Report on the contributions of the island of Cuba presented by intendant Antonio Larrua, 1849

File — Box: 2, Folder: 1

Staff Only

Informe sobre las contribuciones de la Isla de Cuba dado a pedimento del Excmo. S.D. Antonio Larrua, intendente de la Habana en noviembre 1841, con notas posteriores

Go to file

Scope and Contents

This 23-paged booklet presents the reader with reports on taxes, imports, exports and other costs in Cuba from the year 1841. Antonio Larrua, intendant of Havana during this time, discusses this information using text, tables and figures. Some of the data presented comes from the 1841 Cuban census and discloses important information regarding the statistics on slavery, the exports of sugar, tobacco and other goods from the island, and the imports of grain from the United States. Aside from this information, Larrua also addressed the issue of contraband. Starting at page 19, the author described the issue and discussed strategies to cut the root of illicit trafficking. Penciled annotations can also been found throughout the pages of the booklet.

Dates

Creation: 1849

Access

The collection is open for research.

Biographical / Historical

This booklet gives the reader a glimpse into nineteenth-century Cuban economy. It was during this time that Cuba went through a boom in sugar production and quickly became one of the world's top sugar producers. For this reason, Cuba was highly dependent on slavery as a labor force and it was not abolished until 1886. The intendancy system began in Latin America in the late eighteenth century and worked to create administrative divisions of the viceroyalties. As seen through Antonio Larrua's writings, the intendant had many responsibilities including creating efficiency in the bureaucracy, eradicating any form of contraband or corruption in the system, expanding colonial markets and collecting the region's taxes.