The Recreation Plaza’s Cemetery
During the last months of the year 1949 the Ministry of Public Works was building a new recreation park in the rectangle within Habana, Máximo Gómez, Trujillo and Maceo Streets. That portion of land was divided by San Julián Street since the year 1851 when the new twin towered Catholic temple was inaugurated, on March 2, with the attendance of the General Captain Don José Gutiérrez de la Concha.
Almost one hundred years later that stretch of the street would disappear, the two portions of land being joined and making only one park, work done by the Municipality in the year 1944.
Now in 1949, public attention was focused on the work being made by the Government. The residents watched the transfer of José Martí’s bust located in the center of the park, one day raised due to the patriotic fervor of “AJEF” and that would be erected now in the other park named "Martí", built by the Provincial Government upon the initiative of the then Provincial Advisor Dr. Ramón Casas Bacallao. The workers were working with the mechanical drills, removing the concrete surface; palms and other trees were pulled out and the excavations were being done in accordance to the job’s plans and specifications. And one afternoon, the people learned that human remains had been found in the park, bones, skulls, fibulas and other skeleton parts. The Criminal Court started the pertinent criminal investigation, and the group of bones was sent in a box to the National Identification Laboratory in Havana, so a proper report could be rendered.
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José Alonso
Novo, Editor of Heraldo de Güines (Güines' Herald),
and Vice-Secretary of Güines' Chamber of Commerce.
Photo from Diario de la
Marina (Navy's Daily), No. 25, Havana, Thursday, April 11, 1929
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The local newspaper "Diario del Interior" (“Inland Daily”) kept the public opinion informed of such finding and besides, it cordially invited a few of us interested in things related to the history of Güines, to express our opinions. Our friend and colleague Mr. José Alonso Novo, exhorted like us by the newspaper, stated his conclusion in the issues of October 8 and 11, 1949 and at the same time requested our opinion of that known event. With great pleasure we agreed to the requests asked from us, categorically affirming that a cemetery did exist in that part of what nowadays is a public park. And to prove it, it is only sufficient to review the laws of that era and the documentary evidence in existence in the Church and Town Council’s archives…
Alonso Novo in the issue of October 8, 1948 of "Diario del Interior", asks the question: “Could it be possible that in primitive times, an Indian cemetery existed in land now occupied by our park? That is not impossible, nevertheless, I tend to believe that our park before being so, was a cemetery.”
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La
Marina (The Navy) Hardware Store, of Benjamín Ochoa.
Photo from Diario de la
Marina (Navy's Daily), No. 25, Havana, Thursday, April 11, 1929
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Alonso Novo’s opinion is correct. Let’s not talk about the Indian cemetery, although we are not denying possibilities to its existence, the same way we do not deny the possibility that in the back of “La Marina” (“The Navy”) Hardware Store, a place where the Cuatro Palmas (Four Palms) bridge was located and next to it the hermitage of Los Güines Corral at the beginning of the last third of the XVII Century, a cemetery or graveyard could have been located there.
It looks like until 1690 there was no Parish Church in this Jurisdiction. We believe that the hermitages in the field were due to the need to have a piece of holy land where dead people could be buried, as indicated by the Laws of the Indies, Law 11, Title XVIII, First Book. When the parish was created, the Priest benefitted by His Majesty Don Manuel Agama y Navarrete selected as “being more decent” the hermitage built by residents of Julián’s Ranch. And there, the Parish was established in the lands of the old Indian Pedro Guzmán, in San Julián Hacienda or Corral going down Candelas or Las Candelas Hill, to the right where “a priest continually assisted administering the Sacraments and Extreme Unction.”
This San Julián location, originally stated in church’s documents published in 1843 by Licentiate Don Laureano José de Miranda, had a site bordering Los Güines, Río Bayamo and Nombre de Dios Corrals granted by the Havana Town Council in 1673 to Don Juan de la Gama.
The building of the church would be constructed there and inasmuch as there in San Julián Corral the parish headquarters were located, we notice that the entries on death and baptismal certificates do not state the name of the Corral, but said: “In the Parish Church of San Julián, one within the fields of San Cristóbal of Havana;” and when those born in other places within the jurisdiction were baptized, the name of the Corral was included: Miraflores, Managuaco, San Juan del Hoyo de Melena, Cujunagua, La Canoa, Los Güines, Yamaraguas, etc.
