'Cuba is already ours': Annexationists, filibusterers, and the United States' struggle to buy Cuba

This paper discusses the many attempts of the United States to buy Cuba from Spain throughout the nineteenth century. Although all the bids ended in failure, each one came at a particular moment of change or crisis, and was set in a much wider global context. The bids in 1853 and 1898 were particularly crucial, coming before and after the abolition of slavery in both places, and this paper will focus on those two in discussing how this period was critical in the development of the relationship between Cuba and the United States.