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A Cuban Convent in the Age of Enlightened Reform: The Observant Franciscan Community of Santa Clara of Havana, 1768-1808*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

John James Clune
John James Clune*
Affiliation:
University of West Florida, Pensacola, Florida
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Extract

In 1807 the Commissary General of the Indies for the Franciscan Order, Pablo de Moya, appealed to the Spanish crown to lift a long-standing ban on the admission of novices at the Observant Franciscan community of Our Lady of Santa Clara (Nuestra Señora de Santa Clara) of Havana. Moya reported that the great majority of the clarisas had grown aged and infirm in recent years. The sad situation on which the commissary general reported was the result of four decades of convent reform at Santa Clara that successfully reestablished the common life (vida común), something seldom achieved in the large, opulent convents of the Spanish empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , January 2001 , pp. 309 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2001

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Footnotes

*

A Fulbright Grant to Spain and a John A Perry Fellowship from Louisiana State University funded this study. I would like to thank the two anonymous readers, my mentor Paul E. Hoffman, G. Douglas Inglis and my wife, Allison, for their invaluable comments and suggestions.

References

1 The Commissary General for the Franciscan Order was a prelate of the order, resident in Spain and attendant on the king and the Council of the Indies.

2 AGI, Ultramar legajo 396, Pablo de Moya to Antonio Porcel, November 10, 1807, copied from book 8, folio 197 of the Secretariat General of the Indies for the Franciscan Order by Bonifacio González, Secretary General of the Indies for the Franciscan Order, attached to Pablo de Moya to Esteban Varea, March 9, 1815.

3 For discussion of controversial and often futile efforts to reestablish the common life—characterized by a stricter regimen in which nuns typically ate in a communal refectory and sometimes slept in a dormitory—see: Lavrin, Asunción, “Ecclesiastical Reform of Nunneries in New Spain in the Eighteenth Century,” The Americas 22 (1965), pp. 182–203;CrossRefGoogle Scholar de la Garza, N. Salazar, La vida común en los conventos de monjas de la ciudad de Puebla (Puebla, Mexico: Biblioteca Angelopolitana, Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Secretaría de Cultura, 1990);Google Scholar Laserna Gaitán, Antonio Ignacio, “El último intento de reforma de los monasterios femeninos en Perú colonial: el auto del Arzobispo Parada de 1775,” Anuario Estudios Americanos 52, no. 2 (1995), pp. 253–287;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sarabia Viejo, María Justina, “Controversias sobre la ‘vida común’ ante la reforma monacal femenina en México,” Actas del II Congreso Internacional del Monacato Femenino en el Imperio Español: Monasterios, beatrios, recogimientos y colegios, coordinador Manuel Ramos Medina (Mexico, D.F: CONDUMEX, 1995), pp. 583–592;Google Scholar Kathryn, Burns, Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 186–187, 200–202 and 207–211;Google Scholar Gallagher, Ann Miriam, “The Family Background of the Nuns of Two Monasterios in Colonial Mexico: Santa Clara de Querétaro, and Corpus Christi of Mexico City (1724–1822)” (Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1972), pp. 62–64, 84–86;Google Scholar Gallagher, Mary A.Y., “Unworldly Women and Worldly Concerns: Santa Catalina de Arequipa: 1580–1805,” a paper presented at the Berkshire Conference, 1996;Google Scholar Bobb, Bernard E., “The Vida Común Controversy,” The Viceregency of Antonio María Bucareli in New Spain, 1771–1779 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962), pp. 63–84;Google Scholar AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel María Trujillo to the Council of the Indies, March 29, 1787.

