Ramon de la Sagra: A Time for Recognition

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HISTORY

Marcos Antonio Ramos Ramón de la Sagra y Peris.

D

José Antonio Saco.

Felipe Poey

Aurelio Mitjans

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espite the fact that gratitude has gradually increased for one of the figures who has most contributed to studies made about the nation, science and general culture of Cuba during our XIX Century, we must make a greater effort in placing more emphasis on his persona and his work, striving to give him greater recognition.

Like so many other Spaniards who settled in the then-Spanish Island of Cuba, Don Ramón de la Sagra hailed from Galicia, specifically from La Coruña, and had satisfactorily completed his scientific studies at the University of Madrid. He had gone to the greater of the Antilles, at the young age of 23, to take a managerial post in the tobacco industry but was eventually appointed director of the Botanical Garden of Havana and professor of Botany. He not only worked as a scientist and educator, but as a writer and Deputy to the Court, as well.

He was in Cuba three times, the first time for five months (1821), the second for a much longer stay (1823-1835) and the third for ten months (1859-1860). Like Paul Estrade so wisely mentioned, Don Ramón “did not go into trade, did not get rich, and neither did he adopt native ways (acriollarse). However, Cuba stuck to his mind.” He was a full-fledged Spaniard, but Cuba became an integral part of his life. One cannot demand from a Spaniard of his background, upbringing and interests, a political and social position identical to the one of his many Cuban friends and foes.

Many did not understand him, among them some of our most illustrious historical figures, such as Domingo del Monte, Felipe Poey and others who nevertheless praised him. His disagreements with José Antonio Saco regarding slavery and the economy of the island are well known. Some referred to him as the “humilliator of Cuba” (Fernando Ortíz, for instance). Aurelio Mitjans, a scholar from our educational institutions, went even further.

We can read very harsh criticisms of him in period magazines and in newspapers of a later date. He was even considered an ignoramus and a fake, an opinion expressed by distinguished historian Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring. More objective opinions came later from Antonio Bachiller y Morales and even from Fernando Ortíz himself, while not forgetting Carlos de la Torre and Domingo del Monte. But they did not stray from their criticism, nor did they change all their objections.

However, his reinstatement has come about without forgetting the political and personal aspects of the controversy, as well as la Sagra’s mistakes, since no one is perfect. A more in depth study would help us understand these difficulties better. For instance, his relationship with Saco is better understood when we remember that his argument with la Sagra concerned José María Heredia, and was not very different from the ultimate opinion of Domingo del Monte regarding the distinguished poet who had been his great friend and to whom he referred as “the fallen angel.” One cannot forget that some called Don Ramón “a slave trader, charlatan, plagiarist, anti-Cuban…” Beyond going into great depths about these issues, knowing the exaggeration and passion which is part of our Hispanic heritage

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HISTORY and that of other countries, his legacy is compulsory reading as a consulting tool, as is his scientific work; so is the real creation of the Botanical Garden, and even his work regarding physics, geography, Cuban flora and fauna, which have withstood the test of time.

La Sagra worked in his native Spain, France and Cuba, and also visited the United States.

He wrote profusely in French, a language he had mastered perfectly, which made his works known throughout the international scientific community, since at the time, French was the lingua franca in many fields. Ramón de la Sagra was recognized as an excellent French translator, including those who translated his work into that language. The existence of “sagristas” among the Gaul literati who made possible a “History of the Hispanic Antilles,” should not surprise anyone. Even many of his works in Cervantes’ language had been published in Paris.

His cultural and scientific activities in Cuba, a country where he studied the flora and the Antonio Bachiller y economy in depth, are increasingly recognized. He made many socially distinguished Morales enemies with his propositions to abolish slavery and monoculture, issues defended by many of our compatriots of the first half of the XIX Century. His defense of a wage-earning free proletariat and his suggestions regarding the creation of rural industries were rejected by many. He defended Chinese immigration to the island. He even espoused establishing certain forms of collective property among the poorer classes. Independent of opinions regarding the previous issues, we should keep in mind how they were interpreted by his contemporaries.

Opinions slip away, works remain. In France, at the Museum of Natural History, at the National Archives, at the National Library, at the Institute and in countless private collections, his letters, documents, plates, maps, charts and memoirs remain. His first biography was published in 1858 in the “Dictionnaire Universel des Contemporains.”

The famous director of the newspaper, “The Democrat,” founder of “Annals of Science, Agriculture, Commerce and the Arts,” left behind, and I mention this for the sole purpose Levi Marrero of giving a notion of his wide-ranging works, his “Memoirs of the Meteorological and Physical Observations Made while Navigating from La Coruña to Havana” (1823), “Speech read at the public installation of the chair of Agricultural Botany” (1824), “Basic Principles to Serve as an Introduction to the School of Agricultural Botany at the Botanical Garden of Havana,” “Manual of Medical and Industrial Botany to be Used by the Inhabitants of the Island of Cuba and Other Antilles” (1827), “Economic-Political History and Statistics of the Island of Cuba: Its Progress in Population, Agriculture, Commerce and Revenue” (1831), “Primer for Growing Cacao in the Island of Cuba” (1833), “The Physical, Political and Natural History of the Island of Cuba” (1837), “Mortality Tables of Cholera-Morbus in the City of Havana and its Outskirts” (1833), “Notices of the Resolutions and Claims Regarding the Work Titled ‘The Physical, Political and Natural History of the Island of Cuba’” (1849), plus a long list of contributions, including other studies on the flora and Alexander Von Humbolt fauna of Cuba, his “Colonial Studies” (1845), his well-known work, “Cuba” (1860) and his letters to Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, which are part of “Cuban Album of What Is Good and Beautiful.”

His efforts in research and propagation, some of which were published Marcos Antonio under his pseudonyms “Friends of quality opinion of Havana” and “The Ramos. Cuban hermit of Campo de Marte” and others, remain in publications in Geneva, historian, journalist and theologian.

Madrid, Paris and Havana, and in his works and papers for scientific Professor Emeritus societies of all kinds. at the Florida Center It has been said that he yearned for a Spanish Cuba. He was a Spaniard for Theological Studies. Researcher at the UM Institute during the first decades of the XIX Century. Regardless of respecting of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies critical comments regarding his work and even his person, the creator of and member of the Royal Spanish the Botanical Garden of Havana, along with Christopher Columbus, Academy of Madrid. Co-author of Vol. VII of “The General History of Latin Baron Humboldt and our compatriots, Fernando Ortíz and Leví Marrero, America,” recently published by was one of the discoverers of Cuba to a universal public. Honor and glory UNESCO. Vice-President of the to his memory.

Executive Committee of Cuban Cultural Heritage and General Editor of Herencia H E R E N C I A C U LT U R A L C U B A N A / V O L . X V I I I • N o . 2 • 0 8 - 1 2

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