AMERICA REACTED BADLY to the executions of Narcisco Lopez, the Cuban who was funded by Southern businessmen to foment revolution on the island, and his confederates. The grisly nature of garroting Lopez and death by firing squad for his men, raised the specter of the Spanish Inquisition. Americans in general held to the belief that the Spanish were medieval, and the treatment of Lopez and his followers seemed to prove it in their minds.

Although President Taylor was pressured to punish the Spanish, he had other Americans to think of. The Spanish had taken them prisoner in Cuba for various crimes, real and imagined, and the governor general of the island refused to negotiate for their release or provide them with even minimal legal protections that had been negotiated in treaties between the United States and Spain. He argued that he had no diplomatic authority, and thus was precluded from observing treaties. Thus, Taylor had to wait for the prisoners to be transported to Spain before he could attempt to help them.

Years passed as the moribund Spanish bureaucracy dragged their heels and the prisoners' health and mental state deteriorated. It wasn't until they were in dire straits that the Spanish queen relented and pardoned them all.

Spain, fearing retribution from the United States for its treatment of American citizens, once again approached England and France begging them to guarantee Spanish authority over the island. However, France and England's resources were depleted from long wars and the United States had grown stronger in the Caribbean since their last effort. They temporized as Spain fretted until the United States reaffirmed its recognition of Spanish authority in the Caribbean. However, this time, the American President insisted on better treatment of his citizens and hinted that their might be consequences for future abuses.

Although America was beginning to sense that it had the strength to finally wrest Cuba from Spanish control, it hesitated. Journals of the era published discussions asking why Americans should risk their lives and treasure to free a people who were too timid to fight for themselves. It did not go unnoticed that the Cuban creoles – Spaniards native to the island – had not joined Lopez's cause when he finally came to the island.

Thus, even though Taylor and his Secretary of State suffered abuse in Southern papers, they were able to maintain an uneasy peace with Spain.

When Millard Fillmore replaced Zachary Taylor as President in 1850, Spain renewed its call for a tripartite pact – England, France, and America – assuring Spain's dominance over Cuba. Fillmore quickly declined. He reiterated America's earlier position that it had no intention of annexing Cuba. But this time, he added a warning that the United States would not tolerate any transfer of authority over the island to any nation other than Spain. America was beginning to feel its muscle, at least in the Caribbean.

THE TALE OF Narcisco Lopez demarks the cusp of the United States government's waning control over its foreign policy and the rise of capitalistic imperialism. President Polk and all of his predecessors had refused aid to Cuban revolutionaries for fear of inciting the wrath of the Spanish or giving the French or English an excuse to intercede and take possession of the island. Imagine, then, Polk's alarm when he discovered Lopez in New Orleans building a army financed largely by American businessmen, and preparing to invade the island.

We'll never know for sure what Lopez intended. Was he, as the Cuban expatriate community feared, a caudillo bent on freeing Cuba and taking command of an independent Cuba. Or, was he, as the American businessmen hoped, an annexationist who would bring Cuba into the American fold as a new state. Whatever his motive, Lopez's move from New York to New Orleans placed him in the midst of Southern businessmen who were champing at the bit to see Cuba added as a new state. They fairly salivated at the prospect of developing Cuba's rich agricultural potential. More importantly, it would increase the representation of slave states in the Congress.

The slave owners need to annex Cuba as a slave state was becoming more pressing with increased abolitionist activity in England as well as New England. The British had already prohibited its merchants from engaging in the slave trade and were anxious to eradicate it elsewhere. Slave trade in the Caribbean had become their primary focus. If the British were successful, the American slave owners realized that slavery in the south would crumble. They foresaw that Africanization – supplanting slave labor with freed Africans – in Cuba would quickly spread to the United States. American slaves would have a safe haven just off shore to which they could escape.

Interestingly, Yankee businessmen and merchants seemed blind to the consequences of annexation of Cuba insofar as the issue of slavery was concerned. They were blinded by the commercial possibilities of free trade with Cuba, and helped fill Lopez's war chest as well.

