Juan Cortada y Quitana

Juan Cortada y Quitana was Mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1873 to 1874.

Hacendado

Cortada was an hacendado, a landowner who ran a sugar cane hacienda, a estate dedicated to the growing of the produce for sale to sugar cane mills for the production of cane sugar. The workers in such estates were almost always slaves. Thus it is likely that Cortada owned slaves in working his sugar cane farm.^[1] In fact, another source confirms that Cortada in fact owned 28 slaves in 1872, one year before the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico.^[2]

As with businesses today, each hacienda in those days had a business name, and Cortada's hacienda was called La Mallorquina. It was located in the nearby town of Santa Isabel.^[3]

Lender

Cortada, together with his brother Ramon, was also in the money-lending business, lending capital to 11 other hacendados in the area. By 1870 Cortada owned five haciendas in the municipality of Ponce.^[4]

Legacy

There is a street in Urbanizacion Las Delicias of Barrio Magueyes in Ponce named after him.

References

1. ^ Terratenientes Extranjeros
2. ^ Propietarios de esclavos en los barrios rurales de Ponce. Retrieved November 28, 2009.
3. ^ Terratenientes Extranjeros
4. ^ Terratenientes Extranjeros

See also

• Ponce, Puerto Rico
• List of famous Puerto Ricans