The West India Sugar Finance Corp. was incorporated on August 26, 1913 in Connecticut by a group of sugar brokers [1] to lend money to sugar companies in need of working capital.  Its initial business model called only for an initial inspection of the sugar companies to determine they were intrinsically sound, but did not require intervention or participation of any kind in the company's management.  The West India Sugar Finance Co. was controlled by the National Sugar Refining Co. (NSRC) and the firm B. H. Howell Son & Co., the largest dealer in molasses and molasses sugars in the country with half a dozen factories in New York and Philadelphia. James Howell Post (1859-1938) who was President of the NSRC [2] was a director of the West India Sugar Finance Co. and Thomas A. Howell who was Vice President of the NSRC was President of the West India Sugar Finance Co. Shortly after incorporation, Howell met with Hubert Edson (1867-1963) who convinced him that it was not wise to lend money to a sugar factory and leave management in hands of of the people that had made the loan necessary.  After the meeting, Edson was named president of the West India Management & Consultation Co., a new subsidiary organized to analyze the operation of sugar properties in preparation to taking over their management.   

The years between 1916 and 1922 were times of great prosperity for the sugar industry.  Sugar prices went sky high and sugar mills of all sizes, ages and efficiency were turning out extraordinary profits.  This era called the Dance of the Millions, changed the strategy at the West India Sugar Finance Corp. as there were no sugar properties in financial trouble that needed financing.  Their strategy went from financing others to developing new sugar mills.  By 1920, the West India Management & Consultation Co. was absorbed by the West India Sugar Finance Corporation after a very profitable few years in existence. As of 1919, the West India Sugar Finance Co. controlled the Cupey Sugar Co., the Central Alto Cedro Sugar Co. and the Palma Soriano Sugar Co. in Cuba .  César J. Ayala in his book American Sugar Kingdom states that in 1921 the West India Sugar Finance Corp. was a holding company that controlled the Consuelo, Barahona, Quisqueya, San Isidro, Las Pajas, San Marcos, San Carlos, Santa Fé, Porvenir and Ansonia sugar mills in the Dominican Republic.

Early in 1917, the West India Management & Consultation Co. was retained by the Hatton’s to survey a project in Barahona which required extensive investment in land and irrigation. Hubert Edson then president of the West India Management & Consultation Co. who was in charge of the survey, issued a favorable recommendation of the project only to the extent of the amount and quality of land available for cultivation and its irrigation possibilities.  The acquisition of land was then initiated, however, plans for the construction of a sugar mill were still a thought at the time. ​ The final project undertaken by the West India Sugar Finance Co. in 1920 before its reorganization was the construction of Ingenio Barahona.

Joseph “José” Eleuterio Hatton (1854-ca1916) was Cuban immigrant of British father and Cuban mother who through J. E. Hatton & Cia. together with also Cuban Mariano Hernandez, in 1882 established Ingenio San Isidro in the immediacies of what today is the San Isidro Air Force Base in Santo Domingo. In 1883 he acquired Ingenio La Fé in San Carlos with the purpose of expanding production at Ingenio San Isidro. Hatton secured financing for new machinery which he ended up under utilizing due to the lack of sugarcane to process.  Ingenio San Isidro was eventually foreclosed upon and became the property of the firm Bartram Brothers on or around 1896. Notwithstanding the setback, in 1916, Hatton and/or his son Richard, incorporated the Barahona Company, Inc. in New York to develop a sugar mill to be called Ingenio Barahona in the town of the same name.

In 1920 after an investment of some $13 million in land totaling about 45,000 acres, Hatton ran out of capital to invest in Barahona and in 1921 National City Bank's subsidiary, The International Banking Corp., foreclosed on its outstanding loans and acquired title of all the assets of Ingenio Barahona CxA, owner of the sugar mill and Barahona Company, Inc., owner of the lands.  The West India Sugar Finance Corp. through its subsidiary The Cuban-Dominican Sugar Development Syndicate acquired Ingenio Barahona CxA and the Barahona Company, Inc. from the International Banking Corp. and operated them as subsidiaries with Loring B. Farnum, previously manager ant Central Aguirre in Puerto Rico, in charge of overseeing its construction. Before the project was completed Farnum resigned his position.