All things considered, it appeared that Lopez's revolution was well on its way to success. However, when Lopez was finally ready to launch his first assaults in 1849, a new Administration came to power in the United States, and he faced the stubborn old warhorse, Zachary Taylor. Taylor announced that the neutrality laws against filibustering would be enforced.

Filibustering is derived from the Spanish filibustero, pirate. (In modern usage, to filibuster in the U.S. Senate is to pirate the argument and thus delay a vote.) Taylor sent the Navy to intercept Lopez's ships and arrest the rebels.

Taylor was dismayed to find himself assaulted on all sides. The American businessmen who financed Lopez complained vociferously and threatened to support anyone who would run against Taylor in the next election. The Spanish were not happy either. Even though Lopez was stopped and arrested, several times in fact, they complained bitterly when Southern courts repeatedly found him innocent and freed him to try again. It didn't help that a Mississippi governor accompanied Lopez on three occasions and was himself arrested, tried, and released.

The Lopez issue was ultimately resolved when someone alerted the Spanish army on Cuba, and Lopez was captured and garroted on the spot in a grisly public execution. His rebel force was summarily executed by firing squad.

IN 1848, PRESIDENT POLK received a three-man Cuban delegation who informed him that revolution was imminent on the island and that its ultimate goal was annexation to the United States. They proffered an interesting ruse to allay English and French suspicions that the revolution might be nothing more than an attempt by the Americans to annex the island. The Cubans proposed that United States forces be concentrated at strategic points in Cuba ostensibly for the purpose of protecting American lives and property. Polk's advisers warned that the Europeans would see through the gambit and a fight for possession of the island would ensue. Thus it was rejected.

Most authorities believe that Herminio Portell Vilá, a respected Cuban historian, was correct in his assessment that the Cuban delegation was merely attempting to thwart the ambitions of another revolutionary, Narciso Lopez.

Lopez was born in Venezuela to a wealthy plantation owner. His hatred of the Spanish Loyalists took root when his family lost their land to the government. They moved to Caracus where Lopez tried his hand at business but soon proved himself to be a charismatic leader of men. Lopez discovered his taste for battle while helping a small village fight off an attack by a royalist force. He was captured thereafter and joined the Spanish army to avoid execution. His valor in battle won him their admiration, promotions, and a transfer to Cuba.

This new insurrection in Cuba was doomed to failure, and Lopez retreated to New York to seek outside help. He knew that he could not bank on the United States for official recognition, but hoped that he could secure men and financing to support his cause. Unfortunately, the pro-Cuban activists in New York feared that Lopez was another caudillo who would abandon annexation to raise his own flag above the island once independence was won. Thus, they thwarted his plans, forcing Lopez to move to New Orleans where he found greater support. Lopez promised southern sympathizers that he would fight for annexation, and they happily envisioned another slave state as a bulwark to their peculiar institution.

In truth, Southern politicians and businessmen feared “Africanization” of Cuba – that is, replacing slaves in Cuba with freed blacks – more than they supported annexation of Cuba as a “slave state.” The difference is subtle though very real. They feared that if the United States did not annex Cuba, a European power surely would, and both the French and British were agitating for the elimination of all slave trade in the Caribbean.

As southerners flocked to support Lopez, many joining his growing revolutionary army, even those in New York who had opposed him began to fall into line. Surprisingly, even abolitionists from the north began to support Lopez. They chose to overlook the slavery issue as being secondary to ending Spanish rule in the Caribbean. All looked in favor of Lopez's ultimate victory.

Fidel Castro also visited the United States frequently to obtain funding for his revolution prior to "invading" the island. Interestingly, most of the more influential members of the Cuban expat community were reluctant to provide anything more than modest funding. They wanted to head up a new government in Cuba and did not believe that Castro would relinquish power to them after he led the fight to remove the dictator, Fulgencio Batista. They were ultimately correct.

