Ostend, << o STEHND, >> Manifesto was a controversial document drafted in 1854 as part of a plan by the United States to acquire the colony of Cuba from Spain. It stated that the United States might be justified in seizing Cuba for reasons of national security if Spain refused to sell the island.
During the mid-1800’s, several United States leaders wanted to annex Cuba as a new slave state. In 1854, William L. Marcy, secretary of state under President Franklin Pierce, asked three United States diplomats to make recommendations for the acquisition of Cuba. They were Minister to Spain Pierre Soule, Minister to France John Y. Mason, and Minister to Britain James Buchanan. They met at Ostend, Belgium, in October 1854.
Newspapers obtained copies of the ministers’ dispatch. They called it the Ostend Manifesto and published it in 1855. The implied threat to seize Cuba added to the uproar started in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which made slavery possible in two new United States territories. Pierce took no further action to gain Cuba. But the Ostend Manifesto added to the growing conflict over slavery between the North and the South.
