For Cubans, Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre is not just a myth or religious symbol; it is part of their identity as a nation.
It is known that the conquest of America was conceived as a crusade and Catholic kings and the Church of Rome both agreed with it. The Pope was also aware of this. The political significance of this fact was important for the American man, and therefore, for the Cubans.
In Cuba, as in America, the messenger was required to evangelize the Indians. However, these Indians received only a little of religious education that did not go beyond, in most of the cases, to memorize the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ave Maria.
Aboriginal barely changed in mind and heart their religious beliefs. The transmission of religiosity to mestizos children that proliferated from the very beginning of the conquest in the sixteenth century came from the mother, from mother to child.
Then the same thing happened with the African slave, to whom the Catholic faith had been inculcated. The slave was inculcated with the same superficiality and lack of the one who is convinced of the impossibility of passing an animal the spiritual experiences and its creed.
Thus, over time, every time the Catholic church tried to increase their theological and ritual purity, demonstrations and popular interpretations of Catholicism increased. Needless to talk of the economic interests which were linked to all this, and that therefore the ecclesiastical hierarchy compromised in religious interpretations that were not consistent with a strict Christian interpretation. In this timeframe the legend-myth of Our Virgin of Charity arises.
It was October 1812. The brothers Juan and Rodrigo de Hoyos, native Indians and inhabitants of Barajagua, ranchers and hunters, invited Juan Moreno, a 10 year old negrito and slave of the king, to go in search of salt to the small salines in the Bay of Nipe, within the jurisdiction of the herd. They descended by canoe down the river Barajagua to the Nipe and went out to the bay. Being already at sea, they were caught by a storm so they had to refuge for three days in a cay.
Juan Moreno, who was 85 years old, left his testimony in 1687: "... and having ranched in Cayo Francés, which is in the middle of the Bay of Nipe, to go to the saline on time and with a calm sea one morning, Juan and Rodrigo de Hoyos and myself parted out of the Cayo Francés before sunrise.
"They were embarked on a canoe to the mentioned saline and far now from Cayo Francés when they saw something white on the water foam they did not distinguish what could be, and getting closer it seemed bird and dead branches. These Indians said it looked like a Girl, and in these speeches, they arrived and recognized the image of Our Lady of the Blessed Virgin Mary with baby Jesus in her arms on a small wooden board and written on it some big letters which Rodrigo de Hoyos read and said, "I am the Virgin of Charity" and being her garments of clothing they were admired they were not wet. And with this, full of joy and gladness, and taking only three thirds of salt they came to the herd of Barajagua. "
They returned to Barajagua, to "where Miguel Galan was, Mayoral of the herd and told him what happened, about have found Our Lady of Charity. And the Mayoral was so happy that he promptly sent Antonio Angola with the news of the mentioned Lady to the Captain Don Francisco Sanchez de Moya, who was the manager of the copper mines, for him to do what was needed to.
"While the news was spreading they put on the dwelling house of the herd an altar made of woods and on it the Blessed Virgin, with lights on."
"And put on her altar this Divine Lady the Indian Rodrigo de Hoyos looked after lighting the lamp and going at night to reform the lamp, he did not find this Divine Lady in her altar and crying out to the Mayoral and others that were coming up to twenty one the people who were in that herd Barajagua, telling them that the Blessed Virgin was not at her altar. And after doing all they could she was not found at home. And the next morning, when returning to the house, they found her on her altar, wearing wet clothes ... ".
About the miracles of the Virgin of Charity, the mayoral of the herd of Barajagua, Miguel Galán, informed the captain Francisco Sanchez de Moya, who then decided that Father Bonilla, religious man from San Francisco who was administering the parish of Santiago del Prado go to the herd of Barajagua. He was sent him accompanied by all infantry of the Royal of El Cobre mines and many locals to bring the Blessed Virgin.
On a walk in procession she was taken to Santiago del Prado, El Cobre, and put her on an altar in the parish church of the place, while a chapel was built for her.
In this context the cult to the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre emerged, in the early seventh century, with miscegenation. It emerged as universal representation of motherhood, mother earth, maternal love, with the sensitivity of Indians and slaves "took a new quality, the political quality, as serving as exponent of Creole condition implied therefore to assume with meridian fullness the rights of collective consciousness. "
Everything was originated somewhat naturally in the course of their social experiences, within the limits of spontaneity conceived between conscious beings who acquire an ideology and a collective mentality. The Catholic Church, as in many other occasions, intervened when the situation was undeniable: the popular cult was formed and now it was necessary to constrain it, submit it to the institutional requirements. It happened in the late seventeenth century, when the men that worked copper raised with their own resources, a sanctuary to Our Virgin of Charity of El Cobre.
"In politics, it was less spontaneous that men who worked copper became the cult of Our Virgin of Charity of El Cobre on the best defense for their Creoleness condition. Their veneration interfered with the faith of the community within their rights to land as heir of the natural and the construction of the sanctuary demonstrated their ability to organize and autonomously govern ". (1)
There is nothing left in writing about since the moment Our Virgin of Charity of El Cobre was called for the first time Mambisa Virgin. However, it can be said, by the many testimonies left, her image accompanied the insurgents in the battlegrounds of Cuba.
For oral tradition it is said that the image of Our Virgin of Charity of El Cobre who presided over the second altar of St. Thomas Church, in Santiago de Cuba, in the Great War (1868-1878) she was taken to the manigua and then returned to her place.
Many were the mambises that throughout the war for the liberation of Cuba went to El Cobre to pay for their promises, leave their offerings, give thanks for the protection afforded by the Virgin of Charity. Perhaps for these reasons the faithful and heroic mambises wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XV, dated at the Shrine of El Cobre in September 24, 1915 and signed by General Jesus Rabí, other six generals, officers and soldiers to a number of two hundred, with the request that Our Lady of Charity be proclaimed Patron of the Republic of Cuba. The Pope granted the request and in May 10, 1916 he signed the decree of her proclamation.
"The rise of the cult of the Charity of El Cobre coincided with the return of the cuban confidence in his independent destiny, the worth of his personality. So it is not surprising that Liborio –image of the suffering cuban--, veteran peasant of the wars of independence, in opportunities, every September 8, was represented visiting El Cobre to pay Cachita a promise. "
Both expressions: Liborio and Cachita, as affectionately the people called the Virgin of Charity, are symbols of identity, of cuban tradition: an exalted manifestation of pride of being Cuban.
