The Rionda y Polledo siblings were born in Noreña, Asturias, Spain to Bernado de la Rionda y Alvarez and Josefa Polledo y de la Mata. From their marriage ten children were born, some that always remained in Spain and some that emigrated to the US and Cuba.

1. Francisco Rionda y Polledo (1844-1898), in 1875 married Elena de la Torrriente Hernandez and had Francisco Rionda del a Torriente (1876-1943), José Bernardo Rionda de la Torriente (1878-1962), Leandro Rionda de la Torriente (1881-1953), Elena Felicita Doty Rionda de la Torriente (1882-1944), Salvador Rionda de la Torriente (1888-1961) and Esperanza Rionda de la Torriente (1890-1960)

2. Isidora Rionda y Polledo (1846-1936), married Alberto Noriega

3. Bibiana Rionda y Polledo (1848-1883), married Jose de la Braga y Diaz and had Bernardo Braga Rionda (1875-1960) and Josefa Maria Braga Rionda de Antuña

4. Gregoria Rionda y Polledo (1849-1926) married Nicasio Fernandez

5. Joaquín Rionda y Polledo (1850-1889) married Sophie Benjamin (1857-1877) and had Manuel Enrique Rionda Benjamin (1877-1950)

6. Maria Rionda y Polledo (1851-1909), married Alfonso Fanjul Fernandez and had Higinio Alberto Fanjúl Rionda (1877-1963 ), Josefa Fanjul Rionda, Odelinda Fanjul Rionda and Joaquin Fanjul Rionda

7. Ramona Rionda y Polledo (1852-1948), married Pedro Alonso y Bobes

8. Manuel Rionda y Polledo (1854-1943), in 1889 married Harriet Clarke ( -1922) and had no descendants

9. Concepción Rionda Y Polledo (1855-1935) married José Jorcano

10. Silvestre Rionda y Polledo (1877-1946), married María Vergara

Francisco, as the eldest sibling, was the first to emigrate to Cuba to work for his uncle Joaquín Polledo y de la Mata (ca.1820 -) at his sugar plantations and by 1870 had established the sugar exporting firm Polledo, Rionda & Co. in Matanzas. By 1877 Francisco and his uncle had acquired a sugar mill called Central China. His father-in-law Cosme Damián de la Torriente y Gándara (1809-1870) was a Spaniard from Santander who had been established in Cuba since the 1820s and made a fortune in the slave trade. By 1875 with two of his brothers Francisco de la Torriente y Gándara (1798-1870) and Antonio de la Torriente y Gándara (1801-1881), they owned  seven sugar mills: Central Amistad, Central Carlota, Central Maria, Central Isabel[1], Central Progreso, Central San Pablo and Central Elena which management was entrusted to Francisco.

Through their sugar exporting firm, Francisco and his uncle had also established a business relationship with George S. Hunt, owner of the Eagle Sugar Refinery in Portland, ME. Joaquín and Manuel joined Francisco in Cuba for a brief period in 1870 then left to attend the Abbott School in Farmington, ME where Mr. Hunt took care of them.  By 1873 Joaquín had moved to Manhattan and associated with Lewis Benjamin ( -1876) in a commodity trading firm primarily importing sugar from Cuba and exporting lard, grain and other provisions to Cuba under the name Benjamin, Rionda & Co.  Joaquin married Lewis’ daughter Sophie, who died giving birth to their only son.  After Lewis and Sophie’s death, Joaquín became the sole partner and reorganized the company as Rionda, Benjamin & Co.  In 1874 after finishing school in Maine, Manuel joined Joaquín in NY.  

