MSc. Julio A. Amorín Ponce.
That great breast that is located between the Peninsula of Zapata and the Bay of Jagua by the south coast of Cuba, has a maximum width twelve kilometers and three hundred meters taking like reference to Tip Palmillas for the occident and to Tip Partridge for the east, its bigger depth is of 1040 meters, the distance that Palmillas mediates among Tip-western entrance of the bay-and the Caletón of Happiness - that is to be the end of the bay earth inside of-it is of twenty-five kilometers with seven hundred meters, while the distance for earth or surrounding the bay among Tip Palmillas and Tip Partridge is of fifty three kilometers.
They are very contrasting the two coasts of the Bay of Pigs:
- The Westerner is low and of accumulation, that is to say that observe sand and a slime that you/he/she is deposited by the haulage of the waters candy and brackish coming from the Peninsula of Zapata in him - also low when oscillating her bench mark between one and three meters on the level of the sea - more the polluting action of the foliage of the casuarina. Those characteristics make that the predominant coastal vegetation is the swamp, where many species of animals live and he/she becomes a reservorio of alevines of fish. To the low and sandy being with numerous coastal lagoons this coast, the hives of mosquitos and gnats have reached great celebrity.
- The oriental is high and cársico, that is to say that observe the compound floor for calcareous rock in him or "dog tooth" that alone you/he/she is interrupted by the existence of several beaches with fine sand, being the cases of Long Beach, Beach River The Mouth, Beach The Machine, Beach The Bedroom, Beach The Door and Beach The Hen. The bench mark or height with regard to the sea arrive to reach until the five meters, what the predominant vegetation is the coastal manigua where uverales is observed, almácigo, icaquillo, thorny jiquí, palms yuraguano and coast yarey, cactus, coal ebony, among other species of trees; which play a very important paper of contention of the salinity so that it doesn't affect to the producing forest (semicaducifolio). Most of the populational establishments before 1959 were located in him, to be more benign the attacks of the insects vampires and better being the water of the phreatic mantel. In this oriental coast they settled down most of the shipment points toward Cienfuegos and Batabanó, to possess the waters more depth for the sailing. They have also been blessed by the men and animals the picturesque creeks that settle in him, called Caletón of Happiness, Creek Ávalo and Creek of the Rosario.
The Bay of Pigs is one of the bays of Cuba that presents smaller contamination since it never existed in its two coasts neither near to her industry neither plantations that perturbed the purity and transparency of its waters. However, the specialists related with the hydrology by the light of the science have determined those "roads of the waters" until their glide in the Ensenada of the Broa and the own bay, affirming that from the plain cársica Havana-Matanzas that underground journey begins, for what is inferred that the contamination can arrive of "beyond the basin" and in fact it has happened a minimum of affectation coming from the Rice Plan located to the south of Yellow and of the Plan Citrícola of Big Jagüey concretely with the application of herbicides and insecticides. But even this way, she continues figuring among the less polluted and more attractive bays for the diving and the given snorkeling the diversity faunística, coloring of their waters and the health of the corals, propiciadores of life.
Two hypothesis exists on the name of the bay:
• The first one was formulated by the famous historian of the great humedal, Juan Antonio Cosculluela Barrier who in their book "4 years in the Marsh of Zapata '' he/she comments: "You commend them of López Conchillos (commander) in Cuba, they were in fact located in the Bay of Pigs and surrounding lands, and that name of pigs, it is a corruption of Conchillos that was the primitive one, because the towns and you commend them they were designated by the agent's name..."
• The second were enunciated by the first constitutional historian, Julio Antonio Amorín Ponce, taking as basement the oral history rooted in the town cienaguero and the economic history of the territory, which point toward the first mercantile activity (cattle raising): The swinish livestock, from the own Spanish colonization (1511 - 1515) it reached the protagonism in the Marsh of Zapata. Then the corsairs and pirates, would introduce other races of pigs (Englishmen, French, Dutch), coming to conform a Creole race, adaptive to the very good existent natural conditions. It arrived this way until us, legends, anecdotes and vivencias of big herds of pigs marauding in search of foods for the whole extensive coast of the bay, which were sighted in several occasions by the ships that during the first times of conquest, colonization and piracy of the "New World" they furrowed the waters of the Caribbean Sea So Bay of Pigs it is similar to Pigs!
