Yabucoa
| Yabucoa Yabukoa |
|
|---|---|
| City and cacicazgo | |
| Nickname(s): La Cuna ("The Cradle") | |
| Country |  Nouvelle Alexandrie |
| Region | Boriquén |
| Cacicazgo | Yabucoa |
| Settled | ancient (Wakara cacical seat) |
| Admitted to the Federation | 1718 AN |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Orocobix Daguao (WPP) |
| Population (1729 AN) | |
| • Total | 1,418,540 (cacicazgo) |
Yabucoa (Wakara: Yabukoa) is a city and cacicazgo in the central uplands of the Region of Boriquén, in the Federation of Nouvelle Alexandrie. The city is the seat of the cacicazgo of the same name, one of the six cacicazgos (states) into which Boriquén is divided, and lies in the interior highlands above the basin of Lake Cherusken, set back from the lakeshore on which the regional capital of Hato Rey stands. As of 1729 AN the cacicazgo counts 1,418,540 inhabitants across its 26 yucayeques, of whom about 247,000 live in the city proper.
An ancient seat of the Wakara nitaino nobility, Yabucoa was the native cacicazgo of Yucahúké Busiri, the last First Minister of the Wakara and first Regional Governor of Boriquén, and remains the seat of the Dukes of Yabucoa, the line he founded. The town is best known in New Alexandrian history as the birthplace of the Wakara People's Party: the land question of 1722 AN, a dispute over communal upland title at Yabucoa, gave rise to the party founded that year by Mayani Guacanagari and Beatriz Daguao, which won the regional elections of 1723 AN and led the government of Boriquén for a generation.
Today Yabucoa is an interior farming and university town. Its economy rests on the coffee, cassava, and fruit of the surrounding highlands and on the Boriquén Institute of Technology, the regional polytechnic endowed by the first Duke and opened at Yabucoa in 1742 AN. It is a stronghold of the Wakara People's Party and a center of the Yukiyu Atabey faith in the Boriquén interior.
Etymology
The name Yabucoa derives from the Wakara Yabukoa, understood as "land of the cassava fields," after the cassava (yuca) long cultivated on the highland terraces around the town. The Wakara form was later martinized to Yabucoa, the spelling used in New Alexandrian administration since the admission of Boriquén in 1718 AN. The cacicazgo and its capital share the name, as is usual among the cacicazgos of Boriquén.
History
Ancient and cacical Yabucoa
Yabucoa is among the oldest continuously settled places of the Boriquén interior. Wakara tradition holds that the cacicazgo was established many generations before the region's contact with the wider powers of Keltia, as a seat of the nitaino nobility that formed the governing class of the Wakara.[1] From it descended the line that would produce Yucahúké Busiri, and the town served as a cacical seat through the centuries of the independent Wakara cacicazgo, its nobility subordinate to the cacique whose house sat at Guánica.
The years of disorder
Like the rest of Boriquén, Yabucoa suffered in the collapse of order that overtook the Wakara heartland in the early eighteenth century AN, after the death of Cacique Guarionex I in 1706 AN and the anarchy of 1708 AN to 1712 AN, when marauding militias overran the interior. The cacicazgo's nitaino families, the Busiris among them, held together what government survived, and it was from this generation that Yucahúké Busiri rose to become First Minister to the young Cacique Guarionex II.
Admission and the Wakara Renaissance
When Nouvelle Alexandrie advanced into the Green during Operation Purple Splendor and the Wakara entered the Federation through the Plan de Hato Rey in 1717 AN, Yabucoa passed with the rest of the cacicazgo into the new Region of Boriquén, admitted in 1718 AN. Busiri, born in the town, signed the Plan on behalf of the Wakara and became the first Regional Governor of Boriquén. The subsidies of the early Wakara Renaissance reached the interior in these years, funding schools, roads, and the restoration of cacical institutions, and Yabucoa shared in the revival even as investment concentrated on the lakeshore around Hato Rey.
The land question of 1722
The defining episode of Yabucoa's modern history was the land question of 1722 AN, the dispute over communal title that gave rise to the Wakara People's Party. In the years after admission, a federal cadastral survey of the Boriquén interior recorded large tracts of the Yabucoa uplands, long held in common by the yucayeques under customary Wakara tenure, as vacant crown land. The reclassified tracts were opened to purchase and concession, and coastal planting and development companies moved to acquire the terraces on which the cacicazgo's cassava and coffee farmers depended.
The smallholders of Yabucoa resisted the surveys and the evictions that followed, and the confrontation became a cause célèbre across Boriquén, drawing in the cacical authorities, the regional press, and the federal peerage. Out of the agitation, Mayani Guacanagari and Beatriz Daguao founded the Wakara People's Party at Yabucoa in 1722 AN, on a platform of defending communal land and the customary rights of the yucayeques. The party won the regional elections of 1723 AN and took control of the regional government, and Ana Yuisa Caguax succeeded Busiri as Regional Governor, beginning a generation of Wakara People's Party government in Boriquén.[2]
Modern Yabucoa
Yabucoa has remained a stronghold of the Wakara People's Party since the party's founding, and its politics are closely identified with the defense of communal land and Wakara cultural institutions. The founding of the Boriquén Institute of Technology at Yabucoa in 1742 AN gave the town a university and drew a technical and student population into the highlands. Since the mid-eighteenth century AN the city has grown as an interior center of farming, education, and light manufacturing, though it remains far smaller than Hato Rey and the lakeshore cities. The Busiri dukedom continues to seat itself in the town.