SLAVERY ROSE TO DOMINATE America's Cuban policy in the mid-nineteenth century, as the nation marched towards a great Civil War. Britain's consul in Havana, David Turnbill, began proselytizing in Havana for the abolition of slavery in Cuba. He even went so far as to promise the slaves that they would be protected by Britain if they rose up and threw off their Cuban masters. America's Secretary of State, John Forsyth, a slave-owner himself, didn't like it one bit. Firstly, he interpreted Turnbill's comments as a signal that Britain had plans to wrest control of the island from Spain. But, even more importantly, a slave-free island just off America's southern shore, would provide a safe haven for runaway slaves from Southern plantations. However, before Forsyth could effect a plan, a new Administration came into office with the election of James Polk who brought a new Secretary of State, James Buchanan.

Polk and Buchanan hatched a new plan. They conceived that the time had come to annex Cuba and make it a state. Why shouldn't America's Manifest Destiny extend south as well as westward. Furthermore, under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, Cuba would be a slave state thereby eliminating the problems foreseen by Forsyth. Escape to the island would be irrelevant to the slaves in the American south.

There were, of course, more issues than slavery that made the new plan desirable. New states strengthened the economy, and the United States policy of free trade between the states would bring prosperity to Cuba. Then there were the strategic considerations. The islands fine ports and natural resources would be valuable assets to America. With revolution and its resulting chaos seemingly imminent in Cuba, Buchanan especially could barely restrain himself from sending an offer for $100 million to purchase the island from Spain. However, he had not allowed for Spanish pride or European politics.

An offer of half as much would have been adequate. Spain not only needed the money but also would have been glad to have divested itself of the cost of administering the island. Because of Spanish mismanagement of the island's economy, Cuba never generated enough treasure to offset its costs. Still, the Spanish not only refused the offer, but also responded with an indignant reply. Apparently, the Spanish government feared that their opposition would cast acceptance of the American offer as treason. Also, they feared that other European powers would interpret it as a sign of weakness.

Interestingly, shortly after this American initiative to annex Cuba failed, a new proposal arrived in Washington, in the form of a secret mission from Cuba. This dance, this courtship between the United States and Cuba would continue well into the twentieth century. Even Castro arrived in Washington shortly after wresting control from the dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Although my novel, Rebels on the Mountain, ends prior to his arrival, my protagonist, Nick Andrews, predicts the mission and its failure.  

HOW DARE THE SPANISH exclude the Yankee traders from trade with Cuba. By the time Van Buren became President in the mid-nineteenth century, the debate over the strategic value of the island was forgotten. Business had become the business of America. Even the State Department seemed only dimly aware that Cuba was a Spanish possession. All that concerned them was that American ships calling at ports in both Cuba and Puerto Rico were paying duties of $1.50 per ton of cargo while Spanish ships were paying only $.625. If it was a tariff war they wanted, that is what they would get.

John Forsyth, Van Buren's Secretary of State and a southern slave-owner, expressed America's position when he wrote that the United States could not tolerate the exclusion of its capital and industry from Spain's insular possessions. Cuba's potential was for the enjoyment of all nations. This is another of those attitudes that took root and persisted until Castro nationalized all U.S. Holdings in Cuba.

Forsyth went on to explain America's motives as for the benefit of the Cubans themselves. Spanish colonialism with its rigid policy of commercial exclusion served only to damage the future prosperity of Cuba and Puerto Rico. An enlightened nation would not pursue such harmful economic policy.

Forsyth's condemnation was a warning to Spain. While continued Spanish possession of the island served the strategic interests of the United States – that is, it maintained the status quo of political power in the Caribbean – it did not serve America's commercial interests. In other words, Spain was on notice. The United States would tolerate their rule in Cuba only until it was prepared to take the island and defend it from more powerful European nations such as England and France.

A student of history as well as an accomplished spy, Nick Andrews, the fictional protagonist in Rebels on the Mountain, is not surprised to find American commercial interests dominating Cuba when he's sent there to sort out the mess created by moribund U.S. Diplomacy and a rebellion led by Fidel Castro. He discovers that U.S. Foreign policy on the island has been supplanted by the commercial interests of American businessmen and mafioso.    

A NEW CUBAN-AMERICAN POLICY evolved in the early nineteenth century, one that dominated American diplomatic relations with the island nation until Fidel Castro came to power. The United States became committed to maintaining the status quo even though the status hardly remained stable during the decades that followed. It was an irrational preference to avoid change at all costs. Ultimately, it cost the United States a great deal.

