The Little Daughter of the Sun

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1870 · Authors: Julia P. Dabney

The writer Julia P. Dabney published in 1896 the novel The Little Daughter of the Sun in which the accurate description she makes of the city of Santa Cruz around 1870 stands out, mainly.

We know that Julia Parker Dabney (1850-1931) was descended from a family of American wine merchants and diplomats. Her grandfather had moved to the Azores from Boston at the beginning of the 19th century for professional reasons. From there, years later, in 1862, Julia's father settled with his family in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where he served as the U.S. consul for twenty years. His daughter Julia spent, in what was then the capital of the Canary Islands, her adolescent and early youth years before moving to Boston, where she would dedicate herself to literary and artistic life until her death. Her years here were fruitful in terms of setting her texts, as reflected in her novel The Little Daughter of the Sun, in which she portrays, with very good knowledge, both characters and places of Santa Cruz at that time. The description she makes of the Barranco de Santos and the working classes who inhabited it is interesting: 

"Behind the houses located at the end of La Noria street runs the Barranco de Santos. As it approaches the sea, the walls of the ravine decrease in height, and a large bridge with many arches crosses it, connecting the two districts of the small city. Further up, where the ravine was deeper, its walls were full of caves; half natural, half artificial; where those too poor to afford a house find refuge. The ravine is free; the tuff asks no rent. In those lodgings safe from dampness and not entirely uncomfortable, men, women, children and skinny dogs pile up indiscriminately, who leave their residence every day to work or beg, and return to celebrate or sleep at night. The plain of the ravine is nothing more than an arid stretch of rubble, sun-bleached bones and waste from the caves; but sometimes, when tropical rains pour from the skies, and mountain torrents rush towards the ocean, the ravine looks like a tumultuous river."

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