“As regards to the town taking the name of Santa Cruz and San Gil de la Nueva Baeza, I GRANT FOR COAT OF ARMS A GREEN CROSS ON A RED BACKGROUND COMING OUT OF THE HEART OF A GRENADE, GARNISHED WITH AN EDGING OF EIGHT CROSSES OF SAN ANDRES IN WHICH IS UNDERSTOOD THE NAME OF THE TOWN, THE KINGDOM WHERE IT IS FOUNDED AND THE ARMS FROM WHOM IT TAKES THE NAME.
In conformity, I approved and conrm the despatch incorporated and given by Don Gil de Cabrera y Dvalos on March 17, 1689. I grant the foundation of the town Santa Cruz y San Gil de la Nueva Baeza. I order that this be executed in accordance with the Audiencia of Santa Fe within two years, given Madrid October 27, 1694. I THE KING”. (Signed) DON CARLOS, by the grace of God, King of Castile, Cerdontildea, Cordoba, Corcega, Murcia, Leon, Algarves, Algecira, Gibraltar, Canary Islands, Eastern and Western Indias, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Bologna, Barfante and Milan, Count of Augsburg, Flandes, Ferol and Barcelona, Lord of Vizcaya and Medici. (Signed) by command of the King Our Lord, Don Antonio Ortiz de Otlora. “Agreeing with the command of the Royal Letter, the original given to Bernardo Currea de Betancur, as provided by the Governor and Captain General of this Kingdom. (Signed) in Santa Fe, December 12, 1696. attorney Don Martin Jeronimo Florez de Acuntildea”. “I received the Royal Letter, Santa Fe December 12, 1697. attorney Bernardo Currea de Betancur”.
“Testimony and visit to this town provided by attorney Don Carlos de Alsedo y Sotomayor, Knight of the Order of Santiago, of His Majesty’s Council, Member and Major of the Court of the Royal Audiencia and General Visitant of this Kingdom, in Santa Fe, January 12, 1698. (Signed) Florez. “Agreeing with the original, to be evident, I give the present command from the Lord President, Governor and Captain General of this Kingdom and sign in the City of Santa Fe, on February 26, 1712. (Signed) Francisco de Alczar, His Majesty’s Registrar and Lieutenant of the Chamber. (Subscribed)”. “The registrars of our Lord the King sign and certify that Francisco de Alczar is His Majesty’s Registrar and Lieutenant of His Chamber. In Santa Fe de Bogot in the New Kingdom of Granada in Indias, February 1, 1712. In testimony of the truth, (Signed), Esteban Gallo, Royal Registrar, Francisco Perez del Barco, Public Registrar, Miguel Severino de Leon Castellanos. This copy was taken from the jurisdiction of the towns Velez and San Gil. (Signed) Muntildez”. In reference to the first Coat of Arms of the Monarch Don Carlos II of October 27, 1694, by its correspondent Royal Letter conrming the de jure foundation, it is necessary the following disquisition: In August of 1952, I was found administrating penal justice in the Zapatoca Circuit. I went to Physician Mario Acevedo Diaz who was the then President of the Academy of History of Santander, to let him know my point of view of the Sangilentilde Coat of Arms in the following terms: “Dear doctor and friend: I have the pleasure to inform you that a few days ago, I had the opportunity to visit in the company of Benjamin Ardila Diaz and Luis Sarmiento Mutis, the Casa de Bolivar of that city and admire its beautiful museum. In one of the rooms of this sanctuary, opportunely dedicated by the Academy you deservingly preside, to the glory of Bolivar, there is in a prominent place a coat of arms said to be of the City of San Gil. It happens, Mr President, that such coat of arms is not properly, according to my few historical knowledge, the legitimate coat of arms given to the ‘most noble and most loyal town of Santa Cruz and San Gil de la Nueva Baeza’. I consulted the National Library of Bogot, a few days ago, and have the following conclusion about the origin and reason for the coat of arms: The Royal Letter of Carlos II, The Bewitched, states: ‘Since such town has taken the name of Santa Cruz and San Gil de la Nueva Baeza, I GRANT FOR COAT OF ARMS A GREEN CROSS ON A RED BACKGROUND COMING OUT OF THE HEART OF A GRENADE, GARNISHED WITH AN EDGING OF EIGHT CROSSES OF SAN ANDRES IN WHICH IS UNDERSTOOD THE NAME OF THE TOWN, THE KINGDOM WHERE IT IS FOUNDED AND THE ARMS FROM WHOM IT TAKES THE NAME’, etc. Such coat of arms, Mr President, does not have the description I write above in capital letters. It is not the coat of arms which the Sangilentildes have known and used in their public documents. Thus, I strongly call my attention, as a genuine Sangilentilde, to see in the sacred mansion of Bolivar a Coat of Arms of San Gil, one with the characteristics above, not just a big cross coming out of a grenade as the one exhibited in the Bolivar’s House of Bucaramanga. I kindly request, Mr. President, if you accept as valid my observations, about the authenticity of the coat of arms, to provide it”. This letter was published in the Bucaramanga Newspaper El Frente in the month and year previously cited. Acevedo Diaz answered me that my note has been given to the painter of the coat of arms Master Luis Alberto Acuntildea and that it would be published in the Academy’s Magazine Estudio. But the same coat of arms still hangs in the Casa de Bolivar and I would like to add the following:
