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• 01 / 04 / 2010

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The city’s origin transcends tradition in time.   
 
Every year, just a few minutes to midnight on November 15, the Havana City Historian, Dr. Eusebio Leal, leaves the General Captains Palace and walks through Plaza de Armas (Arms Square) towards El Templete.

He carries with him one of the old cups that long ago was used during the elections by the City Hall of Havana, filled with cents that he casts and collects along the way.

And this marks the beginning of festivities for the foundation of the Cuban capital on the 16th Century. Once at El Templete, Leal, those accompanying him and the general public attending the ceremony, walk three times around the ceiba tree that grows at the site.

According to tradition, it was precisely under a ceiba tree soaring there then that the first mass was celebrated and the first cabildo (town council) of the villa established on November 16, 1519.

According to this date, the city would be commemorating its 490th anniversary. But Havana’s history is older and its origin loses its way in a deep darkness. July 25, 1515 is the date of foundation some historians have established, while others, who seem to be right, refer to July 25, 1514.

The city was originally located on the south coast, in an unknown place between the west of Surgidero de Batabanó and Cortés Bay.

This prime villa was named San Cristóbal and was the sixth population formed by the Spanish colonizers and not the seventh as it has been for long believed.

It was on the north coast, in the lands of the native chief Habaguanex, that the villa began to be called San Cristóbal de la Habana, to thus make a difference with the first one.

Also unknown is the date of displacement of the city, inasmuch as there was a point when both Havanas coincided.

The population moved from the south to the north following an irregular pattern with a rather progressive flow of inhabitants.

Once settled in the north, the primitive location of the city was linked to Casiguaguas or de la Chorrera River, today known as Almendares.

 However, Havana dwellers gave up access to the liquid and sought a new settlement site on an islet, that as if a peninsula, extended onto the bay.

Before that, the population had settled down far back in the port, close to Luyanó River, where a native village had once existed, and later the villa found its definitive location between 1538 and 1540, with the construction of the first castle “La Fuerza” the so-called Fuerza Vieja.

To the purpose of inscribing and supporting the tradition that under the shade of a ceiba tree, on the northeast side of today’s Plaza de Armas (Arms Square) the first mass was celebrated and the first cabildo established, Governor Cagigal de la Vega erected in 1754 a three- side column bearing inscriptions mentioning the event.

On the other hand, to solemnly and sumptuously ratify the site, Governor Francisco Dionisio Vives ordered the construction on this same location of the commemorative El Templete.

However, a resounding happening refutes the fact that such a mass and cabildo would have ever taken place there, because the position of that primitive villa, as explained, did not coincide with the area that Plaza de Armas would later occupy.  

Noteworthy, in today’s Catholic calendar of saint’s days, San Cristóbal (Saint Christopher) is celebrated on November 16, but it was not always so.

It’s throne from 1513 to 1521 under the name of Leon X , ordained the celebration be transferred to November 16 to avoid interfering with the festivities of Santiago Apostle, patron of Spain and Spain’s possessions.

By 1532, Havana counted on the most important population in the island. In the 1537-1541 periods, a naval system was organized to guarantee commercial operations between Spain and America, and thus Havana turned into a converging point for convoys.

This naval system is definitively established and the city is declared capital of the Island. It is then that the city becomes one of the most coveted pieces by corsairs and pirates, and its fortification results crucial.

Originally and non-officially, the colonial government established its permanent residence in Havana in 1550, a situation declared official by 1956.

Felipe II granted Havana the title of City in 1592.

The three-side column erected by order of Cagigal de la Vega is still standing and El Templete still shows the interior frescos. Only the alleged founding ceiba tree is not the original, for another one had to be planted in 1959.

Afro-Cuban religions consider theceiba a sacred tree. The black slave populations that were brought from Africa incorporated this tree to their legends. Believers join in this tree all their saints, their predecessors, the Catholic saints, among other spirits.

The ceiba tree is given the same treatment of a saint, is never pruned, burned or cut down without the permission of the Orishas.

They say that if one walks three times around the ceiba tree at El Templete a wish will be granted. One more reason to appreciate the warmth and kindness of this city, that coquette and charming is celebrating her 490th anniversary, when she is actually turning 495 years old.

Source: www.cubanow.net