Generally, the nature cenaguera is who appropriates of the protagonism as for the interest of knowledge and the humans' esparcimiento, however, in the case of the Bay of Pigs it was not the "mother nature" the one that has given him world fame, but rather the interesting human history that you/they store its crystalline, deep and multicolored waters, and the coasts that surround it was.
It classifies among the bays with bigger history of Cuba:
? In their coast they left numerous our aboriginal prints.
The historian Cosculluela was the first one in observing with investigator's eyes the accumulations of snails of the mollusk cobo (Strombus jigs) with a hole near the spire, which was called by the specialists "eye guamo". of course that this hole was not natural but taken place by the primitive man's work in its desire of extracting the mollusk that was protected inside the shell. Those accumulations of snails were numerous from the Caletón of Happiness, going by the coast of the Property Santa Teresa until the Property The Jiquí.
Also other people and investigators found aboriginal material evidences in both coasts of the Bay of Pigs, specifically in Cazones where the accumulations of "Guamos of Eyes" they were remarkable; in Creek of the Rosario where Mr. Jesus Bonachea found in 1903 a great quantity of figured stones and in Tip Partridge where in 1948 the Dr. Antonio González Núñez and Captain Cancels Ferminia they locate an extensive conchal, of where they collected aboriginal material evidences and human bony remains corresponding to seven people.
In the mind of the montunos several legends related with the chore of the aboriginal ones have been carved in the area of the Ensenada of Pigs, as those of those "Guamos of Eyes" and that of the Manjuarí. All this corroborates that the prehispanic man's presence in the bay was daily in search of foods and of the material (shell) with which built more than thirty work tools.
? In times of conquests and colonization.
The Great Admiral Christopher Columbus in 1494 crossed well near Tip Palmillas heading for the marine Key that later took the name of Diego Pérez, in the middle of heart of the Archipelago of the Canarreos.
In 1518 the archiconocido columnist of the New Spain shipwrecks in the oriental coast (Bernal Díaz of the Castle) who after a risky voyage for that area arrived to the town of Indians of Yaguaramas.
You Commend them of Indians of the Commander Lope Conchillos and of the Secretary Zapata was located in the riverbanks of the Bay of Pigs.
? Renamed corsairs and pirates were preserved here.
Of 1530 at 1580 the Spanish pirate Diego Pérez captains the phalange of "sea wolves" that infested the coast and keys marine cenagueros.
Of 1580 to 1604 Gilberto Girón substitutes the Spanish pirate in the unworthy mission, until it succumbs in Tree before the black Ethiopian Salvador Golomón. He/she left their name sculpted in the creek or beach that in 1961 he/she covered of glory, thanks to the patriotism of many Cubans.
In 1629 Cornelius Jols (pirate), he/she prepares and it provisions their ships in the bay to assault Havana then.
In 1630 The Olonés (pirate), before occupying "Remedies" it was provisioned in our great bay.
In 1649 Mr. Diego Happiness, married maybe with those "sea wolves" he/she sits down the bases of the coastal town of Good fortune.
In 1652 several renowned pirates meet in the bay to finish details with the objective of attacking Havana.
The lingering presence of brigs, sailing ships, pataches and ships with black flag and human skeleton as symbol, not alone they muddled the warm waters of the bay, but they also influenced notably in the first economic activity (cattle raising) and folklore of the basin.
They are numerous the anecdotes and legends that have been conserved through the oral history until our days, related with these sanguinary men: ships, lights, chains, fabulous treasures and piratical courses, still stroll for the whole great marsh thanks to the imagination and incessant search of the native longevo.
Many toponyms point toward those "sea highwaymen": Those already mentioned Diego Pérez and Girón, creeks Ávalo, English, Good fortune that had in their founder (Diego Happiness) to a near relative of such malefactors.
