In 1514 Diego de Velazquez (1465-1524), the conqueror of Cuba, incorporated San Cristobal de la Habana as one of the initial seven villas of the island. Originally sited on the southern coast near the anchorage of Batabano, in 1519 officials moved Havana to its present location on the north coast where the enormous deep water bay and proximity to the Bahamas channel confirmed its strategic importance. French, Dutch, and English incursions prompted construction of elaborate fortifications, the most emblematic being the Morro castle at the harbor mouth. The city became the political and military capital of the colony in 1553, while the Bishop of Santiago de Cuba habitually resided in Havana until 1789 when an independent see was created.
Until the early nineteenth century Havana possessed a diverse economy. Foodstuffs, with an early emphasis on cattle ranching and leather exports, occupied the hinterlands and confirmed the city as the agricultural service center for the western half of the island. The royal tobacco monopoly was established in 1717. The Havana Company, founded in 1740, promoted the island’s produce, especially sugar. The bay constantly hosted the transatlantic treasure fleets, whereas the city furnished maintenance and provisioning. Complementing the expanding shipyard, which constructed the world’s largest wooden vessels in the eighteenth century, were a canon and anchor foundry.
Following the British capture and occupation of Havana in 1762, Spain introduced numerous reforms— taxation with consent of the habaneros, a monthly transatlantic mail service, and massive new fortification construction with free and prisoner labor. The Free Trade Act of 1765 opened Havana to nine Spanish ports, while an act passed in 1778 opened additional American ports. The creation of white, mulatto, and black militia companies provided new, wider reaching opportunities. Havana ranked as the ”key to the New World.”
The quickening rise of the sugar oligarchy at the end of the eighteenth century coincided with the destruction of the neighboring island of Saint Domingue (later Haiti), stimulating monoculture. The loss of Spanish colonies in the early nineteenth century diminished Havana’s turntable function, but increased free trade, especially in sugar and tobacco, and confirmed a new, prosperous economy.
