The material in this series was gathered from several disorganized files. They have been rearranged into a single alphabetical file. Arrangement is by the personal or corporate names of the correspondents. Series 1 consists of letters written to Manuel Rionda during the years 1896-1917 and complements the letterbooks found in Series 2. In the mid-1910s, Rionda began to keep a subject file containing both outgoing and incoming correspondence (See Series 10.) Rionda also kept separate files for Czarnikow-Rionda's internal memoranda and his correspondence with his nephews, Manuel Enrique Rionda and Bernardo Braga Rionda. (See Series 5 and 12.)
The earliest correspondence, dating from 1896, is mainly from family members in Spain and Cuba. Manuel's brother, Francisco, managed the Central Tuinucu, the family's estate in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. Francisco wrote many letters describing the effects of the Cuban war for independence from Spain. Francisco's correspondence and that of Manuel's sisters and nieces, recount the activities of guerrillas camping nearby, the arrival of General Weyler and his attempts to defeat the rebels, and the damage done to the sugar industry and Cuba. The family filed a successful damage claim to the government of the United States for which there is documentation. After Francisco's death in 1898, Manuel Rionda's brother-in-law, Pedro Alonso, took over the management of Tuinucu, and later Manuel E. Rionda, José B. Rionda, and D. A. Walsh assumed that position. Each of these men wrote ex-tensively to Manuel Rionda, who wanted daily reports about all his holdings.
There is also extensive correspondence from long-time business associates of Manuel Rionda, including Louis Placé, Ramon Pelayo, Tiburcio and Pedro Bea, Juan Ceballos, and Julio Rabel. Manuel Rionda followed their careers as they dissolved companies and formed new ones or took on colonos. He also took a personal interest in their families and educated several of their sons at academies in Maine and New York and found positions for them in his companies. Thus, there are also files on second-generation companies, such as Sobrinos de Bea.
The Zevallos brothers, Rafael and Victor, figure prominently in this series. Victor Zevallos became the president of the Cuban Trading Company, which negotiated Czarnikow-Rionda's business and legal transactions in Cuba. Victor Zevallos and Higinio Fanjul, another nephew of Rionda, were known af-fectionately as the "Havana boys". Manuel E. Rionda and Bernardo Braga Rionda were called the "New York boys." Legal counsel for the Cuban Trading Company during most of the period of Series 1 was Manuel Rafael Angulo.
There is extensive correspondence with John F. Craig and William J. Craig of the W. J. McCahan Sugar Refining Company of Philadelphia, principal backers for the Francisco Sugar Company. There are also detailed reports from some of the Francisco managers, Gabriel Menocal, Francisco Coma, Pedro Alonso, John Durham, Leandro Rionda, and Gerard Smith. They discuss daily management of problems, including acts of sabotage, deliberate fires, attempts by the workers to unionize and the response by managers, and the roles of the Cuban and United States governments in maintaining order on the island.
The Stewart Sugar Company, located in Camagüey, was another major venture that involved Rionda. Subscribers included C. Czarnikow Ltd., D. Stewart & Company of Glasgow, and the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. There are files for each of these, as well as William Nelson Cromwell, Alfred Jaretski, and Francis Pollak, all of Sullivan & Cromwell. (See also Series 7.) Sullivan & Cromwell was also influential in the formation of the Manati Sugar Company in 1912. Eduardo Ulzurrun became the administrator of the Central Manati and filed detailed reports on the operations of the estate. His files include lists of colonos, petitions by the colonos and administration responses, his requests for United States forces to protect the property during rebellions, and even such details as menus for the workers.
In addition to Tuinucu, Francisco, Stewart, and Manati, the series also contains smaller files on the following Cuban sugar factories: the Central Jobo and Central Julio (See files of Pedro Laborde), the Central Perservancia, and the Rosario Sugar Company. There are also files on Puerto Rican sugar companies including the Plazuela Sugar Company (see Eduardo Giorgetti) and the Loiza Sugar Company (see William S. Marr).
There are a wide variety of other correspondents--individual and corporate--represented in this series. These include heads of railroad companies and steamship lines, such as the Cuba Railroad Company and the Munson Steamship Line, American sugar refineries, machinery companies (see especially Honolulu Iron Works Company and the Krajewski-Pesant Corporation), banking interests such as J. & W. Seligman & Company (see files of Albert and Frederick Strauss), and several import-export agents. Another prominent business associate of Manuel Rionda was Walter E. Ogilvie. There are also files on the British stockholders in Czarnikow-Rionda. These include Charles Lagemann, Jules Ganzoni, Theodore Westrick, and George MacDougall.