Hacienda La Esperanza in Manatí, Puerto Rico

La Casa Del Marquez, Hacienda La Esperanza, Manatí, Puerto Rico

La Casa Del Mar­quez, Hacien­da La Esper­an­za, Man­atí, Puer­to Rico

Back in Feb­ru­ary of 2014 we vis­it­ed “Las Cabezas de San Juan”, a 438 acre nature reserve run by the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust (Fide­icomiso de Con­ser­vación de Puer­to Rico).  This time my wife and I head­ed west towards the town of Man­atí to vis­it Hacien­da La Esper­an­za, a 2,220 acre prop­er­ty that was once a thriv­ing sug­ar hacienda.

Hacien­da La Esper­an­za is also run by the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust, and the expe­ri­ence this time was just as delightful.

Vis­i­tors must make reser­va­tions in advance.  No walk-ins are allowed.  I under­stand why they do this, but I also find it self serv­ing in terms of cus­tomer ser­vice.  Fur­ther­more, I find their web­site cum­ber­some and con­fus­ing.  If you don’t show up you’ll lose your mon­ey.  Entrance fees vary per tour.  We paid $12 per vis­i­tor plus a 7% tax.

In any case, the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust’s URL is: https://reservaciones.paralanaturaleza.org/index.jsf and their tele­phone num­ber is 787–722-5882.  You can also call the Hacien­da direct­ly at 787–854-2679 for more infor­ma­tion and directions.

Oth­er than these minor issues with their web­site the expe­ri­ence was a blast!!!

We were instruct­ed to arrive at 1:00pm for a tour that was sched­uled to start at 1:30pm.  We were also pro­vid­ed with releas­es that every vis­i­tor must sign before embark­ing on the tour.

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-07-300px

When you see this sign you’ll be almost there.
Click on image to see it larger.

Zorai­da and I arrived exact­ly at 1:00pm.  A few min­utes lat­er our guide José arrived and intro­duced him­self.  He was a young and pleas­ant man who proved to be quite knowl­edge­able through­out the tour.  The tour start­ed at exact­ly 1:30pm with one guide and a par­ty of six.

Hacien­da La Esper­an­za is the largest prop­er­ty owned by the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust and, like its sis­ter prop­er­ty in Fajar­do, it is con­sid­ered a nat­ur­al reserve.  How­ev­er, that’s where the sim­i­lar­i­ties end.  Hacien­da La Esper­an­za was one of Puer­to Rico’s most impor­tant sug­ar hacien­das dur­ing the 19th century.

The 19th cen­tu­ry was pep­pered with eco­nom­ic ups and downs that had a direct effect on the Island’s social and eco­nom­ic real­i­ties.  In Europe, the Napoleon­ic Wars affect­ed the move­ment of ships towards the colonies, which in turn had a neg­a­tive effect on the move­ment of mer­chan­dize back to Europe.  This made it hard­er for the Span­ish crown to col­lect taxes.

In 1815 King Fer­nand the VII of Spain signed the Roy­al Decree of Grants (Real Cédu­la De Gra­cia) which allowed the Span­ish colonies to trade with oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries as well as with the Unit­ed States.  This brought pros­per­i­ty back to the colonies because it opened new mar­kets; and —of course— it allowed the crown to col­lect its tax­es.  It also allowed for the influx of tax-free machin­ery and tools which mod­ern­ized pro­duc­tion, increased effi­cien­cy and result­ed in greater prof­its for the sug­ar barons of the time.

In Puer­to Rico the 19th cen­tu­ry was all about sug­ar and Hacien­da La Esper­an­za was one of the places where it all happened.

Dur­ing the first decade of the 19th cen­tu­ry a retired Span­ish sol­dier by the name of Don Fer­nan­do Fer­nán­dez arrived in Puer­to Rico.  He became a slave trad­er and lived his first years on the Island in the city of San Juan.  How­ev­er, the eco­nom­ic down­turn caused by the Napoleon­ic Wars was putting a dent in his business.

