Hacienda Mercedita facts for kids

Abandoned Central Mercedita sugar refinery office building. You can still see the Snow White Sugar sign!

Hacienda Mercedita was a large sugarcane farm in Ponce, Puerto Rico. It was started in 1861 by Juan Serrallés Colón. Today, this land is no longer used for sugarcane. Instead, it grows fruits like mangoes and bananas, along with different plants and trees.

The Hacienda was the main office for a big sugar factory called Central Mercedita. This factory also had a plant that packaged Snow White brand sugar. Hacienda Mercedita was also where rum production began in 1865. This led to the famous Destilería Serrallés distillery, which makes Don Q rum.

Central Mercedita stopped making sugar in 1994. Its old factory buildings are now abandoned. However, the Serrallés rum distillery is still very successful and continues to operate in the same area. The old sugar factory land is now owned by Puerto Rico's Land Authority.

History of Hacienda Mercedita

An old train engine at the Central Mercedita sugarcane mill. The plantation was like its own small town.

The Sugar Business Begins

In the early 1800s, a man named Don Sebastian Serrallés came from Spain to Ponce. He started a farm called Hacienda Teresa. Later, his son, Juan Serrallés Colón, started Hacienda Mercedita in 1861. He named it after his wife, Mercedes Perez.

Hacienda Mercedita quickly grew into a major sugar factory. Just one year after it started, in 1862, it was making so much sugar that Juan Serrallés began buying other sugar farms nearby. These included places like La Laurel and La Fe.

The Hacienda produced sugar from sugarcane. It was packaged at the nearby Snow White Sugar Company, which opened in 1949. The farm grew from its original 300 acres to a much larger area.

The Rum Business Starts

In 1865, Juan Serrallés Colon tried making rum at the Hacienda. He made his first barrels of rum and kept working on his recipe. The rum business quickly became popular. By 1890, Hacienda Mercedita was growing sugarcane on over 4,000 acres just for making rum.

For a while, the Serrallés company made several local rum brands. Many of these did not last long. The family then decided to create a special brand that they could sell to other countries. In 1932, the Ron Don Q brand was launched. It became very popular in Puerto Rico.

By 1953, the rum business was doing very well. The Serrallés family built a new refinery with modern equipment. The Hacienda itself became more of an office and administrative center. The Central Mercedita, Inc. company bought sugarcane from local farmers and turned it into sugar.

Later, Serralles started a new company just for rum, called Destilería Serrallés Inc. This company focused on making and selling rum under the Don Q name.

Life at the Hacienda

When Hacienda Mercedita was built in 1861, it was meant to be the home for the Serrallés family. But as the sugar business grew, it became more of an industrial center. It turned into the large Central Mercedita sugar factory.

After slavery was ended, the owners offered small garden plots to workers. This was in exchange for their labor on the farm. The Hacienda also had a general store where workers could buy things. The sugarcane farm became like a small town. It even had its own train tracks, homes for workers, and a store. It also had a private airport, which later became Ponce's Mercedita Airport.

The End of Sugar Production

The ruins of the Snow White sugar refinery in Mercedita, Puerto Rico.

In 1973, the government of Puerto Rico created the Puerto Rico Sugar Corporation. This was an effort to help the sugar industry, which had been struggling for many years. This new company managed the remaining 13 sugar mills, including Central Mercedita. It also oversaw the Snow White Sugar Refinery.

However, the sugar industry continued to face problems. In 1983, the price of Snow White sugar was frozen by law. On December 31, 1994, Central Mercedita stopped processing sugarcane. It continued to refine sugar from other mills for a short time. But soon after, all sugar refining at Mercedita stopped. In 1998, the government gave the homes and land to the people who lived on the old Mercedita plantation.

What is There Today?

The community where the old Central Mercedita operated still exists. It is also called "Central Mercedita." The main road to get there is PR-5506.

In 2020, the old hacienda was used as a background for a photoshoot about the traditional Puerto Rican Bomba dance.

Timeline of Important Events

Here are some key dates in the history of Hacienda Mercedita:

• 1861 – Hacienda Mercedita was founded.
• 1869 – Machines started to be used more.
• 1879 – Trains began to replace ox carts for moving goods.
• 1896 – Juan Serralles bought other nearby farms and added them to Hacienda Mercedita.
• 1914 – The J. Serralles company was officially created.
• 1926 – A partnership with American investors helped produce white sugar.
• 1949 – Central Mercedita Inc. was founded to process sugarcane from other farms.
• 1963 – Central Mercedita became the sole owner of the sugar refining company.
• 1969 – Another Serralles family business, Destileria Serralles, bought Central Mercedita.
• 1979 – Central Mercedita was sold to the government of Puerto Rico as the sugar industry declined.
• 1995 – The Government of Puerto Rico closed Central Mercedita.

See also