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U.S. Control Over Cuban Sugar Production, 1898-1902

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

James H. Hitchman
James H. Hitchman*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Western Washington State College, Bellingham, Washington
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Extract

For years many Americans have assumed that the United States has exploited Cuba. The greatest opportunity for this control existed when the United States occupied Cuba after the Spanish-American War. The island was ravaged by war, famine, and disease, and the Cubans were exhausted after nearly a decade of depression, and revolution. It would have been easy for the U.S. government and business interests to control Cuba economically. Yet this did not occur. By concentrating our attention upon Cuban sugar production, perhaps the real nature of United States-Cuban economic relations may become apparent.

In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, the McKinley administration found itself caught between two forces. The Congressional Joint Resolution of April 20, 1898, bound the Americans to leave Cuba once the island was pacified, but the Paris Peace Treaty of December 10, 1898, assumed that the United States would remain for a period of reconstruction.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1970 , pp. 90 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1970

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References

1 J. H. Hitchman, “Leonard Wood and the Cuban Question, 1898-1902” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1965)Google Scholar; R. D. Weigle, “The Sugar Interests and American Diplomacy in Hawaii and Cuba, 1893-1903” (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1939); Jenks, L. H., Our Cuban Colony (New York: Vanguard, 1928)Google Scholar; Fitzgibbon, R. H., Cuba and the U. S., 1900-1935 (George Banta: Menasha, 1935)Google Scholar; Chapman, C. E., A History of the Cuban Republic (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1927)Google Scholar; Healy, D. F., The United States in Cuba 1898-1902 (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1963)Google Scholar; Vilá, H. Portell, Historia de Cuba en sus relaciones con Los Estados Unidos y España, 4 vols. (Habana: Jesús Montero, 1937-1941)Google Scholar; Ortiz, R. Martínez, Cuba, los primeros años de la independencia, 2 vols. (Paris: “Le Livre Libre,” 1929).Google Scholar

2 Wood, “The Military Government of Cuba,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 21 (March 1903): 175 ff. Wood's detractors criticized him for failing to subsidize agriculture and for lavishing funds on public works.

3 Wood papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Wood to Root, Jan. 13, 1900; Porter, R. P., Industrial Cuba (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1899), pp. 412, 195-196.Google Scholar

4 U.S. War Department, Census of Cuba, 1899 (Wn: GPO, 1900), p. 41.Google Scholar

5 Jenks, L. H., Our Cuban Colony (New York: Vanguard, 1928)Google Scholar; U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Series Y368-379, 721 (Washington: GPO, 1960).Google ScholarPubMed

6 Census of Cuba, 1899, table 44, p. 553, table 23, pp. 403, 155. There were 299,197 Cubans engaged in agriculture, fisheries, and mining, and 950,467 without gainful occupation. There were 79,427 in trade and transport, 93,034 in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits; 8,736 in professional service and 141,936 in domestic and personal occupations. This was in 1899 and justifies Wood's prompt action in putting people to work in the quickest way possible. Still, the 39.6 percent of Cubans gainfully employed was higher than the 36.3 figure in the United States.

7 Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, no. 1, Series 1903-1904, Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of the U. S., “Commercial Cuba” (Washington: GPO, 1903), p. 401.

8 Porter, R. P., Report on the Commercial and Industrial Condition of the Island of Cuba (Washington: GPO, 1898), p. 14 Google Scholar; Wood, , Civil Report 3 (1902)Google Scholar, Bliss Report, 12; “Commercial Cuba,” p. 401, sets figure of immigrants at 56,197.

9 Census of Cuba, 1899, 541, 543, 547; cf. Wood, , Civil Report, 8 (1900): 55 Google Scholar, where Secretary of Agriculture Perfecto Lacoste agreed that sugar and tobacco were the first and second crops and that other industries counted for little or nothing.

10 Jenks, , Our Cuban Colony, pp. 21–36 Google Scholar; “Commercial Cuba,” p. 363.

11 Jenks, , Our Cuban Colony, pp. 26–30 Google Scholar. An ingenio was a plantation equipped to manufacture sugar. A central was a concentration of several ingenios into one.

