Colonial Cuba

Cuba was in Spanish possession for almost 400 years (circa 1511-1898). They had an economy based on plantation agriculture and mining, the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to Europe and later to North America. Havana was seized by the British in 1762, but restored to Spain the following year. The Spanish population was boosted by settlers leaving Haiti when that territory was ceded to France. As in other parts of the Spanish Empire, the small land-owning elite of Spanish-descended settlers held social and economic power, supported by a population of Criollo, small farmers, laborers and African-descended slaves.

In the 1820s, when the other parts of Spain's empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal, although there was some agitation for independence. This was partly because the prosperity of the Cuban settlers depended on their export trade to Europe, partly through fears of a slave rebellion (as had happened in Haiti) if the Spanish withdrew and partly because the Cubans feared the rising power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish rules.

An additional factor was the continuous migration of Spaniards to Cuba from all social strata, a demographical trend that had ceased to exist in other Spanish possessions decades before and which contributed to the slow development of a Cuban national identity. Pirates were also still a problem and defense against them depended heavily on the presence of Spanish troops. [14]

Cuba's proximity to the U.S. has been a powerful influence on its history. Throughout the 19th century, Southern politicians in the U.S. plotted the island's annexation as a means of strengthening the pro-slavery forces in the U.S., and there was usually a party in Cuba which supported such a policy. In 1848, a pro-annexations rebellion was defeated and there were several attempts by annexationist forces to invade the island from Florida. There were also regular proposals in the U.S. to buy Cuba from Spain. During the summer of 1848, President James K. Polk quietly authorized his ambassador to Spain, Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba and offer Spain up to $100 million. While an astonishing sum of money at the time for one territory, trade in sugar and molasses from Cuba exceeded $18,000,000 in 1838 alone.[15] Spain, however, refused to consider ceding one of its last possessions in the Americas.

After the American Civil War apparently ended the threat of pro-slavery annexation, agitation for Cuban independence from Spain revived, leading to a rebellion in 1868 led by Carlos Manuel de CÐ"©spedes, a wealthy lawyer landowner from Oriente province who freed his slaves, proclaimed a war and was named President of the Cuban Republic-in-arms. This resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish Army, allied with local supporters. There was much sympathy in the U.S. for the independence cause, but the U.S. declined to intervene militarily or to even recognize the legitimacy of the Cuban government in arms, despite the fact that many European and Latin American nations had done so. [16] In 1878, the Pact of ZanjÐ"Ñ-n ended the conflict, with Spain promising greater autonomy to Cuba.

The island was exhausted after this long conflict and pro-independence agitation temporarily died down. There was also a prevalent fear that if the Spanish withdrew or if there was further civil strife, the increasingly expansionist U.S. would step in and annex the island. In 1879-1880, Cuban patriot Calixto Garcia attempted to