[MANUSCRIT] "à propos de l'isle de Cuba". Placard autographe de l'Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements des Européens dans les deux Indes

Autograph manuscript proof by Abbot Raynal, in revision of his famous Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements des Européens dans les deux Indes [History of the two Indies], one of the basic texts for the humanitarian movement and a keystone in the canon of Enlightenment thinking. Three pages in black ink on two leaves, a few words crossed out. Margins slightly browned, numbered plate label pastedown in margin. Pencil annotation from a previous bibliographer on the second leaf.
The insert replaces the last pages of the chapter entitled "Importance, government, population, crops and other works in Cuba"(book eleven) and was finally published posthumously in 1820 (vol. VI, pp. 230-237). The autograph pagination "266", "267" "268" in the upper part of the three pages matches that of the 1780 edition, which Raynal revises and extends with this manuscript.
This long addition by Raynal to the third edition of the 1780 text - censored in France - updates his History in order to take into account the economic and industrial growth of Cuba, which he describes as "the best boulevard of the Spanish empire in the New world ". Raynal provides a very in-depth study on the immense wealth on the island and how Spain exploited it, after the brief British occupation of Cuba. In eleven months, the English had brought in as many slaves as the Spanish had in fifteen years: “At the time in question, Cuba had a population of 170,362 people of all ages and sexes: 95,419 whites, including 484 secular clergymen, 496 monks and 145 nuns; 19,027 mulattoes and 11,588 free blacks; 5,716 mulattoes and 38,612 enslaved negroes [...]. Its prosperity increases day by day, because its slaves become more numerous day by day.”
Above all, Raynal provides a detailed description of Cuba's most important and famous production: tobacco, subject to a regime of direct administration by the Spanish crown: “ Since the time already quite distant from 1775, the colony has made very great progress […] Tobacco is one of the gifts made by America to Europe, where it has gradually become universally used. The tax authorities have quite generally taken over its exclusive sale everywhere, and the court of Madrid has set or followed the example of this monopoly. Every year, it obtains about fifty thousand quintals from Cuba, at a cost of less than three million euros, which it sells in the old and new hemispheres for more than twenty-five million. It is in a vast and superb building, built in 1756 in Seville, that tobacco is prepared. Twenty-eight mills powered by a few hundred mules, reducing it to dust. It owes its color, and the sweetness it brings to the palate and taste, to a fine reddish earth called almagro, which is only found near Cartagena in the village of Almazarson […] It is with the proceeds of its tobacco that Cuba pays its taxes; it is with that of his sugar that he supplies his needs […] He owes the means to multiply these instruments of fortune to the treasures paid by the tax authorities to Havana, which gives life to the rest of the island, and which must be considered as the best boulevard of the Spanish empire in the New World”. Raynal accurately predicted the progression of sugar cultivation from which Spain “would draw everything [it] consumed from this island alone” and which will soon make Cuba the leader of the sugar market in the 19th-century: “Sugar originating from Asia was cultivated in Spain quite anciently; but only for medicinal purposes. Consumption expanded after it was naturalized in the New World. The Castilians, who had brought it there, soon grew tired of the care it demanded ; and devoted themselves entirely to rest or mining, successively asked the Portuguese, the English, and the French. Finally, Cuba, which, like their other establishments, only harvested what its supply required, had some surplus which it passed on to the metropolis. It was the beautiful plains of Havana which set the example; followed by the districts of Sainte-Claire, Cuba, Bayamo, Port-au-Prince; and over time, by most others. In the eighteen jurisdictions there are barely two or three that have neglected this source of wealth. As long as the work extends, Spain will draw from this island alone all the sugar it consumes; and if emulation reaches the other islands of its dependence, we will see it enter into competition in all markets, with the nations in possession of supplying this most important commodity from the other hemisphere.
His study also includes investments that quickly made the port of Havana one of the leading places in the trading world: “At this time, shipyards were formed in Cuba, from which before 1775 fifty-eight ships of the line or frigates were produced, a number which has since greatly increased. […] They are built from cedar that is almost incorruptible, from oak that is harder than that of our forests. This famous city, which the pacification of 1763 wrested from the English, who had taken control of it a few months earlier, receives nearly four million pounds a year from the government for naval expenses; she receives two and a half million for the pay of the troops; it receives fourteen to fifteen hundred thousand pounds for the upkeep of the fortifications which, in the space of fifteen years, cost thirty million. The construction of these astonishing works constantly has occupied fifteen hundred criminals from whom Spain and Mexico have been purged, more than four thousand slaves, and a fairly large number of free men. The port of Havana is one of the best in the world. Fleets from all over the world [could anchor there at the same time]”.
An exceptional passage from this vast and influential history of international trade in the 18th century, which Raynal was keen to update while Cuba was experiencing unprecedented economic growth.