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The Play of President Pierce for Cuba: Spain

It has always been the understanding that the ultimate manifest destiny of Cuba belongs to her people as our people, for the grasp of Spain in time must relax on the gem of the Gulf as on Mexico and Peru and Florida and Hayti, and the rest. More than once those we helped to batter the Moro and bombard Havana into submission appeared on the scene where we aided them to victory with sentiments and policy to our disadvantage, and we have discovered repeatedly in that region the evidence of English-speaking opposition, not to say animosity; and even now the British empire would regard it a diplomatic and sea power masterstroke worthy of the last century, to promote the materialization of a League of the West Indies under European protection, if the direct dominance of England should seem to positive a form of proceeding, Such a confederation signifies a barrier before us, and the imperial abrogation of the Monroe doctrine would be the shrinkage of our pretensions, including the abandonment of a policy in which we have cherished a generous sentiment and indulged an elevated pride for more than seventy years. The Astor Library contains an old pamphlet with the title page; "Remarks on the Cession of the Floridas to the United States of America, and on the Necessity of Acquiring the Island of Cuba by Great Britain." The author is J. Freeman Rattenbury, Esq., and the date of publication 1869. This passage expresses the truculent spirit of the pamphleteer and hints at hostilities in more important quarters:

Should the American government, inflated by their partial successes in the last war with Great Britain, determine upon taking violent possessions of the Floridas, Spain must, however reluctantly, resent the insult, and call upon her allies for assistance against the common enemy of their Alliance, and we shall not, I presume, refuse the summons: we have already a subject of deep interest to discuss with the United States, the unexpiated murder of Arbuthnot and Ambruster (In 1817--two years after the battle of New Orleans, it will be observed--Andrew Jackson took the field to put an end to the deviltry of the Seminole Indians. Spain did not cede Florida to the United States till 1819, and we did not take possession of it till 1821. The Seminoles made incursions from Spanish territory into our own. Jackson seized the Spanish fort. St. Mark, and found a Scotchman there named Arbuthnot, and at Suwanee he seized Ambruster, booth British subjects. They were convicted by court martial of inciting savages to hostility, and Jackson hanged them, though the court (military) had only sentenced Ambrister to be whipped. Then Jackson marched into Pensacola in spite of Spanish remonstrances. These proceedings caused much angry excitement in England and there were threats of war. There was a great row in Congress and Jackson threatened to cut off the ears of certain insolent senators. John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State, defended him. It was on account of the use of the incident of the Arbuthnot and Ambruster executions for abuse of Jackson when he was a candidate for the Presidency, that there was intense feeling. Jackson was the first governor of the territory of Florida and he imprisoned the departing Spanish governor for trying to carry away papers, and the attempt to censure Jackson in Congress for this arbitrary act failed. General Jackson was a positive character. During the presidency of Mr. Jefferson, while Spain bowed beneath the yoke of France, from which there was then no prospect of relief, the people of Cuba, feeling themselves incompetent in force to maintain their independence, sent a deputation to Washington, proposing the annexation of the Island to the federal system of North America. The President, however, devoted to French influence, vainly calculating upon the triumphs of that nation on the ruins of the British power, until the important victory of Trafalgar dissipated the delusion, declined the proffered acquisition.

While I hazard the opinion that the people of Cuba will be adverse to the sovereignty of Great Britain, coupled with the restrictions of our colonial policy, I am far from believing that they would feel disinclined to the transfer of their allegiance, provided our possession of the Island should leave them, in their present situation, free to the commerce of the world. Advancing in the scale of consequence by becoming tributary to the first commercial and maritime nation of Europe, secure in property and liberty, under our protection the Island of Cuba would increase in population and in wealth with a rapidity unequaled, and would amply repay the British government for its fostering care and protection, while its rich mountains and fertile plains would present to the redundancy of our population a delightful refuge from the misery of poverty and despair.

It is our bounden duty, it is our imperative policy, to anticipate the rivalship of the United States, and by erecting a power capable of contending with them in their own hemisphere, prevent the destruction of our commerce, which will otherwise inevitably follow our neglect of those precautionary measures, for, in spite of the infatuated indifference which marks our policy toward the republic, in spite of the apathy with which we view their rapid progress in wealth and power, hereafter the contest for the empire of the sea will be between England and the North American Union, a warfare suited to the prejudices of their people, and the character of their country.) which, not withstanding the feeble efforts of the administration to palliate, in opposition to the manly and indignant feelings expressed in the motion of the Marquis of Lansdowne, remains a foul charge against the American character, and an insult to our own.

We quote again Mr. Rattenbury: "The people of Cuba," he said, "anticipated from the weakness of Spain, and her decreasing influence on the American continents, the possibility of her cession, as was the case with Florida to the United States," and upon this he becomes thus expansive: The people of the United States, dreading the proximity of our arms, are actively nourishing this apprehension of evil and are ready to aid the first manifestations of a desire to throw off the sovereignty of Spain. But for the intolerable egotism of the people of the Union, and for the contempt they have excited by their vanity and ambition, Cuba would have long since unfettered her dependence upon the Spanish Monarch, and have thrown herself into the federal embrace of the North American Union.