Manuel Ramón Moreno Fraginals

Historian, economist, professor and publicist. He belonged to the generation of historians that emerged during the republic and made significant contributions to Cuban historiography.

He was born in La Habana. His parents were: Elpidio Fausto Moreno Uría and Juana Bautista Fraginals Collazo. He studied at the Universidad de La Habana, where he graduated in Civil Law in 1943. The professors who most influenced his education were Elías Entralgo, Roberto Agramante and Herminio Portell Vilá.

In 1942 he received the first prize from the Sociedad Colombista Panamericana for his study "Viajes de Colón en aguas de Cuba". Also that year he joined the Partido Socialista Popular, becoming part of the cell at the Law School, which had only five communist members.

Between 1945 and 1947 he studied at El Colegio de México, joining its fourth cohort, together with fellow Cuban Carlos Funtanellas. There he found in Silvio Zavala and Edmundo O'Gorman two great promoters of the study of American national historiographies, and, as he himself stated, Joaquín Xiau Palau also had a decisive influence on his professional formation.

Between 1948 and 1950 he lived in Spain, where he continued his studies at the Instituto de Cultura Hispana in Madrid, the Universidad Complutense and the Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos in Seville, and simultaneously conducted research at the Archivo de Simancas and the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. Upon returning to the Island, he was appointed deputy director of the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí.

In 1951 he graduated as a doctor in Social Sciences from the Universidad de La Habana and taught classes at the Universidad de Oriente. Two years later he moved to Venezuela, where he did not work as a historian, but as manager of a brewery company, working as a publicist and beginning in information mechanization, and he directed a radio network and a newspaper.

Moreno Fraginals gave great importance to those years when he had to study dozens of books on business techniques, market research and advertising. During his stay in Caracas he promoted radio programs in support of the revolutionary struggle that was developing in Cuba against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution he returned to the Island. In La Habana starting in September 1959 he worked in a program of the Departamento de Asistencia Técnica al Campesino, served as professor at the Universidad Central de Las Villas, and for nearly ten years at the Ministerio de Comercio Exterior (1963-1972); he was also named secretary of the Cámara de Comercio de Cuba.

With the support of the Universidad Central, he conducted research on sugar production, which led him to experimentally produce this product in the form of unrefined sugar using eighteenth-century methods, and published his book José Antonio Saco: estudio y bibliografía, as well as El ingenio, in its first version.

After working with Raúl León Torras at the Banco Nacional de Cuba (BNC), Moreno Fraginals moved as professor in 1972 to the Instituto Superior de Arte in La Habana, and was simultaneously an advisor to the Ministerio de Cultura. He also headed the Cátedra Félix Varela de Cultura Cubana at the Seminario de San Carlos. To these activities was added his position as vice president of the Project on the History of the Caribbean that was promoted by the Organización para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura de las Naciones Unidas (UNESCO). He also participated in a project aimed at developing a History of Latin America, in which he also had editorial responsibility.

He was part, along with Julio Le Riverend Brussone and Juan Ernesto Pérez de la Riva, of the generation of Cuban historians born in the first two decades of the republic, who renewed historiographical science on the Island and established new methodological and thematic directions.

Some of his emblematic books were published after the revolutionary triumph of 1959. Thus, El ingenio—in its 1964 and 1978 versions, the latter in three volumes—a masterwork not only of Cuban historiography, but also of Latin American and Caribbean historiography. The plantation phenomenon, which had not been addressed in historiography by Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez—although it had been by Julio Le Riverend—reaches its most generalizing level in El ingenio, in taking up, among other aspects, the social analysis of the phenomenon that Fernando Ortiz had initiated in Los negros esclavos, from 1916. Cuban Revolutionary commander Ernesto Che Guevara considered El ingenio a work that combined with rigor the Marxist method of analysis, historical scrupulousness and passion. The work was translated into several languages and carefully reprinted, given that it dealt with a phenomenon that encompassed a stage of the historical evolution of the Antilles, the United States, Brazil and, to a lesser extent, some other regions.

