Cuba Cuba’s annexation had long been a goal of U.S. expansionists, particularly as the U.S. set its sights southward following the admission of California to the Union. However, diplomatically the country had been content to see the island remain in Spanish hands so long as it did not pass to a stronger power such as the United Kingdom or France. A product of the debates over slavery in the United States, Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine, the Ostend Manifesto proposed a shift in foreign policy, justifying the use of force to seize Cuba in the name of national security. While the Ostend Manifesto was never acted upon, American interest in the region would next surface near the end of the nineteenth century in the Spanish–American War, ultimately leading to Cuba’s independence
Home / Questions / The Ostend Manifesto was a document written in 1854 that described the rationale for the United States to purchase what land area from Spain?