Spain in Cuba: Policies, Structures, Economic Practices, and Colonial Relations

Abstract

The Spanish colonial regime in Cuba was altered at the end of the 18th century and augured great economic growth based on export agriculture and the slave trade, which worked in line with the interests of the elite island producers. However, Spain lacked a market for the Cuban supply, thus leading the regime to support itself through business relations between the island’s and metropole’s elites and through the extraction of the territory’s revenue. This system (considered anachronistic due to its divergence from the British model, though its conditions were different as well) lasted 140 years and obtained a level of economic expansion unequaled in the English dominions. The following pages will present an analysis of the elements that constituted this system and an explanation of how, with time, the aforementioned harmony of Spanish-Cuban interests weakened due to the crisis of slavery and the concentration of colonial trade in the United States, factors that contributed to the end of Spanish rule.