The cholera epidemic of 1855-1856, which killed many estancia slaves, and the abolition of slavery in 1873 drastically transformed Puerto Rico's economy and impacted the sugarcane industry at the time.

[2] The Santa Isabel Sugar Company was founded in 1918 to build the infrastructure necessary to modernize and develop the sugarcane industry in the former estancia.

This company was founded in 1918 and was owned by the Cortada family and shareholders J. C. Mc Cormick Hartman, Hugh Guillén, Isidro Abarca, Antonio Álvarez, Francisco Verges, George T. Parker, Leopoldo Cabassa, Antonio Alcaide, and Rafael Fabián.

Most of the sugarcane workers at this time were poor peasants who would come from the mountainous areas in search of work and alternative employment.

These workers would often be called colonos (Spanish for "colonists") as the former slave-operated estancias and the communities that grew around them were now referred to as colonias or "colonies".