When the Catalan Jaime Partagás y Ravelo (Rabell) migrated to Cuba in 1831, he was merely a teenager, 14 years old, but he had many brilliant ideas about his new life. Soon, he started to work for the businessman Joan Conill in Havana.

The Joan Conill y Pig was also a Catalan that had arrived in Cuba in 1817. He was born in France, but his family was originally from Barcelona.  He had established the first tobacco store in Old Havana, dedicated to the export of this product. He was manufacturing the tobacco that was cultivated in his farms and selling them under the brand name Alianza. Joan Conill was also a banker, regidor (alderman) in the city council and founder of the La Chorrera Oil refinery. The charitable Joan Conill was known in helping to a number of Catalans, initiating them in business and supporting them in standing on their own two feet.

Jaime Partagás learned everything about tobacco from working with Joan Conill. Then he started to work as torcedor (cigar twister) for the Asturian Francisco Alvarez Cabañas that had a cigar trading license since 1817. He was marketing his cigars under his own brand Cabañas. Here, Jaime Partagás developed his knowledge about cultivation, curing, transportation, storage, exportation, production and trade of tobacco. His ambition led him to establish his own factory, La Flor de Tabacos de Partagás (the Tobacco Flower of Partagás) in 1838. Initially, it was a small and unimportant store at the intersection of the Industria and the Barcelona streets, behind the current Capitolio, but he went ahead by moving the factory to a warehouse on the Cristina street #1 and establishing the Real Fábricas de Tobaco Partagás (Royal Tobacco Factory Partagás) in 1845. He might have used the word Royal to emphasize that his products were appealing to the taste of the cream of the society of Europe and Asia. His own brand Partagás emerged around these years. Gradually, he expanded the business here. With the money he had spent, and the support of his wife Catalina Puig, he moved the factory to a beautiful colonial-style building on the Industria street #520 in 1850.

Jaime Partagás was very successful in choosing the plantations where the finest tobacco could grow, so that he bought many plantations in the island incisively, including many of the best plantations in Vuelta Abajo. Vuelta Abajo, located west of Pinar del Rio, is the finest tobacco-growing land on the world. Hato de Santa Cruz, a land of 8 square kilometers close to Consolacion del Sur, was one the best plantations in Vuelta Abajo. Jaime Partagás bought it in 1853. He managed all his plantations through tenants that he attended.

Jaime Partagás also revolutionized the manufacturing of tobacco by being the first to make experiments on cigar fermentation and ageing methods to preserve the quality. His efforts made the brand Partagás incredibly successful. He hired one of the first lectors with the mission to read aloud the newspapers and some novels to the employees (cigar twisters), when they worked.

When he was building his Partagás empire, he made a lot of enemies also, not only because of his addiction to women, but also because he was a successful Cuban cigar brand owner.

In 1848, Manuel Gonzales-Carvajal, the son-in-law of Francisco Cabañas, accused Jaime Partagás of stealing the well-known brand name Cabañas by launching the new brand La Flor de Cabañas of Partagás y Compañía to the market, as the similarity of the names was creating confusion, particularly in the British market, where the Cabañas brand had been well known since a long time.

The case was brought into the court and the trial lasted for five years. According to the judicial sentence, the act of Jaime Partagás was defined as infringement and he was sentenced to abandon his brand and to pay to Manuel González-Carvajal for his loss on the market. However, the publicity generated by the trial widely led to associate the name Partagás with the Cabañas brand, so that Jaime Partagás turned the lawsuit into advantage by persuading Manuel Gonzales-Carvajal to establish the brand La Flor de Tabacos de Partagás y Cía (the Tobacco Flower of Partagás Inc.) in 1853.

He had also some conflicts with the adjoining landowners. One of them, Pedro Mato, accused Jaime Partagás of encroaching his land and the court acknowledged Pedro Mato to be right. Jaime Partagás was blamed of offering large loans to farmers in the region at extortionate rates, of buying up their crops before the harvest at advantageous prices, and of supplying them with seeds and equipment from his own warehouses with the sole purpose of putting them so deep into debt that they would have to sell their land and come work for him. Furthermore, Jaime Partagás was accused of making habit of having sexual intercourse with his slaves in his plantations. The land disputes with his neighbors put Jaime Partagás’ head in a noose. In 1868, Jaime Partagás was shot close to Hato de Santa Cruz and died one month later. One of his employers of his farm was sentenced of admitting the crime, whereas his adjoining neighbor, motivated by revenge, was sentenced of having instigated the murder.