The municipality of Venezuela reaches such a category in 1963, located in the south of the Ciego de Ávila province. It limits to the east with the Baraguá municipality, to the west with Majagua, to the north with Ciego de Ávila municipality and to the south with the Gulf of Ana María, within which is part of the Jardines de la Reyna, having a territorial extension 821.02 square kilometers, including the 6.5 of adjacent cays that represent 10.30% of the provincial area. It has a population of 26,386 inhabitants, including 13,705 males and 12,651 females.
Before 1959, it was divided into neighborhoods, called José Miguel Gómez, Jagüeyal, Júcaro and La Ceiba, subordinated to the Municipal term of Ciego de Ávila, which in turn was part of the Province of Camagüey.
Its relief is flat, predominantly savannah, and soils within the ferralitic and hydromorphic groups, although there are small parts that correspond to the characteristics of the farsalic and vertisols. The ferralitics are of the typical red and concretionary red type; the ferralitic ones are located in the north, west and south, as well as in the east of the first ones, composed by the union of the typical ferralitic, ferralitic gley and red types.
The predominant labor activity is based on agriculture and fishing, being the main lines of the economy in the territory, the trade business, the "Cuba Soy" Company and the fishing UEB of Júcaro.
About its history
The Spanish colonialists to prevent the advance of the insurgent forces towards the West built the military path from Júcaro to Morón (today a National Monument). Combats and actions of war in the libertarian campaigns; concentration of peasants and the presence of relevant figures from both contending sides. Blas Villate de la Hera, Count of Balmaseda and also the bloodthirsty general Valeriano Weyler and Nicolau, Marquess of Tenerife, who on more than one occasion landed through Júcaro and toured the territory where the military trail was located, are some of them. On July 26, 1871, the Count of Balmaceda ordered the execution in Júcaro of the rebel General Eduardo Mármol and Weyler ordered the concentration for Júcaro, Ciego de Ávila and Morón in 1897.
One of the most significant combat actions that took place in Ciego de Ávila during the Great or Ten Years War took place in this territory on August 9, 1869, in Pitajones or Jucarito, north of the port of Júcaro. General Ángel del Castillo obtained a resounding victory by ambushing a Spanish column made up of around 500 cavalry, infantry and mountain artillery men, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ramón Portal. The Spaniards were razed to the ground and their leader was taken prisoner and then shot for the cruel actions. The convoy was heading from Júcaro to the town of Ciego de Ávila.
As a pride of local devotion, within the Cuban rebel figures present in the emancipatory fights, that of Máximo Gómez Báez stands out, who mocked the path for the first time in January 1875 where he was slightly wounded, the only time it happened to him in the war. He fought, established camp and promoted a blood hospital in the territory, exactly in the caves of Hoyo de la Palma, where numerous officers and soldiers were restored, including Major General Julio Sanguily, curing himself due to the shortage of medicines, only with honey of bee and boiled water. The Generalissimo had a predilection for this place given the abundance of pasture for horses, drinking water and strategic position.
In the 20th century, two modern sugar mills were modified, Stewart and Jagüeyal, the first to be founded in Ciego de Ávila as a result of the great economic penetration of North American imperialism, a company in which disastrous characters in the history of Cuba were involved, such as José Miguel Gómez, first administrator of the Stewart, José Manuel Ceballos, Orestes Ferrara, Cosme de la Torriente, Manuel Silveira and Colonel Enrique Pina Jiménez, the latter two negatively pointed out for their criminal acts in the assassination of General Quintín Bandera and the massacre of the islanders respectively. The Jagüeyal sugar mill was paralyzed and demolished in 1930 because of the economic crisis that affected the capitalist world from 1929.
After the coup d'état of March 10, 1952, the proletarian and popular struggle intensified against the regime that misruled the country. Cells of the July 26 movement and the March 13 revolutionary directory were founded in the four existing neighborhoods, which, together with the popular socialist party and the orthodox party, formed the opposition to the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista.
The participation of the local workers during the sugar strike of December 1955 for the payment of the differential was transcendental. Even the Catholic Church was taken over by dozens of workers in protest, who were forcibly evicted by the rural guard. Others marched on foot to the city of Ciego de Ávila, participating in the actions that took place there.
With the arrival of 1958, the political and revolutionary struggle against the regime increased. In this year, the workers participated in the historic strike on April 9, developing multiple actions in the territory, partially paralyzing the harvest, the burning of cane fields, the raising of the flags of the July 26 movement, cutting of electrical and telephone lines, derailments of sugarcane trains, paralysis of different tasks, highlighting the Jagüeyal area from where part of the command departed to attack and neutralize the power plant located in the town of Vicente.
During the convulsive year, several children of the town fell and others who, although they were not born in the territory, also lost their lives for the sake of the ideals they defended. They were: Ramón Domínguez de la Peña (Distinguished Patriot of the municipality); Alfredo Ibarra Suárez, Jorge Eloy Aguirre Fernández; Pedro Antonio Maceda Sánchez and Senén Mariño Vargas.