The Buccaneers (pirates in earth), they transferred customs and forms of preserving the salt to cure the leathers and to treat the meats. It is that "The Wolves" founders of the batey of San Lázaro, conserved during a lot of time such a knack bucanera.
Up to 1830 the whole Bay of Pigs and Archipelago of the Canarreos was a great den for those "sea wolves" that saw off its existence when USA with the anuencia of Spain organized a naval squadron officially to exterminate the piracy in the Caribbean (1821-1830), composed by the brigs Esterprise and Spark, the schooners artilladas Schark, Porpoise and Gampus, under the admiral's control David Poster.
But the raquero José Triana wanted to become the spectrum of those old pirates, when it razed the two coasts of the Bay of Pigs until such a late date as 1900.
? Times of it tries and black slavery.
Hundred of black slaves were introduced secretly by Santa Teresa's Pier, today Beach "The Machine", by the middle of the XIX century.
The repugnant galleys continued making act of presence in the Bay of Pigs, carrying beings-pulled up of their mother África-that if they didn't perish in the ship or they were devoured by the sharks after having rushed to the sea, they stepped our barefoot muddy earth and chained in route to the coastal north where he/she waited for them a slower death: The slavery.
That macabre history consigns that four secret landings of black slaves took place for the Bay of Pigs in the years 1853, 1854, 1859 and 1864.
Names are still conserved that they perpetuate and they give faith of that horrendous and illegal traffic of slaves: Beach The Machine (landing point), Hill The Black ones (north of The Soplillar), Key Camp of the Black ones (south of the Carmelo) where the unhappy and unfortunate were sold human as beasts, to conform this way those endowments of slaves of the many geniuses of the time.
But in the same way that there was slavery, the rebelliousness slave also existed: The wild ones-black unbroken-they preferred to support the rigors of the Great Marsh that to stay submissive before the "whip of sugar" that slowly devoured them. They also marauded for the coasts of our roomy bay and they left in the toponimia of the basin their prints.
? The Wars of Independence of the XIX century.
The Bay of Pigs was a silent witness of the great insurgent chore in times in that the cubanía was forged in the manigua, and also of working colonialist that tried of evicting to the mambises of these preserved properties.
The insurrectionists of the village of Cienfuegos lifted in weapons from February 7 1869 and directed by the General Adolfo Cabada who had the unconditional support of other important figures as Juan Díaz of Villegas, Félix Bouyón, Jesus of the Sun and Luis of the Mass Arredondo, they used the one on the way to sand or mégano of the oriental coast of the Bay of Pigs that it unites Jagua with the bay for their strategic journeys during the Guerra the Ten years old.
With the insurgent rising in Big Jagüey February of 1869, 10 quickly the Marsh of Zapata became the Cuban natural rearguard of those brave ones and the Bay of Pigs in a supplying of foods. The Mexican Colonel José Inclán who became boss of that immediately "Column of operations of Big Jagüey", it established their camp in "The Jiquí", well preserved place of the oriental area.
The Generalissimo in the year 1875 use the lands of the Marsh like starting point for the necessary invasion to occident that turned out to be a bankrupt given intent the regionalism villaclareño of then; in spite of it, Gómez gives the control of the 2da Division of Cienfuegos and West to the brigadier Henry Reeve who next to the Colonel Cecilio González printed him great vitality when working mambí until his fall in combat near August of 1876 4 to Yaguaramas.
Amid that warlike operation, specifically December of 1875, 7 Cuban troops of the II division to the Colonel's control Cecilio González, they captured in Santa Teresa's Pier-today Beach The Machine - to the company of the boat "Florida", action where voluntary Francisco's Stonemason lieutenant was executed who had participated in the Cuban colonel's murder Luis M. Arredondo.
The Guerra Girl (August 24 1879-December of 1880) he/she also left prints in the Marsh of Zapata, when the Colonel Cecilio González like boss and the celebrated highwaymen-patriots Carlos Omen Fundora and José Álvarez Arteaga (Matagás) they maintained the rebelliousness here. Many legends have more than enough Omen and Matagás they are still counted related with the oriental coast of the Bay of Pigs and the Peninsula of Zapata.