Spain was looking in the wrong direction in the early nineteenth century for enemies of its Caribbean empire. From their point of view, America seemed the most likely to foment revolution in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Despite declarations from early Presidents, Spain suspected that the Spirit of '76 lurked in American souls. Every attempt by the United States to establish commercial agents in Cuba were rebuffed. Spain suspected that they would be nothing more than agent provocateurs provoking rebellion on the islands. However, the real threat lay in Spain's former colonies on the mainland of Latin America.

Mexico and Columbia, led by a former rebel leader, Guadalupe Victoria, then President of the independent Mexican Republic, wanted to mount an expedition to drive the last vestiges of Spanish imperialism from the hemisphere. The American President, Clay, and his foreign ministers scrambled to defuse the threat. Clay did not believe that the Mexican and Columbian coalition could defend the islands if they liberated them. He was convinced that the British could easily seize them even though that European power disclaimed any interest. Britain argued that it was already overtaxed maintaining its existing empire.

An even greater threat was growing further south. Simon Bolivar had dreams of a united Latin America, a United States of Latin America. Unlike the norteamericanos, Bolivar welcomed British involvement. He called a Congress of leaders from all of the Americas except for the United States and Brazil, who had remained neutral during the various rebellions in Latin America. However, Bolivar did invite British participation. He plans centered around naval support from the British. Against Bolivar's wishes, Mexican and Central American leaders invited a delegation from the United States, but Bolivar limited their participation to observe only. 

The American delegation was sent to disrupt the Latin American Congress, but the two members had no chance to derail the proceedings. One died en route and the other tarried so long that the Congress concluded before he arrived. America's fear of any change in Latin American affairs was assuaged by Mexico and Columbia who held out against Bolivar's ambitious plan.

In writing Rebels on the Mountain, I explored America's fear of change in Cuba during the period just prior to Castro's rise to power. As a senior officer, my protagonist, Nick Andrews, is welcomed to the inner circles of Havana: American diplomats, business leaders, and mafia. In these milieus I was able to explore the reasons why change was feared. Nick doesn't alter these forces; he can only observe them for the benefit of the reader's understanding.  

SOME MIGHT BE LED to think that Cuba isn't part of the Western Hemisphere. Under the terms of the Monroe Doctrine, wasn't the United States supposed to protect all countries in that part of the world from European intervention? Actually, no. President Monroe was warning Europeans, especially Spain and Portugal, that any attempt to interfere with or colonize any state in the Americas would be viewed as an act of aggression requiring U.S. Intervention. By 1823, all of Spain and Portugal's colonies in the Western Hemisphere had won their independence, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico and they were specifically excluded from America's “protection.” Why?

Theoretically, independence was desirable for all of the Western Hemisphere. The rejection of Old World rule was implicit in the Declaration of Independence. To tolerate imperialism anywhere in the world, especially anywhere in the New World, was a betrayal of the American ideal.

On a more practical level, where would America be if it supported the overthrow of Spanish rule in Cuba only to be replaced by the English? Or the French? It was no secret that England wanted to install puppet governments in the former colonies of Spain in the New World. These newly minted states were struggling to emerge as independent nations. Most were ruled by a cuadillo – a strong man, military-political leader. The British felt it would be easy to replace any and all of them with their own cuadillos (and they were probably correct in their thinking). There was no doubt in Monroe's mind that American commercial interests would suffer under such an arrangement.

The Monroe Doctrine was a rather hollow threat inasmuch as the United States was not a major power at that time. Fortunately, Britain was focused on war in Europe and didn't entertain any ambitions in the Western Hemisphere at that time. They even went so far as to offer a limited alliance with the United States to enforce the terms of the Monroe Doctrine. However, America was still leery of Britain. The War of 1812 was still fresh in their memories and they suspected any overture from that direction. The exclusion of Cuba and Puerto Rico from the terms of the Monroe Doctrine was a tacit admission that the United States was powerless to force an Old World empire to surrender its existing claims in the New World.

