Standing in front of the landscape that he had just immortalized, French engraver Eduardo Laplante had the strange sensation that his art would outlive him. Along with Justo Germán Cantero of Trinidad, Laplante had embarked on a journey through western Cuba to depict the island’s sugar industry in his work, sketching a number of similar scenes: smoking chimneys, curing houses, vernacular mansions and sugar-cane carts as they disappeared into the bowels of the mills.
However, the appearance of the Manaca Iznaga mill dazzled him because of a matchless architectural element: the 143-foot watchtower that sugar baron Don Alejo María del Carmen Iznaga y Borrell had ordered built in the early 19th century to prevent slaves from escaping.
Laplante never would have imagined that the dream-like scene he saw in the 1850s would barely change in the years to come, and that it remains one of the most valuable and best-preserved sites in the Valle de los Ingenios (Valley of the Sugar Mills), the fertile region that gave rise to the opulence of Trinidad, Cuba’s third villa, and a World Heritage site since 1988.
Imperturbable and admired by almost everyone, the tower was erected with the double purpose of watchtower and bell tower on a date that few historians have ventured to guess. It is now a favorite place for Cuban and foreign tourists to visit, a site that is fascinating not only because of its undeniable architectural values and excellent state of preservation, but also—and above all—because of the intangible heritage comprised by the village that stretches out below.
One example of that is Leonila Borgiano, an elderly Afro-Cuban woman who still lives on the land where her grandparents toiled to produce the fortunes of large landowners and where, in the 20th century, her parents had to endure the embers of racial discrimination that unfortunately outlived slavery.
“I’ve never wanted to leave, because very few people in this life can get up in the morning, make coffee and look outside, knowing that the first thing they are going to see is that imposing tower,” Borgiano says, as she rocks in her chair at home. Her house is one of 16 that specialists with the Conservator’s Office of the City of Trinidad and the Valle de los Ingenios have identified as part of a villorrio, a variation of traditional slave barracks that was more benevolent, because it allowed the Africans to live together with their families in independent spaces. It is the only one of its type on the island that remains inhabited.
The unusual slave hamlet, the bell tower with its seven levels in different geometric shapes—from square to octagon—and the mansion where the rich landowners would refresh themselves from the steamy tropical heat have all withstood time and hurricanes, to the extent that any stray visitor, with Laplante’s lithograph in hand, could piece together an approximation of the region’s features.
Nevertheless, to be able to understand the riches of this batey, or community of sugar workers and their families, one has only to observe the local residents in a place that seems to exist in a different time: among the vestiges of the sugar boom, pieces of embroidered lingerie in the style used by young ladies of yesteryear; improvised sales counters display rag dolls like the ones that the slaves surely sewed for their daughters; children free of these antiquated accessories run along the cobblestone boulevard that still guides visitors. In their homes, people preserve traditions that they cannot—and do not want to—be without: Afro-Cuban rituals, the legacy that their ancestors brought in the holds of the slave ships from Africa and that today has been adapted to the daily needs of the nation.
Settled in for good in this bucolic spot, and aware that they live in a place that has become a symbol of colonial-era Cuba, Leonila Borgiano and hundreds of other locals have learned to respect these standing ruins and to “pamper them,” as the residents themselves refer to their efforts to preserve the emblematic buildings of Manaca Iznaga for posterity.
That was something noted by Víctor Echenagusía, a meticulous researcher and specialist with the Trinidad Conservator’s Office: “The most relevant aspect of the site, in addition to its invaluable architectural importance, is that its people have been able to inhabit it harmoniously, and that thanks to that mutually beneficial relationship, Manaca Iznaga is recognized for what it really is: a key to understanding the sugarcane plantations that were worked by slaves”.
