Havana

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Havana

Havana, Cuba's capital and principal seaport, with 2.3 million inhabitants in the city and 3 million in the metropolitan area (2005 estimate). Founded by Diego de Velázquez in 1514 on the island's southern coast, San Cristóbal de la Habana was transplanted in 1519 to its present location because of both the magnificent natural harbor and the proximity to the Gulf Stream. Becoming the colonial capital in 1553, the city lay on the western side of the bay, which bottlenecked into an easily defended passage at its mouth. Eventually, the massive Morro castle was erected at the entrance's eastern shore.

Known as the "Key to the New World," Havana commanded the exit from the Caribbean Sea and the route to and from Veracruz, Mexico. As the imperial commercial system evolved during the sixteenth century, Havana's bay harbored the Mexican treasure fleet returning to Seville and the southern fleet on its return voyage from Cartagena. Service industries enriched the city, and its immediate hinterland enjoyed a periodic market for foodstuffs, although the economy generally remained underdeveloped until the eighteenth century.

When Spanish mercantilist strategy broadened to emphasize tropical agricultural products as well as precious metals, Havana's hinterland responded, and the city assumed the role of exporter. In 1717 the royal tobacco monopoly began its century-long existence, emphasizing the importance of the Cuban leaf. The Havana Company, established in 1740, promoted the marketing of sugar in Spain. The 1765 Regulation of Free Trade for the Caribbean Islands permitted Havana access to nine Spanish ports and enhanced marketing flexibility. The Free Trade Act of 1778, especially when broadened to include Veracruz in 1788, afforded Havana the additional role of entrepôt for important portions of the Mexican and Caribbean trade. Although the Havana Company quickly faded from importance after 1765, local entrepreneurs plunged Havana's hinterland into the sugar revolution of the late eighteenth century. Thus, as deregulation dismantled the historic convoy system that had assigned Havana central importance, it simultaneously provided the port with new, larger opportunities.

During the early nineteenth century, after revolution had destroyed the sugar economy of Saint-Domingue, Cuban production assumed world leadership. Although the collapse of Spain's continental empire diminished Havana's function as entrepôt, the city, now permitted international free trade, emerged as a major commercial center owing to continuing demand for its sugar and tobacco, a role set to endure into modern times. The population of Havana, counted at 41,000 in 1778, had climbed to 94,000 by 1827, and some 240,000 at century's end.

Heavily fortified and stoutly garrisoned, strategic Havana ranked as the most important strongpoint of the Spanish Empire. A major naval base, Havana also developed into a primary shipbuilding center during the eighteenth century. Following Havana's capture in 1762 and the subsequent eleven-month British occupation, Spain invested huge quantities of Mexican silver to enhance its military. Defense waned as a major industry following Spain's loss of its continental colonies, but Havana regained its historic role as a strategic military base after Cuban independence, during the United States' protectorate. Although this role diminished following World War II, it reappeared forcefully when Cuba fell under Soviet influence during the Castro dictatorship, again earning its capital from massive outside subsidies.

The government devoted funds in the 1980s to restore La Habana Vieja, the colonial historic center UNESCO designated as a World Heritage Site in 1982. Further measures to attract international tourists to Havana followed the Soviet Union's collapse in the 1990s and Cuba's ensuing economic crisis known as the "special period." In response, the government eased restrictions on foreign investment, and since the late 1990s tourism in Havana has grown significantly, and the city continues to expand westward.

Nevertheless, Havana, once one of the world's most beautiful, vibrant cities, experienced hard times under the Castro regime and its commercial isolation from its American economic base.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hugh Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (1971).

Leví Marrero, Cuba: Economía y sociedad, 15 vols. (1972–1992), especially vols. 1-2, 7-10, and 12.

John Robert McNeill, Atlantic Empires of France and Spain: Louisbourg and Havana, 1700–1763 (1985).

Jaime Suchlicki, Cuba: From Columbus to Castro, 3d ed. (1990).

Allan J. Kuethe, "Havana in the Eighteenth Century," in Atlantic Port Cities: Economy, Culture, and Society in the Atlantic World, 1650–1850, edited by Franklin W. Knight and Peggy K. Liss (1991).

Additional Bibliography

Colantonio, Andrea, and Robert B. Potter. Urban Tourism and Development in the Socialist State: Havana during the "Special Period." Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.

Estrada, Alfredo José. Havana: Autobiography of a City. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Kapcia, Antoni. Havana: The Making of Cuban Culture. New York: Berg, 2005.

Segre, Roberto, Mario Coyula, and Joseph L. Scarpaci. Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 1997.

Tapia-Ruano, Osvaldo de. La Habana en el siglo XXI: Urbanismo actual. Miami, FL: Ediciones Universal, 2006.

Allan J. Kuethe

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture