Just as a side-note, because I'm as lost as you regarding these sabers, being also divided between the North of Africa and Central America. I have my own favourite hypothesis, but I'm afraid we need indeed some kind of provenenced source to go beyond the speculative stage...
But regarding the swords coming from Cuba... well, just making you know that the consesus here in Spain is that they are indeed colonial exemplars, but from the Philippine. They're not official patterns as such, but were purchased and worn by the colonial troops there, specially officers, as some of them are quite ellaborated, with silver guards and engravings in the shell... which is, by the way, an element of the hilt that is not always present in this kind of machetes, as also happens with the knucklebow. I've seen at least one blade marked as having been made at the the Toledo factory in 1852, which is not strange, as the Factory manufactured a lot of blades aside from official patterns for the Spanish Army, and a good deal of their production, specially at that time, went overseas.
The decoration in the blade is quite typical, also. Curiously enough, some exemplars featured a straight blade with a "inverse clip" point. Let me illustrate:
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