France and CubaFrom 1804 San Antonio de los Baños strengthens the economic and social development. This impulse was motivated by a series of national and international events that favored progress in the locality, among them is the emigration of French to the island. In 1791 a campaign to whiten began in Cuba through the emigration of white people, this allowed the settlement of a large number of French landowners who left Haití for political reasons.
Spain accepted with pleasure the entry of these people to Cuba for being conservative, to have capital to invest and to know techniques of agriculture superior to those existing in the Island. In addition the settlement of the French in Cuban lands could increase the production and allow a better trade in the foreign market.
The second Marquis of Monte Hermoso, founder of the town, a rich and noble Cuban and an outstanding figure of the reformism received the help of Francisco de Arango and Parreño and the Captain General Luis de las Casas so that they settled in the jurisdiction of San Antonio a great quantity of French emigrants. The new inhabitants of the village arrived for different reasons. Many of these rich French settled in the town with much of their wealth, others were accompanied by white and mulatto people with scarce economic resources and some slaves who performed different jobs; this allowed the development of craft production and new cultural manifestations. The new inhabitants knew techniques of crops different from ours that when applied in the area prompted the creation of a large number of beautiful coffee plantations and the construction of magnificent houses with beautiful gardens.
They were joined by groups of Creole nobility who came to the area and acquired large estates for the purpose of exploiting agriculture through the use of French methods. These events drove the development of the town. With the application in agriculture of the techniques and the scientific concepts of those moments the new coffee cultivations, fomented by the French, thrived with the use of small slave endowments. Each coffee plantations had a large residence where its owners maintained a high level of life, libraries with the most famous books of the time and objects of art of exquisite taste and value. Several years later Napoleon's invasion of Spain led to a chaos that ended with the king's imprisonment and lack of a guide for the Spanish colonies in America and the Seville’s supreme junta initiated a ferocious persecution against the French.
After the imprisonment of the Spain’s king, the Captain General ordered that all the French should naturalize and opt for an occupation that would be useful to the country, in addition they would adjust their customs to the Spanish ones. The Marquis of Monte Hermoso warned that everyone could take oath of fidelity to Spain before the town’s junta, those who did not wish to naturalize had to leave immediately the area. This situation motivated a series of procedures that the Marquis took advantage of to delay the departure of the French and that these could leave all their properties to safe with friends and relatives before leaving the island. The expulsion of the French caused serious economic disturbances because many farms were abandoned and the production in the town descended.