12 Ibid., pp. 30-33; Wood, , Civil Report, 1 (1902)Google Scholar; Lacoste, p. 32. See Tables 1 and 2.

13 Wood, , Civil Report, 1 (1900): 94 Google Scholar; Wood papers, Wood to Root, November 4,1901.

14 Wood papers, Wood to Root, May 18,1901; May 30, 1901.

15 Wood, , Civil Report, 10 (1901)Google Scholar, Várela Report: 113.

16 For samples of the charge of exploitation, see Portell Vilá, Historia de Cuba, 4: 119, 317; de Leuchsenring, E. Roig, Historia de la Enmienda Platt (Habana: Cultural S.A. 1935), 7 Google Scholar: xxv, 203; Robinson, A. G., Cuba and the Intervention (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1905), p. 166.Google Scholar

17 Jenks, , Our Cuban Colony, pp. 85, 161.Google Scholar

18 Brownell, A., “The Commercial Annexation of Cuba,” Appleton's Magazine 8 (October 1906): 406–411.Google Scholar Cf. National Archives, Record Group 350, Division of Insular Affairs, 15294, translation of Economista of October 6, 1906, totalling 141 million dollars as follows: railroads and transport, $34; sugar and tobacco, $68; rural and city property, $18; minor products, $4; mines, $3.5; commerce and manufactures, $4; banks, $5; steamships, $1.5; mortgages, $3.5. Britain had $100 million invested, 90 of it in railroads.

19 Ibid., cf. Jenks, , Our Cuban Colony, p. 136 Google Scholar, who argues that this figure is too high. “Commercial Cuba, 1903,” states that from 7 to 8 percent of Cuban land was held in fee simple by the United States.

20 Ibid. Typical of these promotions was the Cuba Review, a statistical and informational journal published by the Munson Steamship Lines.

21 Wright, Irene A., Cuba (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1910), p. 412 Google Scholar; The New York Times, August 10, 1899. The greatest purchase was by a syndicate of Americans and Cubans who bought close to 190,000 acres on Banes Bay for $400,000 at a court auction of land with unclear title and sold by a French syndicate who could not clear their title. Cuban land was in foreign hands prior to 1898 and continued to be so, although more and more Cubans became owners. Testimony of Andrew W. Preston of United Fruit Co., before subcommittee of Senate Committee on Relations with Cuba, in Cuban Sugar Sales (Washington: GPO, 1902), p. 280. Cf. Robinson, A. G., “Industrial and Commercial Conditions in Cuba,” Review of Reviews 26 (August 1902): 195–201.Google Scholar Even this opponent of Wood and the Military Government denied that there was a move to force the economic destruction of Cuba in order to buy sugar estates at a cheaper price. Land and estates were as cheap as they would ever be and they were not selling. See also, Cuba Bulletin and Review (July 1904), where tracts of unimproved sugar land, from 200 to 50,000 acres, were put up for sale at $2 and $20 per acre.

22 Ibid., Fitzgibbon, , Cuba and the United States, pp. 214–216 Google Scholar; cf. Hunter, J. M., “Investment as a Factor in the Economic Development of Cuba, 1899-1935,” Inter-American Economic Affairs 5 (Winter 1951): 82–100 Google Scholar, who argues American control came before 1920, and that there were $50 million invested in Cuba by Americans during 1900 alone. Cf. Report of the Secretary of War, 1899, p. 15, where Root cited the slow revival of industry due to mortgages, machinery destroyed, and capitalists hesitating to invest or loan because of the uncertainty they felt about the future government of the island in protecting investments. Also, see Wood, Civil Report, 3 (1902), Bliss Report: 20.

23 Wood papers, Wood to R. P. Hallowell, December 26, 1903. Wood indirectly forced his own brother-in-law out of the cement business in Cuba because he had to bid so low to get any contracts. Wood's engineers had orders to avoid contracts with his brother-in-law where possible. Later he may have been in the sugar business with the central Precioso as a partner in Smith Castro y Cía.

24 J. B. Foraker, Notes on a Busy Life (Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd Co., 1916), 2: 39-51; The New York Times, March 15,1899.

25 Jenks, , Our Cuban Colony, pp. 155–160 Google Scholar; The New York Times, May 19, 1899, February 3,1899.

26 “Commercial Cuba,” p. 400. See Table 2.

