Elegy and Ode of a Foundation Between Two Rivers
Between two rivers that embrace the bay, on October 12, 1693, San Carlos and San Severino de Matanzas raised its name against oblivion. Thirty Canary Island families, of sturdy spirit and weathered hands, sowed their destiny in this land of converging waters, under the protection of Bishop Compostela and Governor Manzaneda, who blessed the first stone of a city that would become the cradle of poets.
The delegation set out from Havana on October 5, carrying plans and hopes. At Punta Gorda, scribe Uribe traced the Plaza de Armas facing the bay, and three streets — Río, Medio, and Ciénaga — were born as arteries of an urban body extending northward.
On the eleventh, with solemn ritual, the church was outlined; at dawn the following day, the founding mass consecrated the effort of those who left the Canary Islands to populate a place of legends and ancient slaughters.
The name Matanzas perpetuates the memory of cacique Guayucayex, protagonist of the first act of rebellion in the region. The city, however, rose upon that pain like a song of reconciliation: its rivers San Juan and Yumurí divided the layout into three sections that time would unite in harmony. At the end of 1694, the cabildo was constituted, and with it the official life of a city that would soon become a beacon of culture and thought.
Today, as the Athens of Cuba evokes its 330 years, an elegy runs through its bridges and theaters. The founding families, dust and seed, left a legacy of dignity that still breathes on every corner. Matanzas is not only stone and water: it is the echo of a brave gesture, the silent ode of those who, from uprooting, knew how to turn a bay into a home and a history of blood into perpetual poetry.
