Azucar!
“Annexationists
prophesied a time when, with Cuba under our flag, we would control
the world’s supply of sugar as absolutely as we did cotton.”
- Leland Hamilton Jenks, OUR CUBAN COLONY, A STUDY IN SUGAR, 1928
- Leland Hamilton Jenks, OUR CUBAN COLONY, A STUDY IN SUGAR, 1928
"The
sugar industry-always a parasitical growth-has never been able to pay
its expenses with its own resources in normal times. It depended on
slavery for its prosperity in former times and now the masked slavery
of the West Indian laborers is unable to save it. Some sort of
economic euthanasia is needed for industries which have developed
into monstrosities as is the case with Cuba's sugar industry."
- Herminio Portell Vilá, Hispanic American Historical Review, 1932
- Herminio Portell Vilá, Hispanic American Historical Review, 1932
“Our
citizens have invested over a billion dollars in Cuba, and own more
than three-fourths of the enourmous sugar industry of the Island.”
- Dewin G. Nourse, Institute of Econics, 1932 / Director's Preface to THE CUBAN SITUATIONAND OUR TREATY RELATIONS by Philip G. Wright
- Dewin G. Nourse, Institute of Econics, 1932 / Director's Preface to THE CUBAN SITUATIONAND OUR TREATY RELATIONS by Philip G. Wright
“Most
of the American-owned Cuban land was not held by homesteaders but by
large corporations or small groups of wealthy men. Absentee land
ownership was the commonmethod of United States agricultural
investment.”
- James H. Hitchman / Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Jan., 1970), 90-106
- James H. Hitchman / Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Jan., 1970), 90-106
The Bitter Memory of Cuban Sugar
Sugar
has been Cuba's great blessing and curse all at once, just as much as
her convenient location and size, her tropical climate and her rich
soil.
Legend
reveals that on his second voyage to the "new world," Christóbal
Colón brought sugar cane cuttings, which were planted and
grown by the indigenous Taíno population, who were quickly turned
into slaves. The Indies may not have been as full of gold as the
Spaniards had hoped, but the islands could still provide a valuable
service to the Empire.
The Taínos didn't
understand why they had to clear the fields (mostly in the central
plains, between Havana and Trinidad, and East towards Santiago) and
do without their original crops in order to harvest cane for their
new masters.
Eventually
the combination of European diseases, forced labor and Spanish
cruelty killed off most of the Taíno population,
and this lead to the African
slave trade,
which lasted over three centuries.
In
16th century Cuba, "the chief industry was stock-raising which
was followed in all parts of the island," wrote Hubert H. S.
Aimes in A
History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511 to 1868.
"The meat afforded a supply for the shipping and the hides were
exported. Honey and wax soon became important. The sugar industry
grew slowly and chiefly in the favorable region of Habana, three
ingenios being established in its vicinity in 1576. These mills were
simple, crude constructions of rollers for crushing the cane moved by
cattle or water power. The product obtained by simple boiling in open
pans was of a very inferior quality, and was consumed in the island.
The ingenios required from eighty to one hundred negroes each."
Large-scale
sugar production in Cuba began early in the 19th century. "Sugar
quickly became the cornerstone of the Cuban economy," wrote
Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez in Sugar
and Society in the Caribbean,
"and a new class of wealthy planters emerged."
Sugar
output was usually measured in sacks of 325 pounds or in tons (2,000
pounds). Cane production was measured per arroba (25
pounds), and land was measured per caballerías (33.6
acres).
By
mid-19th century Cuba provided about a third of the world's sugar,
and U.S. investors began to make moves on the island. Soon the sugar
industry was under their control.
"From
the beginning," wrote Guerra y Sánchez, "the sugar mills
were extended protection against foreclosure for debt, an extremely
important privilege that was considered an indispensable aid to this
new industry. For the planting of cane, the Havana Cabildo itself
ceded lands, within a radius of eight leagues, that had been reserved
for growing food crops. Thus, the first sugar mills were set up very
close to the municipal limits and were owned by the wealthiest and
most influential colonists."