4 Examples of these works not cited in previous note include several by Lavrin, Asunción, “Women in Convents: Their Economic and Social Role in Colonial Mexico,” Liberating Women’s History: Theoretical and Critical Essays, ed. Carroll, Berenice A. (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1976), pp. 256–77,Google Scholar “Women and Religion in Spanish America,” Women and Religion in America, ed. Ruether, Rosemary Radford and Keller, Rosemary Skinner (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), pp. 42–78,Google Scholar “Female Religious,” Cities and Society in Colonial Latin America, ed. Hoberman, Louisa and Socolow, Susan (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1986), pp. 165–195 Google Scholar and “Vida conventual: Rasgos Históricos,” Sor Juana y su mundo: una mirada actual, ed. Herrera, Sara Poot (Mexico: Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, 1995), pp. 35–91;Google Scholar Muriel, Josefina, Conventos de monjas en la Nueva España (Mexico: Editorial Santiago, 1946);Google Scholar Martin, Luis, Daughters of the Conquistadores: Women of the Viceroyalty of Peru (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1983);Google Scholar Marmolejo González, Jorge René, “Confesores y mujeres en el Obispado de Puebla, Siglo XVIII,” El placer de pecar y el afán de normar, ed. Seminario de Historia, de las Mentalidades (Mexico City: Joaquín Mortiz, 1987), pp. 147–166;Google Scholar Carmen Reyna, María del, El convento de San Jerónimo: vida conventual y finanzas (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1990);Google Scholar Medina, Manuel Ramos, Imagen de santidad en un mundo profano. El convento de San José de carmelitas descalzas, siglo XVII, México (Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1990).Google Scholar

5 Exceptions include works by Martínez, Angel Huerta, “El monacato femenino in Cuba durante el primer tercio del siglo XIX,” I Congreso Internacional del Monacato Femenino en España, Portugal, y America, ed. Pérez, Jesús Paniagua and Viforcos Marinas, María Isabel, 2 vols. (Leon: Universidad de León, 1992), 1: pp. 495–510,Google Scholar and “El clero cubano y su participación en la enseñanza primaria (1800–1868)” Anuario Estudios Americanos 48 (1991), pp. 479–556; See also a discussion of the female religious of Cuba in Testé, Ismael, Historia eclesiástica de Cuba (5 vols.; Burgos and Barcelona: El Monte Carmelo and Artes Gráficas Medinaceli, 1969–1975).Google Scholar

6 For discussion of the rather anomalous success of the Bourbon reforms in Cuba, see: Kuethe, Allan J. and Douglas Inglis, G., “Absolutism and Enlightened Reform: Charles III, the Establishment of the Alcabala, and Commercial Reorganization in Cuba,” Past and Present: A Journal of Historical Studies 109 (November 1985), pp. 118–143;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Knight, Franklin W., “Origins of Wealth and Sugar Revolution in Cuba, 1750–1850,” Hispanic American Historical Review 57 (1977), 231–253;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pérez, Louis A. Jr., Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 60–62;Google Scholar Thomas, Hugh, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (New York, 1971), pp. 61–62;Google Scholar Kuethe, Allan J., “The Development of the Cuban Military as a Sociopolitical Elite, 1763–1783,” Hispanic American Historical Review 61 (1981), pp. 695–704 Google Scholar and Cuba, 1753-1815: Crown Military, and Society (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986).

7 For discussion of the Jesuit expulsion see Morner, Magnus, “The Expulsion of the Jesuits in Light of Eighteenth-Century Regalism,” The Americas 23 (1966), pp. 156–164.Google Scholar

8 Lavrin, , “Ecclesiastical Reform,” p. 182;Google Scholar Burns, , Colonial Habits, p. 166.Google Scholar

9 The servant class at Santa Clara consisted of mulatas (female mulattos), blacks, poor whites and elites, the last of whom entered with the intent of filling future vacancies in the novitiate; Fernando Fernández Escobio says that after 1700 the number of slaves (“esclavas”) at Santa Clara was not supposed to exceed 50, see Escobio, Fernando Fernández, El Obispo Compostela y la iglesia cubana del siglo XVII (Miami: Rapid Printing, 1982), p. 52.Google Scholar

10 Martín, , Daughters, p. 178;Google Scholar Lavrin, , “Female Religious,” p. 167;Google Scholar In May 1765 Pedro Agustín Morell de Santa Cruz, Bishop of Cuba (1753–1768), charged that parents, relatives, and benefactors often supported the nuns “far beyond-what their means allowed,” AGI, SD 1136, Pedro Agustín Morell de Santa Cruz to the Council of the Indies, May 31, 1765, summarized in a Consulta of January 7, 1768.

