Why did the southern states want Cuba?

Answer 1

The United States, particularly in the South, began to be interested in obtaining Cuba in the 1840s, as a bulwark to protect the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico from outside interests. (Or, if you like, to turn the Caribbean into an American lake.) At this time the British and French had political and financial interests in Central America and the north of South America, and there was a fear in America that one or both of them would try to seize Cuba if America did not take it over first. Americans also wanted the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. (Where Cancún is.)

Cuba was much more familiar to Americans then than it is now. It was a favorite holiday destination. Steamships to Havana for mail and tourism became a mainstay of the American shipping industry in the 1840s. People from Boston or New York or Baltimore or Richmond would go down to Cuba the same way they would go to Florida a century later. (If you go to newspapers of the 1840s-1860s, you'll see many advertisements for low-priced one-week getaways to Havana!)

At this time Cuba was still owned by Spain. It was a very profitable colony--its cane sugar production, shipping lines, and tourism brought in more revenue than all of Spain itself. So the Spanish colonial government told the US State Department they would not sell Cuba at any price.

Now a distraction: Around 1846 the Americans decided to rescue the exiled General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna from Havana, and return him to Mexico, because Santa Anna agreed that when he got back to Mexico City he would make himself dictator again, and then he would sell California and Nevada and other portions of the old Spanish Viceroyalty to the USA. Santa Anna became dictator of Mexico again, but he broke his promise. He changed his mind about selling California and the other places. But it made no difference in the end because he lost the war and America got the territories anyway.

(Eventually General Santa Anna moved to Staten Island, NY and helped found the American chewing gum industry with his friend Mr Adams. At first they wanted to make bicycle tires out of Mexican "chiclé" sap, but that didn't work too well because it got stuck to the road. So instead they manufactured Chiclets and everybody loved the stuff. What a life that Santa Anna had!)

The Mexican War temporarily distracted the Americans from their desire for Cuba, but the interest flared up again in the 1850s. Under the Pierce and Buchanan Administrations, acquisition of Cuba and other lands in the Caribbean became semi-official foreign policy. In 1854, the American politician and diplomat Pierre Soulé (ambassador to Spain) met with James Buchanan and James Mason (ministers to Britain and France) in Ostend, Belgium and drew up a strategy paper explaining why it was necessary for America to purchase Cuba from Spain. Unfortunately the intentions of the paper were released prematurely, leading to stuffy protests and "expressions of outrage" among foreign diplomats. As a result, America was not able to buy Cuba that year, or any year.

Oddly enough, however, Cuba DID become a sort of American colony for a while. It was an American "protectorate" for a couple of decades after the 1898 Spanish-American War. That war was supposedly fought for the cause of Cuban independence, but some people say it was fought so America could finally take Cuba from Spain. Whichever it was, America did take Cuba from Spain, and ruled it for a long time, till it became truly independent and found it couldn't rule itself because it hadn't had any practice. So it had revolutions instead, every few years.

Cuba remained within the American sphere of influence until 1959, when the Communist dictator Fidel Castro and his merry men took over the country from the corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista. (Batista himself had come to power during a similar revolution and coup in 1933.)

One often reads that the antebellum Southerners wanted Cuba in order to have another "slave state." However, this was merely a side advantage, promoted among Southern politicians in order to win their support for acquisition of Cuba. The financial and military advantages were always dominant during the 1840s and 1850s when American leaders talked about taking over Cuba.