CubaPLUS Magazine

With the historical coincidence of having been erected next to the beautiful city of Matanzas, the Castle of San Severino, an old military fortress built at the end of the 17th century, still keeps valuable secrets from the past, condensed in its stones.

At the same time, since 2009 it has been the headquarters of the National Museum of the Slave Route, an institution that denounces the opprobrium of slavery and human trafficking. There are multiple, then, elements that come together to enhance this site that celebrates its life with the birthdays of the maritime City of Bridges, also called Athens of Cuba, a city western neighbor of Havana, rich in history and owner of a vibrant present.

The Castle, begun to be built shortly after the baptism of Matanzas on October 12, 1693, first had the name of Saint Charles of Manzaneda. Then it took the nickname of Severino, the patronymic of the Captain General of Matanzas at that time. In 1697 the building works had to stop due to lack of funds and manpower. They are undertaken again in 1731, under the command of Engineer Antonio Arredondo. The completion of the exteriors in the terrestrial sector and other important collateral areas arrived in 1746.

A disastrous time befell with the capture of Havana by the English in 1762, when coincidentally it suffered notable structural damage from a blast. The fort was abandoned for a decade and its reconstruction began in 1772. Finally, only in 1789 could San Severino be declared fit to fulfill its duties as military guardian of the city, the bay, and the port of Matanzas. From 1774 to 1793 it functioned as customs and between 1818 and 1850 it was the Command of the City's defensive system, which had other heavily fortified posts. It became a military prison after 1821 and those involved in the Soles y Rayos de Bolívar independence conspiracy (1823) and those involved in the Ladder Process (1844) were held there.

Its imbrication with history does not stop because, during the Necessary War that began in 1895, patriots from Matanzas were imprisoned in the fortress. Between 1902 and 1958 it served as a prison for revolutionaries who fought for freedom and against dictatorships on duty. A more rooted and at the same time universal sense gives it its current link with the program promoted by UNESCO, called the Slave Route, which denounces and warns about the horrors of the nefarious slavery of the children of Africa and of humans in general, retrieving that memory the National Museum of the Slave Route in Cuba thus integrates a network that in the Caribbean became strong from a call launched by Haiti.

With four exhibition halls, where objects testifying to the punishments and torture given to slaves in the colonial past are exhibited, the enclosure entitled Orishas also stands out, recreating the magical and profound religious feeling that came to us from Africa, from the mind and hearts of their children, today also part of our genes.