WI: British Cuba

JJohnson

Banned
I was reading in Wikipedia about the War of Jenkins Ear, how the Battle of Santiago was about the British landing at the poorly defended Cuban town, and how they could've taken it. Let's say they did, for the sake of argument. The British take it, and capture a portion of Cuba for themselves and hold it, past the end of the Seven Years War, and into 2012. What do you see happening to this British island? Will they take the whole island? A settler colony? How does British Cuba evolve, and does the US try to capture it at any point, perhaps the War of 1812? What does this version of Cuba look like in 2012 linguistically, culturally, economically, and politically?
 
Most likely it will be traded back for serious concessions elsewhere, like after they captured it during the Seven Year's War.

If the British did keep it, it would likely stay British for the longer term, as a bigger brother to Jamaica. Many of the Spanish would probably move to mainland New Spain, and the British would create large sugar plantations and bring in huge numbers of slaves to work them. The administrative elite would obviously be British, the landowning class a British-Spanish mixture, and the African slaves would get Anglocised. The resultant culture would likely be English-dominated, but with a lot of Spanish influences, and possible a creole street language.

There's no chance of the Americans getting it, because the US navy won't be able to compete with the Royal Navy for many decades, and by the time they can, slavery will be illegal and they won't be very interested in a mainly black island.
 
Most likely it will be traded back for serious concessions elsewhere, like after they captured it during the Seven Year's War.

If the British did keep it, it would likely stay British for the longer term, as a bigger brother to Jamaica. Many of the Spanish would probably move to mainland New Spain, and the British would create large sugar plantations and bring in huge numbers of slaves to work them. The administrative elite would obviously be British, the landowning class a British-Spanish mixture, and the African slaves would get Anglocised. The resultant culture would likely be English-dominated, but with a lot of Spanish influences, and possible a creole street language.

There's no chance of the Americans getting it, because the US navy won't be able to compete with the Royal Navy for many decades, and by the time they can, slavery will be illegal and they won't be very interested in a mainly black island.

Good analysis. It'll probably be decolonized slowly, like Jamaica, and remain part of the Commonwealth, assuming that this scenario causes minimal butterflies, and decolonization proceeds roughly as OTL. Following that, it could be very close to the US, with a shared heritage, language, and a distance of only 90 miles. A Key West-Havana tunnel is not out of the question.

Interesting scenario, JJohnson.

Cheers,
Ganesha
 
Pretty much what's already been said, though I'd like to add that if the British did keep Cuba, then there'd be more trouble in Jamaica. IIRC one of the reasons the British didn't take Cuba (or many of the Franco-Spanish West Indies colonies) was because British colonies in the Caribbean who grew cash crops, primarily Jamaica, told the British government to hand the islands back as otherwise they'd severely disrupt the near-monopoly that Jamaica had on said crops.

So in this scenario the Jamaican economy would be worse off, thus we might see Jamaicans rebel more often, or in larger numbers, than IOTL. Probably nothing to kick the British out, but enough to cause some minor annoyance to the Empire.
 
So in this scenario the Jamaican economy would be worse off, thus we might see Jamaicans rebel more often, or in larger numbers, than IOTL. Probably nothing to kick the British out, but enough to cause some minor annoyance to the Empire.

That doesn't make sense to me. The Slaves might or might not rebel based on internal factors (i.e. if they have a chance of success) and the planters are very unlikely to rebel. They were well aware that they were 10% of the population sitting atop a lot of unhappy slaves and pissing off their insurance policy against slave revolts (i.e. the British Army) was a dumb idea.
 
Pretty much what's already been said, though I'd like to add that if the British did keep Cuba, then there'd be more trouble in Jamaica. IIRC one of the reasons the British didn't take Cuba (or many of the Franco-Spanish West Indies colonies) was because British colonies in the Caribbean who grew cash crops, primarily Jamaica, told the British government to hand the islands back as otherwise they'd severely disrupt the near-monopoly that Jamaica had on said crops.

So in this scenario the Jamaican economy would be worse off, thus we might see Jamaicans rebel more often, or in larger numbers, than IOTL. Probably nothing to kick the British out, but enough to cause some minor annoyance to the Empire.

I'm not sure this theory really works economically. Jamaica as an island had a monopoly sure, but it's not like all the Jamaican planters colluded together to act as a monopoly, so they will still have to act as price takers rather than price makers. Extra competition may erode their profits a bit, but the landowners will still be fabulously wealthy, while the slaves will still be horrendously poor.
 
I'm not sure this theory really works economically. Jamaica as an island had a monopoly sure, but it's not like all the Jamaican planters colluded together to act as a monopoly, so they will still have to act as price takers rather than price makers. Extra competition may erode their profits a bit, but the landowners will still be fabulously wealthy, while the slaves will still be horrendously poor.

Besides, many of those planters themselves (or some family members thereof) would have the opportunity to jump on cheaply-sold Cuban plantations or uncultivated land themselves. It's one thing to worry about your own profit margin, but if your second and third son is achieving his own planter fortune in Cuba, or your daughter(s) are married to such people, it's not quite so bad, is it?

Plus, with Cuba in the Empire the American colonies (the middle and north anyway) are in a much better trading position, with or without London-directed mercantilism enforced on them. Foodstuffs, temperate crops, and a lot of other basic supplies would be going into Cuba from the colonies, and there'd be a lot more shipping through all that as well.
 
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