Junco Palace Museum

It is located in a building built in 1838 that belonged to one of the richest owners of Matanzas: Don Vicente del Junco y Sardiñas, owner of lands, sugar mills and black slaves. In 1980, it opened its doors as a museum. It is part of the set of buildings from the 19th century that are located around the Vigía Square.
Among the main pieces exhibited in the museum are an important set of Cuban archeology pieces that includes samples of burials, vessels, work instruments and ritual objects; a stocks (instrument for the torture of slaves) and the remains of a black maroon; Major General Pedro Betancourt's machete and Juan Gualberto Gómez's pistol; the only specimen of a white aura, which gave rise to the legend of the poet Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda; the notebooks of the great Cuban malacologist Don Carlos de la Torre; armchair, cane and other belongings of the National Poet Bonifacio Byrne; the table at which the transfer of Spanish sovereignty to the North American was signed in Matanzas; belongings of the assailants to the Goicuría Barracks as well as the only Cuban mummy exhibited in a museum.