Flujos marianos e imaginarios del Atlántico Hispano:advocaciones de la Virgen de Candelaria y retóricas de la canariedad entre Castilla, Canarias Puerto Rico

Résumé

The investigations about Canarian-American relationships or, in a wider sense, the relationships between the two Atlantic edges of the New and the Old Worlds, have been mostly made from an economic and sociologic point of view (administrative, commercial and demographic matters). However, taking into account these other matters, not necessarily material matters, such as the ones related to ideology and symbology, a productive work field is discovered when the canarian american relationships shape the identity and bear the code from which the atlantic insularity emerge. Besides, this atlantic insularity cannot be understood without very specific historic processes: The syncretism between natives and foreigners, the establishment of the single-crop system, the deliberate acknowledge of periphery and colony, etc. The devotion to the Black Madonna “Candelaria” dates back to the last years of the Antiquity, and became popular in the Middle Ages. This devotion is not only related to the discovery of the Atlantic Ocean and the first islands (the Canary Islands amongst others), but it is also perfectly connected to the identity codes built by the contributions of the canarian American population. Here we will deal carefully with the case of Puerto Rico and the contribution of the Black Madonna, Candelaria, as a canarian landmark in the exchange of people and ideas from the east edge of the Atlantic Ocean to the west one.