A Canadian on the Iste of Pines

At the beginning of the 20th century inhabitants of the Isle of Youth, then called the Isle of Pines, found it easy to distinguish people from the Cayman Islands from other foreign residents on that islet. However, things became confusing for the Pineros with Asians and people of other nationalities; they called japanese residents "Chinese", while Canadians and European settlers were invariably lumped together as "Americans".

This made it more complicated for historian juan Colina La Rosa when he learned of the existence of a colony of more than fifty families from Canada who came to seek their fortune on the island, as they had been believed to be from the States. William joseph Mills, the most conspicuous of these individuals, was long thought to have been one of the biggest US investors in the area.

However, Mills was born in Bingranton, Ontario, Canada. He was Canadian although he'd lived elsewhere and spent the last forty years of his life on the Isle of Pines. He was the owner and president of the Isle of Pines Steamship Company, the shipping line that connected Nueva Gerona, main city of the Isle of Pines, with the Surgidero of Batabano on the main island. He, then his descendents, owned one of the most important companies in the area, the shipping line that completely dominated sea traffic to and from the "big island" until it was forced out by the Batista government in 1955.

The house on the river Mills and his entire family arrived in Cuba in 1901. He was then 42 and had already accomplished much outside his country of birth. In 1889 he had married Anne Benneth Tomlinso in Syracuse, New York and they had three children.