Through letters and photographs, spanning the years between 1830 and 1898, we see how foreign intervention undermines the identity of countries struggling for independence. Intervention by foreign nations disrupted life through US military occupation of Cuba during their fight for independence from Spain, the creation of the US-Mexico border, and French political interference in Mexico. As early as 1830, the US began showing interest in the acquisition of Texas, bringing slavery back to Northern Mexico after that state had abolished it, thereby stirring conflict. By 1862, France’s 5-year invasion of Mexico attempted to replace a republican government with a monarchy, undermining a basic ideal of New World sovereignty. By 1898 after the US occupied Cuba during their war for independence, US occupiers sought to impose their own ideas about racial hierarchies onto the Cuban people. These documents evidencing imperialist occupations will hopefully inspire you to explore questions about modernity and identity formation in the wake of foreign intervention.

Curators: Cassandra Cardenas, Julia Thompson, Natalie Garcia, and Riley Caballero

Writing with ink and a quill from the now border-town of Matamoros, prominent military general and leader of Mexican Independence, Manuel de Mier y Terán, writes his reflections on the social and political conditions found within the Department of Texas. Tasked with determining a set border between Mexico and the U.S. in 1827, Terán reports on his encounters with Anglo-American and European settlers. He noted their use of slavery, lack of contribution to both agricultural efforts and social harmony, and their role in the development of a racial hierarchy. A growing presence of North American settlers in the territory fueled anxiety among Mexican officials like Terán. These increased tensions threatened Mexican prosperity and cast a dark cloud upon Terán, who committed suicide two years after writing this letter and shortly before the Anglo-led independence movement for Texas from Mexico.

These pictures come from a book titled, “Greater America” published in the wake of the Spanish American War of 1898. Although both photos display Cuban people, the differences in how they do so reveal the kind of racial hierarchy the American photographer participates in to display Cuba to his American audience. The first picture offers a view of 12 adults and 2 children gathered in groups outside huts at a tobacco plantation. The second image offers a snapshot of 6 women wearing white dresses in a courtyard in Havana with them looking at the one kneeling. The caption to the first photo reduces the people in the picture to “negro hands” rather than actual people. The writer of the caption also mentions they are wearing their Sunday best and the soldiers guarding the plantation. The second photo is captioned as Spanish señoritas in a courtyard with the most famous beauty in Havana. During the intervention of Cuba by America, many Cubans believed that a significant threat to the national identity was America’s racist and annexationist actions.[2] These photos are important because it shows how some Americans' perception of Cuba can inform the way US citizens think of Cuba. Were these differences mentioned to further their racist ideas?

[1] Kelly, Patrick J. “The North American Crisis of the 1860s.” Journal of the Civil War Era 2, no. 3 (2012): 337–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26070248.

[2] Sierakowski, Robert. “A Cultural History of Cuba during the US Occupation, 1898–1902.” Caribbean Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2014): 98–100.