By 1877 Rionda, Benjamin & Co. as agent of Polledo, Rionda & Co. had contracted with Farrel Foundry in Ansonia, CT for new machinery to substantially upgrade Central China.  On December 1878, due to the sharp decline in sugar prices because the increased production of beet sugar in Europe, Polledo, Rionda & Co. was unable to pay more than $400,000 owed to Rionda, Benjamin & Co. forcing it into insolvency. In an 1880 court ordered settlement, Francisco, Joaquin and Manuel Rionda acquired all the shares of Central China and the Matanzas warehouses owned by Polledo, Rionda & Co. Joaquín left the management of Rionda, Benjamin & Co. in the hands of twenty two year old partner Hugh Kelly and moved to Cuba to take charge of Central China, Manuel also moved to Cuba to take charge of the Matanzas warehouses and Francisco remained engaged in the management of Central Elena until it was sold to Grande, Solaún & Co. when he joined Joaquin at Central China. In 1883 Rionda, Benjamin & Co. was declared insolvent, the Matanzas warehouses failed and mounting losses at Central China forced its eventual acquisition by the New York Sugar Manufacturing Co. established by Franklin Farrell of Farrell Foundry, Lewis Cooke and Hugh Kelly who became its manager.

In 1886 Manuel returned to New York City to work for the sugar brokerage business J. M. Ceballos & Co.   In 1883, his sister Bibiana died in their hometown in Spain. Her eldest and only son Bernardo Braga Rionda then came to New York to live with Manuel who took care and raised him as his own.  In 1889 Joaquin drowned while crossing the Tiunucú River on horseback, his then thirteen year old Manuel Rionda Benjamin was then, like his cousin Bernardo, put in Manuel's charge. In 1891 Manuel joined with Juan Manuel Ceballos and Juan M. Clarke, the Havana representative of Krajewski-Pesant Co., to organize Central Tiunucú Sugar Cane Manufacturing Co.  Francisco Rionda settled in Tiunucú which was inland in Sancti Spiritus, too far east where no railroad had reached yet.  Nonetheless, Francisco settled there with his wife and six children and his nephew Manuel Rionda Benjamin.  However, with the outbreak of the Cuban War for Independence in 1895, all plans to develop the sugar mill were abandoned and Francisco and all his family had to flee to the US where they were received by Manuel and Harriet who in 1902 acquired land across Manhattan on the New Jersey palisades where they built a spacious home they called Rio Vista.  Manuel & Harriett would call Rio Vista home during most of the year except for the dead season when they would spend most of the time in London and for the beginning of the grinding season when they would spend the first three or four months of the year at Central Tiunucú.

In 1897 Manuel joined Czarnikow, MacDougal & Co., the newly established New York office of C. Czarnikow Ltd. established in 1861 in London which at the time was the world’s pre-eminent sugar broker.  Czarnikow McDougal & Co. was established in 1891 by Polish-Jewish immigrant Julius Ceasar Czarnikow and Scottish George McDougal as the North American branch of C. Czarnikow, Ltd.  After Manuel started at Czarnikow, McDougal & Co., he recruited Francisco to be the company's representative in Cuba.  Francisco, then returned with his family to Cuba to tend to his new responsibilities. 

The war for independence allowed increased possibilities for Czarnikow, MacDougal & Co. in Cuba as many of its competitors had not survived or were in difficult financial position. With the capital resources of C. Czarnikow behind him, Manuel financed old clients and aggressively sought new ones and by 1903, Czarnikow, MacDougall was the dominant company in the Cuban sugar trade. When the company's senior partner, Julius Caesar Czarnikow, died on April 7, 1909, Czarnikow-Rionda Co. was incorporated September 1, 1909 to continue the operations of Czarnikow, McDougal & Co with Manuel Rionda as its president and chairman having a 20% ownership interest and his nephew Manuel Rionda Benjamin as Secretary. The new firm was a private company and management of the company was vested in the common stock owned coequally by five individuals. Four of the common stockholders were the remaining partners in C. Czarnikow, Ltd.; the fifth was Rionda. Consequently, control of the company remained in London.