In the early 1990s Moreno moved to live abroad, and died in Miami in 2001. During this period he published Cuba / España, España / Cuba. Historia común (1995), which he described as a modest effort at synthesizing the history of Cuba, in contrast to the "official" one produced by the Instituto de Historia de Cuba—of which three of the five programmed volumes have been published.

Manuel Moreno Fraginals received numerous national and international recognitions and belonged to several scientific institutions. Among these stand out the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Instituto de América Latina of the Academia de Ciencias of the former Soviet Union, which was awarded to him in 1973, and the Clarence H. Haring, awarded in 1981 by the American Historical Association for the most important contribution to Latin American historiography in the five-year period 1976-1981.

He was a member of the Societé de Americanistes de París and founder of the Asociación de Historiadores de Cuba (UNHIC). At the congress of the Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (ADHILAC) held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, he was elected executive secretary of the Association, a position he held until 1994.

Teaching Activities:
Teaching Activities

Professor at the Summer School.
Universidad de La Habana. 1953.
Professor of Cuban History at the Universidad de Oriente.
Santiago de Cuba. 1951 - 1952.
Professor of Economics at the Universidad Central de Las Villas. He founded the Centro de Estudios del Caribe at that University.
Santa Clara, Cuba. 1960 - 1963.
Visiting Professor at Saint Anthony College.
Oxford University, Great Britain, 1968.
Visiting Professor, Leeds University.
Great Britain, 1968.
Lecturer: Universidad de Uppsala.
Sweden, 1969.
Visiting Professor Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Mexico, 1973.
Visiting Professor. Universidad de Mona.
Kingston, Jamaica. 1973.
Lecturer: Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.
Barcelona, Spain. 1974.
Visiting Professor invited by the Universidad Central de Caracas to collaborate on the plantation study project of Professor Germán Carrera Damas.
Caracas, Venezuela. 1974. (Work published).
Visiting Professor invited by the Universidad de los Andes.
Mérida, Venezuela. 1975.
Lecturer: University of Pittsburgh.
1975.
Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York, for discussion of the work Time on the Cross with Stanley Engerman, Herbert Klein and other professors.
1975.
Visiting Professor: Course on Reality and Future of the Sugar Industry. Universidad de Santo Domingo.
Dominican Republic. 1975.
Lecturer: University of Ibadan.
Nigeria. 1976.
Professor at the Instituto Superior del Arte (ISA).
La Habana, Cuba. 1977.
Tinker Visiting Professor (Tinker Chair) at Columbia University.
New York. 1977 - 1978.
Lecturer: Pittsburgh University, Yale University, City University of New York, Rochester University, etc.
1978 - 1979.
Visiting Professor at the Universidad Central de Caracas on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the Birth of Simón Bolivar. Decorated by the Academia de la Historia de Venezuela with the Medalla Simón Bolivar.
Caracas, Venezuela. 1983.
Visiting Professor at the Summer School of the Universidad de Sevilla.
Spain. 1983.
Visiting Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Bogotá, Colombia. 1984.
Appointed to hold the Cátedra Félix Varela at the Seminario de San Carlos and San Ambrosio.
La Habana 1983 - 1990. (He held the position without compensation, by express waiver of all remuneration).
Visiting Professor: Universidad Menéndez Pelayo.
Santander, Spain. 1985.
Visiting Professor at Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.
Spain. 1986.
Lecturer: Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Spain. 1987.
Visiting Professor. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.
1988.
Visiting Professor. Universidade de Sâo Paulo and Universidade Estadual de Sâo Paulo.
1990 - 1991.
Lecturer: Universidad de Rio Piedras. Puerto Rico.
1990.
Lecturer: University of Maryland and Florida International University.
1992.
Lecturer: Brown University.
1996.
Guggenheim Fellowship for the writing of the work Azúcar: siglo XX. (In preparation). Research at the Library of Congress and National Archives.
Eminent Professor: Florida International University. Miami.
1994 - 1998
Visiting Professor invited to the Summer Schools of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid for courses held in El Escorial.
Madrid. 1995 and 1996.
Visiting Professor: Yale University. New Haven.
2000.