In 1827, after the Roy­al Decree of Grants, don Fer­nan­do saw the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op a plot of land that he had received from the King of Spain in the town of Bayamón, about 25 west of San Juan.  He estab­lished Hacien­da San­ta Ana, a sug­ar hacien­da that pro­duced “Ron El Bar­ril­i­to”, which is still con­sid­ered one of Puer­to Rico’s best rums today.

Busi­ness was boom­ing and Don Fer­nan­do decid­ed to expand his oper­a­tions.  He start­ed explor­ing the north cen­tral region of the Island and arrived at the area that would even­tu­al­ly become Hacien­da La Esper­an­za.  The land was humid, flat, fer­tile and next to a riv­er.  This guar­an­teed nat­ur­al irri­ga­tion as well as a means of trans­porta­tion for his products.

The exact year when Don Fer­nan­do estab­lished Hacien­da La Esper­an­za is not clear but it appeared in the 1840 edi­tion of the Man­atí Reg­is­ter of Hacien­das; so it was estab­lished some­time dur­ing the 1830’s.

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-12-300px

La Casa Del Mar­quez. Click on image to see it larger.

Our first stop was at “La Casa Del Mar­quez” (the house of the Mar­quez).  Mar­quez was a Span­ish nobil­i­ty title that was below duke and above earl (more about why it was called this way in a while).

La Casa Del Mar­quez” is an exam­ple of the opu­lence that char­ac­ter­ized the fam­i­lies that trad­ed in sug­ar, cof­fee and slaves dur­ing the 19th cen­tu­ry in Puer­to Rico.  The build­ing itself isn’t an orig­i­nal.  That one was destroyed by Hur­ri­cane Georges in 1998.  But it’s an exact repli­ca made with dif­fer­ent materials.

Luck­i­ly, the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust hired an archi­tect back in 1976 to pro­duce detailed draw­ings of the orig­i­nal struc­ture.  Lat­er on, when it was destroyed, it was those draw­ings that allowed them to bring it back to its orig­i­nal splen­dor.  Even so, there were cer­tain wood species used in the orig­i­nal struc­ture, like “moralón”, “ortegón” and native mahogany that are pro­tect­ed today.  So instead the actu­al ver­sion was built with “capá pri­eto” for ceil­ings and floors, pine for inte­ri­or and exte­ri­or sid­ing and cedar for win­dows and doors.

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-01-300px

Inte­ri­or of La Casa Del Mar­quez. Check out the “ausubo” columns. Click on image to see it larger.

And there’s still anoth­er fea­ture that you should­n’t miss.  Take a look at the build­ing’s columns.  They’re made of ausubo, a wood so hard that you have drill it first before dri­ving a nail into it.

Oth­er inter­est­ing fea­tures inside “La Casa Del Mar­quez” are a col­lec­tion of 389 machetes and a “paño de querel­las” (cloth of com­plaints) that was donat­ed by a group of weavers from the town of Moca on the west­ern coast of the Island.

Machetes were the tool of the trade in a 19th cen­tu­ry sug­ar hacien­da.  But not all machetes were cre­at­ed equal.  The longer ones were called sables and they were used by the peo­ple in charge of “super­vis­ing” the slaves.  The short­er ones (called mochas) were used by the slaves to pre­vent them from hurt­ing each oth­er acci­den­tal­ly and from using them as weapons dur­ing a pos­si­ble rebel­lion.  Final­ly, the curved vari­ety was used in com­bi­na­tion with a “gara­ba­to” (hook-shape piece of wood) to cut the “pan­go­la” grass that grew next to the sug­ar cane.

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-05-300px

Machete col­lec­tion. Click on image to see it larger.

None of the machetes that you’ll see at Hacien­da La Esper­an­za were the orig­i­nals used by the slaves.  How­ev­er, they are orig­i­nal pieces col­lect­ed by Puer­to Rican arche­ol­o­gist Ovidio Dávi­la through­out the Caribbean.  They are exact­ly like the ones used by the slaves back in the 19th century.