Centrales, Colonos and the Zafra
In
the 1880s the production of sugar in Cuba was reorganized to account
for a new economic system that included the end
of slavery. An intermediate class of planters emerged, often
referred to as colonos. They basically contracted to plant,
cultivate, harvest and then deliver the cut cane to the mills,
or Centrales,
which eventually became huge complexes. Of course, only a small
percentage of the former slaves who fought on the war of independence
became colonos,
as most were white or foreigners. Seasonal laborers and field hands,
who worked for wages, were usually out of work at the end of the
harvest.
Two
types of colonos existed, those who owned their own land, and those
who worked land rented or leased. The power, of course, was in the
Centrales, who controlled how much the colonos earned from each
Zafra. Almost all colonos had difficulty getting by, and most owed
money to the Centrales.
The
"Zafra" months of November to April featured full
employment for cane laborers. This is the dry season, when the sugar
was harvested and there was plenty of work. This was followed by
tiempo muerto, or the rainy season of May through October, when there
wasn't much to do on the cane fields. This was the sad reality of the
sugar industry in Cuba.
"During
the 1890s," wrote Robert B. Hoernel in Journal
of Latin American Studies,
"Cuban field laborers in the sugar industry received only
slightly more than fifty cents a day, but also got quarters in the
batey or bunkhouse, free medical care, and a ration of 1 pound of
beef, 1 pound of rice, 2 ounces of lard, 1 ounce of coffee, 2 ounces
of sugar, and 6 ounces of bread or potatoes daily."
Military Occupation
"For
almost four years," wrote Louis A. Pérez, Jr. in Hispanic
American Historical Review (1985),
"contending forces had laid siege to the largesse of the land,
preying upon the bounty of its resources, and practicing pillage of
every kind as the normal method of warfare. And when it was over, in
1898, the toll of Cuban independence reached frightful proportions.
The fields were blighted; the pastures, barren; and the fruit trees,
bare. Agriculture was in desperate crisis in an economy predominantly
agricultural. The rich sugar provinces of Havana and Matanzas were
each cultivating fully less than one-half of the area in 1899 than
they had before the war." (Of the 1,400,000 total acres under
cultivation in 1895, only some 900,000 acres returned to production
after the war.)
In Pinar
del Río,
7 sugar mills survived the war (out of 70). In Las Villas, 332 sugar
mills had been reduced to 73. Altogether, Pérez reports "of the
1,100 sugar mills registered in Cuba in 1894, only 207 survived the
war."
Brigadier
General Fitzhugh
Lee,
in charge of Havana and Pinar
del Río during
the occupation, reported to militaryGovernor
Brooke about
conditions in September 1899; "Business of all sorts is
suspended. Agricultural operations have ceased; large sugar estates
with their enormous and expensive machinery are destroyed; houses
burned; stock driven off for consumption by the Spanish troops or
killed."
All
over the island, Cuban property owners were in debt, without the
ability to obtain capital or credit. Some had been in debt since
before the war.
On
January 1 1899, Military Governor John R. Brooke pledged resources,
but they never materialized. Instead, a series of military orders
seemed to help foreign investors.
In
April 1899, Military
Order #46 allowed
for a two-year moratorium on the collection of debts. This gave Cuban
farmers and planters some breathing room, but it didn't help them out
of their situation, as they were unable to get their plantations
going without financial help. "Direct aid to planters,"
wrote Perez, "was not part of the United States' design for the
postwar reconstruction of Cuba." In October 1899 Military
Governor Brooke stated that "the conclusion was reached that aid
could not be given in this direction."
When Military
Order #46 expired
in April 1901, the condition of Cuban planters had not improved. "Our
condition is worse today," wrote Santa Clara planter Francisco
Seigle to Elihu Root (the U.S. Secretary of War) on October 3 1900.
"These properties cannot be made productive without capital."
The
capital seemed to be in the hands of foreign investors, most of them
from the United States. Only weeks before the expiration of Military
Order #46, Perfecto
Lacosta complained,
"nothing has been done toward the improvement of our
agricultural situation."
