España, Ministerio de Cultura, Archivo General de Indias, MP-Santo Domingo, 854. Bahia de Nipe.
Nipe Bay, located on the Northeastern coast of the island, is part of the Oriente region. Its main interest in relation to El Cobre, however, is in the order of a particular historico-cultural and religious geography. According to a notarized witness account as well as to popular stories Nipe Bay was the alleged site of the "Apparition" of the Virgin of Charity in the early 17th century. Or rather, it was the site in which the alleged "miraculous" Image of the Virgin was found floating in the waters before it was taken to El Cobre, where a sanctuary was built. The Image's trajectory links these sites in the popular imaginary to this day. The map of Nipe Bay displayed here, however, does not encode any information related to the event nor any of the sites flagged in the notarized deposition of 1687 with the exception perhaps of "Punta al Sal" [sic] at "A" which may refer to the site with salt mines mentioned in the deposition. This map, in fact, is a particularly good example of the imperial perspective informing the cartographical projects of the time found as well in other maps displayed in this section. It was delineated by don Joseph Antonio Pineda y Ponce de Leon who bore the title of "Captain of Sea and War" pointing to the navigational and military purposes of map making and the personnel in charge of mapping the empire. The information provided in the box at the lower right explicitly points to the specific interests guiding the charting project in this case: "... there is no other port in the coast in 200 leagues; and that Port if populated and fortified (as demonstrated here) could be of great benefit for the protection of ships which after emerging from the Bahama channel were to face any storm. A shipyard could also be planned due to the great abundance of timbers... not only for the ships that would be built there but for those in Port of Havana and Matanzas." The densely forested topography of the region (useful for the development of a royal shipyard) is visually highlighted with a pattern of trees in brown ink that takes on an almost ornamental character. Deforested pockets are indicated in white empty spaces and settlement through a couple of churches and a spattering of houses. The suggested fortification seems to be sketched in point "C". Although the coast and other topographical features such as rivers and elevations are not charted in great detail, if at all, depth soundings and other navigational measurements are detailed particularly in view of the suggested strategic valueof the Bay as a port of refuge. Not even a local resource such as salt mines, flagged in the surroundings of Guantanamo Bay in another map, is indicated here. The map is not dated but may be placed around the mid 18th c.
