300 Pesos

The Banco Español de la Habana issued this note during one of the most turbulent periods in Cuban colonial history — the Ten Years' War had begun in October 1868, and Spanish authorities were under immediate fiscal pressure to fund military operations against the insurrection. Notes of this denomination circulated in a deeply unstable environment where public confidence in paper currency was already fragile.

The American Bank Note Company contract is worth noting: despite Spain's political control over Cuba, the colony's premier banking institution was sourcing its security printing from New York, a city that was simultaneously a hub of sympathy and material support for the Cuban independence cause.