Back in the 1800’s life was pret­ty tough for slaves liv­ing in sug­ar hacien­das.  They lived in bar­racks, slept on the floor, bathed once a week and did their neces­si­ties in a whole in the bar­rack floor.  The stench was so bad that the build­ing was erect­ed down wind from “La Casa Del Marquez”.

The king of Spain was well aware that there had already been a slave rebel­lion in Haiti between 1791 and 1804.  Some coun­tries were against slav­ery and oth­ers –like Spain— con­sid­ered it per­fect­ly “nor­mal”.  So in 1826 the king cre­at­ed some­thing called “el lamen­to” which estab­lished the exact rights and oblig­a­tions for both slaves and slave owners.

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-02-300px

Paño de querel­las. Click on image to see it larger.

If a slave felt like his “rights” had been vio­lat­ed he could bring the mat­ter before the town major, who would lis­ten to both par­ties and decide who was right.  Of course, most of the time the slave own­er would be “right”, which is why the “paño de querel­las” con­tains the only five com­plaints filed against Hacien­da La Esper­an­za.  And just to give you a lit­tle taste of what it was like to be a slave dur­ing 19th cen­tu­ry Puer­to Rico here’s a short list of a slaves “rights”:

  • Two meals a day
  • Three changes of clothes a year
  • If a female slave became preg­nant her baby would auto­mat­i­cal­ly be born a slave
  • The baby’s first name would be a catholic name
  • His/her last name would be his master’s
  • At the age of six he/she would start working
  • If a slave reached the age of 60 (which very few did) he/she would be grant­ed freedom

Across a plot of land, about 100 yards long, is where the hacien­da’s sug­ar mill (trapiche) was located.

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-04-300px

Blood sug­ar mill (trapiche de san­gre). Click on image to see it larger.

Hacien­da La Esper­an­za was a mod­el of effi­cien­cy from the very begin­ning, albeit for a vari­ety of rea­sons.  The orig­i­nal hacien­da had a blood sug­ar mill (trapiche de san­gre).  Some his­to­ri­ans say that it was called that way because some­times the slaves would get their arms caught in the rollers.  How­ev­er, our guide José insist­ed that the real rea­son was because it was pow­ered by slaves and oxen and not by any alter­nate form of energy.

José insist­ed that the lat­er steam oper­at­ed sug­ar mill could just as well be called a blood sug­ar mill because slaves got their arms caught in that one as well.

So, if the orig­i­nal sug­ar mill was pow­ered by oxen and slaves, what made the orig­i­nal hacien­da so effi­cient.  It was the sug­ar cane itself.  The sug­ar cane plant­ed at Hacien­da La Esper­an­za was brought all the way from the Island of Tahi­ti in the Pacif­ic ocean.  It was called “Ota­heiti” and it had three very impor­tant characteristics:

  • Bet­ter yield (between 1/4 and 1/3 more)
  • Bet­ter burn­ing bagasse (it burned bet­ter and hotter)
  • It matured quick­er, which allowed for more sug­ar crops a year

Dur­ing the 1850’s the Unit­ed States and Europe entered the sug­ar mar­ket.  The Unit­ed States made it out of Maple trees and Europe out of sug­ar beets.  This sat­u­rat­ed the mar­ket and brought the price of sug­ar down.  The only way to com­pete in such a mar­ket was to reach greater effi­cien­cies and that’s exact­ly what hap­pened at Hacien­da La Esperanza.

But it was not Don Fer­nan­do who took the oper­a­tion to the next lev­el.  It was his son José Ramón Demetrio Fer­nán­dez y Martínez (remem­ber him?).  José Ramón was an edu­cat­ed man who had stud­ied busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion in New York and Lon­don.  He was also will­ing to “bend the rules” every once in a while to achieve his objectives.

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-09-300px

Steam oper­at­ed sug­ar mill man­u­fac­tured in New York. Click on image to see it larger.

