Mike: To the best of my knowledge, the first geography book on Cuba was written by a "de la Torre", who I am distantly related to (in those days there were two "de la Torre" families in Cuba, the Havana line (genetically), and the Puerto Príncipe (later Camaguey line.  In those days, in the late 1600s I believe, but will check it out, these two lines, were very close (first cousins), but once in Cuba slowly drifted apart, and then they came very close once again.  I too was very surprised when I first found out about Pinar del Rio being first called Provincia ó Territorio de la Nueva Filipinas (ahora no recuerdo exactamente si era provincia ó territorio, I was also very surprised.  Eventually, a very large number of Spaniards from Islas Canarias migrated to Cuba, and settled in the Provinces of Pinar del Rio and Las Villas.  A "bunch" of us have some type of genealogical connection to the "Isleños". By the way, don't laugh too much with this one, but it took the "castellanos/Castillians" about two centuries to conquer the Canary Islands.  The conquest was going on when Christopher Columbus headed West to the Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, and the other islands of the Caribbean.  I am quite certain that the ferocious resistance that the Canarians showed against the Castellanos, the Galicians, the Asturians, the Catalonians, and all other ethnic elements of the Iberian invasion, was because the Canarios were biologically descendants of, or Vikings themselves.  What the historical evidence shows, is tha the Canary Islands served for a period  of about 400 years, as the Viking trading center with some regions of Africa.  I used to think that the reason for so many Canarians to be very light-skinned and with blue eyes was because the Castillian/ Iberian invasion had many Spaniards from the northern region if Spain, but I now "theorize" that it was due to the Scandi- navian genetic influence of the Canarians. And to "top off" my genetic theories, if we read carefully the writings of Alfonso X of León, better known as Alfonso El Sabio (the Wise One), we will have to con- cude that in reality the origin of the Goths (Visigoths) who invaded Spain after making mincemeat of what was left of the Western Roman Empire, and sacking Rome in 500-something (Rome had truly abused them), were not of Germanic origin or stock, but originated instead in a southern Sweden tribe, which began a quasi-migration and basically took control of the largest island in the Baltic Sea, curiously enough, nowadays kown as Gotland (can't remember of it's one or two "t"s, and it is too late for me to be looking.  These Scandinavians, in about 1600 decided to cross the Baltic, and began conquering all the region which now is part of the countries of Lithuania, Estonia, Prussia, part of Poland, and Belorussia....... I am falling sleep, so i'll have to make contact with you at another time. Sín mas por el momento, quedo de ti, atentamente. Oswaldo F. Hernández-Campos Asheville, North Carolina   --- On Fri, 8/5/11, gonzalez mike <cambeiro7@yahoo.fr> wrote: From: gonzalez mike <cambeiro7@yahoo.fr> Subject: [CUBA] Re : Pinar del Rio = Nueva Filipinas? To: cuba@rootsweb.com, CUBA@rootsweb.com Date: Friday, August 5, 2011, 5:15 AM A great deal of my dally is also from Pinar and I've read a lot of it's history and I've never come across this.  I've also been to the Philippnes a lot. ========================================== To reply to a message from the surname Bulletin Board you must post your answer on the Bulletin Board and not directly to the list. ~~~~~~ Para contestar un mensaje del tablero de pesquisas es necesario que conteste por medio del tablero y no directamente a la lista. ========================================== ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CUBA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message