Taoro, a sad story of wealth and opulence

We stopped by the roadside and a tractor overtook us. Then I looked to the right and saw that landscape. I had to tell my companion that many times I get the fleeting feeling of not being in Cuba.

Is it here? I thought we were going further, I said. And he looked at me with a mischievous face. We both smiled. Taoro, in the Lucumí tongue, means wealth and opulence.

We entered through the front, where there are no fences or signs forbidding passage. What can be seen is history told through a ruined altarpiece, in the distance, surrounded by lush greenery and an intense blue sky with halos of light filtering through the foliage, it felt like a theatre scene.

As a child, I used to drink some tasty canned juices that bore that name, Taoro—they were mango, I remember. And so I believe the mangoes used to make them came from this estate.

Taoro, as I already said, is a word of Lucumí origin. And we were at the old sugar mill of the same name, located on the road from Cangrejeras to Santa Fe… or the other way round, LOL, because I crossed all of Santa Fe to meet a friend at the so‑called Four Corners, where you turn off towards Cangrejeras. Yet the ruined mill, whose construction, according to the local historian, dates back to the 18th century, belongs to the municipality of Bauta in Artemisa, not Havana.

We were able to see many of the construction elements used in those times, although many of the rooms were altered over the years—in the cement plastering, for instance. Some doors were sealed, others opened. And the bell in the tower is not the original one; that is safely kept in the local museum. According to the custom of the era, the tolling of the bell marked the hours of work and other daily activities there. Nor can one climb up to the belfry, because someone once decided to block it up—it was filled with stones… 😟

The trace of the burning that Taoro suffered in 1896 at the hands of a mambí squad operating in the Bauta area can still be seen on the bare stone walls, where immense strangler figs (Jagüeyes, in Spanish) climb as though embracing time itself.

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This mill, owned by Doctor Pablo Pérez Zamora, had one of the largest slave workforces—around 100, according to the historical records. When I stood near the barracks where they used to sleep, the silence that reigns everywhere seemed even heavier there.

In the landscape I pointed out at the beginning of the post, to the right lies the area of the slaves’ cemetery, from which bones were unearthed and (so the neighbours say) nuggets of gold. Vivian, the historian—who is a geophysicist by profession—told us they were the fillings from their teeth. She also expressed her discontent at all the outrages committed there… such as digging up the soil to plant crops in an archaeological site. She gestured to the left and gave the example of the Taíno dujo found in the lowlands of Santa Ana, which today is kept in the Montané Anthropological Museum.

Followers of the Yoruba religion go there to leave their offerings and perform their rituals.

I suppose it is because of the place itself, where sugar production in colonial times depended on enslaved labour. Those men and women, brought from Africa as if they were tools and not human beings, endured much whipping and abuse… the wealth and opulence of Taoro are inscribed in some of the saddest pages of our history.

That is all for now. Yet there is still much history to be unearthed there. And perhaps we shall do so later, especially since in its beginnings it was a coffee plantation called Las Delicias, founded by the Marquis of Duquesne.

Who was this marquis? Well, Don Abraham Du’Quesne, born in Dieppe, Lieutenant General of the Royal Navy, and the first of this family to settle in Havana, where he served as Director of the Arsenal. He was invested with that honorary title by none other than King Louis XIV of France in 1682.