The design of the new Ingenio at Barahona followed closely that of Central Tánamo in Cayo Mambí, Cuba with only minor changes.  Central Tánamo was developed by the The Atlantic Fruit & Sugar So., a subsidiary of the Atlantic Fruit Co., in 1921 on land where it grew bananas.  They wanted to transform these lands into a sugar property so they authorized the West India Management & Consultation Co. to design and build a very modern factory.  Construction of Ingenio Barahona was finished in time for its first grinding season in 1922-23 which was according to Hubert Edson in his book SUGAR - From Scarcity to Surplus made a poor showing in view of the amount of money that had been invested in the property. However, this was the end of disappointments, he states, as the second crop a decided upturn for the better.

Ingenio Quisqueya was established in 1892 by Cuban immigrant Juan Fernandez de Castro y Cruz in San José de los Llanos, it was the second sugar mill established in the San Pedro de Macorís area after Ingenio Consuelo. In 1920 the West India Sugar Finance Corp. acquired Ingenio Quisqueya and operated it under the corporate name Compañia Azucarera Dominicana whose Vice President was Edwin I. Kilbourne. In 1957 it was sold to Azucarera Haina CxA, one of the shadow companies of dictator Rafael L. Trujillo.

Cuban Dominican Sugar Development Syndicate

As a result of the sugar price crisis following the period of high prices known as the dance of the millions, in May 1920 the West India Sugar Finance Co. ran into financial difficulties. It reorganized itself as a holding company and changed its name to the Cuban Dominican Sugar Development Syndicate. All the properties owned at the time by West India Sugar Finance Co. were converted to to the new entity. The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer edition of September 4, 1920 states regarding the organization of the Cuban Dominican Sugar Development Syndicate:

“…In Santo Domingo it has bought the interests of Bartram Bros. in the Consuelo and San Isidro estates and controls the Barahona factory, which is now under process of development by the West India Sugar Finance Corp."   

Cuban Dominican Sugar Co.

The Cuban Dominican Sugar Co. was incorporated in Maryland on March 22, 1922 as a holding company to take over the sugar estates owned by the Cuban Dominican Sugar Development Syndicate.  The stockholders of the West India Sugar Finance Co. approved its liquidation in November 1924.  As a result, the Howell group then consisted only of the Cuban Dominican Sugar Co. and Sugar Estates of Oriente, Inc. owner of properties in Cuba. The subsidiary companies of the Cuban Dominican Sugar Co. were:

• Compañia Azucarera Dominicana CxA owner of Ingenio Consuelo and Ingenio San Isisdro in the Dominican republic, acquired from the firm Bartram Bros. who in turn had acquired them in foreclosure from Jose Eleuterio Hatton

• The Barahona Sugar Co. owner through its subsidiaries Ingenio Barahona CxA and Barahona Company, Inc. of some 45,000 acres of land and Ingenio Barahona in the town of the same name

• The Santa Ana Sugar Co. incorporated under the laws of Cuba to engage in the production of raw sugar, in the early 1920s it was sole owner of Central Santa Ana acquired from Azua & Escoriza, Central Hatillo acquired from  F. Fernandez and Central America acquired from F. Almeida, all located in the province of Oriente in Cuba.

In 1930 the Cuban Dominican Sugar Co. owned five mills in Santo Domingo and produced 45% of the total Dominican sugar crop. The six mills were Ingenio Barahona, Ingenio Consuelo and Ingenio San Isidro mentioned above, plus Ingenio Quisqueya, , Ingenio Las Pajas.

West Indies Sugar Corp.

Plans for the reorganization of the Cuban Dominican Sugar Co. and Sugar Estates of Oriente, Inc. were already under way in mid 1931 but did not go into effect until January 1933.  As a result of the reorganization plan, a new corporation, the West Indies Sugar Corp. was established.  The plan called for the West Indies Sugar Corp. to acquire substantially all assets of The Cuban Dominican Sugar Co. and through a wholly owned subsidiary, all the assets of Sugar Estates of Oriente, Inc.  As part of the reorganization, the West Indies Sugar Corp. would also own all common stock of the Barahona Sugar Co. In July 1942, shares of the West Indies Sugar Corp. began to be traded in the NY Stock Exchange.

