Our Villa of Güines
Thought: Exile is a source of teaching how to learn to live in the future.
We can’t start this modest contribution for our official voice in exile, without offering our dear fellow Güineros a message of faith and hope for those who suffer under pressure and captivity and with great heroism wait for the sun of freedom to illuminate the Fatherland right now bloodied and full of darkness.
For them then, our words of love.
Our hometown, as Raimundo Cabrera said, San Julián de los Güines, was in 1514 the origin of the foundation of San Cristóbal de La Habana, when Diego Velázquez planted the flag of Castile south of Güines, next to present day Providencia sugar mill.
Don Diego Velázquez entered Güines through the south coast of this town and after leaving his ships, arrived on foot through the road that nowadays goes to Providencia founding San Cristóbal de La Habana several kilometers from the coast. It remained in that location for four years and in 1518 was relocated to the banks of the Almendares river and in 1519, San Cristóbal de La Habana definitely remained what is today the city of Havana, where later on, the first Mass was officiated by Brother Bartolomé de las Casas, in the same place where El Templete (i.e., The Pavilion) is located. There was there a kapok tree, the original one, and no trace of it is left.
That venerated tree, respected by centuries and admired by the people of that era, was sold by General Tacón to an Admiral of the British Navy and its trunk, whose branches were destroyed by time, is located in a London museum with a plate which says the following: “Under this kapok tree Brother Bartolomé de las Casas officiated the first Mass in Havana.” London keeps the only silent witness of that first religious faith that the Protector of Indians gave to San Cristóbal de La Habana, the Havana of that time.
Before Velázquez, shipwrecked Indians and Spaniards arrived in that area, whose chieftain was Abaguanex (first Indian chief that Güines history records). The Spaniards attacked these shipwrecks and that’s why the ditch that runs behind the church was named El Español (i.e., The Spaniard) or Los Españoles (i.e., The Spaniards), because the defenders found refuge in that place, coming out victorious in the encounter.
By a Royal Edict, San Francisco Javier or San Julián de los Güines was named Güines Corral and the town’s center was located in present day Leguina. It could be pronounced Güines or Guines because this name comes from the Basque country, according to Calcagno.
The population was increasing and a cemetery sprung up next to the wooden church of the time. This is the same location where the present day church and its surrounding plaza are. The cemetery continued at this location until 1804.
The burials stopped by a decree of Bishop Don Juan José Díaz de Espada y Fernández de Landa, and the cemetery was then transferred to an area between Clemente Fernández and Daniel Streets.
When the British captured Havana in 1762, Bishop Morell de Santa Cruz was deported to Florida. In the middle of the British rule, in 1763, Father José Agustín Caballero, the uncle of Don Pepe, was born in Havana. Later on, in 1765, in the town of Aroyave, Málaga, Bishop Espada was born and in that same year, in the city of Havana, Don Francisco de Arango y Parreño came to the world.
During their stay in Cuba, Güines was the place where the British kept their treasures and after the end of their rule, Bishop Morell returned to Cuba and in 1776 built Güines’ first hospital.
In the center of town, to wit in present day Leguina neighborhood, Father Almohalla, a native of Güines, officiated Mass in a chapel being also an elementary school teacher for both sexes and races. Supported by Don Francisco de Arango y Parreño, through that classroom illustrious Güineros paraded who later on gave fame to the Villa.
Father Almohalla was a holy man who dedicated his life to do good deeds, in the faith and in teaching and that’s why Almohalla Street bears his name.
Güines had many sugar mills. We remember Honduras, the epicenter of the Conspiración de la Escalera (i.e., Ladder’s Conspiracy) and Providencia sugar mill, whose owner was Don Marcelino Escobedo y del Olmo, the father of Don Nicolás Manuel de Escobedo y Rivero, a lawyer and public speaker of great fame, a graduate of Havana University and Professor of the same, whose knowledge was on a par with that of Father Don Félix Varela and José Antonio Saco.
We remember also Alejandría sugar mill whose owner was Colonel of the Spanish Army Don Pedro Pablo O’Reilly y de las Casas, the second Count of O’Reilly and nephew of the General Captain of the Island, Don Luis de las Casas.
Don Francisco de Arango y Parreño was born in the city of Havana in 1765 and died in the same city in 1837, although some believe that he died in the Villa of Güines, his remains being transferred to Havana, receiving a Christian burial in Espada’s Cemetery in the Pantheon of the Worthy.