27 Cuba, Secretaría de Hacienda, Sección de Estadísticas, Industria Azucarera y sus derivados, primera parte, Riqueza Agrícola-Industrial, Zafras de 1901-1902, 1902-1903, 1937-1940; DÍA, C390-90, Wood to Magoon, May 8, 1902; Cuban Sugar Sales, testimony of Hugh Kelly, pp. 140-181; Robert J. Browne, pp. 324-332; Truman G. Palmer, pp. 370-380; Atkins, E., Sixty Years in Cuba (Cambridge: Priv. Print. Riverside Press, 1926)Google Scholar; Jenks, , Our Cuban Colony, pp. 129–131, 284Google Scholar; Willett, and Gray, , Weekly Statistical Sugar Trade Journal 30 (March 8, 1906)Google Scholar; R. Guerra Sánchez, et al., Historia de la Nación Cubana (La Habana: Editorial Historia de la Nación Cubana, 1952), 7: 228-229; United States Congress, Senate, “List of Claims now being defended before the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission” (Atty. Gen. to Senate), April 10, 1902, 57th Cong., 1st sess., doc. 299; Cuba Bulletin [later Cuba Review] 1 (1903), no. 1; 2 (1904), no. 4; 2 (1904), no. 6; 2 (1904), no. 7; 2 (1904), no. 8; 2 (1904), no. 9; 4 (1906), no. 3; 16 (1918), no. 4.

28 Cuban Sugar Sales, pp. 140-144, 381-382, 370, 371, 378, 380.

29 Ibid, pp. 331-332.

30 Ibid., pp. 370-371, 380-384. It may be merely a case of proximity for communications or like interests, but when the names are linked to owners and offices, control may be seen. The Rosario and Narcisa had offices at 80 Wall St., Constancia and Hormiguero at 69, B. H. Howell and Co., National Sugar Refining Co., Chaparra, Merceditas, Cuban American Sugar Co., worked out of 109 Wall St.; The Cuban Sugar Land Co., Tuinicú, Felix, Francisco and Czarnikow, Mc- Dougall brokers at 112 Wall St.; American Sugar Refining Co. and Trinidad at 117 Wall St. Of course many of these crossed over and interlaced. The point is that a few Americans were heavily interested in Cuban sugar, but in no way monopolized the industry.

31 Ibid., 140-144.

32 United States Congress, House, Secretary of War to Speaker of House, reply to Resolutions of February 24, 1902, March 1, 1902, 57th Cong., 1st sess., doc. 428, doc. 529, Wood to Root. This Congressional inquiry carried on after the Military Government retired from Cuba. Frank Steinhart, consul, reported from time to time, but the existing records are incomplete on the subject. See “Purchase of Land by Nonresidents in Cuba Since the Date of American Occupation, etc.,” 57th Cong., 2nd sess., 1902-1903, doc. 51; DIA C390-99, Piatt to Root, June 5, 1902, showing the senator wanted more specific listings of operating sugar estates and citizenship or nationality of owner. Magoon answered on the tenth that the Wood list was all the information that Wood and the War Department had at that time. The evidence does not permit a conclusion that the Military Government dragged its feet in the matter or that there was too little purchase of land to warrant apprehension. The scant information available does indicate fast turnover of land.

33 Cuban Sugar Sales, pp. 172 ff.

34 Cuba Bulletin [Review] for 1903-1906; Industria Azucarera, 1901/2, 1902/3.

35 Jenks, , Our Cuban Colony, p. 132.Google Scholar

36 Jenks, , Our Cuban Colony, p. 284 Google Scholar; Cuba Review 16 (March 1918); MacGaffey, W. and Barnett, C. R., Cuba (New Haven: Yale, 1962)Google Scholar, Table 4.

37 Cuba Review 16 (March 1918).

38 Berle, A. A. Jr., “The Cuban Crisis,” Foreign Affairs 39 (October 1960): 40–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Report of the Secretary of War, 1901-1902, p. 53; U. S. Tariff Commission, Efforts of the Cuban Reciprocity Treaty (Washington: GPO, 1929), pp. 1–14.Google Scholar Wood papers, Root to Wood, January 9, 1901; Root to Wood, February 9, 1901; Wood to Root, February 19,1901.