This volume can best be understood in connection with another by the same author entitled La economía cubana entre las dos Isabeles, 1492-1832 (3rd ed. Bogotá, 1962. Aedita Editores Ltda. Index. Bibliography. Pp. 143. Paper.), of which it is in reality a continuation. Both are based on careful examination of the principal printed works that relate to Cuban colonial economy, as well as on much hitherto unused manuscript material. In the study of the Cuban economy down to 1832 the author outlines in three chapters the story of Cuba’s commercial and agricultural development from the discovery to the time when sugar production made the island the prosperous “Queen of the Antilles.” Chapter I covers the years to 1776 during which the island was litle more than a stopping place on the route between the mother country and its continental colonies. In this period Cuba was maintained largely by heavy subsidies from the treasury of New Spain. Chapters II and III survey the factors that reversed this condition, beginning with the English capture of Havana in 1762, which was followed by relaxed Spanish commerical regulations after the city had been recovered. The author surveys the impact of the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the elimination of Santo Domingo as a producer of sugar and coffee, which removed a serious competitor with Cuba. The volume ends with a picture of Cuban prosperity at the time of the death of Fernando VII, with Cuban planters and businessmen enjoying success but destined soon to be forced to ehoose between accepting Spanish maladministration and a continued economic prosperity and the possibility that it would continue under an independent government.
Comerciantes cubanos del siglo XIX is a case study of business operations in Cuba during the remainder of the XIX century, with the emphasis on methods of financing business and plantations operations. Chapter I gives a general survey of the methods whereby the merchants, in the absence of formal banking institutions, functioned as such for themselves and for plantation owners, and as suppliers of the latter. Chapter II pictures the paternalistic patterns of business organization and operation, still to be seen in Cuba well into the XXth century. Until the “Cuba-for-the-Cubans” movement of the 1930’s clamped the lid on the introduction of “apprentices” from the Peninsula, thousands of young Spanish immigrants came and attached themselves to successful firms great and small, often eating at the master’s table and living on the premises in the manner pictured in this chapter on “Los Autócratas del Buen Yuntar.” Chapter III describes the operations of the “Privilegio del Ingenio” law of the XVIIth century, intended to guarantee the production of sugar, although it actually hindered it by not allowing the plantation owner to mortgage anything but his crop to obtain funds for operation. The last two chapters describe the development and functioning of two firms that held the center of the commerical stage in Havana during much of the century. Both were founded by immigrant boys—James Drake and Thomas Terry who became immensely wealthy and achieved social position as well as economic, Drake’s family actually entering the ranks of the grandees of Castile. Professor Ely was fortunate in having access to the collection of the Terry papers now in the New York Public Library. This material he has supplemented with data taken from one of the greatest sources for the economic history of colonial Cuba—the papers of the Junta de Fomento of Havana now in the Archivo Nacional de Cuba. Apparently he did not use the abundant data of the Archivo Nacional catalogued as Asuntos Políticos, Gobierno Superior Civil, and Consejo de Administración. Both volumes contain excellent bibliographies. Both have run through two previous Spanish editions and have been used as textbooks in the school of commerce of the Universidad de la Habana.