Military
Governor Brooke's point of view was that Cuba's future's rested on
the ability to have a stable government. By stable government he
meant, "When money can be borrowed at a reasonable rate of
interest and when capital is willing to invest in the island, a
condition of stability will have been reached."
"Foreign
lenders in particular," wrote Pérez, "and especially
United States creditors, were anxious to claim Cuban properties."
Military
Order #139,
issued in May 1901, formally allowed creditors to collect their
debts, regardless of circumstances. According to Pérez, this was
"the first of a series of calamities to befall planters during
the United States occupation, and its effects were not confined to
large planters… The war had been especially hard on small farmers."
"The
prospects for indigence and ruin increased considerably with the
proclamation of Military
Order #139,"
wrote Pérez. "The fate of the planter class, no less than that
of the small independent farmers, was sealed."
Cuban
farmers had little recourse but to sell their lands to foreign
investors, who found not just land prices to their liking, but the
cooperation of the new Cuban government. In 1901, United Fruit was
able to purchase 200,000 acres of land in Oriente at $1 per acre.
"The
bank that underwrites the cutting of the cane is foreign,"
wrote Fernando
Ortíz,
"the cutting of the cane is foreign, the consumers' market is
foreign, the administrative staff set up in Cuba, the machinery that
is installed, the capital that is invested, the very land of Cuba
held by foreign ownership… all are foreign, as are, logically
enough, the profits that flow out of the country to enrich others."
This
"lopsided" export economy allowed foreigners to control the
prosperity of the island. Afro-Cubans were rarely on the profit end
of Cuba's sugar industry, and foreigners managed to do quite well.
Somewhere in the middle, a few white Cubans managed their own
fortunes.
As
the country became devoted to sugar, other food items had to be
imported, including rice, beans and meat, eggs and poultry, tomatoes,
green peppers and cucumbers, which at one time were all grown
locally.
During
the U.S. military occupation that began in 1898, U.S. business
interests invaded the island, and suddenly Cubans had a new "master"
forcing a one-crop economy. Sales would be to a single market, and
that market controlled not only the price of sugar, but also most of
the existing sugar cane farms and distribution channels. It suddenly
became more difficult for local planters to revitalize their
war-damaged businesses.
In
1899, R.B. Hawley organized the Cuban-American
Sugar Company,
which established the sugar mill "Chaparra" on 70,000 acres
of land in Oriente
Province. American businesses man Milton
Hershey also
purchased land cheaply and built a sugar factory that supplied his
Pennsylvania-based chocolate empire.
Another
successful American on the sugar scene was James H. Post, who became
not only president of theNational
Sugar Refining Company of New Jersey,
but was director of the National
City Bank of New York and
also of theAmerican
Colonial Bank of Puerto Rico.
Post also served as vice president of the Cuban
American Sugar Company,
which owned a number of sugar mills in the island. He also held other
positions in the Cuban sugar industry, such as president of the New
Niguero Sugar Company,
president of the Guantánamo
Sugar Company,
director of the Chaparra
Railroad Company,
director of the West
India Sugar Finance Corporation (which
also owned 12 mills in the Dominican Republic).
"The
beneficiaries of North American rule," wrote Louis A. Pérez Jr.
in Cuba:
Between Reform and Revolution,
"were North Americans." This is further illustrated by the
fact that during the second U.S. military intervention in 1906,
Military Governor Magoon initiated a program of roads and railroads
that was clearly designed to benefit foreign-owned centrales, with
expenses of almost $650,000 paid by the Cuban government.
"The Platt
Amendment fostered the growth of the industry and American
investment in it," wrote Philip G. Wright of The Brookings
Institution in The
Cuban Situation and Our Treaty Relations (1931).
