Americans had been seeking their fortunes out West for half a century by the time of the United States' involvement in Cuba's War of Independence. With the installation of a US military government in Cuba in 1899, a large number of Americans joined the military forces on the island to seek business opportunities. But it was not only the businessman that was attracted to Cuba: others saw in Cuba a new frontier, and citrus farming was the lure.

Cuban periodicals and guidebooks from the turn of the 20th century aimed at an American audience are filled with advertisements for land and equipment for citrus farming. Ship lines such as the Munson Steamship Line of New York transported not only tourists to the island but also emigrants, people who set out for Cuba for a new life and new opportunities. Isla de Pinos hosted perhaps the largest settlements of foreigners in Cuba, but every province had at least one American colony. In Camagüey, La Gloria represented the largest settlement on the mainland. It is to this town that the passengers pictured above, on the steamship "Curityba," were traveling to sometime in the early 1900s.

A combination of natural disasters, political upheaval, and a shift in focus for agricultural production towards sugar marked the decline of American colonies in Cuba. Despite their decline, the citrus colonies helped make Cuba self-sufficient in citrus production, according to historian Carmen Diana Deere, who also notes that another lasting impact of the American colonies was the introduction of Protestantism on the island (see The Hispanic American Historical Review 78:4, pages 729-765).

This photograph forms part of the Manuel R. Bustamante Photograph Collection of the Cuban Heritage Collection (CHC) of the University of Miami Libraries. This collection was donated to the CHC by collector Manuel R. Bustamante and includes over 600 black and white photographs of Cuba primarily from the turn of the 20th century to the 1930s.