The Cuban Sugar Frontier

The extensive plains and favorable climate of the Spanish colony of Cuba offered ideal conditions for sugar cultivation. However, Cuba was a marginal sugar producer until the nineteenth century. Before then, Havana was the base for the Spanish merchant and naval fleets, its magnificent harbor the rendezvous point of the Spanish treasure flotillas carrying American silver back to Europe. By the mid-seventeenth century the hardwoods of Cuba’s abundant and rich forests were the source of timber for the Spanish naval and commercial fleets, and Havana emerged as a major center of shipbuilding and repair. The forests were royal property and,