[Juan M. Ceballos] Archive of 26 Autograph Letters (and manuscript copies) Signed. Most to the newly-formed New York company of the leading Cuban-American merchant and financier of the 19th century. Most in Spanish (untranslated), some in English; most from Havana, some from Paris, London and Spain. Feb. 1855-Nov. 1856. Approximately 36 total pages + stampless address leaves.
Born in Spain, Ceballos immigrated to colonial Cuba, then moved to New York, where he laid the foundation for his son to become the “J.P.Morgan of Cuba” after the Spanish-American War, with vast financial interests in Cuban construction, shipping and sugar (and even in the breweries of New York),
After his father’s death in 1886, the younger Ceballos became a power on Wall Street, hobnobbing with Harriman and Huntington until his company failed in 1906, when its Havana representative absconded with millions of dollars.
These letters, written 50 years earlier, detail the birth of the Ceballos firm, when its ties to Spanish Cuba included a Havana company linked to the slave trade (and, possibly, to Confederate gun runners during the American Civil War.) Though the elder Ceballos may have moved to the US earlier, he first appeared in New York newspapers in October 1855, as co-owner of the “New York and Mexican Steamship Line” that sailed to Havana, Vera Cruz and Cadiz. So these business letters may reveal much about the birth of Cuban-American finance.