Aboriginal settlements in Guáimaro . Population settlements that inhabited the territory of Guáimaro in the pre-Columbian stage , mostly native Indians who were found by the colonizers upon arrival, generally practicing the agroalfarera and preagroalfarera culture , characterized by the collection of terrestrial and marine food.
Guáimaro is the easternmost Cuban municipality in the province of Camagüey , with a territorial extension of 1,849.6 km2, a population of 58,063 inhabitants and a population density of 31.4 inhabitants / square km. Guáimaro has passed into history of Cuba to becoming headquarters, October to April of 1869 the Assembly of Representatives of the Centroprimera Constituent Assembly of the Republic in Arms , where he was captured our first constitution was adopted as our national emblem the current flag and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes , the first president, was elected . On April 14 of that same year, the distinguished patriot Ana Betancourt de Mora, nearly a century ahead of his time, proclaimed the equality of women.
Guáimaro was the second town in Cuba burned by its inhabitants and the Mambi troops, on May 10 , 1869 , also on October 28 , 1896 it was destroyed and burned by the forces of General Calixto García . Its extensive plains and savannas have been, since colonial times, suitable for breeding and livestock exploitation, which determined its subsequent economic importance. Due to its historical, colonial and cultural importance, Guáimaro is practically a museum city, like others in the Camagüey region.
Indo-Cuban Aboriginal Communities in Guáimaro
Taking as references some letters and chronicles of the conquest of Cuba; In the mid-nineteenth century, the historian José María de la Torre submitted to the Economic Society of Friends of the Country an approximate map of the regions or aboriginal chiefdoms of Cuba, where Guáimaro appeared as one of them occupying a geographical space that almost coincides Exactly with the administrative political territory of the later Pediatric Party created in the late eighteenth century, this information on aboriginal regions of the island must be approached with great reservations, although it is an interesting proposal as a starting point for future studies that address regionalistics aboriginal in Cuba.
More than one reference to that first moment of colonization refers to the Indian town of Guáimaro. This allows us to deduce that – as happens in Banes and Caonaoit must have been a populated area with long-standing settlements. For this reason, there is a contradiction between what must have been an area of relatively large habitation sites, more or less close together, and the poor evidence found to date. It is known that there are at least eight sites far from each other and with different characteristics. The reason for this incoherence lies in the almost complete lack of rigorous archaeological studies. At best, they have hardly been explored after the well-known fortuitous find, but they are at least located with enough precision, as pieces of the puzzle that will allow us to establish the statistics on the magnitude of this chiefdom. They are located in places near rivers, streams, lagoons and other sources of water,
The sites in the northern half of the territory, according to the population behavior on the coast of all neighboring municipalities, must be agro-potters, which is confirmed by the presence of burenes and other ceramics. On the other hand, towards the southern half, it is possible that the sites belonging to the pre-agricultural pottery cultures are more recurrent.