The insurgent risings of "The Ignacia" (Ibarra, Matanzas), "The Siren" (neighborhood López, Big Jagüey) and "The Charcones" (Jagüey Boy, Watery of Passengers) like part of the Necessary Guerra or of 1895 organized by José Martí, they prepared a point the objective and subjective conditions so that in a lapse of short time you could take to roads in fact the beginning from the Invasion to West, using as natural bridge or sure rearguard to the Marsh of Zapata.
September 6 1895 the Colonel Francisco Pérez Garoz ordered from San Blas' camp mambí, two immediate actions where "Matagás" with 25 men it would burn the "Machine of vapor" and Jetty of Beach the German Augusto's Machine property Gupper faithful collaborator of the Spanish colonialism; while Eulogio Wolf (old partner of weapons of Garoz in the Guerra the Ten years old) with other 25 men, the extensive coast cienaguera would travel to avoid a Spanish invasion for sea in the marsh.
July 6 1897 fall in combat the patriot Nicolás Socorro Beltrán in the Ensenada of Pigs, indicative of the conflict among the litigant decrees to control the bay.
It was such the importance and the prevalence reached by the insurrectionists in this area that the Bay of Pigs was known by Bay of the Independence, thing that he/she forced to the Spanish metropolis to build an outpost in Beach "The Machine" and a trail with sentries until Santa Teresa's Seat. This outpost was described first by Mr. Sixto Agramonte (Enumerador 201 of population's census and housing in 1899) and then we have been able to observe evidence materials of an atypical construction in the area (bricks) and a very old one watery.
? In times neocoloniales.
In 1900 the North American farmer Walter Wilcock transforms the Rosario's Creek with a chalet and housing large house, to be able to exploit the forests of the Property "Lagunillas" alias "Jiquí" of 500 chivalries.
Starting from the year 1904 the Spanish Maximino Yebra the exploitation of the property begins "Happiness" (San Good fortune) or Good fortune. That Galician transformed the place, investing capitals and fomenting a great forest business through the Society "Yebra and Company", which possessed to develop the trade 6 schooners from 100 to 200 tons that almost always furrowed the waters of the Bay of Pigs heading for Batabanó.
But without place to the doubts that the biggest impulse or development of Good fortune, pierce coastal inside the bay, he/she takes place when being built the railroad "Australia-Ensenada of Pigs" in November of 1917, since their rails culminated in the dune. Since the initial objective was to transport the sugar of the Central one "Australia" for this railroad and for sea furrowing the waters of the bay heading for Batabanó, Cienfuegos, Havana or other places of the country. From then on they expanded the relationships of this place with other points of "beyond the forests" a new and important communication road arose with other regions!
To the season of this event and very near to the culmination of the line of via wide (Tideland of Good fortune), a railroad brunch was built approximately via narrow with a longitude 7 leagues that crossing for the called place "The Power station" it arrived to the "Saline of Brito" to the Southwest of the batey, to exploit the forests of that southern area and to transport salt.
July 2 1928 the siblings mallorquines Pedro and Miguel Cañella built the stone house to the usage of the Spanish rural sector in Tip Partridge, to increase its permanency in the oriental end of the Bay of Pigs, with that which you/they could organize and to control the trade of left forest products of its property fundamentally heading for Cienfuegos for via marine.
A great event happened in the oriental coast of the Bay of Pigs happened from August to December of 1933, when the Spanish Antonio Maurí was founded in Beach "The Machine" the oldest political organization and revolutionary in the history of the Marsh of Zapata: The Union of Forest Workers!
One of the facts more tried by the press of Big Jagüey it happened among the days 6 at July 10 1941. They called this way it: Macabre show in the Marsh of Zapata!
Basilio Coal neighboring Fornos of the batey of Good fortune, loses the life accidentally for firearm shot in a country house in the Caletón of Happiness; remaining unburied four days while waiting for the officials of the tribunal of Yaguaramas.