In Enrique Ortega Ricaurte’s Book (22) there is a coat of arms of San Gil similar to the one in Bucaramanga. With the respect and admiration to my friend and author of the publication, I would like to do the following reply: I insist to call the true Coat of Arms of San Gil, the one given by King Carlos II, the one that the citizenship knows and recognize as such, which the monarch ordered made to the Heraldic Council of the Kingdom. We have consulted the text of the Royal Letter found in the book Poblaciones de Santander Volume 3, page 383. It is not confusing. In the encyclopedia (23) the word Baeza has the Coat of Arms of the City of Baeza in the Province of Jaen in between the Provinces of Cordoba, Granada, La Mancha and Albacete in Andalusia the south of the peninsula. The coat of arms has a tower with crossed keys at the center. All it lacks is the cross, the grenade, less four Crosses of San Andres, to become the Coat of Arms of the New Baeza in the New Kingdom of Granada. Since I said something about the city after which San Gil is named, I would like to add that the City of Baeza was much more important in antiquity than it is today. Today, it is very similar to San Gil, with similar urban extension and inhabitants. Ten years ago Baeza had 14,376 inhabitants in 2,723 buildings. The City of Baeza is near a hill of the right bank of the Guadalquivir River, a river which is no more torrent than the Fonce River. It is head of the Diocese of the same name. It is a station of the Madrid to Cordoba railroad line. It produces wheat, barley, vegetables and other products of cold climates. It has a Conciliar Seminary and a famous and ancient high school. It was a strong plaza surrounded by two walls, today destroyed, in the wars against the Moors.
When Yacub Almanzor died (24) in the year 725, Arabic Spain was divided. Baeza was one of the main cities of the Kingdom. It was reconquered by Alfonso VII in 1146 who entitled himself King of Baeza. Another Reconquest was made by Don Fernando in 1227 the day of San Andres and for this reason he ordered twelve crosses in the coat of arms which still remain. In the year 1407, the neighbors of Baeza proclaimed Don Fernando and Dontildea Isabel King and Queen of Castile. On October 27, 1694, Don Carlos II, the Bewitched, gave the Arms of the illustrious City of Baeza to the new town Santa Cruz and San Gil of the New kingdom of Granada.(25) There are several coat of arms that aspire to be the Coat of Arms of San Gil. As we will see later, another one was given to San Gil during the Republican Reconquest to replace the one given by the king. The Coat of Arms of the Reconquest.
In the book mentioned (22) there is a coat of arms of the Reconquest period which I have seen in the National Historical Archives and which was given to the city in 1818. The emblem, according to Enrique Ortega Ricaurte, chief of the institution, was conceived and elaborated by the Santa Fe and San Gil patriots in their zeal to try to erase the titles, prebends given by the Crown of Spain to the inhabitants of the Royal town.
According to the book and parchment of the National Archives, the Coat of Arms of the Reconquest has the following characteristics: There are no divisions and the letters SG are interwoven in the middle. On top there are two parallel lines one shorter than the other. Above it there are semi-circular lines holding a polyhedron and on top a small cross.(25)
Julio de Atienza (26) afrms about the coat of arms: “Those heralds secularly proud which adorn the Spanish landscape from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Strait of Gibraltar, not only in the forgotten sleeping towns but in the old cities of Castile and Extremadura, are history pages. Even more, they are the best pages of our history. Those blazons, those coat of arms, expanded in the world during our past power, and today despite time and the calamities which have stricken the world, challenge the sun, the rain, and the centuries in old houses in the Americas, Netherlands and Italy…”