to them, while the Japanese sent a letter to the Americans saying they were happy to have them as neighbors, but if they ever thought they might leave the Phillipines... Well, the Japanese needed to expand their lawn.
 
It is an issue if you are nearby and would be expecting statehood.

I don't know that this would have been that big a hurdle for Cuba. Louisiana gained statehood despite being (at the time) mostly French-speaking and Catholic, and had a large black/racially mixed population.

I think it just would have looked too hypocritical for the U.S. to annex a territory it had pledged its support for. In any event, with the Platt Amendment it effectively became a protectorate anyway.
 
I don't know that this would have been that big a hurdle for Cuba. Louisiana gained statehood despite being (at the time) mostly French-speaking and Catholic, and had a large black/racially mixed population.

I think it just would have looked too hypocritical for the U.S. to annex a territory it had pledged its support for. In any event, with the Platt Amendment it effectively became a protectorate anyway.

Large population?
 
I don't know that this would have been that big a hurdle for Cuba. Louisiana gained statehood despite being (at the time) mostly French-speaking and Catholic, and had a large black/racially mixed population.

Nearly all the blacks in 1812 Louisiana were slaves. Louisiana's free gens de couleur were something of a legal anomaly, but their status was second class even then, and was gradually reduced toward the equivalent of "free colored" in the rest of the U.S. So Louisiana did not pose a threat to white supremacy.

The Cuban population included a much larger number of rich or politically active mulattos and blacks, including military officers and upper-rank LEOs. And in the U.S., there was a black U.S. Representative from North Carolina (George White, the last black Republican from the South until Senator Tim Scott today). A few years later, black Republican Oscar DePriest was a Commissioner of Cook County IL (where Chicago is). So even in the U.S. proper the "color bar" was not solid.

Thus it would not have been practical for mainland Americans to export the color bar to Cuba, and that would mean "black" U.S. Representatives and Senators. Therefore, IIRC, Southerners were opposed to any annexation of Cuba.
 
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