Well, there were many attempts by the US to annex Cuba, mostly led from Southern states. If the CSA had gained peace, Cuba would've been the most likely target of any future expansion.
I remembered this thread some days ago when I was searching articles in Wikipedia...
Well, my point of view is that the CSA would be near destruction even if it winned the ACW, so it would need many years to rebuilt it's economy, obviously many more years than OTL because it has not the money from the US and it's probably in bad terms with Britain (HRM acted against slavery in remote African villages... why would help or even allied herself with the confederates?). France is also probable to decline an alliance with the CSA after the fall of Napoleon III at Sedan. So, we have a still recovering CSA right into the 1880s or even in the early 1890s. It's also unlikely that it would deployed a strong navy in this situation; plus the better commanders of the US navy/army in the 1890s are still in the Union, because they were northerners. Moreover, there is the question of internal support. People use to forget or underrate the role of Cuban guerrillas attacking the Spaniards at all time and from all directions, even driving the soldiers to lands were they knew that had malaria. The Cubans who rebelled for independence demanded in the first place a more liberal government (they agreed to forget independence and made peace in 1878 and 1897 after the Spaniards granted some reforms; even the first cry in 1868 was only "Liberal
and Spanish Cuba"...), so they are unlikely to support a new colonial ruler. They achieved a Comonwealth-type system in 1897, why would they want to become the new territory of the CSA? Needless to say, the black slaves who were fighting against the Spaniards and gained their freedom on their own in the 1880s would never be happy to receive an army who believe that they are a simple property. Remember, we are talking about a CS annexation, not a US support of independence (at least on paper) as OTL. That supposing that the Cuban War of Independence goes as OTL and there isn't American involvement till 1898. However, many of the AH writers use to put Cuba under the CSA even earlier, in the 1870s, or annex it to the US in the 1850s, when the whole situation in America, Cuba and Spain is completely different from the late 1890s and probably is more likely to end with US/CS defeat or minor victory (maybe Cuba gains independene and nothing more) rather than the complete victory of 1898 or an even more stunning victory... I remember an older post by Straha (I think) where the US takes all the 1898 gains plus Polinesia, Guinea, the Canary Islands and the Moroccan
plazas... in 1855! Oh, God, why not make the US conquering also mainland Spain at the same time?.
Well... Why I remembered this post? It was because I was reading the Wikipedia article about Turtledove's TL-191, work in which I'm interested but I can't buy now because it isn't edited yet in my country. Well, the thing is that, in the
Common Characters article, I saw this:
Castro, Fidel
(SA:G)
Known by his first name only,
Fidel Castro is a young leader of a biracial anti-Freedom Party group in Confederate
Cuba.
That is, in my opinion, a common but nonsense cliche. There are several ATLs with a Confederate Cuba in which there is always a Castro who rebels against the CSA (and generally fails
). However, the own existence of Castro is near impossible in a TL in which Spain left Cuba in he 1870s (as the first book of the TL-191 claims), because, ironically, Fidel Castro is the son of Ángel Castro, one of the 200.000 soldiers who were sent from Spain in 1895 to fight today's Cuban heros of independence. Without OTL 3 Cuban Wars, Castro would remain in Spain or emigrate to other country. If he still joins the army, he would be sent probably to Morocco or the Philippines. If he want to be an
hacendado in America, he would probably travel to Puerto Rico. If he want to be another common Galician inmigrant, he would end more likely in Venezuela or Argentina. And in all cases, Ángel Castro would never built a house in Cuba and would never hire a cook called Lina Ruz.