Professional Life
Professional Life
Scholar at: El Colegio de México.
Mexico City, 1945 - 1947.
Scholar at: Instituto de Cultura Hispánica.
Madrid - Seville, Spain, 1947 - 1949.
Deputy Director of the Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba.
La Habana, Cuba, 1950 - 1952.
Director of: Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba.
La Habana, Cuba, 1952.
Founding President of the Instituto Musical de Investigaciones Folklóricas (IMIF).
La Habana, Cuba, 1952.
Combined academic work with economic and advertising activities; manager of Cervecería Caracas, president of the Centro de Investigaciones Económicas, etc. I founded and directed for one year the news program El Mundo y Usted which aired for more than a year on fourteen Venezuelan stations, twelve Colombian and two Ecuadorian, becoming the most important periodic radio program in South America. I regularly collaborated for Venezuelan newspapers and magazines. I purchased the most powerful radio station in the Venezuelan Andes, Radio Junín in San Cristóbal del Táchira. I founded the advertising agency Los Molinos, which produced several of the most successful programs in Venezuela.
January/1954 - November/1959.
Business trips to Spain, France and South American countries. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, I returned to Cuba, provisionally.
1960.
Major political changes put me in the dilemma of returning to Venezuela or staying in Cuba. I was appointed Professor of Economics at the Universidad Central de Las Villas and was given important business studies assignments. When the nationalization of the sugar industry took place, I carried out research on the first harvest conducted under state control. I employed 20 students from the School of Commercial Sciences as data collectors and six professors from various technical schools, all from the same University, as specialized advisory team in the industry. The results of this research caused a serious political conflict by revealing the organizational disaster and the falsity of officially published statistical figures. These investigations were prohibited without official authorization. Shortly after, the United States denounced the falsity of Cuban statistical figures.
Secretary of the Cámara de Comercio de la República de Cuba.
La Habana, 1963 - 1966.
Founder and director of the magazine Cuba Comercio Exterior published bimonthly. (When in 1964 they demanded I remove two articles for printing, I stopped editing it).
La Habana, 1963 - 1965.
Founder of the tabloid Comercio Exterior Cubano. (When it was subjected to censorship I stopped editing it).
La Habana, 1963 - 1965.
Director of the Cuba Pavilion at the Barcelona International Fair.
1963.
Director of the Cuba Pavilion at the International Fair of Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
1964.
Research, mathematical analysis and assembly of the work Azúcar, Sugar, Sucre, Sucker, which was the most exhaustive statistical study of sugar in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with several thousand manuscript and bibliographic documentary sources, etc., etc. This work was considered politically incorrect: it was collected when it was ready for publication and disappeared.
1965.
Chief of the Department of Information, Statistics and Economic Situation at the Ministerio de Comercio Exterior. (During my work in this Department, the Library and Reading Room of the Ministry were reorganized, teletypes were installed directly connected to economic information centers in Canada, France and England and fourteen weekly bulletins were published on economic statistics and commercial news. 1965. While the bulletins were for exclusive internal circulation, there were no conflicts. When by means unknown to me they reached unofficial hands, they were suppressed. I was removed from the Ministerio de Comercio Exterior and the bulletins ceased to be published).
La Habana, 1965 - 1969.
Appointed by UNESCO to direct the Africa in Latin America project in replacement of the late French anthropologist Roger Bastide. The work was published with editions in Spanish, English and French.
La Habana, Cuba. 1975.
Appointed by the Fideicomiso de Conservación de Puerto Rico to advise on the reconstruction of the sugar plantation "La Esperanza". Reconstructed and declared a historic monument by the Smithsonian Institution.
San Juan, Puerto Rico. 1975.