After graduating from college at 21 years old, he had to defend very serious lawsuits because at the death of his father, Don Ciriaco Arango, creditors filed lawsuits against La Ninfa sugar mill, inherited by his son, as well as against other properties, in Güines as in Havana. Arango y Parreño petitioned the Crown to grant him letters of emancipation, which were granted so he could appear in Santo Domingo Court, to defend himself against the lawsuit filed by his father’s creditors.
This lawsuit had great resonance in the Península where Arango y Parreño made his debut at an early age, giving him the foundation and lighting the spark that made him a learned civil attorney, because we can not lose sight that in order to appear to defend his rights, it was necessary to obtain letters of emancipation granted by the Government, which empowered him to defend himself in the lawsuit because he did not have his diploma yet. This success was very valuable to him in his future development, as it was demonstrated during his 72 years long life. After such litigation was finished, Arango y Parreño traveled to Spain where he finished his studies.
In the Mother Country, he received great honors from the Crown, and traveled throughout Europe and part of America where he made ample studies about agriculture. In that trip he grasped what was coming for Haití and French Santo Domingo, persecutions unleashed by Emperor Napoleon in the last decade of the XVIII Century.
Many Haitians families immigrated to Cuba and later on, around 30,000 Dominican families found refuge in our Island, especially in the eastern part. That immigration brought the coffee plant to Cuba, French uses and costumes under the Government of Marquis of Santa Clara, who was succeeded at the end of the decade by the Marquis of Someruelos, whose ship sustained damages in his trip to Cuba to take charge of the Government, being compelled to enter Cuba through the southern coast of the Villa of Güines arriving on foot at the town, being sheltered by Don Francisco de Arango y Parreño in his dwelling house at La Ninfa sugar mill, going to Havana later on, to take office as Governor of the Island.
The experience so obtained by Arango y Parreño during his travels, as well as the Haitian and Dominican immigrations, were very valuable for our island. The steam boilers used in Cuban sugar mills for the first time, were installed in 1808 in La Ninfa sugar mill. Arango y Parreño, always sponsored the big coffee plantations in Güines and other agricultural advances, as well as tobacco whose quality was always of great quality. Morethan twenty tobacco plantations were dedicated to that crop, located in the vicinity of Candelas Hill and in the hill itself, the tobacco variety called verdin was cultivated for a long time, whose variety was so extraordinary that the Crown did not accept cash money as payment to grant the town the title of Villa, demanding instead 20,000 pounds of that famous tobacco.
Güines reached in 1804, an enormous crop in quality and quantity of the following products: boxes of sugar and its derivatives, tobacco, coffee and indigo, which allowed it to reach a top position in the Península. Also in 1804 the new church was inaugurated, constructed of masonry by the will of King Fernando VII. The first Mass was officiated by Bishop Espada and Father José Agustín Caballero. That same year of 1804, a decree from Bishop Don Juan José Díaz de Espada y Fernández de Landa, ordered to stop burials in the church and park, transferring the cemetery to lands located in Daniel and Clemente Fernández Streets.
Baron Alexander von Humboldt paid his second visit to Güines in 1809, being a guest of Arango y Parreño. The political essay written by Humboldt about the Island of Cuba, is closely related to the famous book written by Arango y Parreño about “Cuba’s Agriculture and Means to Develop It.” Humboldt’s original manuscript in French, is dated 1837 and is located at Güttingen University.
The people of Güines swore allegiance to the Cádiz Constitution in 1812, Arango y Parreño being present at the Lieutenancy where the present Town Hall is located. In that year, Arango’s health was not good and among his projects he had planned a trip to Madrid, but before sailing, he left orders of immediate fulfillment to build a school, whose cost reached the sum of 30,000 strong pesos.
This building was constructed where the Red Cross building is presently located (Editor’s note: Maceo Street, between Habana and Trujillo Streets), two schools being located in that center, named the big one and the small one, with all the learning advancements of the time, as well as a Physics laboratory. And its sponsor, who was in Spain, having learned about it, sent a prominent Spanish educator, Don Esteban de Navea, as Principal of such school who introduced the Lancasterian system of teaching in Cuba, being Güines the first town in the Island to install such educational system.
