The price of real estate
03/02/2010
It came as news to this outsider (unless I had heard of it earlier and then forgotten it) that after the mysterious sinking of the American battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor in February 1898, US President William McKinley, still unenthusiastic about the prospect of war with Spain, had contemplated offering to purchase Cuba, then in revolt against the colonial power, for $300 million.
This is interesting in that it provides another illustration of Washington’s apparent belief that territories which non-American (or, at least non-Caucasian American) people called home could be treated as no more than real estate. Earlier examples were the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, in which over 2 million square kilometers were transferred from French control for a mere $15 million, and the acquisition of Alaska from Russia in 1867 — over 1.5 million square kilometers for the bargain price of $7.2 million, which worked out as just under two cents an acre.
What makes the historical footnote even more interesting, however, is that later in 1898, under the Treaty of Paris, the Philippines passed from Spanish to US “ownership” upon payment of $20 million.
Cuba has an area of just 110,860 square kilometers, while that of the Philippines is 300,000 square kilometers. The 1899 census revealed that Cuba’s population stood at 1,572,797, while the Philippine census of 1898 came up with a figure of 5,279,955. Thus, whereas McKinley had considered offering $2706 per square kilometer (or roughly $190.74 per inhabitant) for Cuba, later the same year he acquired the Philippines for $66.66 per square kilometer (or approximately $3.79 per inhabitant).... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
ALTERNATE URL: http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20100302com5.html
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