Remaining stagnated economy about four hundred years after discovery of Cuba, its importance began changing in the 18th Century with the development of sugar plantation economy and the emergence of a powerful and very cohesive planters class' called sucarocracia. The planters class had comprised of people born in Spain, a small farming class of Cuba born criollos cultivated coffee, tobacco etc.

 Industrial revolution in Europe, Geographical and climatic conditions of Cuba, and African slave labours made perfect conditions for emerging of plantation economy in Cuba.  Foreign investment and the rapid introduction of modern technology and management soon converted Cuba into the sugar bowl of the world.  Its entire economy and society had become geared to the production, processing and export of sugar and importing its all needs. 

 Cuban plantation economy, exhibited all the main features of modern capitalist economy. By 1899, over two-third of the rural labour force was engaged in the cultivation of sugar and other cash crops. The plantation was a response to the international demand for sugar. American protectorate also had worked to bind more closely the agricultural sector with the high finance.

 Though Cuban plantation economy grows to its heights, but there were few problems too. Output restrictions, pegged prices, and monopolistic control had blanketed sugar, tobacco, rice, potato, and coffee farming. Mill owners, growers, and wage workers all had powerful organisations. There were cartels of Mill owners, growers and workers. Outputs, wages and prices were determined by these cartels.