The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

The American Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, on April 28, 1823, wrote an official letter to Hugh Nelson, who at the beginning of that year had become American minister to Spain. This letter contained official instructions to Nelson concerning his conduct in the war which was impending between Spain and France, because of the latter power's intervention in Spanish affairs in behalf of King Ferdinand VII. It then turned to the subject of Cuba and continued as follows:

"Whatever may be the issue of this war, it may be taken for granted that the dominion of Spain upon the American continents, north and south, is irrevocably gone. But the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico still remain nominally, and so far really, dependent upon her, that she yet possesses the power of transferring her own dominion over them, together with the possession of them, to others. These islands are natural appendages to the North American continent, and one of them almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude of considerations has become an object of transcendent importance to the commercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding position with reference to the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indian seas, its situation midway between our southern coast and the island of San Domingo, its safe and capacious harbor of the Havana, fronting a long line of our shores destitute of the same advantages, the nature of its production and of its wants, furnishing the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profitable and mutually beneficial give it an importance in the sum of our national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be compared, and little inferior to that which binds the different members of this Union together. Such indeed are, between the interests of that island and of this country, the geographical, commercial, moral and political relations formed by nature, gathering in the process of time, and even now verging to maturity, that in looking forward to the probable course of events for the short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our Federal Republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself.... There are laws of political as well as of physical gravitation. And if an apple, severed by the tempest from its native tree, cannot choose but to fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only toward the North American Union, which, by the same law of nature cannot cast her off from her bosom. The transfer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an event unpropitious to the interests of this Union.... The question both of our right and of our power to prevent it, if necessary, by force, already obtrudes itself upon our councils, and the Administration is called upon, in the performance of its duties to the nation, at least, to use all the means within its competency to guard against and forefend it."

That was the beginning of the policy of the United States toward Cuba. In making that declaration Adams had general support and little or no opposition. A few weeks afterward the ex-President, Thomas Jefferson, writing to Monroe, expressed in part the same view, though he coupled it with the suggestion of an alliance with Great Britain. He wrote:

"Cuba alone seems at present to hold up a speck of war to us. Its possession by Great Britain would indeed be a great calamity to us. Could we induce her to join us in guaranteeing its independence against all the world, except Spain, it would be nearly as valuable as if it were our own. But should she take it, I would not immediately go to war for it; because the first war on other accounts will give it to us, or the island will give herself to us when able to do so."

Two years later, in 1825, Henry Clay, then Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President John Quincy Adams, instructed the American ministers at the chief European capitals to make it known that the United States for itself desired no change in the political condition of Cuba; that it was satisfied to have it remain open to American commerce; but that it "could not with indifference see it passing from Spain to any other European power." A little later he added, referring to Cuba and Porto Rico, that "we could not consent to the occupation of those islands by any other European power than Spain, under any contingency whatever."

This attitude of the American Government was sufficient to accomplish the purpose desired. Although the power of Spain continued to decline, no attempt was made by either France or England to acquire possession of Cuba by either conquest or purchase. But in August, 1825, the British Government laid before the American minister in London a proposal that the United States should unite with Great Britain and France in a tripartite agreement for the protection of Spain in her possession of Cuba to the effect that none of the three would take Cuba for itself or would acquiesce in the taking of it by either of the others. The American minister reported this to the President, who promptly and emphatically declined it. It was then that Henry Clay made the pronouncement already quoted, that the United States could not consent to the occupation of Cuba by any other European power than Spain, under any contingency whatever.

A little later in the same year American interest in Cuba was again appealed to from another source. Several of the former Spanish colonies which had declared their independence, particularly Mexico and Colombia, expressed much dissatisfaction that Cuba and Porto Rico should remain in the possession of Spain. They desired to see the Spanish power entirely expelled from the western hemisphere. They therefore began intriguing for revolutions in those islands, and failing that prepared themselves to take forcible possession of them. These plans encountered the serious disapproval of the United States government, and on December 20, 1825, Henry Clay wrote to the representatives of the Mexican and Colombian governments urgently requesting them to refrain from sending the military expeditions to Cuba which were being prepared; a request with which they complied, Colombia readily but Mexico more reluctantly. Those two countries had been specially moved to their proposed action by the declaration of the famous Panama Congress, then in session, in favor of "the freeing of the islands of Porto Rico and Cuba from the Spanish yoke." It is interesting to recall, too, that in his instructions to the United States delegates to that Congress, who unfortunately did not arrive in time to participate in its deliberations, Clay declared that "even Spain has not such a deep interest in the future fate of Cuba as the United States."

Justice requires us, unfortunately, in concluding our consideration of this early phase of Cuban-American relations, to confess that the motives of the United States were not at that time altogether of the highest character. To put it very plainly, there was much opposition to the extension of Mexican or Colombian influence to Cuba because that would have meant the abolition of human slavery in the island, and that would have been offensive to the slave states of the southern United States. Also some of the earliest movements in the United States toward the annexation of Cuba were inspired by the wish to maintain the institution of slavery in that island and to add it to the slave holding area of the United States. It was on such ground that Senator Hayne and others declared in the American Congress that the United States "would not permit Mexico or Colombia to take or to revolutionize Cuba." James Buchanan declared that under the control of one of those countries Cuba would become a dangerous explosive magazine for the southern slave States because Mexico and Colombia were free countries and "always conquered by proclaiming liberty to the slave."

We have recalled these facts and circumstances in this place somewhat in advance of their strict chronological order, by way of introduction to the history of Cuba in the Nineteenth Century, because they really dominate in spirit the whole story. It will be necessary to recur to them again, briefly, in their proper place. But it is essential to bear them in mind from the beginning, even through this anticipatory review of them. Every page and line and letter of Cuban history in the Nineteenth Century is colored by the Declaration of Independence of 1776, by the fact that the United States of America had arisen as the foremost power in the Western Hemisphere. Through the inspiration which it gave to the French Revolution, the United States was chiefly responsible, as an alien force, for the complete collapse of Spain as a great European power. Through its example and potential influence as a protector it was responsible for the revolt and independence of the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. Then through its assertion of special interests in Cuba, because of propinquity, and through the tangible influence of commercial and social intercourse, together with a constantly increasing and formidable, though generally concealed, political sway, it determined the future destinies of the Queen of the Antilles.