Stavert, Zigomala & Co.: A Transnational History of the Anglo-Cuban Textile Trade During 1860s–1914

This article investigates how British textile traders navigated Cuban markets when Spain, Britain, and the United States competed to maintain or gain access to Cuba’s commercial activity. Cuba was one of the largest textile consumers in the Americas and a loyal market for British textiles, a significance hitherto overlooked by existing scholarship on Anglo-Hispanic trading relations. The article fills this gap by examining the interplay between local dynamics and imperial rivalry through the case of the Manchester-based textile commission merchant, Stavert, Zigomala, & Co. Through the cross-examination of the company’s business records, visual, material, and other archival and primary printed sources this article contends that a successful engagement with the Cuban market required a nuanced approach transcending formal trading structures, challenging traditional assumptions about commercial predominance based on forms of imperialism. The article’s argument is divided into three parts: 1) it locates Stavert, Zigomala within Cuban consumer culture; 2) it examines how traders responded to Cuban demand; and 3) it situates the role of British textile merchants in the context of Cuba’s international relations between approximately 1860 until1914.