Appointed by the Nigerian government member of the Organizing Commission of the Congress of Black and African Culture. (Due to this appointment I traveled to Nigeria on three occasions).
Lagos, Nigeria, 1976.
Attendance as a member of the drafting team and signatory of the Athens Charter, UNESCO against racial prejudice.
Athens, Greece. 1980.
Attendance as an Honorary member at the Congress of Black and African Culture.
Lagos, Nigeria. 1976.
Participation in the Seminar with a paper on Characteristics of Demographic Development of Black Societies of the Caribbean.
Lagos, Nigeria. 1977.
I developed a project on the organization of the Conference on the transition from slave labor to wage labor in Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries, with the attendance of the world's leading specialists on the subject.
1979. The Congress was held in 1981, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Invited on three occasions that same year by the Spanish Government for discussion of the cultural project and international relations Spain in Democracy.
Madrid, Toledo, Seville, Spain. 1981.
Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars.
Washington DC, 1982.
Appointed by UNESCO for Expert Meeting to discuss the General History of Latin America project.
Paris, France. December, 1982.
Attendance at the Congress of the American Historical Association where I was presented with the prestigious Clarence H. Haring Prize for my book The Sugarmill. The Socioeconomic Complex of Sugar in Cuba, as the most important historical contribution published in any language during the period 1977 - 1981 (the award is given every five years) in Latin America.
Los Angeles, 1982.
President of Honor of the Historians Congress held in Caracas on the occasion of the centennial of the birth of Simón Bolívar.
Caracas, Venezuela. 1983.
President of Commission II of the Seminar on Latin American Reality organized by the Universidad de Milán.
Milan, Italy, 1984.
Appointed by UNESCO member of the Bureau of Experts for the writing of a General History of the Caribbean. Elected vice president of the Bureau at the Kingston Meeting. Director of Volume IV, in preparation for publication.
Kingston, Jamaica and Bridgetown, Barbados, 1985.
Appointed by Cambridge University Press to write the chapter on plantations in its "Latin American History" (Published).
1985.
President of Honor of the "Seminario Cataluña - América".
Barcelona, Spain. 1986.
President of Honor of the "Colloquium on Canary Migration".
Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain. 1986.
By request of the Asociación de Historiadores Latino Americanos y del Caribe, I attended the UNESCO plenary meeting.
Belgrade, Yugoslavia. 1986.
Honorary Member of the "Archivo de Indianos".
Asturias, Spain, 1987.
Appointed to write the book Guerra, Migración y Muerte. Written and published.
Colombres, Spain, 1987.
President of Honor of the "Congress of Americanists".
Amsterdam, Holland. 1988.
Amsterdam, Holland. 1988.
Honorary Member of La Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País.
Santander, Spain, 1990.
Seminar on Arab Culture in Spain and Latin America, UNESCO, ACALAPI project.
Nouakcott. Mauritania, Africa.
Rockefeller Fellowship. University of Maryland at College Park.
College Park, Maryland, USA. 1992.
Appointed by the Cuban Catholic Church to attend the seminar held at the Vatican on Evangelization and Colonization and to conduct historical research in the Vatican Archives.
Rome, Italy. 1992.
Meeting in Granada, Spain of the ACALAPI UNESCO working team on Arab culture in Latin America.
Granada, Spain. 1993.
Historical Seminar on La Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País. Paper read and published.
Santander, Spain. 1994.
Guggenheim Foundation Grant.
Coral Gables, FL. USA. 1994.
Meeting of the Bureau of Experts for the writing of the History of America.
Paipa, Colombia. 1995.
Seminar on Cuba and Latin America organized by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
El Escorial, Spain. 1995.
Richardson Chair.
Florida International University. Miami, FL. 1995.
II Seminar on Cuba, America and Spain organized by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
El Escorial, Spain. 1996.
Honorary Foreign Member of The American Historical Association.
1998.
Visiting Professor invited by The Mellon Foundation.
Yale University, New Haven, CT. 2000.