"There was American investment while Cuba was under Spanish
control and such investment would doubtless have increased had Cuba
remained under Spanish control or had Cuba attained her freedom
without American intervention. Yet there can be no reasonable doubt
that the Platt amendment, in its essence a guaranty by the United
States government of protection of life and property in Cuba, has
acted throughout the past quarter of a century as a powerful magnet
in attracting American investments to Cuba. A feeling, based on
observation and experience, is widespread in the United States that
Latin Americans are prone to revolution as a means of settling
political differences. Prospective investors know that sugar is a
highly inflammable crop, they remember that both the revolution of
1868 and the final War for Independence were characterized by great
destruction of sugar properties, and hence when they are weighing in
their minds the lure of profit against the hazard of complete loss,
the guaranty of the Platt
Amendment has
a reassuring effect and tips the scales in favor of the investment."
In
1912, companies like United
Fruit Company were
granted special permission to import workers that would earn less
than Cuban workers. They built whole villages on their properties for
their employees, who were completely separated from the rest of Cuban
society, as they also shopped at their local company-owned store.
These "towns" often featured strict racial divisions;
Americans lived on one street, white Cubans on another, and so on.
After the zafra,
some immigrant workers returned to Jamaica and Haiti, but many
stayed.
"The
twentieth-century sugar mill was a complex entity involving
heterogeneous social relations of production in the agricultural
phase: wage labor, landlord-tenant relations, and relations between
independent or dependent farmers and the mill," wrote Cesar J.
Ayala in Latin
American Research Review (Vol.
30, #1, 1995). "The larger area of land serviced by the sugar
mill complex also contained fallow land, grazing land, and sometimes
forest land. In 1913 the aggregate area of Cuban sugar mill complexes
totaled 88,000 caballerías.
Of these, about 40,000 caballerías were planted in cane, 18,000 by
colonos and 22,000 by the mills and their tenants.
"Centrales
differed in their origins: some units emerged form the conversion
of ingenios into
centrals, while others were established on virgin land. In the case
of conversion, when a large ingenio was
modernized, surroundingingenios were
transformed into colonias.
"Typically,
the newest mills built by U.S. corporations were established on land
previously untouched by plantation agriculture."
The
outbreak of World
War I brought
Cuba out of a depression, as the price of sugar jumped from 2.11
cents per pound in July to 4 cents in August.
The
Cuban sugar industry became the major source for the U.S., as sugar
beet farms in Belgium and France were destroyed, and other exporters,
such as Austria and Germany, cut down their outputs to less than half
of normal when their markets disappeared.
In
1920 the European sugar market shrank from 9,088,000 tons in 1913 to
1,801,000. This deficit created a great opportunity for Cuban
producers, and output increased from 2,719,961 tons in 1913 to
4,448,389 tons in 1919.
"Between
1912 and 1931," wrote de la Fuente in Latin
American Perspectives,
"more than 300,000 black workers from Haiti, Jamaica, Barbados,
and other Caribbean islands entered Cuba to work in the expanding
sugar sector, mainly in the eastern provinces of Camagüey and
Oriente, where U.S. capital had developed some of the biggest and
most modern centrals on the island."
Another
change was taking place, as Eastern Cuba became more profitable for
sugar barons than Western Cuba. "In the nineteenth century,"
wrote Cesar J. Ayala in Latin
American Research Review,
"western Cuba (Pinar del Río, Havana, Matanzas, and Santa
Clara) was the region where independent cane farmers controlled a
major share of sugar production. In the east, the newest mills
established themselves by purchasing vast land areas in relatively
remote zones that became accessible via railway only in the twentieth
century. In this region, cane farmers were welcome only as mil
tenants, and it fell to the farmers to attract and hire wage labor
for cultivating and harvesting sugar." By 1923, he adds, "the
eastern provinces of Camagüey and Oriente surpassed the western
region in sugar production, and the eastern region finally became the
center of twentieth-century sugar monoculture." By 1924, Oriente
and Camagüey produced 54 percent of all Cuban sugar.
With
the abrogation of the Platt
Amendment in
1934, Americans began a steady withdrawal from Cuba's sugar industry,
and a small number of wealthy Cubans took over the reigns. The Cuban
sugar law of 1934 expanded the Colono system,
and their numbers rose after 1935.