The Honourable Percival Henriques Lindo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 30 September 1877 |
| Died | 1946 (aged 68) Terra Nova, Kingston, Jamaica |
| Children | 4, including Roy Lindo, Blanche Blackwell |
| Father | Frederick Lindo |
| Relatives | Cecil Vernon Lindo (brother) Stanley Alexander Lindo (brother) |
Percy Lindo was a Jamaican banker, planter, industrialist and Member of the Legislative Council of Jamaica. [1] [2]
Percival Henriques Lindo, nicknamed Percy was born on September 30, 1877, in Falmouth, Jamaica, to Frederick Lindo and Grace Morales. He was the youngest of ten children. [3]
He migrated to Costa Rica in 1890 at age 13 to join his older brothers in business.
The brothers had arrived in 1885 to work for Minor Cooper Keith, who was building a railroad from Limon to San Jose, but quickly went into business as merchants, bankers and banana planters.
In 1907, the brothers purchased Juan Viñas, a vast sugar and coffee farm from Federico Tinoco Granados. [4] They became largest coffee and sugar producers in the Costa Rica. [5] [6]
In 1908, the brothers founded the Florida Ice and Farm Company in Siquirres, Limón Province. The company was located at a farm called La Florida and was a major producer of ice and other agricultural produce. The company acquired Gran Cervecería Traube in 1912. [7] [8]
In 1911, the Lindo Brothers, in partnership with Felipe Alvarado, purchased the Compañía Luz Eléctrica de San Jose, Heredia y Alajuela and invested in a large hydroelectric power plant in Belén the next year. [9] In 1924 the company was transformed into La Compañía Nacional de Electricidad [10] [11]
By 1911, the Lindo properties were producing half of Costa Rica's bananas, and Joseph DiGiorgio, on behalf of the Atlantic Fruit Company, approached Lindo Brothers with idea of purchasing all of their banana plantations, although the entire production was contracted to United Fruit Company until July, 1914.
On October 27, 1911, Cecil Lindo gave the Atlantic Fruit Company an option to purchase their banana plantations for $3,500,000 before August, 1912. Cecil was to be the General Manager of the Atlantic Fruit Company in Costa Rica.
The Atlantic Fruit Company could not or would not execute the option, and in 1912, the Lindo properties were sold to United Fruit Company for $5,000,000. [12]
By 1913, the Lindo brothers were owners of vast sugar, coffee and cocoa estates, lumber and flour mills, breweries, ice-making and aerated factories. Their agricultural interests included 1,000 acres of sugar, 2,000 acres of cacao and 7,000 acres of Coffee plantations, exporting three millions pounds of coffee each year, with an approximate value of half a million dollars.
By 1911, Percy owned several thousand acres of land in the Oracabessa area. That year he sold a property to Ruth Bryan Owen, which she named Golden Clouds.
In 1914, Lindo Bros. & Co. Ltd. was formed in Jamaica and Percy was appointed the resident manager.
The company began by purchasing properties along north coast of the island to plant bananas in conjunction with their cousins, the deLisser Brothers. [13]
In 1916 they purchased the entire estate of Colonel Charles Ward, which included J. Wray and Nephew Ltd. and large estates in Saint Catherine and Clarendon.
The next year Appleton Estate in Saint Elizabeth and Cornwall in Westmoreland were purchased by the company. [14]
They expanded factory and distillery operations, adding additional warehouses to store and age the rums, a bottle washing machine and an electric bottling line. [15] International distribution deals were made on behalf of the company with Schieffelin & Co. of New York and EA de Pass & Co. of London. [16]
In 1925 the Lindo Bros & Co., in partnership with Allan Keeling, invested £1,000,000 in the establishment of the Bernard Lodge Central Sugar Factory.
In 1928, the Lindo Bros sold 56,600 acres of land in Jamaica to the United Fruit Company for £2,000,000, which at the time, was the largest transaction in the history of the island. [17] That year Lindo Brothers acquired the wharf and office premises of the Atlantic Fruit Company on King Street. [18]
Percy was an appointed as a Member of the Legislative Council from 1930-42. He was a director of the Jamaica Mutual Life Assurance Society and the Jamaica Imperial Association.
In 1937, Cecil Lindo told a journalist: "I have one million gallons of rum stored. When any quantity of the matured rums is taken out, the stock is immediately replenished."
In 1939, Lindo Bros & Co. sold J. Wray and Nephew Ltd. and Appleton Estate to Percy Lindo. [19] [20] [21]
After much experimentation, the first Appleton Estate branded rums were launched in 1944. [22] The rums were light, fragrant and meant to serve as a substitute for whiskey, which was hard to come during World War II. That year the Mai Tai was invented using J.Wray & Nephew 17 year old by Victor Bergeron of Trader Vic's. [23]
He married Hilda Violet Lindo in 1903 in Kingston. [24] The couple had four children: Delores, Roy, Blanche and Frederick Cecil Lindo. [25]
The family lived at Cecilio Lodge, now St Andrew High School while constructing Royston, now Campion College, Jamaica.
