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VIEQUES'S BUILT URBAN AND RURAL HERITAGE represents a very important epoch in the
economic exchanges between Puerto Rico and neighboring islands. More than the other
Spanish colonies, Puerto Rico thanks to its strategic location was a cultural and economic
crossroads between the smaller French and English-ruled islands and the Spanish Caribbean
world.
This is reflected in the architectural and building influences of places and structures still
remaining in the “Isla Nena” soil. Some estates like Campaña (near the shooting field in
Barrio Puerto Diablo) and city houses like the Delerme Anduze House, one block from the
square, show great similarity with French Antillean vernacular, thus witnessing one of the
cultural ingredients of this island's colonization. Other houses, more similiar to the criollo
ones seen on Puerto Rico's Big Island, remind the observer that Vieques belongs to a larger
milieu.
Spain's power as a stabilizer of the unsettled conditions of early 19th century Vieques is
revealed in the soberly Neoclassical civic and institutional buildings it built such as the
lighthouses, the town hall and the Conde de Mirasol Fortress, solidly built out of technically
simple rubble masonry, just like many other utilitarian and civic structures of the Big Island.
The Fortress, for years seat of government, prison, and an abandoned ruine before the
Institute of Puerto Rican Culture saved it by making it a museum and center for outreach
and conservation of Vieques's history and culture.
A now-vanished house in 5
Benítez Guzmán Street, with
clearly English inspiration and of
a moneyed family, had a
complex hip-roof geometry,
ventilating dormer, and the
living room was surfaced with a
material known as “lincrusta”,
essentially sawdust with linseed
oil and resin, molded in
ornamental patterns in hardened
plates. But a house that defies
time is the Smaine house in the
corner of Antonio Mellado and
Prudencio Quiñones streets.
This protected house has a high
base (used as a lower story), a perceived center-hall layout, the wooden main story sheathed
in pressed metal imitating brick, and an extensive ell extension – known in Puerto Rico as a
“martillo” (hammer) – and the Mellado street side has a curving side stair that passes next to
a cylindrical steel cisterns, common in the late 19th century. This house presents a half-
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hipped roof similar to those in the Virgin Islands, that allows for more efficient ventilation
of the roof space.
José Ferreras Pagán, in his directory Biografía de las riquezas de Puerto Rico (“Biography of
Puerto Rico's Riches”) published in1902 (vol. 2, p. 87) indicates that this mill, formerly
owned by Matthias Hjardemaal, was sold in 1892 to Don José Benítez Guzmán, “being a
small factory that increased its capacity and elements until it became a steam-powered
muscovado mill.” Ferreras detailed the following components:
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“[a building] dedicated to the sugar factory and warehouse, residence for the director,
employee housing, house for the foreman, store, and single workers' quarters: 5 multitubular
boilers with their ovens that burn green bagasse, a Krajeuski (?) stalk cutter, 1 mill and its
second grinder with their engines, 4 eliminators, 6 defecators, 6 Fletcher centrifuges, 10
decanters, 1 triple effect [evaporator], a two-bags-per-batch vacuum pan, 1 Cortada still, one
electric generator [author's note: only five out of 32 non-American capital mills had this
then], 30 iron tanks..
Despite its atrocious dismantling in 1941, Playa Grande still presents significant remains that
defy oblivion and abandonment.
The “biographer of riches” also describes the nearly vanished Santa María mill. This one had
belonged to the Leguillous and also to the Le Bruns. Modernized in 1896, it had::
“3 multitubular boilers with green-bagasse-fueled ovens, one mill and its engine, 4
defecators, 4 eliminators, 2 clarifiers, 4 filters, 1 vacuum pan, 4 centrifuges and other
accesory equipment: as well as iron tanks for syrup and molasses.
“Its equipment was built by the Fives-Lille company in France, and they can elaborate up to
220 bags in 12 hours.” (Ferreras, ibid. p. 88)
“A beautiful masonry factory where all the equipment is installed along with a Deroy still,
the latter which stopped being used since the promulgation of the Hollander Bill [author's
note: a law that taxed alcohols exported to the U.S.A] as sales have declined: 1 one-story
house for the director's residence: 4 wooden houses for employees; a brick masonry
rainwater cisterns, another cisterns for storing water from a creek that flows south to north
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near the factory, drawn by a windmill-powered pump, this for the evaporators; one store,
and 11 workers' quarters.”
At that time Santa María controlled 2000 acres, slightly over half cultivated. It operated until
de 1920's henceforth Playa Grande was the sole grinder of Vieques cane.
It is now barely a remembrance though the form of the factory settlement still influences the
present one. Another mill, Arkadia, existed in the northwest, in the later-military zone, and
according to some archeological field studies, parts seem to remain. It also stopped in the
early 20th century.
In the remains of the Pacience estate in Barrio Santa María are the remains of the tombs of
the first governor of Vieques, Théophile-Joseph-Jacques-Marie le Guillou, with massive
French inspired construction and a pyramidal top, a symbol of transcendence very favored
as an iconic form of European tombs. There are other vaulted tombs at its side. Some are
above earth – sarcophage type, also following French custom.
This interesting agrarian past rots away in oblivion amidst the scrub, but notwithstanding the
existence of directives to preserve heritage within the military installations, most estate ruins
in former military lands are fragments of walls or floors, lime and earth between leaves and
bushes – not to speak of the empty shell of the Puerto Ferro lighthouse, almost standing like
a ruins of a vanquished enemy awaiting their Carthage-style disappearance, not by force but
by age and weather. (The other lighthouse - Punta Mulas, near the town – was carefully
restored in collaboration between the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and the Municipality,
and of late has been a museum though it is now closed.) Even so, the resistance of these
materials come from the earth have made these walls and footings faithful defenders of the
presence of the past facing the trauma of modern and destructive military “arts”
.
Even though there have been made
archaeological reconnaissances that
demonstrate that these ruins and
remains, historic and Pre-Columbian
alike, are a very important patrimony
that are a key part of the Caribbean
jigsaw puzzle, Puerto Rican
archaeologists had not been permitted
for a long time to dig and analyze
findings in military soil. This has left a
gap in early Puerto Rican history,
since it is known for years that
Vieques was a major bridge and
contact since the time of the first
human migrations in this region.
Puerto Ferro Man, a most significant anthropological find, remains, thus an interesting
phenomenon without (until, we hope, now) a context that explains him and his times..
Between 1978 and 1985 an American consultant group hired by the Navy made a historic
resource survey in Vieques naval lands. Not informed by the knowledge or experience of our
archaeologists and preservation architects, a collection of reports was made of these findings
located in hills and dales of Vieques. But the lack of communication between both groups
has hampered the construction of an useful interpretation of the remains. Our people had
been denied for years access to a vital part of its cultural heritage, and also to the prople's
right to know themselves through history and material culture.
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Now that many of these resources are accesible there is a need to revise the condition and
significance of these places since they can be venues for cultural tourism and kindred
activities, now blossoming throughout many Caribbean locations in spite of many
difficulties. The cultural landscapes of the long-time inaccesible areas evidence the
achievements and losses of Vieques society long subject to agricultural and later military
latifundia. They deserve to be conserved since they define the community's personality and
they may be reused for the enjoyment and recreation of present and future generations.
jo