On October 5, 1958, the invading column number 8 ¨Ciro Redondo¨ arrived under the command of Commander Ernesto Che Guevara in the territory, establishing its first camp on "Rosa Liberal" farm, receiving solidary help from the peasants in the area, standing out greatly the performance of the paralyzed boy Juan Olimpio Valcárcel, barely 13 years old who served the column and fulfilled important missions, who unfortunately died together with his mother in a tragic accident in March 1959, when Che sent for him to fulfill what he had promised the child during the difficult days of the invasion: education and health.
Upon learning of his death, the Heroic guerrilla man ordered his posthumous promotion to first lieutenant killed in the campaign and offered all the honors corresponding to his military hierarchy. He was the first son of this land promoted by Che and who can also be considered the first pioneer.
Che's troops had two other camps in the territory called Monte Hilario and Gato Prieto. As they passed through the south of the current municipality of Venezuela, the invading hosts were bombed and machine-gunned insistently by the Batista army, but at all times they received the help of humble people, peasants and agricultural workers.
Stewart's name change to Venezuela
In response to the constant aggressions of the government of the United States of America, including the suspension of the traditional sugar quota that Cuba had in the market of that country, the revolution announced the nationalization of 36 large sugar mills owned by North Americans, news formulated by Fidel during the closing speech at the Cerro stadium, Havana, at the Latin American student congress on the night of August 6, 1960. Among the sugar mills that would pass into the hands of the people was the Stewart sugar mill, becoming a reality the momentous measure the next day.
The national directorate of the Cuban Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA by its Spanish initials) then decides to change their names and sends a communication to the factories so that in a general assembly with all the workers, the proposal of the new adjective is made by means of a telegram with three proposals. At that time, there was in Cuba a true show of sympathy for Venezuela, whose people had approved the insurrectionary struggle in Sierra Maestra. Through the stations of that country, the great chain of freedom of rebel radio was formed, where the liberty of the rebel army made its way throughout the continent, it was also the first Latin American country that Fidel visited after the triumph of January 1959.
It was thus that Felicito González Torres, organizing secretary of the Workers' Union of the Stewart sugar mill and its colonies, proposed Venezuela to his colleagues and when they expressed the list of three in the requested telegram they wrote Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela. A fact that strongly called attention and indeed in the month of November of the aforementioned 1960, in a great assembly presided over by Jorge Enrique Mendoza, then a delegate of INRA in the province of Camagüey, who had been a rebel radio announcer in Sierra Maestra, the Change approved unanimously and with shouts of joy by those present with their arms raised. It was the gratitude to the solidarity of the brother South American people, homeland of the liberator of America.
More than half a century of exploitation and ignorance was left behind and the foreign name of Stewart, symbol of a past without return, was forgotten. When the municipality was established in 1953, it adopted the same name.
Presence in the territory of Fidel and Che
On September 11, 1960, in the former large state known as La Ignacia, owned by Evangelina de las Lleras, minister without portfolio and censorship of the press of the Batista regime, called "la Doña Bárbara de los Campos", Fidel Castro inaugurated the first peasant community built by the revolution in the province of Camagüey, the "Manuel Sanguily" sugarcane cooperative, an unprecedented event where the Moncada program began to become a reality in the Ciego de Ávila`s countryside, an action aimed at economic and social transformation for the sake of erasing centuries of ignorance.
The commander-in-chief was in the place three times (1959, 1960, and 1965) and in 1966, he was in the Jagüeyal area, where he founded the first cane collection center in the Camagüey province. As well as the battalion of volunteer of the national union of sugar workers, led by Conrado Bécquer, where they exchanged extensively with the people.
From this harvest experience, the installation of these reception centers for the grass was guaranteed throughout the country; later the then minister of sugar declared the collection center, called Imias, science and technology heritage in Cuba.
For the honor and pride of the people of this demarcation, on February 17, 1963, Che concluded in the cane fields of the Venezuela Sugar Factory the most extensive day of volunteer work that was permanently developed in Cuba, which began in Norma, Ciro Redondo municipality on Februry 4, 1963. He cut more than 137,000 arrobas of cane that day, becoming the first billionaire operator in the country.
During the more than 60 years of revolution, numerous personalities have visited the municipality, highlighting the presence of Fidel Castro Ruz, Ernesto Che Guevara, Juan Almeida Bosque (who was an agricultural worker at the Stewart plant in the 40s of the last century), Jesús Suarez Gayol, Raúl Castro Ruz, Vilma Espín, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, Lázaro Peña, José Ramón Machado Ventura, Sixto Batista Santana, as well as several Moncada combatants, Granma expeditionaries and members of the diplomatic group accredited in Cuba, including representatives of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, among other figures.
The traditional festivities of the municipality are held on October 10, a date of deep patriotic symbolism that has been held since ancient times with Quince y Medio town as its headquarters with multiple activities, beginning at 6:00 am with the raising of the national flag. Moreover, parade of a cavalry that remembers the rebel troops, traditional games and the main attraction of the day takes place in La Julia place, with the dances and religious rites of the Haitian culture by the okay folkloric group, made up of descendants, culminating the festival with a popular festival. Other events that constitute traditions in the municipality are the commemoration of the musical creator "Daniel Cruz Cosa, the festival of the Count of Villamar, Ana María del Mar, the Summer of San Juan, the book and literature, popular art, and Culture and Development celebrations.
In October 2011, the fort on the Júcaro to Morón Path was approved in a solemn assembly of the Municipal People's Power, as a symbol of the Municipality.