WI: Cuba Becomes Part of the United States

What if following the Spanish American War, the United States annexes Cuba and makes it an American territory and eventually is granted statehood during the 20th century?
 
The cubans fight it, they wanted independence so your going to have an insurgency, but their also on an Island and our navy is right there....

This conflict happens in 1898....

Honestly were going to have to make a choice over which insurgency is more important the one in the pacific or the one in the atlantic, Cuba is more important so its going to get the attention.

We can cut a deal with the Phillapens and give them protectorate status its not ideal for us or for them but its a compromise. Cuba's been a goal of america for over a century but theirs an ingrained culture...

Its going to take at least 50 years of direct control over the island before it is americanized, after 75 years the untied states control over the island will be completely secured.

The benifits?

The Island is important navally and as a source of tropical reasources. Over all its a net posative for america economically in the long run but that short run is going to be a pain in the ass.
 
insurgency is assured, statehood doubtful even if it stopped as the US government would more then likely use the insular decision to prevent "alien races" gained equal in both puerto rico and cuba as otherwise some might fear an ethnic shift away from anglo-saxon.
 
This is very unlikely. The Teller Amendment, which disclaimed any intent to annex Cuba was "unanimously adopted by voice vote in the Senate and 'cordially' accepted by the House." https://books.google.com/books?id=dOj4GergWhAC&pg=PA135 In fact, a majority of the Senate wanted immediate recognition of the Cuban Republic (they backed down at the insistence of McKinley, who argued that there was as yet no Cuban Republic to recognize). As Margaret Leech wrote, "The advocacy of recognition of the insurgent republic had been partly motivated, in all sincerity, by the apprehension that neutral intervention savored of a desire for conquest. The Teller Amendment effaced the reproach of selfish ulterior aims, and dignified the cause of the warmakers with a moral purpose that substantially united public sentiment." https://archive.org/stream/inthedayofmckinl000314mbp/inthedayofmckinl000314mbp_djvu.txt

IMO a more likely time for acquiring Cuba would have been in connection with the "Black Warrior" affair of 1854. As I have noted, "there were calls for the suspension of the neutrality act, which would mean unleashing filibusters on Cuba--except that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was pending in Congress, and anti-Nebraska forces raised a violent outcry that the administration was looking for war as a way out of its sectional troubles." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/DuMqtoRZaSc/-q-sFvXC_3YJ

Note Secretary of State Marcy's comments: "To tell you an unwelcome truth, 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." https://books.google.com/books?id=Qxhd5QIQGQcC&pg=PA54 As the historian David Potter wrote, the South "sacrificed the Cuban substance for a Kansan shadow."
 
Of course, could the USA take Cuba in the 1850s? I'm not sure Spain will b this walkover and the war would be incredibly unpopular...
 

jahenders

Banned
Difficult for the reasons others have noted. However, one option the US could have considered was only annexing part of it (or, rather, more than it did). They would seize the entire Eastern tenth, quarter, or third, for example, instead of just the Gitmo area.

They might have some insurgency, but it'd be on a much more manageable level. Then, they could make the annexed area a territory. If the neighboring areas of Cuba saw that the US territory portion was better off, they might eventually request annexation, potentially even 'rebelling' against the Cuban government and asking the US for help.

So, you might wind up with a US territory/state that only includes part of Cuba, but might grow over time.
 
Culturally, I don't think it would ever work. By the 1850's, Cuba's population was about 1,000,000 people, all spanish speaking. It was also more ethnically homogenous as a disproportionate number of their slave population actually came after the 1850's, Cuba being about the last nation to legally import slaves from Africa. It was much more "European" and "Catholic". At this time, the US had a political party, the "Know-Nothings", whom were basically anti-catholic to the core.

It seems unlikely that they would be accepted as equal Americans and treating them like colonials guaranteed rebellion, no doubt successfully.

Citizenship or statehood would have to be on their terms:

No "English language policy".
Defacto local government at least as powerful than a state, probably more.
Mandated American investment.
No seizure of property for American business interests.

Even then, I doubt the Cubans would want to be Americans. One can argue in hindsight that, due to political churn (to say the least) over the past 160 years, Cuba would have been better off as part of America. Their three wars independence against Spain (1860 to 1900) cost over 600,000 lives (per Wikipedia) out of a 1850 population of 1,000,000 and the dictatorships of the past 115 years weren't much better.

However, you can say alot of places would have been better off under American jurisdiction (Hispaniola, Mexico), political stability and economic prosperity but that wouldn't be acceptable to nationalists who wanted to stand on their own.
 
Difficult for the reasons others have noted. However, one option the US could have considered was only annexing part of it (or, rather, more than it did). They would seize the entire Eastern tenth, quarter, or third, for example, instead of just the Gitmo area.

They might have some insurgency, but it'd be on a much more manageable level. Then, they could make the annexed area a territory. If the neighboring areas of Cuba saw that the US territory portion was better off, they might eventually request annexation, potentially even 'rebelling' against the Cuban government and asking the US for help.

So, you might wind up with a US territory/state that only includes part of Cuba, but might grow over time.

The east was more rebellious against Spain than the west but I don't know if that means they'd want to be part of the United States than the west.
 
This may be verging on ASB, but what the hell...recall that Spain ceded Florida to the US in 1819. Would it be possible for the US to say, at the time, thanks; we'll give you $X if you throw in Cuba? A quick glance at a Wikipedia chart suggests a population of ~400K at that time, which I'd guess was concentrated around Havana and a few other cities with a lot of lightly populated rural area.

Without the Know-Nothings in existence yet, maybe it's possible for a reasonably progressive US administrator to institute programs to bring in English, begin education toward self-government, and so on (hello, John Quincy Adams...). I will agree that as much as we'd like it to have gone otherwise, the time of the Ostend Manifesto and beyond was likely too late for Cuba to become part of the US.
 
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