Esteban Pichardo Tapia

Researcher valued as the most notable geographer of Cuba for his outstanding contributions to that discipline, and also as one of the first lexicographers of Cuban Spanish.

He was born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Santo Domingo. When he was only two years old, his family settled in the town of Puerto Príncipe (today Camagüey), where he completed his early studies. Years later he moved to Havana, and obtained his bachelor's degree from the Seminary of San Carlos and San Ambrosio (1815). Subsequently he studied Law at the Royal and Pontifical University of San Gerónimo de La Habana (University of Havana) (1822), and practiced his profession successively in Guanajay, Havana, and Matanzas, until he returned to Puerto Príncipe. There he published in 1834 La Recopilación de los Autos Acordados de la Audiencia de Puerto Príncipe.

Following an expedition carried out through the central region and significant places in the eastern zone of Cuba—during which he compiled topographic descriptive and statistical data—he published his relevant geographic work Itinerario general de los caminos principales de la Isla de Cuba (1828), which he later enriched with the results of new studies conducted in Camagüey and in the western zone, in Caminos de la Isla de Cuba. Itinerarios (1865). Another important work from that period was Geografía de la Isla de Cuba (1854-1855).

In his work, cartography held special significance, which he initiated in studies of terrain that he complemented with topographic maps created by different surveyors, as well as with information gathered from various official commissions and other researchers. The results of his cartographic work were compiled in the Carta Topográfica de Matanzas y su Jurisdicción Real Ordinaria con la Vecindad de su Circunferencia, which Pichardo displayed at the Public Library of the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País.

Furthermore, he created a General Map of Cuba on a smaller scale, and undertook the preparation of a Map of Matanzas (1840) and another Map of the Western Region, in four sheets (1853). In 1874 he completed the Mapa Geohídrico (in three sheets) and his Great Map of Cuba—on which he worked for more than three decades—the most relevant and comprehensive of his works. About it, Jacobo de la Pezuela stated that "it has no parallel in Spain nor in its possessions...".

He wrote a volume of poems, Miscelánea poética (1822), as well as the recognized Diccionario provincial casi razonado de vozes y frases cubanas (1836)—an essential reference work in Cuban lexicography—and summarized passages of his life in the costumbrista novel El Fatalista (1866). He received various recognitions for his scientific activity, granted by different institutions; among them, the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País and the Real Academia de Ciencias Médicas, Físicas y Naturales de La Habana.

Source: En Caribe.org