In 1818, Don Francisco de Arango y Parreño returned to Cuba from Spain with his wife Doña Rita Quesada, a Chilean, whom he married in 1816. Arango and wife were already residing in the Villa of Güines when he realized two of his dreams for his beloved Güines. It was granted the title of Villa with its seal and the school donated by him was inaugurated on November 17, 1820.
Many prominent people attended the school’s inauguration, among them ecclesiastical and military authorities such as Don Pedro Pablo O’Reilly y de las Casas owner of Alejandría sugar mill, Don Marcelino Escobedo y del Olmo, owner of Providencia sugar mill, Calcagno (senior) who was a doctor and many others whose list would be too long. We cannot fail to mention Dominican Licentiate Don José A. del Monte y Tejada, a resident of Güines at that time and who was a percipient witness in 1812 of the memorial stone found in land now occupied by Santiago de Cuba’s Cathedral with the posthumous inscription of Diego Velázquez, being necessary to put together its pieces in order to decipher it.
Licentiate del Monte y Tejada created and founded in 1818 in Güines the first Masonic lodge that worked in the Villa and its name was Charitable Fraternity #5 and in 1820 another began to function under the name Firmness #51 and in Melena del Sur another one called Decisive Union which still has its name and it’s active.
Arango y Parreño School already functioning, both the big one and the small one, whose Principal was Don Esteban de Navea, the Royal Patriotic Society (i.e., Economic Society Friends of the Country), having found out that in the Villa of Güines a school was working with a modern educational method, sent four teachers to study the Lancasterian educational system to incorporate it in the school supported by such Society being Francisco de Arango y Parreño a founding member. These teachers received all kinds of help from the Principal with the approval of Arango y Parreño.
Illustrious Güineros attended this school that later on stood out in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, among them we can name Calcagno and Nicolás M. de Escobedo y Rivero. Also, this school taught the first letters to other prominent Güineros who later on were priests, Sabás, Castellanos Arango an outstanding doctor, a member of the Academy of Sciences creating a group of six Güineros (including him) educated in that school, who also were members of that scientific Academy.
We also point out Don Nicolás Azcárate who it is said was a Güinero, inasmuch as his father in 1836 was Mayor of Güines and lived in Güines for a long time. We also should note that México received the Lancasterian system from Cuba and not from Spain and it did function in México until 1843.
For all these reasons, the people rendered tribute to this great benefactor and the evening of the fiesta, he presided in Charitable Fraternity #5 Lodge of which later on, he was its Worshipful Master, according to Antonio María Gómez in his book “God, Fatherland and Justice.”
Arango y Parreño continued his life the same way with respect to agricultural matters and intellectual advancement for Güines, living in his residence at La Ninfa sugar mill where his first and only son was born.
By Royal Decree, the Government requested Arango to draft a code for women and a project to reform the elementary education. He accepted this request with pleasure and dedicated himself in full to fulfill it. He took some time in these extraordinary endeavors and in 1825, the first reform of Cuba’s elementary education was finished.
The Government did not change a bit Arango’s work, being accepted in all its parts and it started to be applied all over the Island, and later on this reform was established in México in 1843.
In 1817, Juan Bautista Vermay arrived in Havana from the United States of America, specifically from New Orleans, a city he had arrived to in 1816 from France, his native country, seeking asylum for political reasons.
This famous painter, engineer, sculptor, architect, poet and musician died in Havana on March 30, 1833. He was a protégé of Bishop Espada and he had among his friends Don Francisco de Arango y Parreño, Don Pedro Pablo O’Reilly y de las Casas and Don Nicolás Manuel de Escobedo y Rivero. He visited Arango y Parreño on several occasions and painted for San Julián and San Francisco Javier de los Güines’ church a famous painting that he named The Monk. The illustrious and famous Güinero painter Miguel Díaz Salinero retouched this beautiful work of art. Unfortunately, this famous painting disappeared from the church, its whereabouts being unknown. May God permit that kindhearted hands keep it and take care of it until again it could serve as a crown to the sacristy’s clock.
Continue: From Darkness to Light…
(Copied from Ecos del Mayabeque magazine, official voice of Municipio de Güines en el Exilio, Miami, Florida, #1, June 1967, #2, July-August 1967, #3, September-October 1967 and #4, November 1967-January 1968. Edited and translated by the staff of Círculo Güinero de Los Ángeles, Los Ángeles, California)
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