Havana Cuba. – On March 3, 1687, in the aboriginal village of Guaicanamar, the Spanish founded the town of Regla, considered the second most important in the capital from an economic point of view. Today it constitutes a municipality made up of the urban settlements of Regla and Casablanca, which in other times hosted a good part of Havana’s industrial development, and more than 50% of port activities.
On this date, more than three centuries ago, the Marquis of the Royal Proclamation, Don Pedro Recio de Oquendo, donated a plot of land to a Peruvian pilgrim named Manuel Antonio, in order to build a hermitage dedicated to the Virgin of Regla. The settlement was formed around the building, which developed rapidly thanks to its privileged location on the other side of the bay.
Although during the colonial era the main economic activity in Regla was linked to shipyards, the shipbuilding industry, the railroad that linked the bay area with the province of Matanzas, and the Fesser and Santa Catalina warehouse companies also prospered.
Once the Republic was established, in 1902, the chemical and oil industry arrived, mills were built and port activity grew enormously. Also in the fields of health and education, Regla marked important milestones.
In 1812, for example, a nautical school was created with the aim of training sailors. Towards the second half of the 19th century, in Regla there were five municipal schools for boys, one for girls and two private schools; all for a population of 15,000 inhabitants.
The Regla artistic and literary high school was established on October 10, 1878, and prominent figures from the Havana intelligentsia were present at its inauguration, such as Luisa Perez de Zambrana and Enrique Jose Varona.
Regla is also distinguished by its religiosity, in which Afro-Cuban practices syncretized with Catholicism converge. The hermitage built by that wandering Peruvian, is today a church consecrated to the Virgin of Regla, syncretized with the Yemayá deity of the Yoruba pantheon, mother goddess and mistress of the seas. every september 7 the enclosure welcomes hundreds of believers of very diverse creeds. The town, in which around 50,000 inhabitants reside today, is revived thanks to faith, waiting, like all of Cuba, for better times.
Today the main attraction of Regla is the pilgrimage to that hermitage converted into a Church
