Ramón de la Sagra and the sugar cane mill on the Costa del Sol

The remains of the old Nuestra Señora del Carmen sugar cane factory, which ceased operating in 1991, are still preserved in Torre del Mar on the eastern Costa del Sol. The parts that remain are the Casa del Ingeniero (now the mayor’s office), three chimneys, some pieces of the factory’s machinery including the steam engine built by Fives-Lille in 1900 and the building that has been converted into a cultural centre, which is home to a permanent exhibition on the history of sugar cane production in the Axarquía.

Sugar cane is closely linked to the Costa del Sol and Granada’s Costa Tropical. In the Axarquía area to the east of Malaga province sugar cane cultivation once covered up to 5,000 hectares, producing more than 100,000 tonnes of cane per year, which was milled and converted into sugar and other products in more than a dozen large factories equipped with modern machinery. All this sugar history is reflected in the existence of an extensive industrial heritage, scattered throughout the south of Spain.

Although the presence of sugar cane in Spain has been documented since the 10th century, it was not until the 16th century that its cultivation expanded along the Andalusian Mediterranean strip. It soon faced competition from the large plantations established in America, which reduced the markets for the Malaga product. The facilities dedicated to the extraction of cane sugar, the so-called ‘trapiches’ and ‘ingenios’, depending on whether they were activated by animal traction or hydraulic power, struggled to survive until the mid-19th century, by which time the sugar cane-growing scene was reduced to some 300 hectares of cultivation and a few active manufacturing facilities, distributed between Frigiliana, Vélez-Málaga, Torrox, Nerja and Maro.

One name that stands out in the history of sugar cane in Andalucía first appeared in 1845: Ramón de la Sagra. This versatile Galician, who had an extraordinary education and who had learned about the new industrial processes for obtaining sugar in Cuba, decided, together with other partners, to build a modern factory for milling sugar cane on the Andalusian coast. That same year he drew up a detailed ‘report on the cultivation of cane and the manufacture of sugar on the Andalusian coast’, in which he proposed a series of measures to modernise the sector by introducing new techniques and procedures.

La Sagra, who at the time was also involved in the Dalías Canal project to irrigate land in Almería province, was convinced that a state-of-the-art sugar industry could provide yields similar to those in the Caribbean. However, he soon distanced himself from his partners, who were suspicious of the “social dimension” of La Sagra’s project and he decided to embark on his venture alone. They (under the title of Sociedad Azucarera Peninsular) built a factory in Almuñécar using the Derosne-Cail system, for which they had acquired exclusive rights.

La Sagra acquired an old mill in Torre del Mar on which he built a modern factory under the name of Sociedad El Porvenir. It applied steam power, opening a new industrial stage in the sector. He acquired the steam generators from Mazeline of Le Havre, while the remaining machines were patented in Belgium.

He planned to expand the business by manufacturing flour, olive oil and soap. However, the factory failed due to a number of adverse circumstances, including the shipwreck of the vessel carrying part of the machinery La Sagra had ordered from Belgium to start up the factory. In addition, the harsh winter of 1846 affected the sugar cane plantations. The Galician published a publication in Malaga entitled ‘El Azucarero’ (The Sugar Factory), which published five issues and which served to set out the basis of his industrial and social project.

Discouraged by the poor results obtained and the lack of understanding he was suffering, in 1847 Ramón de la Sagra sold the factory to Juan Nepomuceno Enríquez, who in turn transferred it to Martín Larios in 1852. Under the Larios family, the Torre del Mar mill, by then known as Nuestra Señora del Carmen, became one of the most important on the entire Andalusian coast.

But it was La Sagra who was credited with introducing modernisation in the sugar sector. As Francisco Rodríguez Marín points out, he laid the foundations for an industry that was enormously prosperous for more than half a century. A contribution which, as Ascensión Cambrón states, meant for him a bitter personal experience and, to a certain extent, the failure of his social theories.