Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico
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Santurce is a district or barrio in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Santurce comes from Basque, in Basque it is written San Turzi and it means St. George.
Santurce is also known for its baseball team, the Santurce Crabbers which played from the 1930s's until it was sold to Manati in 2003. It currently has a basketball team in the National Superior Basketball league, also called the Santurce Crabbers.
History of Santurce
Santurce was first habitated by Africans who arrived from the Virgin Islands in the XVIth Century. In that time it was known as Cangrejos (Crabs) because of the amount of Crabs found in the area. With time more black people arrived to live in Cangrejos. In the XVIIth century Cangrejos gains agricultural and military importance.
In 1729 a sanctuary is built in Cangrejos named as San Mateo de Cangrejos (St. Matthew of Crabs).
In 1759 Pedro Cortijo formally organizes the Blacks of Cangrejos Company, a military body made out of 120 black people from Cangrejos. They helped defend defend the island against England, and won respect from people all around the island.
In 1773 it is officialiced as a town with the name San Mateo de Cangrejos, first town founded by black people in Puerto Rico, in that year the sanctuary is made the town's church.
In the XVIIIth century Santurce has a total of 6 suburbs: Cangrejo Arriba, Cangrejo Abajo, Seboruco, Machuchal, El Puente and Hato Rey. Santurce starts to suffer big changes in transportation and communication due to the struggle to abolish slavery and an increase in racism because of this. In 1862 the town of San Mateo de Cangrejos is anexed to San Juan, Carolina and Rio Piedras. San Mateo de Cangrejo becomes a suburb of San Juan.
In 1876, Pablo Ubarri, who is from the Basque Country comes to Puero Rico to install a train. He is then named the delegate of the mayor's office in San Mateo de Cangrejos. Ubarri is named in 1880 the tittle of Count of Santurce, his influence then makes it possible for him to change the name of San Mateo de Cangrejos to the name of Santurce.
From the 1930s to then 1950s Santurce develops to become the most important part of San Juan but it started to decline with development of new roads and the exrpopiation of many houses in the area.
Santurce in Sports
Santurce has had a baseball and basketball team.
In baseball, Santurce was one of the original teams. Winning the first Caribbean World Series tittle for Puerto Rico, and also being the Puerto Rican team with more Caribbean Series tittles. The Santurce Crabbers played in the Sixto Escobar stadium and then moved to the Hiram Bithorn Stadium. Players like Roberto Clemente and Ken Griffey played for this team. The decline in attendance obligated the city to sell the team to Manati in 2003, that same year the San Juan Senators changed name to Santurce Crabbers, but the next year Carlos Baerga sold the team to Arecibo. 2005 was the first year in the league's history when Santurce did not play.
In basketball, the Santurce Crabbers achieved two tittles in the 1960's with Teo Cruz. Santurce then disappeared until 1998 when Aguadilla and San Juan where merged into Santurce. The team played in the Roberto Clemente Colleseum and won a tittle that year, also in 1999, 2000 and 2001. They where eliminated in the 2002 Round Robin and came back to sweep Ponce in 2003. Santurce won this titles with Jose "Piculin" Ortiz, Carlos Arroyo and Orlando "Guayacan" Santiago. In 2005, mayor Jorge A. Santini did not allow the team to play in the Roberto Clemente Colleseum, they played half the games in the Mario Morales Colleseum in Guaynabo and the Puerto Rico Colleseum. For the 2006 season, Santurce made changes and acquired Jose Juan Barea and are currently playing in the finals.
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