Dur­ing the 1860’s he took over the hacien­da and quadru­pled pro­duc­tion.  How did he do that?  Well, the first thing that he did was to get a loan from a bank in Lon­don. With that mon­ey he did two things:  he bought a small pier on the delta of the “Río Grande de Man­atí”, on the north­west cor­ner of Hacien­da La Esper­an­za.  Then in 1861 he trav­elled to New York and bought a brand new steam-oper­at­ed sug­ar mill.  Final­ly he had the pieces of the sug­ar mill deliv­ered to his pri­vate port, brought up riv­er to the hacien­da and secret­ly assem­bled inside his pro­duc­tion build­ing.  Oh, and he did­n’t pay any tax­es for the machin­ery either.  What a guy!

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-08-300px

Steam oper­at­ed sug­ar mill. Click on image to see it larger.

The new mill not only pro­duced four times the yield but it also extract­ed all the juice from the sug­ar cane in one pass.  This result­ed in dri­er bagasse that burned better.

In 1869 the hacien­da was doing so well that Don Ramón was award­ed the title of “Mar­quez De La Esper­an­za”, which is why the huge house on the prop­er­ty is called “La Casa Del Marquez”.

Sug­ar pro­duc­tion at Hacien­da La Esper­an­za was a unique process in which noth­ing was wast­ed.  Once the sug­ar cane went through the mill you were left with two byprod­ucts: cane juice and bagasse.  The next step was called the “Jamaican Train”.

The truth is that it was­n’t actu­al­ly a train.  It was called that way because it con­sist­ed of a series of ket­tles (per­oles) that decreased in size and the process was invent­ed in Jamaica.  The “Span­ish Train” which pre­ced­ed it used one fur­nace under every ket­tle while the “Jamaican Train” used one fur­nace under­neath the small­est ket­tle and a duct that dis­trib­uted the heat to all four ket­tles.  This result­ed in a more effi­cient use of the bagasse.

hacienda-la-esperanza-manati-puerto-rico-by-gps-11-300px

Orig­i­nal ket­tles from the Jamaican Train. Click on image to see it larger.

The cane juice would be poured into the fur­thest and largest ket­tle where it was brought up to a boil.  Once some of the water had evap­o­rat­ed the result­ing syrup would be move to the next ket­tle using giant spoons.  This process would go on until the syrup reached the last (small­est) ket­tle and became molasses. From there it was removed and placed in giant cones where it was left to cool off and become mus­co­v­a­do sug­ar (raw sugar).

Of course, this last stage had its own per­ils.  Hot juice would fre­quent­ly drip from the giant spoons burn­ing the slave’s arms and legs.  That is why, even with all the hard­ships that came with cut­ting sug­ar cane in the fields, the slaves pre­ferred it to work­ing in the sug­ar mill or at the Jamaican Train.

Dur­ing its gold­en era in 1870 Hacien­da La Esper­an­za had 152 slaves, but in 1873 slav­ery was abol­ished in Puer­to Rico and that spelled the end for the hacien­da in 1880.  By then José Ramón had tak­en up gam­bling and he lost a great deal of his for­tune.  The rest was seized by the bank that loaned him the mon­ey for the sug­ar mill.

Our tour end­ed at the Jamaican Train and we head­ed back to the park­ing lot.  On the way back there was some­thing that caught my atten­tion.  It was the absolute silence.  I could just imag­ine what that place must have been like back in the 1800’s and now you could bare­ly hear an occa­sion­al bird.

 

This is tru­ly a place that every­one should vis­it.  Not only because it puts a lot of things that we usu­al­ly take for grant­ed into per­spec­tive, but because it gives us a rare glimpse into what life was like just a cen­tu­ry and a half ago.  Besides, the steam oper­at­ed sug­ar mill at Hacien­da La Esper­an­za is in per­fect oper­at­ing order and it’s the only one of its kind left in the world!

Once again my hat goes off to the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust (Fide­icomiso de Con­ser­vación de Puer­to Rico).  Zorai­da and I loved it!!!

©2015,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590

connect-with-me-on-linkedin

Learn More About Puerto Rico

OLD SAN JUAN Enjoy an adven­ture through cen­turies of history
EL YUNQUE NATIONAL FOREST Explore the only trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the U.S.
LET’S HIT THE BEACH Have fun at one of Puer­to Rico’s world renown beaches.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”