Notwithstanding the fact that the so called San Julián Corral did exist in this jurisdiction, the Royal Grant given by the Havana Town Council makes reference to “Julián’s Ranch” and a lot of land within that Corral was in that of Los Güines.
The only existing San Julián with name comprised within the measurements and markings then established during the era of Governor Don Gaspar de Toro, as resulting from land measurements work done by Don Luis de las Peñas at the beginning of 1600, is the one that geographer Don Esteban Pichardo, records in his Geography: “San Julián: Partly demolished cattle ranch within the jurisdiction of Guane, Paso Real quarter.”
The first book of deaths which has reached us is dated 1735 and as we shall see, is enough evidence that we intend to use to prove the existence of a cemetery in the park, in our opinion, being the second parish cemetery.
That year 1735 the parish headquarters were moved to Los Güines Corral. It was so ordered in Holy Visit made on January 11, by His Illustrious Bishop, Brother Dr. Juan Lazo de la Vega y Cansino. In the same place where the human remains surfaced, the Prelate ordered the construction of the church building that according to the inventory in existence in the parochial archives:
“Is all built of wood, 16 varas long and seven wide and its sacristy being 6 varas long, a high room upstairs, everything very decent. A main altar composed of a picture of Our Lady of Conception, a mister San Julián. A bell weighing around 4 arrobas, partly purchased by Father Juan Thomas Álvarez Fonseca from his own money.”
This document is dated January 1737, a minute of the second visit of the Bishop, as minutes of the 1740 and 1742 visits by the same Diocesan are in existence, and he could have had his own particular reasons to change the headquarters location and to build from his own pocket a church and to change or modify the Parish’s name. But undoubtedly the fact, the decision of the Bishop, was in accordance to what was ordered by the Laws of the Indies for the foundation of towns specially in those places that had rivers. The church was built at more than one hundred steps from the town, in that fashion, distancing itself from the urban nucleus due to the fact that the dead were buried there.
In two of the Second Books of Deaths, one for Spaniards and the other for Indians, dark and brown skinned races, the opening words had the same date: Year 1735. The first one, that is to say the one for Spaniards, entry No. 1 is dated November 15, 1735 and begins: “In the Parish Church of San Julián,” the before mentioned date is entered and it continues: “I did bury an infant named Diego,” etc. No. 4 says:
“No. 4. On January 8 of this year seventeen hundred and thirty six I did bury in the Parish Church of San Julián the body of Sebastián de Armas, aged twenty years, who died in hacienda Los Güines…”
As we can see, this death certificate is perfectly detailed: It was in San Julián Church where he was buried having died in Los Güines hacienda. And on October 1736, entry No. 7 contains the burial of an infant who died in such hacienda Los Güines and it is stated that he was buried: “In Güines Parish Church on October eighteen 1736”
Later on, that Sebastián de Armas whose death was recorded in entry No. 4 on January 8, 1736, is shown that his remains were transferred from “San Julián” Cemetery to the church built in “Los Güines”:
“No. 8. In the Parish Church of San Julián and San Francís Xavier on the third of July of this year one thousand seven hundred and thirty eight, I, the Benefitted Juan Thomas Álvarez, Priest of this jurisdiction by His Majesty, did bury the bones exhumed from San Julián Church of such jurisdiction said to belong to Sebastián de Armas by virtue of license from the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Dr. Don Brother Juan Lazo de la Vega y Cansino, worthy Bishop of this Island of Cuba and I did sign it. Juan Thomas Álvarez Fonseca.”
This entry just by itself, proves the existence of a cemetery in San Julián Church and that of the other cemetery in the new parish church headquarters that His Lordship the Bishop, named as “San Julián and San Francis Xavier of Güines,” whose temple was built in the rectangle of land limited by Habana, Máximo Gómez, Trujillo and San Julián Streets, donated at that time by its owner Don Miguel de Ayala y Fernández de Velasco.
Translated by the staff of Círculo Güinero de Los Ángeles
Continue to: Images of Güines
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