Case file · Apparition / miracle
The Virgin of Charity found at sea
In about 1612 two Indigenous brothers and an enslaved African boy, the 'three Juans', rowing in the Bay of Nipa in a storm, found a statue of the Virgin floating on a board, dry, inscribed 'I am the Virgin of Charity'.
1612 CE · 20.05, -75.95 · status: legend
The account
The statue was taken to the copper-mining town of El Cobre, where it was said to wander at night. A sworn statement by Juan Moreno, the African boy, recorded in 1687 when he was an old man, survives. She became Cuba's patroness, and in Santería she is linked with the orisha Ochún.