Espada Cemetery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Espada Cemetery is a disused cemetery located approximately a mile west of the city of Havana, Cuba, near to the coast and close to the San Lázaro Hospital. In use from around 1806 to 1878, the Espada Cemetery was the first burial place formally designed and constructed in the Havana region. It was named after the Bishop incumbent at the time of design, José Díaz de Espada y Landa. Despite being officially called Campo Santo (Holy Field), the general populace of Havana typically referred to the cemetery as el cementerio Espada (the Espada Cemetery).
The cemetery was built in response to population growth around the area, and the resulting scarcity of church land that could be used for burial. It was proposed and sanctioned by the government of Don Salvador de Muro y Salazar in 1804, and, after two years of design and construction, the cemetery was ready for use in 1806, and was inaugurated on February 2 that year.
The cemetery was used as the primary burial ground for the city of Havana from 1806 until the late 1860s. In 1868, a cholera epidemic broke out in the area, resulting in a greatly increased rate of death. It soon became apparent that the Espada Cemetery, still the only major burial ground in the region, would not suffice to handle the number of deaths that were coming from the epidemic. In order to supplement the struggling Espada Cemetery, another cemetery, the Colón Cemetery (Spanish:Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón), named for explorer Christopher Columbus, was inaugrated in 1871. In 1878, the Espada Cemetery was closed in favour of the larger Colón Cemetery and because of the lack of space still remaining within the Espada Cemetery grounds. The Colón Cemetery remains in active use today, and now acts as a burial ground for more than 800,000 corpses.
[edit] References
- The Espada Cemetery / El Cementerio de Espada. Retrieved on 5 June 2008.
- Gerald, Andrew (2000). Architectural Heritage of the Caribbean: An A-Z of Historic Buildings. Signal Books. ISBN 1902669088.
- Cova, Antonio Rafael De la; Antonio Rafael Cova (2003). Cuban Confederate Colonel: The Life of Ambrosio Jose Gonzales. Univ of South Carolina Press. ISBN 1570034966.
