Procession Square “La Rogativa”

La Rog­a­ti­va

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Right next to the entrance of San Juan Gate you will notice a nar­row tree-cov­ered uphill walk­way that extends diag­o­nal­ly along Clara Lair street.  It leads to “La Plaza de la Rog­a­ti­va” which would loose­ly trans­late as “Pro­ces­sion Square”.

The sculp­ture in the cen­ter of the square was com­mis­sioned in 1971 by a group of Puer­to Rican busi­ness­men to com­mem­o­rate Ralph Abercromby’s failed siege of the city of San Juan.  After fail­ing to take San Juan in 1797, the British Leu­tenant-Gen­er­al ordered a naval block­ade to cut off Span­ish reinforcements.

After wit­ness­ing the anguish of his troops and cit­i­zens for weeks, the Span­ish gov­er­nor called for a pro­ces­sion or “rog­a­ti­va” to implore for divine inter­ven­tion.  The women of San Juan orga­nized a pro­ces­sion and marched through the streets car­ry­ing torch­es and rus­tic instru­ments.  Appar­ent­ly, Aber­crom­by mis­took the pro­ces­sion for the arrival of Span­ish rein­force­ments and fled the Island fear­ing that he would be out­num­bered and defeated.

La Plaza de la Rog­a­ti­va” offers an excel­lent view of the north side of the Palace of San­ta Catali­na as well as the por­tion of the city wall lead­ing to Fort El Morro.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H 

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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