"La fruta Madura"

Having acquired East and West Florida from Spain a few years earlier, the United States has expanded to within 90 miles of Cuba. In a letter to Minister to Spain Hugh Nelson, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams describes the likelihood of US "annexation of Cuba" within half a century despite obstacles: "But there are laws of political as well as of physical gravitation; and if an apple severed by the tempest from its native tree cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self support, can gravitate only towards the NorthAmerican Union, which by the same law of nature cannot cast her off from its bosom." Cubans call this policy la fruta madura(ripe fruit); Washington would wait until the fruit is consideredripe for the picking.