Documented truths make history
Gloria Machado León 8 marzo, 2017
With the title In 1847 ball was played in Matanzas, the journalist and historian Reynaldo González Villalonga made known in the weekly Giron, Matanzas, last Thursday February 23, 2017 what he highlighted as “a momentous event in the historiography beisbolera matancera And therefore Cuban, “referring to the finding of two documents kept in the Provincial Historical Archive and published by the newspaper La Aurora in the initial half of 1847.
In the letter, González Villalonga highlights the official part of the provincial governor, surnamed Falguera, following the request of the mayor at that time, Joaquín Vigil de Quiñones, on the banning of ball game in the streets of the city of Matanzas, published On March 24, 25 and 26 of that year.
The text states: “Having said to me the Mayor Mayor of the Municipal Board who has had several parts of the person in charge of the administration of public lighting over breaks of lanterns by the ball game, which are occupied on holidays some white and Of color, I have decided to prohibit to play ball in the streets and other points of public transit, under penalty of losing it, and if it has caused damage to the lanterns, irremissibly paid by the culprit … “
According to Reynaldo, “it was the town ball (fongueo), antecedent of what soon after would be the baseball, practiced originally since the beginning of the 19th century in the streets and squares of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other North American cities, and Introduced in Matanzas by citizens of that country residing here “.
He did not exaggerate the early colleague when at the beginning of the paper he indicated that this finding was “transcendental …”, since it could undermine hypotheses of certain Havana researchers based on oral testimony, without documentary support, on how he arrived in Cuba and specifically on The capital baseball in the summer of 1864, that is, 17 years after the aforementioned “pre-baseball” event in Matanzas.
I want to clarify that this information on the official part of Governor Falguera had already read in Historical Notes and the sport of the ball, released in 1973 by the activist of the Provincial Commission of History of the Party in Matanzas, José M. Cuétara Vila and in Origins of Cuban baseball. El Palmar de Junco, by Alfredo Lauro Santana Alonso, from the Scientific-Technical Editorial, 2013.
In this last book appears on page 22 the aforementioned note of 1847, but in parenthesis clarifies: “the document is currently lost.”
When interviewing Santana Alonso on the subject, he made it clear that this information appeared in the publication of Cuétara Vila, who had already died, the so-called Sports Archive Fund, which he pointed out, did not exist, so the search became more extensive and Difficult, because it was necessary to locate where Cuétara took that data.
With luck, Gonzalez Villalonga continued to search the files of the Historical Archive of Matanzas with great patience and finally found what was sought, first in the documents of Public Order and Police of 1847, by hand and letter of Mayor Vigil the note sent to Governor Falguera and In the newspaper La Aurora of March 25 of that year the publication of the official part.
I think there is a lot of truth that this ball game in the streets had to be the then popular in the United States of America, Town Ball, since it is not possible to adduce football, which is not introduced in Spain until the second half of the century XIX by the English of the Mine of Rio Tinto, Huelva, Andalusia or the Basque ball that also had activities in Cuba around 1880 or its modality of jai alai that arrives at Havana in 1898.
I think, in summary, that these documents found in the Historical Archive of Matanzas, have a great importance to discover the undeniable truth of the arrival of baseball to the Island.
It is necessary that our historians reach a consensus and eliminate regional discrepancies and hypotheses that exist about the beginnings of our National Sport, that they continue investigating, but that they do not forget that the history is conceived on the truth and the truth is in the documents.