Fifteen years ago, the Salsipuedes Cultural Association brought together dozens of immediate family members of those who had traveled on the Valbanera steamship at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many of them, including those from the final and fateful voyage on the night of September 9-10, when a cyclone destroyed the ship and its passengers, buried in the sands of Key West, on the voyage from Santiago de Cuba to Havana.
Nearly 500 people died and remain buried today, without any concern for them. After all, they were traveling with the only thing they had: their lives. There are more chronicles of hypothetical reasons for the shipwreck than even a search for news about what these people's lives were like. Clearly, this is not the reason Salsipuedes is rescuing, transmitting, and appreciating this story.
The Valbanera sailed between Spain, Cuba, and the United States for two decades, carrying cargo and passengers between the two continents. With a capacity for 1.5 thousand passengers, hundreds of Canarians traveled every six months in emigrant class to Cuba in search of decent work and a hope for the future, aware of its excellent agricultural practices and its specialization in crops such as tobacco and sugarcane.
They told us at that family gathering how their grandparents told them they were traveling with nothing but their clothes and a small rucksack of food for the journey. It had already been an effort, selling land and property or gathering all the family savings to pay for the youngest member of the family's boat ticket, hoping to return in the form of a money transfer or a well-established man. A two-hundred-peseta note meant they had chosen the right course and destination.
Of course, there was no shortage of attempts in the Cuban and American media to mislead the public with false headlines designed to provoke (it was even called the "ship of prostitutes"), or fear-mongering ("the lazy Canaries are coming to take our properties"), all of which served as a basis for intentional manipulation.
By reviving the memory of this story, Salsipuedes pays tribute to the shipwreck episode as a symbol of Canarian emigration through various activities and recreations, so that we won't forget those times.
Today, more than a century later, in completely similar circumstances, we must remember, because just as the Canary Islanders did on the Valbanera, people in other parts of the world continue to board boats fleeing war, famine, disregard for human rights, or simply seeking hope.
Exactly like those passengers of the Valbanera, where even as happened 106 years ago, shipwrecks and loss of life also occur, coincidentally the only valuable thing they have.
It is the memory that the Canary Islands have of the Valbanera.
