The speech traces the U.S – Cuban political relationship to the period before the abolishment of slavery and the role of the American civil war in this relationship. The speaker notes that the civil war was not just about the future of the United States but of the world. Indeed the participants o...
The speech traces the U.S – Cuban political relationship to the period before the abolishment
of slavery and the role of the American civil war in this relationship. The speaker notes that
the civil war was not just about the future of the United States but of the world. Indeed the
participants of that war viewed it as such. Hitherto, asserts the speaker, historians have
misunderstood and, therefore, misrepresented the position of the American civil war in the
history of the transatlantic and the world and indeed its place in the study of revolutions.
Revisiting the American civil war and placing Cuba’s connection to it would allow historians
to answer the question why civil war and why this civil war? Through evidence and numerous
examples the speaker is persuasive in his revision of the events that informed and continue to
impact the U.S – Cuban relationship.
The speaker begins by placing this relationship in the context of global politics
surrounding the issue of slavery in the Americas thus removing it from being viewed as an
isolated event. Cuba did not exist in a vacuum and the United States had ulterior motives apart
from just pushing for the annexation of Cuba into its territory. Exploring the connection of all
these events gives the problem context and allows the speaker to take the audience from one
point to the next without losing them. The isolation and exclusion of Haiti, he states, meant
that Cuba’s plantations became larger and more productive to meet the demands of sugar
markets that were previously served by Haiti (12:23). This meant more slaves were shipped
into Cuba, more 750,000 in the 19th century and the fear of native Creoles of being pushed to
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