| This research deals with the multiple technological manifestations connected to the Puerto Rican sugar industry---with a wide Caribbean, South American and European comparative background---which made possible that sugar production occupied the most important economic branch and for the longest time, of the 19th Century. It covers a lesser studied period in Puerto Rican historiography, from 1778, when a Royal Decree sought to reconcile the criollo (Puerto Rican) and Metropolitan interests in favor of an industrial agricultural economy, to 1873 when an era of economic and social transformations came to an end crowned by the Abolition of slavery and of the day-laborers workbook regime, at the same time that a new stage began with the sugar factory system (Centrales). The research is complemented by and ample analysis of the preceding historical context from the beginnings of the Spanish conquest of America, with emphasis on sugar production and technological transfers akin to Spain and Portugal. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
