De los dominios del rey al imperio de la propiedad privada: Estructura y tenencia de la tierra en Cuba (siglos XVI–XIX) by Imilcy Balboa Navarro (review)

With the expansion of commercial agriculture, between the late eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century, Cuba maintained a model based on an agro-industrial export economy that acted to consolidate slave planters in the social strata. To consolidate the sugar plantation economy, planters needed slaves but also land. Slavery has been a recurring field of study in the Spanish, Cuban, and particularly U.S. historiography, but issues related to the usage and possession of land have remained a minor topic.

Pioneering research on land begin with Francisco Pérez de la Riva and his Origen y régimen de la propiedad territorial en Cuba (1946), but the only work, so far, entirely dedicated to the usage and possession of land is the work by Julio Le Riverend and his series of articles published in Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional, regrouped later in the book Problemas de la formación agraria de Cuba, siglos XVI-XVII (1992).¹ Since then, the topic of land has been treated only in works of a general nature or in recent years in so-called regional histories. Balboa’s De los dominios del rey al imperio de la propiedad privada covers this gap and is acknowledged as one of the major works of the historiography of Cuba, particularly in relation to agricultural issues. In contrast to Le Riverend—to whom the author notes she is indebted—Balboa is not limited to the study of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Her research delves deeper into the search for explanations in the sixteenth century to support the dynamics of socioeconomic transformations that took place during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; she then addresses the first decades of the twentieth century with the spread of the latifundio. All of this is documented with extensive archives sources located in Cuba and Spain; a documentary appendix is included. Given the depth and scope in the treatment of the issue, this book constitutes a precursor study for Hispanic Caribbean history, along with the works of Roberto Cassá and Michel J. Godreau, and Juan A. Giusti, for the cases of Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, respectively.

De los dominios del rey makes four fundamental contributions in my opinion. First is the combined analysis of social history with economic and legal factors. In this way, Balboa interconnects economic structure with the evolution of land tenure and the formation of social groups with the exploration of the political and legal conditions. Second is the consideration of the peculiarity of the island within the Spanish Empire. No previous study has reflected on the profuse Indies laws and the peculiarities of their application overseas. The third contribution is the review and adaptation of the main agricultural figures; this work overcomes the Western perspective to cover the island as a whole and takes into account factors that distinguished the agricultural model in each region of Cuba. Balboa focuses on social history and economic history, as well as on law and fiscal history, to remove coined stereotypes, which still persist in their insights, on the agrarian history of Cuba. Such concepts that have engendered confusion are subject to revision, including realengos, baldíos, propios, haciendas comuneras, censos and arrendamientos, composiciones, and confirmaciones. As the author notes: “no se trata de revisar la estructura agraria desde la perspectiva de la historia del derecho, sino de integrar la particularidad de la isla dentro de la generalidad del imperio español y esclarecer la construcción jurídica de las relaciones sociales” (17). The fourth contribution of this volume is to provide an internal analysis of agrarian transformations from a global perspective, including what was happening not only in Spain but also in the rest of Latin America, with special attention...