Trading company with Cuban and Spanish shareholders, created December 18, 1740, to ensure that Cuban tobacco would be exported exclusively to Spain. The company received a monopoly of the transatlantic trade, not only in tobacco but of sugar, too, plus the right to import consumer goods free of duty. It could also import slaves – it brought in over 5,000 in its first 20 years at a fine profit for its directors. In return, the company undertook to suppress contraband, build and supply warships, and provision the garrison in Florida. During these 20 years it also purchased Spanish products such as flour and fabrics and sold them in Cuba at a handsome profit. The low prices the company paid for tobacco seem to have discouraged its cultivation, whereas the shipping space it provided helped encourage an increase in sugar production. There were, however, complaints over the limited amount of such space (three ships a year), and the high prices and poor quality of the European goods it imported. Spain’s trade with other countries of its empire was restricted to similarly privileged bodies, such as Venezuela’s 1728 Caracas Company.
The British occupation helped make Cubans fully aware of the poor prices they had been getting for their produce and how much they had been paying for imports. The company also suffered directly. Everything it possessed in Havana was seized and sold off as enemy government property. A royal cédula of 1765 put an end to its monopoly, although the disruption of British trade during the American Revolutionary War gave it a brief new lease on life, its dividends reaching 10% a year.
