San Gerónimo, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala, site of the largest sugar plantation and home to the largest African American slave population in Colonial Central America. Today it houses the Museo del Trapiche, inaugurated in 1999 to commemorate the historical landscape, structures, and artifacts traceable to that past.
San Gerónimo's Church with its arched ceiling over the nave and interior dome over the altar.
With the Church in the background, from right to left: Rolando Mejía Leal, Director of the Museo del Trapiche; Carmen Myriam Fuentes Gularte de Valdés, born and raised in San Gerónimo and the central figure in the three decade-long struggle for the Museum's creation; Susana Gularte Estrada, her cousin; and researcher Mauricio Meléndez Obando .
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San Gerónimo's Church houses in all likelihood the oldest painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Guatemala. It was installed by the Dominicans who obtained it from the hand of the renowned Mexican painter Cristobál Villalpando (ca.1649-1714). It occupies a large 'retablo' or altarpiece, shown here, to the left of the Church's nave.
The water wheel (imported from England in 1852) powered by water brought from the nearby mountains via a massive stone aqueduct; used in turn to power the three-roller cane press shown. Although the wheel and press are post-Colonial, English manufactured pieces, the water works in both the mill's hydraulic power supply and the field irrigation systems using river water (reportedly some 7 'caballerías' or nearly 300 hectares) were late 17th century Dominican slave plantation achievements.
Ruins of the plantation's "boiler" area with several ovens for heating the cane juice.
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Exterior and interior views of the partially restored purging room for storage of crystallizing sugars, built by the Dominicans in colonial times complete with a cross motif.
Remains of the extraordinary Dominican system of 120 arches supporting the aqueduct bringing water power from the mountains to the mill wheel nearly a kilometer distant. Built with slave and 'repartimiento' Indian labor in the late 17th century, only a few of the roughly 3-4 meter high and wide arches remain standing, one complete with representations of grapes symbolizing the Dominicans' earliest efforts at wine production.
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Derechos reservados© 2001 Mount Holyoke College. Sitio diseñado y creado por Naomi Tuffour . Última versión de Abril 11, 2002.