Havana Company
Havana Company
Havana Company (La Real Compañía de Comercio de la Habana), established by the Cédula of 18 December 1740, was intended to guarantee its royal, metropolitan, and (majority) Cuban investors a monopoly of the trade between Spain and Cuba, as well as to stimulate ship construction in Havana, supply troops stationed there, and provide coast-guarding services against smugglers and pirates. Over the next twenty years, the company introduced approximately 5,000 slaves into the island, while dominating the exportation of tobacco and sugar and the importation and sale of provisions and European goods. The Havana Company was reorganized in 1760 and suffered severe losses with the fall of Havana to the British two years later, although it continued in existence until the end of the century.
See alsoSpanish Empire .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Julio Le Riverend, Economic History of Cuba (1967).
Vicente Báez, ed., La enciclopedia de Cuba: Historia, vol. 5 (1974), pp. 170-171.
Leví Marrero, Cuba: Economía y sociedad, vol. 7 (1978), pp. 102-165.
Additional Bibliography
Tornero Tinajero, Pablo. Crecimiento ecónomico y transfor-maciones sociales: Esclavos, hacendados y comerciantes en la Cuba colonial (1760–1840). Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, 1996.
Linda K. Salvucci