A post or series of posts on the history of Cuban American relations leading up to the involvement with Fidel Castro.

Between the time of the United States' first involvement in Cuban affairs during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and Fidel Castro's successful revolution in 1956, there been an uninterrupted history of commercial intercourse between Americans and Cubans. Even before 1898, Americans had wrested commercial concessions from weak Spanish administrators to such properties as the iron ore mines built and eventually controlled by Frederick Woods for Bethlehem Steel. When Woods became the first American Administrator of the island under American rule in 190?, a pattern of American commercial dominance was established that continued to strengthen American dominance and multiply ties between the two countries until Castro's regime intervened and changed the pattern.