Ultimately, the primary motivator of Cuban-American relationships has always been the commercial interests between the two nations. Although American and Cuban leaders alike may have dreamed of adding a Cuban Star to the American constellation, it never happened because those commercial interests were never sufficient to warrant it. Businessmen in both countries never saw any necessity for a political bond. This is the conclusion that Nick Andrews, the hero in Rebels on the Mountain, reaches as he observes Castro's revolution on behalf of members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  

EVERY EARLY AMERICAN PRESIDENT favored free trade with Cuba but steadfastly opposed Cuban independence. It was an attitude that would persist into the twentieth century and forever color Cuban-American relations. The reasons for American opposition would shift over the centuries, especially following the Spanish-American War, but the result would always be the same. Is it any wonder that the Cubans ultimately turned to the Soviet Union when they finally achieved true independence in the midst of the Cold War? The state of relations between the island nation and the Jefferson Administration is illustrative. 

Cuba seemed to have lost their taste for revolution prior to the American Revolution. In 1692 Don Francisco Manuel de Roca and 300 armed men captured the Spanish governor and established a short-lived island government. However, Spain quickly retaliated and tightened their control of the island. Other revolts in Santiago and Camaguey, Cuba, met similar fates. Spain finally clamped down after the Tobacco Revolts of 1721 and 1723. The Spanish crown decided that they couldn't trust the creoles – Spaniards born on the island. They vested all commercial interests in peninsulares – Spaniards born in Spain. Governors and key administrators were all peninsulares as well – and the creoles suffered. The smaller towns and cities were isolated, and Spanish merchants' ships visited at six-month intervals.

Relief only came during the brief ten-month occupation of the island by the British in 1762, and during the American Revolution when Yankee traders descended on the island. One must wonder why revolution did not break out in Cuba when the islanders knew perfectly well that prosperity would not return so long as it was a Spanish colony.

Several circumstances conspired to quash revolution in Cuba. Firstly, as other Spanish colonies won independence, loyalists emigrated to Cuba thereby greatly expanding that part of the population that favored Spanish rule. Secondly, the creole element in Cuba produced no Simon Bolivar or San Martin, revolutionary leaders who led other colonies to freedom. Finally, the lower clergy, an important element in revolutionary movements elsewhere, remained loyal to Spain. Their fortunes relied on the largess of their elder siblings who comprised the aristocracy in Spain.

When Thomas Jefferson took office, his attention as chief diplomat was focused on the Barbary Pirates who were harrying American merchants in the Mediterranean. However, Jefferson still found time to send a message to the creoles in Cuba: There would be no support for any revolutionary movement on the island. He and his Secretary of State, Albert Gallatin, were concerned that any transfer of power from Spain in Cuba would open the door to either French or English annexation of the island, and the United States would not tolerate either of them occupying such a strategic foothold on America's “front porch.” Thus, Jefferson supported Spain's claim to the island as far preferable to having a stronger European power to contend with.

Although these events played themselves out long before Castro's revolution in Cuba, the milieu of my novel, Rebels on the Mountain, they created the social, cultural, and economic environment in which the hero of my story, Nick Andrews, finds himself. I gave Nick a background in history so that he could help readers understand the circumstances of Castro's rise to power.

THE FREE TRADE that Yankee merchants enjoyed with Cuba during the American Revolution had been cut off abruptly when the United States won its independence. They petitioned their new government to plead their case with Spain. The Yankees saw no reason why they couldn't continue making vast fortunes in trade with the island, especially since the Cubans themselves were equally anxious for the Yankee trading ships to continue calling at their ports.

Unfortunately for both the Yankees and the Cubans, Spain had opened the island's ports to the revolutionaries only to tweak the noses of their traditional enemies, the British. Once the revolution ended, the Americans appeared as nothing more than wayward Englishmen who would probably return to the British Empire once they discovered how dangerous the world could be without a well-endowed protector. Indeed, there were many among the Americans who had argued emphatically that the revolution was nothing more than a fight for Americans to gain representation in Parliament. Others sought to annex America to the French monarchy, again as a source of protection in a dangerous world. Only a few actually envisioned America becoming an independent nation. Fortunately for us, their opinion held sway.