Academic Degrees and Honors:

Bachelor of Laws in Administrative Law.
Universidad de La Habana, 1943.
Doctor of Laws.
Universidad de La Habana, 1944.
Master in History.
El Colegio de México, Mexico City. 1944 - 1947 and Spain, 1947 - 1949.
CLARENCE H. HARING PRIZE. Awarded every five years to that Latin American who, in the opinion of the committee, has published the most outstanding book in Latin American history during the preceding five years.
Los Angeles. 1982. The American Historical Association for the book: The Sugarmill. The Socioeconomic Complex of Sugar in Cuba.
Doctor in Historical Sciences.
Awarded by the Academia de Ciencias de Cuba in recognition of his outstanding contribution to culture: 1984.
Chancellor Distinguished Lecturer.
University of California, Berkeley, 1984.
Medalha de Honra (Medal of Honor).
Universidade de Sâo Paulo. Brazil, 1986.
Academic of the Academia de Historia de Cuba.
(I did not take possession of the position as the Academy was dissolved by the Cuban Government in 1961).
President of Honor of the Congress of Americanists.
Amsterdam, 1987.
Founding Member of the Instituto de Estudios Avanzados.
Universidade de Sâo Paulo. Brazil, 1988.
Founding Member of the Asociación de Historiadores de América Latina y el Caribe (ADHILAC).
In Mexico in 1979 and president of the same in Sâo Paulo. Brazil, 1990.
Honorary Member of the Sociedad Económica Bascongada de Amigos del País.
Bilbao, Spain, 1993.
Grande Palme Académique. Chevalier.
Académie Française, Paris, France. 1993.
Honorary Member of the Society for the Study of the History of Science.
Mexico and Lima, Peru.
President of the Migration and Diaspora Research Institute.
Miami, FL. USA. 1996.
Honorary Foreign Member of The American Historical Association.
1998.

Some Publications

Nación o Plantación. Mexico.
El Colegio de México. 1948.
Agustín de Iturbide. Caudillo. (Originally published in the Revista de la Universidad de La Habana.).
La Habana, Universidad de La Habana, 1950.
Misiones cubanas en los archivos europeos.
Mexico, Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia. 1953.
José Antonio Saco, Estudio y Bibliografía.
La Habana, Editorial de la Universidad de Las Villas. 1962.
La Habana.
La Habana, Unión Internacional de Arquitectos, 1963.
El Ingenio. Complejo Socioeconómico Cubano.
La Habana, Comisión Nacional Cubana de la UNESCO, 1964. First edition in one volume. Translated into English and published by Monthly Review Press in 1976. This edition received the Clarence H. Haring Prize from the American Historical Association in 1982. Translated into Japanese and published in 1994. Second expanded edition in 3 volumes in 1977. Fourth edition, 1986. Translated and published in English, Japanese, Portuguese and parts in French.
Africa en América Latina. Translated into English and French.
Mexico, UNESCO and Siglo XXI, 1974.
El token azucarero.
Madrid, 1974.
Between Slavery and Free Labor. Edited with Stanley Engerman and Frank Moya Pons.
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.
La historia como arma y otros estudios sobre esclavos, ingenios y plantaciones.
Barcelona, Editorial Crítica. 1984.
Cuba a través de su moneda. Translated and published in English and French.
Paris, 1985.
Plantations in the Caribbean: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in the late Nineteenth Century. Contributor to "The Cambridge History of Latin America. Volume IV. C. 1970 to 1930.
Edited by Leslie Bethel". Published by Cambridge University Press. 1986.
Guerra, Migración y Muerte: el ejército español como vía migratoria. Edited with José Joaquín Moreno Masó.
Colombres, Archivo de Indianos, 1993.
Cuba/España, España/Cuba. Historia Común.
Barcelona, Editorial Grijalbo, 1995.
An article published in: Caribbean Freedom.
Kingston, Jamaica, 1996.
A chapter published in the Historia de la Cultura Arabe en América Latina.
UNESCO.
Two chapters published in the Historia del Caribe from UNESCO.
Two chapters published in volumes VI and VIII of the Historia de América Latina from UNESCO.
More than 100 articles in specialized magazines in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Spain, France, Italy, Soviet Union, Sweden, Holland, etc.
Appointed by the "Fundación Histórica Tavera" of Madrid, Spain to carry out the project on fundamental sources of Cuban History in CD-ROM. Project incomplete.

Source: EnCaribe.org