The indelible trace of the French immigrants in eastern Cuba is analyzed by the academics gathered during the French Presence Day in Guantanamo, a meeting that rescues the traditions and activities developed by those Europeans in the territory which are reflected in economic and socio-cultural life of the inhabitants of Guantanamo.
At the headquarters of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) where the conferences take place since November 21, Dr. Alejandro Hartman, historian of the city of Baracoa, offered a dissertation on the more than a thousand French people who arrived to the First City of Cuba in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, where they encouraged the cultivation of coffee plantations, cocoa, coconut, bananas, exportable lines of the territory.
The also director of the Matachín Museum, spoke about the production of tobacco and the gas, coconut oil industries and Las Antillas chocolate candies, developed by the Gallic groups that established a flow of emigration and trade between New Orleans, the United States, colonies of the Antillean Caribbean and the Marseille port city, in France.
Dr. Hartman recognizes José Vidaillet Garón, credited as one of the most influential French settlers in Baracoa, as well as the Dumois Tur, Marqués de Casa Mauri, Monroig, Monné and Coutín lineages, who were empowered families that established Las Antillas chocolate factory, La Marsellesa soap factory, the Siglo XIX oil refinery, an iron foundry, bakeries, wood sawmills and houses that are part of the architecture of Baracoa.
The author of the book Franceses en Baracoa tells about the legend related to the Miel river, which according to the popular imagination comes from the love of a Gallic emigrant and a native of Baracoa, who say goodbye in the waters of the torrent of crystal clear water in a glittering full moon night.
"And the river at dawn when feeling the whistles of the boats that sailed with families, the river laughs and says:" from this moment all who bathe in my waters will return or stay forever", he said.
The French Presence Day in Guantánamo on its last date, presents the lectures of the graduates Claudia López and Maciel Rodríguez, professors of the University of Oriente, in Santiago de Cuba, who will talk about the life and customs of the Riveaux-Girard and Manet-Petit families, respectively, in addition to the exhibition and tasting of typical dishes with influences of French meals and the personal exhibition "Divino Café", of the plastic artist George Pérez in the Art Gallery of the Salcines Palace in the city.
Translation: Radio Baracoa