Arango y Parreño, Francisco de (1765–1837)

Francisco de Arango y Parreño (b. 22 May 1765; d. 21 March 1837), Cuban statesman, economist, and sugar planter. Educated in Cuba and Spain, Arango y Parreño graduated with a degree in law and spent his life in public service, including representing the city of Havana to the court in Spain and as one of two representatives from the island to the Cortes of Cádiz. In 1792 he wrote the Discourse on the Agriculture in Havana and Ways of Developing It that called for development of the sugar industry, utilizing massive slave labor, a position he modified after the Haitian Revolution. He returned to Cuba and, with the cooperation of Governor Luis de las Casas, shifted the focus of the island's economy to development of sugar. He also co-owned one of the five largest plantations on the island. He served as director of the Economic Society in 1795 but believed its function less important than that of the consulado, of which he was also a member. He contributed articles to the Papel Periódico favoring government intervention to develop the sugar industry and hinder the Spanish monopolies. His writings and his defense of Cuba in Spain helped form the liberal Cuban mind of the period. The major effect of his policies on the island, however, was the growth of the sugar industry, and its benefit to those who are now referred to as the "sugarocracy."

See alsoCuban American Sugar Company; Sugar Industry.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arango's life and work are examined in detail in Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez, et al., eds., A History of the Cuban Nation, vol. 3, translated by Raoul L. Washington (1958).

Manuel Moreno Fraginals, The Sugarmill: The Socioeconomic Complex of Sugar in Cuba 1760–1860, translated by Cedric Belfrage (1976).

W. W. Pierson, Jr., "Francisco de Arango y Parreño," in Hispanic American Historical Review 16 (November 1936): 451-478.

Additional Bibliography

Monal, Isabel, and Olivia Miranda Francisco. Pensamiento cubano, siglo XIX vol. 1. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2002.

Morillo-Alicea, Javier. "The Wealth of Empire: Francisco Arango y Parreño, Political Economy, and the Second Slavery in Cuba." In Interpreting Spanish Colonialism: Empires, Nations, and Legends, edited by Christopher Schmidt-Nowara and John M. Nieto-Phillips. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005.

                                  Jacquelyn Briggs Kent