La perdida de la Habana y las reformas borbonicas en Cuba, 1760-1773 (review)

La pérdida de la Habana y las reformas borbónicas en Cuba, 1760-1773. By CELIA MARÍA PARCERO TORRE. Estudios de Historia. Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de Educación y Cultura, 1998. Notes. Bibliography. 291 pp. Paper.

In an analysis of very crucial years in the history of colonial Cuba, and indeed in that of colonial Spanish America as a whole, Celia Parcero Torre argues that the roots of the so-called "Bourbon Reforms" in Cuba and, thereby, the sugar boom they cultivated on the island are found not in the eleven months that the British occupied Havana during the Seven Years War but in the period leading up to its capture. Parcero Torre credits the occupation with merely accelerating a reform program already in place: "To accept this [that the capture of Havana by the English was the point of departure for the sugar boom in Cuba] is to deny what was happening in Cuba in the previous years and, moreover, is to ignore some of the postulates and achievements of the reform policies carried out by the Bourbons" (p. 11).

Parcero Torre's work draws from the rich archival collections of Spain, primarily those of Seville and Salamanca, and from published collections of Cuban archival materials particular to the British capture and occupation of Havana. Her research does not take into consideration any British primary materials (there is only a sprinkling of English-language works in a selective bibliography). The resulting work, limited somewhat by the absence of a British angle, nonetheless represents a much-needed scholarly reinterpretation of a period that largely has been defined by the studies of nineteenth-century historians Antonio Bachiller y Morales, Pedro Guiteras, and Jacobo de la Pezuela.

The British occupation of Havana, long interpreted as the event that transformed the island and ultimately the empire, divides Parcero Torre's book. In the first two-thirds of the book, the author analyzes the situation in Havana at the beginning of the reign of Charles III, the preparations for war against the British, the growth of troop strength in Havana, the British attack upon the city and the actions of the Juan de Pardo government under the subsequent occupation. In the last third she dissects the actions of the Conde de Ricla, following the recapture of Havana--the attempt to improve defenses and the economic and administrative reforms that resulted.

Pacero Torre is most convincing in her argument that efforts to improve defenses in and around Havana, generally credited to the era that followed the British occupation, preceded the city's capture. Certainly, there were glaring oversights in the defense preparations, and the author points out several. For example, almost all available guns (92 percent of the cannon in Havana) were trained on the water in anticipation of a sea attack; although the total number of Spanish defenders in Havana probably surpassed 11,000, the number of able-bodied combatants fell far short of that; and communication failed to alert the Spanish of the impending British attack. Despite these shortcomings, Parcero Torre demonstrates that on the eve of the British attack, the Spanish defenders in Havana were relatively well armed and bolstered by an impressive naval force. Although it is difficult to argue against the transforming influence that the British occupation had on Cuba, and indeed on the empire as a whole, the author shows that in military defense, the core upon which Bourbon economic and administrative reforms were layered, real efforts preceded the British capture of Havana.

Parcero Torre delves into the minutia of military defense, perhaps limiting the book's appeal beyond a scholarly audience but certainly making for an excellent reference work. Unfortunately, in the absence of an illustration of eighteenth-century Havana (other than the cover illustration), references to fortifications, buildings, and topography are sometimes lost...