In the 1800s, the relationship allying the United States of America and Cuba originated from basic supply and demand. During the Spanish occupation, traders in Cuba and the colonies of America established illicit trading contracts in order to secure commodities required in the colonies as well as for colonists to dodge the colonial taxes on the imports to Great Britain. As time progressed, trade between Cuba and the United States slowly diminished due to the whims of the Spanish administration. Of course, the United States did not feel comfortable with such a fact especially on trading terms.1 Through trade-relations, Cuba became an important country to the United States to the degree where President John Quincy Adams had declared that he was interested in annexing the country as early as 18232-the year of the Monroe Doctrine. .
The doctrine was a US statement informing the powers of the Old World that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization, and that any effort to extend European political interference or influence into the New World would be considered by the US as a threat to their safety and peace. It also stated that the US would not interfere with existing European colonies. It has been asserted that the doctrine came about because of the US concerns with Cuba (mainly) and the Americas, and that she enforced such a foreign policy to solve her political, economic and social problems while ceasing the activity of the perceived threats (from the outside hemisphere) upon her hegemony. In this essay, the trade relationship between Cuba and the US, the slight contradiction of the Monroe Doctrine and how it impacted Cuba, as well as the results of it will be discussed in parallel to the 1800s and, briefly, the early 1900s. .
Up until the 1800s, tobacco was Cuba's main crop, but by the 1850s, sugar took over and Cuba began producing massive amounts of it.3 The United States had interest, under the earlier (1823) Monroe Doctrine, in the small islands' goldmine of sugar production as soon as she learned the good news.
