Cuba’s 10-Million-Ton Sugar Harvest

After Haiti’s sugar industry collapsed following the 1804 Revolution, Cuba’s industry soared to become the Caribbean’s largest, with the United States its most important customer. Cuban sugar brokers, resenting Spain’s corrupt and inefficient administration, sought closer connections and even annexation to the United States. Meanwhile, Americans bought Cuban sugar estates and worked and intermarried with Cubans. By the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898, American interests controlled Cuba’s sugar industry; after the war the United States granted Cuban sugar preferred status in the American market. See spanish-american war.