Jovellanos
Encyclopedia
Jovellanos is a municipality and city in the Matanzas Province
Matanzas Province
Matanzas is one of the provinces of Cuba. Major towns in the province include Cárdenas, Colón, Jovellanos and the capital of the same name, Matanzas...
of Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
.
The municipality is divided into the barrio
Barrio
Barrio is a Spanish word meaning district or neighborhood.-Usage:In its formal usage in English, barrios are generally considered cohesive places, sharing, for example, a church and traditions such as feast days...
s of Asunción, Isabel, Realengo and San José.
It was founded in 1842 as Corral de la Bemba on the location of an old ranch called Bemba. It took its current name in 1870, in honor of the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
writer Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos was an Asturian-born Spanish neoclassical statesman, author, philosopher and a major figure of the Age of Enlightenment in Spain.-Life:...
. The same year it achieved the status of villa (town).
Jovellanos is also called by "bemba" by its inhabitants and locals. "Bemba" means "big lipped" in Caribbean Spanish
Caribbean Spanish
Caribbean Spanish is the general name of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. It closely resembles the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands and Andalusia....
; this term refers to the black population of the city. To outsiders, it may have negative racial overtones, but in the city this is not the case. Inside Jovellanos, the black and white population for the most part live harmoniously, side by side. Therefore, "bemba" is an affectionate name for the town used by locals.
Jovellanos is an industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
town, with large and small factories, while sugar cane
Sugarcane
Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...
is cultivated in the surrounding areas.