Rionda's relations with the other stockholders were never satisfactory, Rionda believed the Europeans were too conservative to effectively compete for the Cuban sugar market. The London stockholders, for their part, were wary of Cuba's political instability. Incidents such as the Guerrito de Agosto, which resulted in a second U.S. occupation of Cuba in 1906, and a racial conflict in 1912 further soured business interest in the island. In 1915, Rionda announced his intention to retire from Czarnikow-Rionda. His aim was to create his own brokerage house with his nephews, Manuel Enrique Rionda Benjamin and Bernardo Braga Rionda, as his seconds and successors. Negotiations between the New York and London offices led, instead, to a new five year agreement that reduced British participation in Czarnikow-Rionda and allowed Rionda to continue to serve as the company's chief executive and chairman of the board. It was agreed between the partners that in case of Manuel's death, half of his interest in Czarnikow-Rionda Co. would pass on to Manuel Rionda Benjamin, Bernardo Braga Rionda and Victor and Ralph Zevallos. Neither the Fanjul nor the de la Torriente nephews were included, leaving Fanjul with the Francisco colonia and the de la Torrientes with their interest in Central Tiunucú, Central Francisco and the inheritance from their mother's participation in her late husband's assets.

Between 1902 and 1922, the Riondas expanded their operations and holdings in Cuba. When several mills passed into the hands of Czarnikow, MacDougall after their owners failed to meet debt obligations, the Riondas stepped in to acquire and manage the properties. In this manner the Rionda’s acquired the foreclosed Central San Vicente in 1907 and Central San José which was reorganized as the Washington Sugar Co. in 1911. Management of both fell under Leandro Rionda de la Torriente who by 1913 had tripled Washington's production.  Central Washington, never a good performing sugar mill despite the increased production, was sold in 1920 for $2 million.  Subsequently “On June 22, 1922, as ordered by the court of first instance of Sagua la Grande, for the third and last time, the Central Washington, formerly known as San José, will be put up for auction in order to secure the payment of a debt of $250,000…”[2]. Other acquisitions included the Central Elia, a sugar mill just fifteen miles northeast of Central Francisco and Central Céspedes near La Florida in Camagüey. Among the financial backers of the Washington Sugar Co. was Walter E. Ogilvie, a US businessman and a major stockholder in the United Railways of the Havana and Regla Warehouses. Rionda and Ogilvie organized the Regla Coal Company in 1911 and broke the Berwind White Coal Company's monopoly on coal distribution in Cuba. For a brief period in the early 1920s, Ogilvie served as Czarnikow-Rionda's president and attempted a reorganization of the company's operations. When the reorganization failed to bring the desired results, Rionda returned to his position as president.

After the Cuban War of Independence ended and the 1899 grinding season got underway, Manuel visited Cuba to find out if Central Tiunucú had survived the war.  He found out that although the manor house and the manufacturing structures were still standing, they were overgrown with weeds but could be rescued.  The plan was for Francisco's widow Elena and their children to move to the house and Manuel's brother-in-law Pedro Alonso to be in charge of reconstruction.  A big event that proved that rebuilding  the ingenio into the Tiunucú Sugar Mill was a great decision was the construction in 1900 of Sir William Van Horne's Cuba Company central railroad from Santa Clara through the center of the island to the easternmost Oriente Province.  Tiunucú was one of the first sugar mills, if not the first, to haul sugar over the Cuba Railroad Company's railroad.  That immediately resulted in a 50% increase in value for Central Tiunucú.  By the next grinding season in the spring of 1900, Tiunucú would produce some 3,400 bags of sugar for sale.

While Tiunucú was being rebuilt, Manuel had to deal with his brother’s estate mainly consisting of the land his brother had acquired shortly before his death, this proved to be a complex process because Manuel died intestate. The process to acquire clean title on the lands included first the creation of the Cuban American Sugar & Land Co. and later the Francisco Sugar Co. The Francisco Sugar Co. was incorporated in New Jersey on February 23, 1899 by Manuel Rionda, Joseph I. Clarke and George H. Atkinson but it was not until June 1900 that Manuel finally succeeded in selling a majority block of shares to the McCahan Sugar Refinery that the project took off the ground with Irishman William J. McCahan as president.  To develop the colono system that had so well worked in western Cuba, then twenty-two year old Higinio Fanjul Rionda was put in charge of building and managing a colonia system and run the company store. The Francisco Sugar Co. plan to build a sugar mill in the lands acquired by the Cuban American Sugar & Land Co. was a very ambitious project which required substantial capital to lure enough supply of workers, build railroad lines from the fields to the factory and build all the required infrastructure from docks to telephone lines to living quarters.  The project was aided by Henry O. Havemeyer's unrelated $800,000 investment to acquire Central Lugareño, which though on the north coast and some fifty miles away, opened the eyes and interest of other US sugar refiners to the possibilities of establishing sugar mills in Cuba.  