Geography
Yabucoa occupies the central highlands in the interior of Boriquén, a terrain of terraced hills and river valleys. Its rivers, part of the Cherusken River system, drain toward Lake Cherusken, and its farmland is concentrated on the highland terraces and the valley floors. The city sits in a broad upland valley, and the mountain passes of the cacicazgo divide the interior from the coastal plain and the lakeshore around Hato Rey.
Climate
The highlands around Yabucoa are cooler and wetter than the Boriquén lowlands, with a humid subtropical upland climate and heavy rainfall through the growing season. The elevation tempers the heat of the plain and supports the coffee cultivation for which the cacicazgo is known.
Environment
The interior forests of the cacicazgo are habitat for the Cotorra Boriqueña, the crowned parrot that is the official bird of Boriquén and the emblem of the Wakara People's Party. The mountainous highlands are also home to the Wakara blue orchid, an endangered species endemic to the Boriquén interior, for which the Wakara Orchid Sanctuary has been proposed.
Demographics
As of 1729 AN the cacicazgo of Yabucoa counts 1,418,540 inhabitants, a substantial interior cacicazgo of Boriquén, distributed across its 26 yucayeques. About 247,000 live in the city of Yabucoa proper, the remainder in the farming yucayeques of the surrounding highlands.
The population is overwhelmingly Wakara, and the Wakara language is spoken alongside Alexandrian in daily life and administration. The Yukiyu Atabey faith predominates, as across the Boriquén interior, and the Caney de Yabucoa draws observance from the surrounding cacicazgo.
Economy
The economy of Yabucoa rests on the agriculture of the surrounding highlands, on its university and public sector, and on light manufacturing. The terraces and valleys of the cacicazgo produce coffee, cassava, and tropical fruit, and Yabucoa is among the coffee-growing districts that place Boriquén among the coffee regions of Nouvelle Alexandrie. Coffee from the Yabucoa highlands is processed and traded in the city before moving to the markets and port of Hato Rey.
The Boriquén Institute of Technology anchors a considerable share of the city's employment and has drawn food-processing, agricultural-equipment, and light electronics firms to the town, many of them tied to the institute's engineering programs. Public administration, as the seat of the cacicazgo, and the trade and services that supply the farming yucayeques round out the local economy. The city has none of the heavy port industry of the lakeshore, and its growth has followed the university and the highland farms rather than manufacturing.
Government
Yabucoa is both a city and the seat of the cacicazgo of Yabucoa, one of the six cacicazgos (states) into which the Region of Boriquén is divided. Like the other cacicazgos, it is administered under the regional constitution adopted in 1720 AN and the Regional and Local Government Organization Act, 1699.
The city is governed by a Mayor, currently Orocobix Daguao of the Wakara People's Party, and a Municipal Council. As in Hato Rey, each of the cacicazgo's 26 yucayeques returns two members to the Council, which passes local ordinances, approves the municipal budget, and oversees city services. The cacicazgo returns members to the regional legislature, the Areyto Legislativo de Boriquén, and falls under the regional judiciary, with a cacicazgo court seated in the city beneath the Tribunal de los Bohiques. The city and cacicazgo have returned Wakara People's Party majorities in most elections since 1723 AN.
Culture and landmarks
Yabucoa is a center of Wakara tradition and of the Yukiyu Atabey faith in the Boriquén interior. Its cultural life is shaped by the nitaino heritage of the cacicazgo, the observances of the faith, and the memory of the land question that made the town a byword in regional politics.
The Palacio Busiri, the residence of the Dukes of Yabucoa, stands in the city and remains in the family's use. The Caney de Yabucoa, a principal shrine of Yukiyu Atabey, draws observance from across the cacicazgo. The Plaza de la Cuna, on the site of the meetings at which the Wakara People's Party was founded in 1722 AN, commemorates the land question and is the focus of the town's civic and political ceremony. The Boriquén Institute of Technology campus, on the edge of the city, is both an educational institution and a landmark of the modern town.
Cassava and coffee, the staples of the highland economy, figure in local festival and cuisine, and the harvest and faith calendars of the surrounding yucayeques order much of the cacicazgo's public life.
Education
Yabucoa is the seat of the Boriquén Institute of Technology, the regional polytechnic founded in 1742 AN under the endowment of the first Duke of Yabucoa, Yucahúké Busiri, in his later years. The institute is the principal center of higher education in the Boriquén interior and gives Yabucoa the character of a university town, drawing students and staff from across the cacicazgo and the wider region. Its engineering and agricultural programs are tied to the farming and light industry of the highlands. Primary and secondary schooling in the cacicazgo is provided through the regional school system, with the larger schools concentrated in the city.
Transport
Yabucoa lies on the principal transport corridors of interior Boriquén. The Hato Rey-Yabucoa-Guánica High-Speed Rail, completed in 1739 AN by Constructora de Hato Rey, runs through the city on its route from Hato Rey to Guánica, giving the interior a fast connection to the regional capital and the lakeshore. The conventional Southern Line of the regional railway follows the same corridor for freight and local service. By road, Yabucoa is served by the C33A route of the Pan-Keltian Highway, which crosses the interior between Río Hondo and Minillas, together with the older roads that climb from the coastal plain into the highlands.
Notable people
- Yucahúké Busiri (20.III.1678 AN to 2.XI.1753 AN), first Regional Governor of Boriquén and 1st Duke of Yabucoa, born in the town
- Hatuey Busiri (born 9.VIII.1711 AN), 2nd Duke of Yabucoa and president of the board of governors of the Boriquén Institute of Technology
- Mayani Guacanagari and Beatriz Daguao, co-founders of the Wakara People's Party at Yabucoa in 1722 AN
See also
- Boriquén
- Duke of Yabucoa
- Yucahúké Busiri
- Boriquén Institute of Technology
- Wakara People's Party
- Wakara people