The suddenness of the closing of Cuba's ports caught many unaware. Oliver Pollack, America's commercial agent to Cuba discovered that his merchandise had been confiscated by the Spanish when two of his ships from New Orleans arrived at Havana, and he was accused of smuggling.

If the capricious and moribund colonial rule of the island by Spain was the only thing getting in the way, an independent Cuba seemed to be the only answer. Unfortunately for the Yankee traders, their pleas to the new government of the United States to support revolution in Cuba fell on deaf ears. Presidents Washington and Adams surveyed the prospect of revolution in the Caribbean, and recoiled in horror when they considered that it would be fought primarily by slaves. There certainly weren't sufficient numbers of creoles – Spaniards born on the islands – to overcome the peninsulares – Spaniards born on the peninsula of Spain and loyal to its crown – and the might of the Spanish army.

Such a revolution was fought in Haiti with slaves overthrowing the government of their French masters. The American presidents feared the social, economic, and political implications of the American slave South. Thus, they believed it in the best interests of the United States to discourage any other independence movement in Cuba.

Unfortunately, race discrimination would continue to influence American foreign policy, especially as regards to Cuba, well into the Twentieth Century. I had to allow for this influence in my novel, Rebels on the Mountain. It reveals itself in several modes: in the relationship between the principle characters, Nick Andrews – a Caucasian American – and Lucia Comas – a Cuban mulata – as well as in the attitudes of American diplomats and businessmen who appear in the novel. 

AS THE SPANISH came to dominate the interior of the Cuban island in the late sixteenth century, they shipped in livestock to provide protein to their armies of conquistadores and the new colonies in Mexico as well as Central and South America. They enslaved the native islanders to work their ranches, but these people quickly began to die off. They had never been exposed to herds of domesticated animals, and began contracting virulent diseases for which they had no immunity. 

The Spanish imported black African slaves to replace the Carib and Taino natives. They not only had the requisite immunities to survive the diseases spread from domesticated animals, but also, many had experience herding cattle. Cuba's cattle ranches grew and prospered. The meat went to the colonies. The hides went to Spain to be manufactured into boots, saddles, and every other conceivable product. Cuba was committed to a single product economy, a problem that would plague them even to this day.

However, unrest grew, especially in those places where the Africans began to outnumber all other people in the islands. Slaves in Haiti mounted a successful revolution and achieved political independence from the French in 1804. The slaves in Cuba might have followed their lead except that Spain was loosing its colonies on the mainland, and was able to exert more control on the island.

Another problem arose for the Spanish as their former colonies in Latin America won their independence. The market for the products of their cattle industry in Cuba began to diminish, and the island also was no longer as important as a link in Spain's lines of communication and logistics with their Latin American colonies.

Christopher Columbus brought sugar cane cuttings to the Caribbean during one of his later voyages. They thrived in the lush soil and copious rainfall on Cuba. The demand for sugar was growing in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. Thus, Cuba's commitment to sugar was as natural as falling off a log. It would remain their dominant cash crop into modern times.

Like cotton in the American south, growing and harvesting sugar cane is labor intensive, and Spain imported even more African slaves to the island to satisfy the demand. Unlike America, the slaves had nowhere to escape to. The nearest land was America, and slavery was dominant in that part of the new nation. Their only recourse to attain freedom was revolution. However, when Hidalgo mounted his successful revolution in Mexico in 1810, the Spanish retreated to Cuba and their rule became even more despotic.

Ironically, as their empire crumbled on the mainland, the Spanish began referring to Cuba as their “ever faithful isle.” Yes, it remained faithful, but only under an iron-fisted rule.

Iron-fisted tyrannies continued well after the Spanish ceded their hold on the island at the turn of the last century. Experiments in democratic rule repeatedly failed. The people were not prepared to rule themselves, and strong men rose as they always rise to fill a vacuum in politics. Even those with seemingly good intentions, such as Fidel Castro, are drawn into the web of despotism when people cede absolute power to them. It is in this climate that Nick Andrews, the hero of my novel, Rebels on the Mountain, finds himself. And, inasmuch as every tyrant rests uneasy, those in command in Cuba are suspicious of a capable soldier such as Nick, who is a U.S. Army Ranger.