Their partners should make Gallic of manliness, to support the fetidity of the body in decomposition and the aggressiveness of the birds carroñeras, willing to execute their Made task as the one described, they frequently repeated formerly in the alienated marsh!
In the year 1953 the first houses were built of I vacation in Long Beach on the part of the families rich jagüeyenses. Three years later added nine three in construction. At total 12 homes.
The Marsh of Zapata is news in the press and this time in the national press in the year 1954 again. It is that the gentleman President Fulgencio Cambric Saldivar August 12 1954 emitted the Ordinance Law #1618 for which authorized the construction of an insular channel of 80 kilometers of longitude from Cárdenas until Bay of Pigs; it gave the exploitation of the channel and of their facilities for 99 year-old space to a company operated fundamentally by North American capitals; this company would have exceptional powers that would allow him to become a state inside another state and to ignore this way the Cuban legislation.
As you it can appreciate, the project limited the sovereignty of Cuba and it broke the unit of the island, which would be departure in two, with all the negative implications that it supposed it for the communications, the transport, and in general, for all the relationships among the regions Westerner and oriental of Cuba.
The popular mobilization against that ordinance acquired such a span that forced the government to modify several times its initial project, and finally, to discard it.
Thanks to it, today the Bay of Pigs continues showing the visitor and the swimmers its crystalline waters and a patriotism to all test.
? With the Revolution in the Power.
The Cooperative of Fishermen "René Fields Latour" he/she is founded in the second semester of 1959 in the Caletón of Happiness, which was transferred in 1979 for the Creek Ávalo.
The highway for where today we surround to the Bay of Pigs for the oriental coast from Long Beach to Beach Girón he/she went open to the traffic like embankment, November 5 1959.
Our historical Bay of Pigs "he/she observed" like in Long Beach among the days 5 and 6 of December of 1959, the popular verbena was developed "Of the Marsh of Zapata wings are born". Celebrated with the purpose of collecting funds to contribute to the defense of our homeland, all time that its end, era the purchase of airplanes and weapons are considered the precursor of the Festivals of the Coal! The contribution jagüeyense-cenaguero was of: $1 861. 40.
At 10:00 o'clock AM of July of 1961, 27 Fidel Castro Ruz the Tourist Villa of Long Beach inaugurated.
Towns were born of coal and fishermen in 1962 in good fortune and in The Caletón of Happiness in 1963 respectively.
December 25 1962 are born those "Festivals of the Coal" in Long Beach. It was a tradition pitifully missing today. They were not conceived as a popular party more, but like an adoration and attachment to the forest culture that tipificó to the Great Marsh of Zapata per centuries. The Festivals of the Coal were also created so that the town was subject and cultural object during its development that embraced an entire year of economic and artistic chore in each community cenaguera.
The electrification also arrived to the two coasts of the Bay of Pigs after 1959, first for electric plants and later (1981) for national net.
Not alone the electricity made more "humanized" to the Bay of Pigs, it also contributed it the policlínico of Long Beach and the primary schools and for adults at nights in Good fortune, The Caletón and Tourist Villa. Everything, everything, all that observes today the visitor when he/she comes in search of the crystalline and warm waters of the bay it has been work of the Cuban Revolution who has put all their zeal in that of the formerly "caterpillar" a beautiful one flies "butterfly" blue and green.
? The geste of Girón universalized and it immortalized to the Bay of Pigs.
A lot one has spoken and written on the epic poem of 66 hours of duration and like lack to say! And if doesn't ask to the Bay of Pigs, that great breast open to the waters of the Caribbean Sea and that April 17 1961 saw as their sky you reddish tornó.
Most of the airplanes of both litigant decrees should cross a fringe of sky of the legendary bay at least. On her several air combats were played where the pilot's know-how determines, if the airplanes remained in flight or they got lost forever in the depths of the bay.
