Our Region

Municipality History 

The first human inhabitants of the current municipality of Colón were aboriginal with a low level of development in food production, that is, towns basically dedicated to collection, hunting and fishing. Settled on the banks of the Jigüe stream, of the San José de los Ramos People's Council, they developed the shell and lithic industries, and demonstrated their ability to transport through the La Palma - Meteoro hydrographic basin in search of remote territories from the north coast with the presence of high protein foods. 

Main events of the municipality

In none of the historical documents of the protagonists of the processes of conquest and colonization of Cuba, mention is made of the territory where Columbus would settle. Several factors seem to have influenced the depopulation and abandonment of the locality by the Spanish authorities, in the initial decades of colonial domination: the lack of precious metals and their geographical remoteness from the coasts and the town of San Cristóbal de Havana, the only one in the West of the Island. 

The first historical references of the municipality come to us at the beginning of the mercedation of some of their lands by the Cabildo de La Habana. Important families of that town, such as the Rojas and the Recio, acquired extensive territories for the development of livestock, a fundamental economic line of Cuba once the gold had run out. The oldest mercedation of which there is news in the area occurred on July 14, 1572, when Antón Recio was granted the Las Ciegas herd, whose aboriginal name was Cunagua and which today belongs to the San José de los Ramos People's Council. 

Other important mercerations of the time were the Guareiras herd (1578), received by Alonso Velázquez and Cuéllar, a member of the Conqueror family of the island, and the lagoon Bermeja site (1590) awarded to Pedro Sánchez, on one of whose plots was founded the city of Columbus, centuries later. During the 17th century, the sites lagoon big (1609), Guamutas (1626) were merced within the huge herd of the same name, Banagüises (1629), Río Jigüe (1631), Río Piedra (1662), lagoon Tinguaro (1664) and others. It is observed that most of the mercedations carried out in that century responded to the conjugation of the land-water binomial, because in their lands there were aquifer sources where captive cattle could quench thirst. Currently, in some of these territories are important population centers that retain their primitive names. 

It is not until the eighteenth century that livestock reached a remarkable development in the town, as a result of the granting of new mercedations and licenses to introduce cattle, mainly in realengas lands that were left between the different herds and pens. An example of this was demonstrated after the capture of Havana by the English in 1762. Given the demand for meat consumption in the capital, the paddocks of Guamutas and other places in Matanzas, supplied their cattle to the inhabitants havaneros in the face of food shortages. 

The cutting of precious woods by the Royal Navy for the construction and repair of ships, was another important economic line in Guamutas. Jacobo de la Pezuela, in his Geographic, Statistical, Historical Dictionary of the Island of Cuba, stated that this activity favored the formation in the place of a population nucleus, endowed with a hermitage since the end of the 17th century. Parallel to the increase in livestock production in the region, the timber industry reached its greatest vigor in the second half of the seven hundred, according to the plan of Fray Blas de la Barreda of 1759. 

Add comment