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Sugar Mill, Matanzas Province, Cuba (1898) Spain began growing sugarcane in Cuba in 1523, but it was not until the 18th century that Cuba became a prosperous colony. The outbreak of the Haitian Revolution in 1791 influenced Cuban planters to demand the free importation of slaves and the easing of trade relations in an effort to replace Haiti as the main sugar producer in the Caribbean.
Cuba's agricultural economy centered primarily on the sugar industry, serving as the cornerstone of the nation's exports. U.S. influence, particularly from companies like the United Fruit Company , was pervasive, with significant investments in large-scale sugar plantations and the production and export of sugar and tropical fruits to the ...
Cuba's foreign relations also became deeply tied to sugar. Castro visited the Soviet Union to secure a sugar deal, while Che Guevara traveled to China to secure a sugar deal. After Castro's return from the Soviet Union, the Ministry of Sugar was established in Cuba, and developed a plan to produce 47 million tons of sugar between 1965 and 1970 ...
Sugar was long "king" in Cuba as a hundred mills churned out raw sugar for domestic consumption and export. Production of sugar cane is dominated by state mills in Cuba's Communist-run economy.
The sugar industry was one of the more highly mechanized sectors of the Cuban economy, and its machinery came from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. [ 2 ] : 80 After the disintegration of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , spare parts became increasingly hard to come by.
The first sugar harvest happened in Hispaniola in 1501; and many sugar mills had been constructed in Cuba and Jamaica by the 1520s. [ 45 ] The approximately 3,000 small sugar mills that were built before 1550 in the New World created an unprecedented demand for cast iron gears , levers, axles and other implements.
When Spain opened the Cuban trade ports, it quickly became a popular place. Cubans began to use water mills, enclosed furnaces, and steam engines to produce higher-quality sugar at a much more efficient pace. The boom in Cuba's sugar industry in the 19th century made it necessary for the country to improve its transportation infrastructure.
Predictably, Cuba’s dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel blamed the U.S. trade embargo for the power outages. But after 65 years of listening to the same excuse for the island’s backwardness, few Cubans ...