Slavery in America left an indelible mark on humanity.
And Cuba, a small island bathed by the Caribbean Sea, was not exempt from this event, since there were many ships that supplied slaves to the largest of the Antilles throughout the entire national territory.
The slaves, for their part, brought against their will, suffered in national territory all the excesses that were unleashed as a result of the deprivation of liberty.
Around 1850, the placement of statues of slaves cast in iron and other heavy materials began to become popular, as a decoration of sugar mills, farms and ranches, where these men acted as unpaid labor.
This work was in turn a way of speculating the position of the landowner, since in former times the more slaves they owned, the greater the wealth gained and the fame of the employer increased.
The History of the statue of Negrito de Hierro
Cienfuegos was the province that cradled the statue of the angelic little boy on his arrival in Cuba, representing from a traditional point of view, the slaves born in Cuba and the many others who arrived in his childhood.
The innocence of his face would not warn his first owners about the dangers that would eclipse his life since then.
Some say that the evil that inhabited the little black boy was such that he seemed to be a demonic vessel.
I prefer to think that perhaps all the fury, the resentment, the shed tears and the disagreement of having to serve others, of the black slaves who were massacred and run over on the Island, were concentrated in this.
In 1862, Mr. José Ferrer, owner of the Two Brothers mill, ordered the placement of the statue of the black boy at the entrance of his domain.
The sugar harvest of that year was running when a rebellion broke out in those lands led by slaves.
It is said of this event that the uproar was stopped by the blow of the whip and other torture methods, which took the lives of some blacks and left many others incapacitated.
It is speculated that one of the mothers of the victims, who was a black gangster, cast a curse on the iron statue so that the bosses would pay for every drop of her son's spilled blood.
And with this wish for them the unhappiness that had been caused by their loss, which should be multiplied more than ever in the family.
The curse that always haunted the little black
A short time later, the mill went bankrupt, leaving the slavers devastated and ruined.
Then the statue went to the Hacienda San Lino, which is presumed to be linked to the Ferrer family.
In a few months the facility suffered a collapse that did not claim human lives, but caused serious economic damage.
Parque Alto was the next destination of the iron Negro, where the statue remained for some years, in the long run the site also went bankrupt, already arising rumors about the malevolence of the statue.
An enclosure of cultural interest housed the cursed statue for three months until a collapse put an end to the place, where several pieces survived, including that of the black boy.
A woman fond of the fine arts named Guillermina Cáceres became the executor of the statue, which began to develop various ailments, ailments that ended when she handed it over to Francisco Morales.
Morales, who was a man of laws, did not believe in superstitions or popular myths, but after receiving a lot of family pressure, he agreed to deliver the iron statue to the municipal museum, where it has rested ever since.
Despite being one of the best museum pieces, it does not receive many visits, only those who are unaware of its past dare to contemplate it without feeling the slightest of worries.
