Cuba, showing the U.S.M. naval base at Guantanamo.
Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. It was claimed for Spain by Christopher Columbus in 1492, and was first settled by the Spanish in 1511. Most of the native population was killed by disease and poor treatment by Spanish overlords, and the Spanish began importing large numbers of Negro slaves in the sixteenth century.
Following Spain's defeat in the Trans-Oceanic War in 1799, there were revolutions throughout Spain's American colonies, and slave rebellions in the Spanish Caribbean. Cuba's slaves established an independent republic in 1804, but within two years the island's white planters had taken power, establishing their own regime.
Acting on advice from C.B.I. Commandant Mark Forsyth, Governor-General John McDowell informed Mexican Chief of State Benito Hermión in 1884 that the Confederation of North America would not look favorably on Mexican attempts to annex Cuba, and Hermión made no move to do so while he remained in power in the U.S.M.
In the first decade on the twentieth century, Councilman Thomas Kronmiller attempted to annex Cuba and Porto Rico to the C.N.A. as part of the Moral Imperative, but his efforts were defeated by Governor-General Christopher Hemingway.
In 1959, Mexican President Vincent Mercator signed a treaty with Cuba under which Mexican troops were stationed at Guantanamo Bay.