Economic Activities
 Definitions
 Spanish
Colonies
 Mining Industry
 Tobacco Industry
 African Labour
 Cuba Sugar
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EconomicOf or related to an economy, the system of production and
management of material wealth.
Using the minimum of time or resources necessary for
effectiveness.
Economic ActivityIncludes mining(gold & silver),
Sugar production,
Mercantilism, convoy system,
Casa de Contracion (trading),
Crops,
Labour (Indians and Africans),
Asiento,
Mule train
Natural resources
 Cuba-1511
 Puerto
Rico- 1508
 Jamaica- 1509
 Hispaniola- 1496
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Countries involved: Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico
and Cuba
Controlled by the Crown and Spanish Crown
Only applied to gold and silver
Copper mines were exploited by colonist in the
following colonies: Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and
Puerto Rico in the 16th century
This was the same in Spanish settlers had to register
their mines with Colonial authority and had to apply
Royal smelters for tax assessment
Settlers had to pay a portion of gold mined to the
Crown
Eric Williams estimated that in 1503 the total royal
income from the indies was over 5 million ducats.
 Tobacco
was grown in Cuba, St.Kitts,
Barbados
 Spanish grew tobacco for export to Europe
 Tobacco smoking became popular
The Spanish Caribbean economy had a variety of
industries that needed a substantial amount of
labour.
 The sugar plantations and mines generally
employed large numbers of women, children and
men.
 Indigenous Tainos could no longer meet these
labour demands, so the church suggested that
enslaved Africans should be imported.
 Enslaved Africans were already in the Spanish
society, so this system would easily be extended
to the Caribbean.
 The Spanish were the first to introduce slaves to
the Caribbean.
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 Cuba
changed from an under populated,
underdeveloped settlement of small towns,
cattle ranches and tobacco farms to a
community of large sugar and coffee
plantations.
 Spanish planters of the W.I. attempted to
trade a supply of negro slaves, but were
given to understand that they could not
lawfully do so, hereby grants license to
Spanish subjects in America to purchase from
(Caribee Islands andJamaica supplies of
negro slaves…” (Augier and Gordon 44).
 Trade
was predominant within Spanish
colonies as capt. Nathaniel Uring states “ We
lay at this place trading… in which time
Spanish merchants at Panama… they came
over the Isthmus to trade with us. (52)
 The asiento (or license to trade) was granted
to traders to prohibit illicit trading by the
Spanish.
 Augier,E.R,Gordon,S.C.
(1962) Sources of
West Indian History, Longman Caribbean;
Trinidad.
 Shepherd,V ,Beckles,H. (2000) Caribbean
Slavery in the Atlantic World, Ian Randle
Publishers Limited; Jamaica.
 Beckles, H, Shepherd, V.A.(2004) Liberties
Lost- Societies and Slave Systems, Cambridge
University Press; New York.