In it issue of January 6, 1949 The New York Times reports that the West Indies Sugar Corp. acquired all the shares of Corporación Azucarera Boca Chica, owner of Ingenio Boca Chica near the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo. The West Indies Sugar Corp. continued to operate its Dominican Republic properties until 1957 when they were acquired by dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in a transaction through Rio Haina C por A.  The January 29, 1957 edition of The New York Times reported that

"...The lands acquired by the Haina Company total more than 270,000 acres.  Also covered by the transaction were the West Indies Sugar Co. railway lines and other lands and maritime communication facilities and in general all of the properties owned by the West Indies Sugar Co. five affiliate companies in the Dominican Republic: Compañia Azucarera Dominicana, Ingenio Barahona, Boca Chica Sugar Central, Compañia de Melazas Dominicanas and Compañia Agricola Dominicana..."

On January 21, 1957 Barahona Sugar Corp. together with Ingenios Consuelo, Quisqueya and Boca Chica were acquired from the West Indies Sugar Corp. by dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo through Azucarera Haina CxA.  The price paid was US$35.5 million with US$10 million paid at closing and the balance to be paid in three consecutive annual installments beginning on September 1957, which payments were all made as agreed.​

After Trujillo’s assassination in 1961, Ingenio Barahona became the property of the Dominican State by virtue of Law No. 6106 of 14 November 1962 that created the Consejo Estatal del Azúcar (CEA).  The 1997-1998 was the first grinding season and only one to this date that Ingenio Barahona did not operate. In April 1997 the Dominican legislature passed the Public Companies Capitalization Law which provided for the disposition of government properties owned by several companies including the Corporación Dominicana de Empresas Electricas Estatales (CDEEE), the Corporación de Fomento de la Industria Hotelera y Desarrollo del Turismo (CORPHOTELS) and the CEA. By virtue of this law, on December 13, 1999 the CEA entered into a thirty-year lease granting rights to lease and operate Ingenio Barahona to the Consorcio Azucarero Central (CAC), a Dominican-Franco-Canadian group. In 2000 administration of the CAC was transferred to a group of Dominican-Guatemalan investors.

Ingenio Barahona had a daily milling capacity of 4,536 m.t. of sugarcane or approximately 7% of the total national capacity.  At inception, it was the second largest sugar estate in the country after Central Romana, controlling 49,400 acres of land. ​​ Its first season was a disappointing one but from the second season on, the decision to build it proved to be a sound one.  Ingenio Barahona is the only sugar mill that has operated uninterruptedly since 1999 when the CEA decided to lease its sugar mills.

In January 2023, the Dominican Republic’s National Energy Commission (CNE) granted a concession to Consorcio Azucarero Central to develope a 7 MW biomass-fired energy plant. The facility will use sugarcane bagasse as biomass.

_______________________________________________________________

[1] Lorenzo D. Armstrong, F. S. Armstrong, James BlissCoombs, Loring D. Farnum, James Howell Post (President of NSRC) and his cousin Thomas Andrews Howell (President of the Cuban American Sugar Co. & VP of the NSRC) and was controlled by the NSRC and B. H. Howell, Son & Co. which was run by Thomas Andrews Howell (1877-1930).  Both the NSRC and the Cuban American Sugar Co., which controlled seven mills in Cuba, were interlocked with the National City Bank whose president James A. Stillman was an investor in B. H. Howell, Son & Co., therefore for all practical purposes, the West India Sugar Finance Co. was in a sense a National City concern.

[2] He was also chairman of the board and director of the Cuban-American Sugar Co. and president and director of the New Niquero and Guantanamo Sugar Companies. He was a director of the National City Bank of New York, the Title Guarantee and Trust Co., the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Co., the United States Casualty Co., the Manhattan Fire and Marine Insurance Co., the Brooklyn Edison Co., the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Co., the Fajardo Sugar Co., the Central Aguirre Associates, the Alliance Realty Co., the Holly Sugar Corp., the American Foreign Marine Insurance Association, the Underwood Elliott Fisher Co., the Westchester Insurance Co., the City Bank Farmers Trust Co., the Terminal Warehouse Co. and the New Amsterdam Casualty Co. and vice president and trustee of the Williamsburg Savings Bank.