Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century

by Alejandro de la Fuente, César García del Pino (With), Bernardo Iglesias Delgado (With)

Overview

Havana in the 1550s was a small coastal village with a very limited population that was vulnerable to attack. By 1610, however, under Spanish rule it had become one of the best-fortified port cities in the world and an Atlantic center of shipping, commerce, and shipbuilding. Using all available local Cuban sources, Alejandro de la Fuente provides the first examination of the transformation of Havana into a vibrant Atlantic port city and the fastest-growing urban center in the Americas in the late sixteenth century. He shows how local ambitions took advantage of the imperial design and situates Havana within the slavery and economic systems of the colonial Atlantic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807878064
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	02/01/2011
Series:	Envisioning Cuba
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Alejandro de la Fuente is University Center for International Studies Research Professor of History and Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Interest in modern Cuba has deflected scholarly attention away from the early history of the island. This excellent book reopens the history of early Cuba. It is a wonderful and singular re-creation of the history of Havana and of Cuban society based on a meticulous analysis of the earliest extant records. While there is much new here on slavery and commerce, as one would expect, there is also considerable new information on landholding, social organization, mining, and a host of other themes. De la Fuente's book will change our understanding of how the Hispanic Caribbean and the early Atlantic world developed. It establishes de la Fuente's reputation as a historian of the colonial world and one of the few who writes with equal authority on both colonial and modern Cuba.—Stuart B. Schwartz, Yale University

De la Fuente supplies, for the first time in any language, a comprehensive and thoroughly researched history of the establishment and growth of Havana, one of the New World's great cities. The mass of fascinating information contained in this work represents a major development of the broad picture sketched out by other historians of the early transatlantic exchanges. This well-written book should appeal to anyone interested in a colorful corner of the Caribbean, and it will be necessary reading for students of empire and slavery.—Robin Blackburn, University of Essex

De la Fuente skillfully harnesses primary source materials to generate an impressive analytical history of early colonial Havana. This book is a solid piece of scholarship and will certainly become a well-recognized work on Latin American colonial history, Cuban history, and Caribbean history.—Laird W. Bergad, Lehman College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

Editorial Reviews

An exciting and pioneering work. . . . Meticulous research in reconstructing Havana's initial economic, population, and urban growth.—Colonial Latin America Review

A most welcome addition to the emerging field of Atlantic studies and to Cuban historiography. . . . Sets the ground and leads the way. . . . An invitation for more Atlantic-oriented urban studies and conversations.—William and Mary Quarterly

A contribution to Atlantic history. . . . Recommended.—Choice

With this impressively researched and delightfully written publication, the early history of Havana is not only meticulously recaptured but also propelled into the category of exemplary studies for Cuba, the Caribbean, the Americas and the Atlantic World. . . . An enthralling, comprehensive and complex story of Havana in its formative stage. . . . An exceptional contribution to the entire history of the Americas.—International Journal of Maritime History

Provides remarkably broad coverage of a town undergoing dizzying transformation of its economy, demography, social structure, politics, urban form and racial order. . . . A major accomplishment.— H-NET

Explores a critical but neglected milieu in the formation of the early Atlantic world. . . . Wonderfully researched and vividly documented social historical account of early Havana.—Hispanic American Historical Review

Literally sets a new standard as the first study to analyze any Spanish Caribbean port city prior to 1650 within an "Atlantic" framework. . . . Should be indispensable reading for any serious student of colonial Cuba, or of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Caribbean in general. This book represents a major contribution to the historical literature on the early modern Iberian Atlantic world, and should be of considerable interest to scholars.—H-Caribbean

Provides a wealth of detail. . . . Serves as an urgent call to broaden our collective intellectual horizons.—The Americas

Complicates and enriches current Cuban historiography. . . . Researchers will return to this book time and again for precious details. . . . Belongs in any graduate seminar on the Atlantic not only because of its subject matter, but also as an example of patient, careful, and perceptive research and scholarship.—Canadian Journal of History

Based on impressive archival research. . . . The material is presented thematically, allowing the reader to develop a synthetic vision of how Havana's growth related to the emergent realities of the Atlantic world. . . . A lucid and definitive work.—Journal of Latin American Studies

From the Publisher