The United Fruit Company was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of the Boston Fruit Company with Minor C. Keith's banana-trading enterprises. It flourished in the early and mid-20th century, and it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the West Indies. Although it competed with the Standard Fruit Company for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics – such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Costa Rican cuisine is known for being mostly mild, with high reliance on fruits and vegetables. Rice and black beans are a staple of most traditional Costa Rican meals, often served three times a day. Costa Rican fare is nutritionally well rounded, and nearly always cooked from scratch from fresh ingredients. Owing to the location of the country, tropical fruits and vegetables are readily available and included in the local cuisine.
Tia Maria is a dark coffee liqueur made in Italy using Jamaican coffee beans. The main ingredients are coffee beans, Jamaican rum, vanilla, and sugar, blended to an alcoholic content of 20%.
Minor Cooper Keith was an American businessman whose railroad, commercial agriculture, and cargo liner enterprises had a major impact on the national economies of the Central American countries, as well as on the Caribbean region of Colombia. Keith's work on the Costa Rican railroad to the Caribbean, a project begun by his uncle Henry Meiggs, led him to become involved in the large-scale export of bananas to the United States. In 1899, Keith's banana-trading concerns were absorbed into the powerful United Fruit Company, of which he became vice-president. Keith was also involved in a number of other business ventures, including gold mining in Costa Rica and real estate development in the US.
Flavored liquors are liquors that have added flavoring and, in some cases, a small amount of added sugar. They are distinct from liqueurs in that liqueurs have a high sugar content and may also contain glycerine.
J. Wray and Nephew Ltd. is a distiller, blender, and bottler of rum, originating and operating in Jamaica.
The Boston Fruit Company (1885-1899) was a fruit production and import business based in the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Andrew W. Preston and nine others established the firm to ship bananas and other fruit from the West Indies to north-eastern America. At the time, the banana was "considered a rare and delicious treat" in the United States. The major challenge for all banana importers was to get the highly perishable fruit to the American market before it spoiled." Ship captain Lorenzo Dow Baker served as president of the company and manager of the tropical division. By 1895 "the corporation own[ed] nearly 40,000 acres, included in 35 plantations, and deep-water frontage [in Jamaica] in the harbors of Port Antonio and Port Morant. They owned their own lines of steamships, which they operated between those ports and Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Besides carrying their own fruits, they carried some outside freight, and afford passenger accommodations for many tourists visiting the West-India Islands."
Costa Rican agriculture plays a profound part in the country's gross domestic product (GDP). It makes up about 6.5% of Costa Rica's GDP, and 14% of the labor force. Depending upon location and altitude, many regions differ in agricultural crops and techniques. The main exports include: bananas, pineapples, coffee, sugar, rice, vegetables, tropical fruits, ornamental plants, corn, potatoes and palm oil.
Blackwell Rum is a Jamaican brand of rum, manufactured by J. Wray & Nephew Ltd.
Blanche Blackwell was a Jamaican heiress, mother of Chris Blackwell, and an inspirational muse to Ian Fleming and Noël Coward.
Albion was a sugar plantation in Saint David Parish, Jamaica. Created during or before the 18th century, it had at least 451 slaves when slavery was abolished in most of the British Empire in 1833. By the end of the 19th-century it was the most productive plantation in Jamaica due to the advanced refining technology it used. By the early 20th century, however, its cane sugar could not compete with cheaper European beet sugar, and it produced its last sugar crop in 1928. It subsequently became a banana farm for the United Fruit Company.
Alfred Constantine Goffe was a Jamaican businessman noted for his role in the banana trade.
Joy Spence is a Jamaican chemist and master blender at Appleton Estate. She was the first female master blender in the spirits industry.
The Lindo family was a Sephardic Jewish merchant and banking family, which rose to prominence in medieval Spain.
Roy Lindo (1910–1962) was a Jamaican industrialist, planter, political economist and politician.
Frederick Lindo (1821-1882) was a Jamaican merchant, publisher and Member of the Legislative Council.
Cecil Vernon Lindo was a Jamaican banker, industrialist, planter and philanthropist.
Abraham Alexander Lindo was a Jamaican merchant and planter. After the French Government defaulted on a £560,000 debt owed to Alexandre Lindo, Abraham Lindo was responsible for liquidating his father's assets in hopes of stabilizing the family's financial situation. Further losses came from the abolition of slavery, in which the family was heavily invested, and in sugar crop failures and hurricane damage to their real estate holdings. Nonetheless, Lindo was still considered one of the "remnants of old landed elite" of the island's ruling class.