Agricultural Slight of Hand: Cuban Plantations as Fronts for the Illegal Trade in African Slaves

This paper will explore the nodes of contact that created a web of interactions within Cuba and between Cuba and Spain. The work will use the life of Francisco Aguirre as a window into the world of illegal trade in slaves during the period 1830 to 1855. Aguirre owned a coffee plantation in the 1830s that appear to be a working farm but on closer examination seems to have been a front for illegal imports of African slaves. By the 1850s Aguirre owned a sugar plantation but was continuing in his illegal activities. His actions will enable a discussion of the relationship between illegal slave trading and the rise of sugar to dominance in Cuban agriculture and the transformation of the Cuban economy to a more capitalist mode of production. This resulted in a large influx of foreign capital that transformed not only the economy but made Cuba more dependent on global markets as well as transforming the social structure of the free population. The case of Aguirre also opens an opportunity to explicate the corrosive effect illegal activity at high levels of Cuban society that contributed to corruption and likely delayed Cuban independence.