Soon after the occupation ended, the Bourbon Spanish monarchy instituted reforms that gave Cuba more access to imported African slaves and foreign commerce.

Refugees from Saint-Domingue and Haiti also fled to Cuba, bringing slaves and experience in the sugar and coffee industries with them.

[2] In 1795, Arango y Parreño and Ignacio Montalvo y Ambulodi, Count of Casa-Montalvo, traveled to England, Portugal, Barbados, and Jamaica to collect information that could help Cuba establish its sugar industry.

Arango y Parreño played an important role in convincing Cuban planters to adopt the latest innovations in the sugar industry, new sugarcane varieties like Otaheite (Tahitian) cane, and processing that used steam, water, and wind power.

Cuba's rise as a major slave-based sugar producer accompanied growing international agitation for the abolition of slavery.

Arango y Parreño argued that slavery would eventually have to be abolished, but that emancipation should be left in the hands of Cuban colonists rather than imperial authorities in Spain.

[4] In the 1790s, Arango y Parreño helped to pioneer a transatlantic slave trade to Cuba, operated by Cuban and Spanish merchants from the island of Fernando Po off the coast of West Africa.