1000 Pesos

El Banco Español de la Habana was the dominant colonial banking institution in Cuba, operating under Spanish imperial charter at a time when the island's sugar economy was generating enormous capital flows. This 1000 Pesos note sits at the top of the bank's original issue series — a denomination designed for large interbank and commercial transactions, not everyday trade.

The American Bank Note Company had only recently consolidated from several predecessor security printers when this note was produced. Cuban colonial notes of this period survive in very small numbers; the political upheavals that culminated in the Ten Years' War beginning in 1868 disrupted banking continuity, and most early Habana bank paper was withdrawn or lost before the century ended.