The Naval Tactical Grouping Invasora weighed anchor at five in the afternoon of April 14 1961 of Port Heads, Nicaragua, heading for the south of the Bay of Pigs. They composed it five merchant ships reconditioned called shark, sardine, tuna, whale and needle militarily; they were also part of her two units of LCI (ships used in the American armada) called porpoise and barracuda; plus seven barges, and each ship took 36 boats. Of all them, alone one went into in the Bay of Pigs to succumb in her: The Houston alias Needle!
The ship Houston was the recruit of the seven ships invaders in weighing anchor of Port Heads and he/she had as Captain to Luis Morse. In the Houston the battalions 2 and 5 came to Hugo's orders Sueiro Ríos and Ricardo Montero who in turn responded to the Second Boss of the Brigade 2506, Erneido Andrés Olive González.
At twelve in the night of that Sunday April of 1961, 16 the Houston goes into slowly in the Bay of Pigs and the 1: 00 AM of April 17 they began to descend the boats with motor outside of overboard on those that navigated to disembark for Long Beach the troops of the Battalion #2.
There they gave him the "welcome" with a machine gun blast BZ gauges 30 and a scream of "Homeland or Death" five militiamen of the Battalion 339 of Cienfuegos and three alfabetizadores. In Long Beach the invaders suffered their first four drops and it was made pieces the initial plan of taking Pálpite to consolidate the "Head of Beach" that would arrive to Beach Girón, for where the thick of the Brigade disembarked 2506 and their headquarters.
But the battalion 5 invader was in the ship when being had off the landing when the captain of the ship decided to leave sea out and to wait the night to return to the bay fearing the Revolutionary Air force. But there was a countermand from Happy Valley, sure of the true boss of the "Operation Pluto", Colonel Jack Hawkins: to return immediately to disembark the battalion on board! Fatal decision was that.
Almost to that same hour and day, exactly at 4 o'clock: 45 AM, Fidel Castro called to the experienced one I steer Enrique Careers Rolás and it ordered him to take off as soon as possible, so that when lining the dawn they arrived to the Bay of Pigs with the main objective of the ships that transported the troops aggressors collapsing.
Enrique Careers fulminated with his old one it is Fury to the Houston; which looked for aid hardening in the coast low or accumulative Westerner of the bay of Pigs, in front of Tip Cazones. It was there, aground, as denouncing a not well final of the Operation "Pluto" because the one that wrong begins, wrong ends up!
But there it didn't finish the history of the ship Houston, was it impacted again again, now for a gunshot shot by the own Fidel Castro Ruz April 20 1961 in hours of the afternoon why Fidel Castro shot to the ship if it no longer represented an objective or military danger?
Here the answer is to look for it in the axiológico, in the ethics: it is that Fidel arrives the day April 20 from 1961 to Long Beach and they communicate him that they were shooting of the "Houston" and that they had hurt several partners, he didn't want to shoot to a ship that was still loaded with valuable resources and that it was outside of combat from the own day April 17 when the invasion began. But what it happened, the facts were narrated incorrectly until they arrived to Fidel; the wounded and the deceased were consequences of an encounter in earth with the invaders disembarked from the day April 17 and a group of militiamen that navigated toward the ship and of this toward the coast where landing boats were observed it already stops then (20) in the ship there was not nobody!
Fidel shot him for that reason for not leaving isolated neither to his luck to none of his partners! That is the true. Another logic doesn't exist as for the "Shot of Reafirmación of the Victoria" carried out by Fidel Castro April 20 1961 from "Tip Palisade", western coast of the Bay of Pigs there the universal image of the Victoria's Tank was born!
For all that you have just read and what we have not written because the history every day ago, is the statement that in the Bay of Pigs it is shown as clear as its waters, the symbiosis nature and history that covers how multicolored mantel to the Great Marsh of Zapata.
If interiorizó that read, bill will have been given that the Bay of Pigs has been reluctant along the centuries to be dominated by a foreign power: with Spain the name was changed by Bay of the Independence and with the USA he/she didn't help in anything to the aggressors, since until the red and white crabs and hives of mosquitos defended it, next to an entire town that he/she wanted and he/she made a new Economic Project-Social in the Latin America.
FINAL
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