In May 1898, Francisco had acquired fifty thousand acres of wilderness from Salvador Cisneros Betancourt and Salvador Fluriach on the south coast just north of Guayabal and approximately two hundred miles east of Central Tiunucú.  When Francisco died on November 18, 1898, an offer for a 25% share of the land made to Czarnikow, McDougal & Co. was under consideration but had not been accepted. Central Franciscofirst grinding season was 1902 and in 1904 produced some 69,000 bags of raw sugar and showed a profit of $60,000.  After 1904 its production stalled to a point that prompted Manuel to offer it for sale in 1908 to James H. Post of B. H. Howell, Son & Co., the Cuban-American Sugar Co. and others with no luck.  On June 1909, John Durham, the McCahan appointed general Manager of Central Francisco, was replaced with twenty nine years-old Leandro Rionda de la Torriente.  Leandro did an excellent job in managing Central Francisco which in 1913 produced 257,140 bags of sugar, the 9th top producer on the island that year. In 1915 The Francisco Sugar Co. paid a stock dividend of 233%, in 1916, 1918 and 1919 it paid 20% cash dividend and in 1920 it paid 30%.  Even in 1917 when the civil unrest due to the results of the 1916 election had threatened its mere existence, a cash dividend of 10% was paid.  In 1916 Central Tiunucú Sugar Cane Manufacturing Co. paid 50% stock dividend on its preferred shares and a 100% stock dividend on its common shares and cash dividends of 10% in 1917 and 1918 and 27.5% in 1919 and 1920.

In 1906 Manuel started a very favorable and long lasting relationship with the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, the law firm responsible for convincing the State of New Jersey to change its laws to favor corporations and that organized the US Steel Co. for John Pierport Morgan.  This relationship opened Manuel Rionda's access to Wall Street capital when $2.5 million in capital stock was secured to acquire the Stewart Sugar Co.  The Stewart Sugar Co., named after the Glasgow manufacturer who designed and built it with the financial backing of the British investment banking firm Schroder’s, was a failed venture abandoned in its early stages by Cuban banker Manuel Silveira.  Rionda, together with Sir William Van Horne and J. S. Fiske were the three voting trustees according to the Voting Trust Agreement drawn by Sullivan & Cromwell.  Central Stewart first crop was 1908 and by 1910 it was already producing 215,000 bags of raw sugar sold by Czarnikow, MacDougal & Co. for a commission of 1% of gross proceeds.

Juan M. Clarke, who had been the Havana agent for Czarnikow, MacDougal & Co. export department, died in 1907.  The export department had produced such earnings that Manuel Rionda decided to replace it with a wholly owned subsidiary.  He had his close friend and associate Victor Zeballos y Chiriboga (1873-1949) incorporate the Cuban Trading Co. in Havana on July 20, 1907.  Victor remained at the helm of the Cuban Trading Co. until his retirement in 1922 when he was replaced by Aurelio Portuondo Barceló.  Higinio Fanjul Rionda and his son Alfonso Fanjúl Estrada were later presidents of the Cuban Trading Company.  The Cuban Trading Co. bought sugar, arranged loans to mills and cane farmers, handled insurance claims, resolved local disputes, provided legal and notary services and handled substantial sales of machinery, jute bags, coal, oil and plantation supplies all throughout Cuba.  The Cuban Trading Company also kept the parent company informed of its competitors' activities and played the critical role of liaison to the Cuban government.

