The city of Santa Clara, the current capital of Villa Clara, is founded on July 15, 1689 by residents of the town of San Juan de los Remedios who move to the center of the island, according to documents of the time, by the siege permanent corsairs and pirates. The event took place on a small elevation between the Sabana and Monte rivers (Bélico and Cubanicay), today occupied by El Carmen Park and its urban environment. On that site, a memorial monument has been built since 1951 around a tamarind tree, in its shadow the founding mass of the settlement was celebrated.
San Juan de Los Remedios, one of the oldest villages, with more than 500 history, is one of the most important spaces of the culture and history of Villa Clara and Cuba. The Villa was founded on June 24, 1515, had a prosperous and upward economic development ahead, where the sale of leather and cattle caused the greedy look of corsairs and pirates.
There was another incipient nucleus of its future economy, a sugar mill within the boundaries of the Yaguajay herd, in 1645. It is also noted that the main town had 500 inhabitants distributed in 80 houses in 1672.
Then, why to found another population settlement?
The matter of the benefit of interior lands, the crossing through the center of the island, the cattle road from Las Tunas to Havana, plus the corsair and pirate attacks, created the conditions for the seventeenth-century fines to arise various proposals for transfer of the Villa de Remedios to more favorable places in the region.
After several arrangements with the competent authorities, was approved the settlement removal to the surroundings of the Plantation Ciego, owned by the heirs of Antonio Díaz and Pavia. This plantation was located nearby where Santa Clara city seats nowadays.
Centuries later, during the 1950s, the region had a great importance during the struggles for the Revolutionary Triumph in 1959, especially in the Santa Clara Battle, one of the most important in the history of Cuba.
The province of Villa Clara lives proud of the work made by its main benefactor, the patriot Marta Abreu de Estévez. She contributed to construction of, among other works, the Railway Station and La Caridad Theater, a jewel within the villaclareño cultural world.
The Decorative Arts Museum, located in an old house in the center of the city of Santa Clara, shows multiple art objects from different historical periods.
The territory is also the resting place of the Guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara, an universal symbol of the struggle for freedom of Cuba and considered one more Cuban despite his Argentine nationality. The rests of the tireless guerrilla and his companions lies at the Memorial rest. The Memorial is one of the main reasons the outsiders visit Santa Clara city.
The Battle of Santa Clara is part of the history of the city of Santa Clara, an action led by Che, which marked the end of the enemy army and the definitive liberation of the territory.