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LS signed “Dan'l Webster,” one page, 7.75 x 12, May 2, 1851. Addressed from the "Department of State," a letter to Thomas M. Rodney, U.S. Consul in Matanzas, Cuba, in full: “Your despatch No. 12 has been received. In reply to your application for permission to visit the United States for the purpose of accompanying your family to Matanzas, I have the pleasure to inform you, that leave of absence is granted for that purpose, but it is considered highly important that your absence from your post should be as short as possible.” In fine condition.
Written during Daniel Webster's short tenure as Secretary of State under President Millard Fillmore, the letter dates to a period of mounting tensions between the United States and Spanish Cuba. Just weeks before Webster signed this letter, federal authorities had moved to suppress preparations for another filibustering expedition led by Narciso López, whose efforts to overthrow Spanish rule on the island had become a major diplomatic concern. The situation escalated dramatically later that year when López's August 1851 invasion ended in defeat and the execution of López and some fifty American participants by Spanish authorities, triggering anti-Spanish riots in New Orleans and a diplomatic crisis that fell to Webster's State Department to manage. As one of Cuba's principal commercial ports, Matanzas occupied an important place in American diplomatic and commercial affairs during this volatile period.
Thomas M. Rodney served multiple terms as United States consul at Matanzas, Cuba, between 1822 and 1853. His dispatches from one of Cuba's busiest ports documented the island's commercial, political, and social conditions during a period of increasing American involvement in Caribbean affairs, and remain valuable primary sources for the study of antebellum U.S.-Cuba relations.
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