The Association Our Heritage has discovered, and has thus informed the public, that the sculpture known as The Cry, Courage or The Pregnant Woman, the principal feature of the Monument to the Fallen of July 25, 1797, has been situated in an art workshop for thirteen years, where it was relocated by the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council for restoration purposes.
Over a decade later, and according to the association, the sculpture remains without the exposure for which it was intended “for so many years now that it is shameful, as it represents an unjustifiable and reckless neglect of an artistic piece that forms part of the cultural legacy of the municipality and signifies a chapter in the history of the city that deserves remembrance,” they report.
The incident in question originates from the 18th century and commemorates the triumph of the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which successfully resisted the attack by British Admiral Horatio Nelson. It is among the most prominent works by sculptor Manuel Bethencourt Santana (1931-2012), who was honoured with the Canary Islands Fine Arts and Interpretation Award in 2008, passing away in 2012.
The association claims to have received updates regarding the events of the past thirteen years within the restoration workshop and has verified that the sculpture is indeed prepared to be returned to the public space for which it was designed.
Our Heritage urges the municipal authorities to provide public clarifications and is demanding that “the City Council immediately takes the necessary actions to relocate the sculpture to a public space in the city, ideally to the site it previously occupied before being taken down for restoration; a location near the Alameda del Duque de Santa Elena and the passenger terminal of the capital’s port.”
This newspaper has reached out to the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council to determine the reason for this prolonged thirteen-year delay. The Heritage department claims that the sculpture was removed due to the ongoing works on Avenida Marítima, and that the Heritage service is currently striving to “establish an agreement with the Port Authority to reposition the work in the site where the propeller of the cruise ship Canarias was situated.”
The Scene in Motion
The bronze sculpture portrays a mother steeped in anguish and despair over the loss of a son who, along with other residents of Santa Cruz, confronted the British attempt to assault the island’s capital. Its creator fashioned it in 1997 at the behest of the city council to mark the second centenary of the foiled foreign attack. The piece is profoundly moving, but poet Juan Marrero González encapsulated its essence: “Not the royal garments and armours / that the warlords donned; / you stand barefoot, clad in the humble garb / of the poor farmers of my land. / You have the spirit of an Amazon without a saddle, / powerful fists that courage opens and closes, / the questioning gaze directed upward / with a vengeful gesture that intimidates the heavens. / My island made of feminine bronze, / beautiful daughter of Love and Victory!: / whoever dares to obstruct your path / shall bring fresh laurels to your legacy, / because, if love and victory are your fate, / forgiveness for the vanquished is your glory.”
Concerning Admiral Nelson’s intentions had he succeeded in his venture, we have learned some details through historiography. “The plan that Nelson sent to Jervis on April 12 was now more ambitious than Blake’s: instead of merely capturing the ships at anchor, perhaps assuming they had already discharged their cargo, he aimed to take Santa Cruz and seize the merchandise stored in the royal warehouses or that belonging to foreign proprietors,” explains Carlos Vila Miranda, former Chief of Staff of the Admiral of the General Corps of the Navy, in his article Nelson’s Attack on Tenerife: The English Version, published in the 2005 Yearbook of Atlantic Studies.
“For this operation, he requested army soldiers from Jervis and expressly mentioned the 3,700 men who had come from Elba and were already onboard the transports heading to Gibraltar,” Vila Miranda adds. Nelson believed that even though the Santa Cruz coast was not easily reachable, it had a vulnerable point with its water supply, which was drawn from distant sources through wooden ditches, “so if these ditches were severed, the city would surrender immediately; he would offer favourable terms for the capitulation: he would ensure the private property of the islanders and would demand only the relinquishment of public funds and goods and those owned by foreign traders. He also included the threat of utter destruction of the city if a single cannon shot was fired.”
Nelson arrived in Tenerife with nine British warships and 3,700 men. It is estimated that approximately 1,200 or 1,300 men were necessary to defend all of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. British historiography presents this episode inaccurately, but the Canarians are well aware that Nelson lost more than just an arm at the gates of the city that day, and they take pride in remembering it.