In 1911, Manuel Rionda brought together a group of investors that included, Claus Spreckels, Edmund Converse, Regino Truffin, Joseph R. de Lamar, the law firm Sullivan & Comwell and J. & W. Seligman & Co. to exploit extensive land holdings around the Bahia de Manatí, twice the size of Havana harbor.  The Manatí Sugar Co. was incorporated in New York on April 30, 1912 with a capitalization of $1.5 million to build the very large Central Manatí.  It was an immense undertaking that presaged Rionda's most ambitious business venture, the Cuba Cane Sugar Corporation in 1915.  Its Board of Directors was comprised of Regino Truffin, president; Rionda, Alfred Jaretzki of Sullivan & Cromwell and Frederick Strauss, vice presidents and the Marquis de San Miguel de Aguayo, Eduardo de Uzurrún, General Manager.  Central Manati traditionally paid annual cash dividends of 10% on its common stock.  After Manuel's death in 1943, his nephew Manuel Rionda Benjamin was named president of Manati Sugar Co.

In the summer of 1920 with nearly 70% of Cuban sugar production controlled by American corporations, Rionda saw the future of Czarnikow-Rionda & Co. commission business very dim and the downward trend irreversible.  Although he had previously decided against the idea, after the death of William J. McCahan in 1918, in June 1920 he bought a majority interest in the McCahan Sugar and Molasses Refining Co. in Philadelphia for $5 million with the McCahan family retaining 30% interest.  In 1922, after his separation from the Cuba Cane Sugar Corp., Manuel turned his attention to the family's sugar mills, Francisco, Tiunucú, Manatí and Tacajó which they managed.  

Czarnikow-Rionda continued to operate after Manuel's death in 1943 with his nephew Bernardo Braga Rionda succeeding him as president.  In the post WWII period, the company had increased success until the Cuban Revolution in 1959 soon after which they lost all access to Cuban sugar and their properties on the island that at the time included six sugar mills. Czarnikow-Rionda was second in size only to Galban, Lobo & Co. when Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba.  Galban, Lobo & Co. was unable to survive the Cuban crisis and was dissolved in 1965 when Czarnikow-Rionda acquired its subsidiary, Olavarria & Co., which was selling Puerto Rican refined sugar to retail outlets in the mainland United States.  Czarnikow-Rionda turned to sugar from the Dominican Republic and the Philippines to replace much of the Cuban trade and established a subsidiary in Great Britain, where it competed with its former parent, C. Czarnikow & Co. as a broker in the European beet-sugar market.

In 1961 Czarnikow-Rionda financed 15% of a cooperative venture to establish a mill in southern Florida, which became the nation's largest. Through a new subsidiary, Osceola Farms, Inc., Czarnikow-Rionda also dismantled a Louisiana mill and reassembled it on four thousand acres of farmland newly drained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers near Canal Point, Florida. The Fanjul Brothers, who are related and for a long time associated with the Rionda’s sugar buisinesses, took a 20% stake in this enterprise and eventually came to own one hundred sixty thousand acres of cultivated land in the area through Flo-Sun Inc.  The Fanjul Brothers also own Central Romana in the Dominican Republic.

Czarnikow-Rionda had annual revenue of about $40 million when it was sold in December 1969 to C. Brewer & Co., Ltd., a majority-owned subsidiary of International Utilities Corp.  The transaction included eight subsidiaries among which were the London brokerage, a Philippine firm, New York and Panama based shipping companies and Closter Farms, Inc. of Florida, but did not include the molasses operation which continued as Braga Brothers, Inc.  C. Brewer & Co., Ltd. sold the company to Czarnikow-Rionda's employees shortly after 1972. In July 1999, Czarnikow-Rionda was the world's third largest sugar-trading firm when it went under due to unpaid debt of more than $70 million.  At the time it had long term contracts with China and Russia that went south due to sugar prices dropping to 5¢ a pound and sizable credits to sugar mills in Brazil affected by that country's currency crisis.

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[1] Central Isabel was built on land gifted to Cosme’s wife Isabel Hernández y Castillo Rodriguez by her father Capt. Sebastián Hernández y Cedres. It was inherited by Francisco and Elena’s son Leandro de la Torriente Hernández (1851-ca1948) who lost it in the 1892 to American Investors.

[2]The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer June 17, 1922