CubaPLUS Magazine

Around the Santa Lucía beach, in the central-eastern province of Camagüey, old remains of the Santa Isabel mill, operating in the Cuban 19th century, insist on telling us about a history of the rise of the sugar industry on the island in the second half of that century, an economic sector that came to occupy major sites in the slave society.

This sample of the old Cuban sugar industrial heritage, sometimes speaks more than words and a book, about how a mill worked from its very start and it becomes something interesting because it was the first to have the impulse of the first acquired steam engine in Cuba.

The Santa Isabel was owned by producer Francisco de Quesada y Agüero, who built it at the end of the 18th century. He baptized it with the name of one of his daughters and it operated for many years as a simple trapiche, run by Jamaicans who made raw sugar and its derivatives.

It was not until 1835 when it became a grinding mill for the sweet and juicy sugar cane, flattened on the Island, and the appreciated product full of sweetness began to be obtained. Already in 1873 the domain of Santa Isabel was supplied by cane fields planted in 40 caballerias of land. During the first half of the 19th century there was a natural process in which the mill and the prosperous estate passed into the hands of the founder's heirs.

In 1859, it was sold to Ángel del Castillo Agramonte, who paid 100,000 pesos for the property that had a crew of 65 slaves. The new owner of the business or industry in an innovative effort introduced steam engines, coming from North America, which gave an unprecedented boost to the industrial process, taking advantage of the powerful flow of the nearby Saramaguacán River, on whose banks the brand new industry was built, quite a novelty at the time.

At the start of the War of Independence on October 10, 1868, Ángel del Castillo freed his slaves and led a troop of cavalry with which he successfully attacked the Spanish military contingent, under the command of General Blas de Villate, Count of Valmaseda. They say that in revenge, the Spanish artillery shelled the Santa Isabel mill, which was almost demolished and only the remains have been preserved since then.

Del Castillo came to hold the ranks of Major General of the Liberation Army, in which he continued to fight until his death on September 9, 1869, in a heroic action with which he planned to cross the fortified and famous trail from Júcaro to Morón .