San Gil - History

History

San Gil's history goes back to pre-Columbian times, when it was inhabited by native indigenous societies called the Guane Indians. Spanish conquest during the colonial period nearly eradicated the local tribes. The town was officially founded on March 17, 1689 by Don Gil Cabrera Dávalos and Leonardo Correa de Betancourt. According to official sources, San Gil played an important role during the Colombian independence period. "Comuneros" rebels came from nearby regions, united, traveled to the capital, Bogota, and fought for the nation's independence, a process which occurred during the early 1820s.

In order to have a solid culture, we must read and learn the history and customs of other peoples, other generations, other lands and other civilizations. You will learn about San Gil, the Ruedas, the Silvas and over three hundred years of their history. Lope de Rueda, a distant relative, was a playwright and actor, peculiar founder of the Spanish Theater of the sixteenth century. He was a mentor, idol and friend of Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra. Cervantes describes Lope de Rueda's work thus: "The comedies he embellished and dilated with two or three acts farce of black, ruffian, fool and solecism type of humor. Lope de Rueda would make them with the most excellence and propriety somebody could ever imagine". My father's book, one of the greatest and enduring histories ever written of a Conquistador town and its people, inspired me to attempt a literal translation into an equivalent and approximate English version for those non-Spanish speaking countrymen who may be interested to read this old story translated literally with a dictionary in my hand, trying to best approximate equivalent terminology and prose of early Renaissance Spanish. My wife and son helped me give the sentences some clearer meaning to the translation, since English is my second language and the original Spanish used in the textbook was archaic, with prose and verse which Lope de Rueda could have used in his time. The first edition was printed in the Graficas Salesianas of Mosquera, Colombia in 1968. The Santander Bank which record has been constituted in San Gil in 1960, associated itself with the third centenary of the foundation of the city (1668-1968) sponsoring the publication of the book. This edition can still be found in the major libraries of the Western World. Its history and information describe part of what was popularized in AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD, a 1972 German movie which was described in Leonard Maltin's Twenty Fifth Anniversary Movie and Video Guide 1995 thus: " A powerful hypnotic tale of a deluded conquistador who leads a group of men away from Pizarro's 1560 South American Expedition in search of seven cities of gold. This dreamlike film was shot on location in remote Amazon jungles". The movie, later inspired the author of the New York Times Notable Book for 1994 AGUIRRE, THE RECREATION OF A SIXTEENTH CENTURY JOURNEY ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA, by Stephen Minta, first published in the United States of America in 1994 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. Mr Minta passed through the Santander Department, the old Guanenta Region and the City of San Gil in 1987, when he set out to recreate Aguirre's journey. Even though it may not be easy reading, the most approximate poetic translation gives a more broad and universal meaning that this writing has tried to achieve. The books's antonomasia accomplishes its maximum expressive force. The literary culture of the author was at least equal to the majority of his contemporary writers; he possessed a solid humanistic and legal formation. He wrote with deep knowledge of both learned and popular language which he read and heard continuously from the people of San Gil. Here was inspired his affection for folklore, stories and sayings which enriches but impedes the comprehension of his writing.

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