11 Lay sisters, or nuns of the white veil, typically lacked a full dowry to become nuns of the black veil. They took religious vows but were of a lower status than black-veiled nuns and did not vote in convent elections or hold convent office. Lay sisters usually performed the manual labor in the convent, such as cleaning, cooking and laundering, tasks performed by servants at Santa Clara.

12 Nuns of the black veil entered the convent with dowries contributed by their families and/or benefactors. Black-veiled nuns participated fully as members of the community, they were eligible to vote in convent elections and hold convent office.

13 AGI, SD 1424, María de Espíritu Santo to José de Gálvez, June 30, 1782; Fernández, , El Obispo Compostela, p. 54;Google Scholar Huerta, “El monacato femenino,” p. 500.Google Scholar

14 Rubén Vargas Ugaite, S.J., El monasterio de La Concepción de la Ciudad de los Reyes (Lima: Talleres Gráficos de la Editorial Lumen, 1942), p. 6;Google Scholar Lavrin, , “Female Religious,” p. 175;Google Scholar Martín, , Daughters, p. 173;Google Scholar Burns, , Colonial Habits, p. 122.Google Scholar

15 AGI, SD 1418, Santiago José de Hechavarría to the Council of the Indies, November 16, 1778, attached to an Expediente of the Felipe de Fonsdeviela, the Marqués de la Torre, February 20, 1778.

16 AGI, Ultramar 396, Expediente of María de la Ascensión Valdés, April 12, 1815; AGI, SD 1411, Santiago José de Hechavarría to the Crown, July 16, 1775, summarized in Opinion of the fiscal, August 7, 1777, Expediente of Maria Loreto Ruiz of the same date.

17 Cuba’s ethnic mix included virtually no Indians but large numbers of free blacks and mulattos. In 1774, for example, Cuba’s official free black population exceeded 30,000. By 1791 it approached 55,000 ( Pérez, , Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution, p. 63).Google Scholar

18 Huerta, , “El monacato femenino,” pp. 495, 500.Google Scholar

19 AGI, SD 1134, Plácido de Pinedo to the Council of the Indies, January 22, 1764, summarized in a Consulta of June 20, 1764; Although Santa Clara was founded in accordance with a 1632 license that mandated any convent founded in Havana be subject to episcopal authority and not to any regular order, Santa Clara was always subject to the Franciscans because the 1632 license conflicted with the order’s constitutions, which required that Franciscan nuns be under the jurisdiction of their Franciscan brethren, see Fernández, , El Obispo Compostela, p. 51;Google Scholar For a detailed discussion of the conflict between regular and secular jurisdiction see Testé, , Historia eclesiástica, book 3, volume 2, part 1: pp. 108–114.Google Scholar

20 Details that follow are from, AGI, SD 1134, Plácido de Pinedo to the Council of the Indies, January 22, 1764, summarized in a Consulta of June 20, 1764.

21 A torno was a wooden, cylindrical fixture built into the wall, by which small objects entered the convent; On the customary nature of the practice of selling items from the tornos, see Lavrin, , “Women and Religion,” p. 48.Google Scholar

22 The locutorio was a room in which nuns, hidden behind a grille, interacted with residents of the city. The reason could be personal, as in the case of a relative or friend; spiritual, in the case of a confessor; or financial, as in the case of an administrator, borrower or tenant; For importance of the locutorio, see Lavrin, , “Female Religious,” pp. 173–174;Google Scholar Martín, , Daughters, p. 176;Google Scholar Burns, , “Nuns, Kurakas, and Credit,” p. 185.Google Scholar

23 Protégés were young girls who entered a convent between the ages of seven and twelve to be educated and, at Santa Clara, to be groomed for the novitiate. The clarisas made a distinction between educandas and pupilas (pupils) girls who entered a convent to be educated for lives outside its walls.

24 Retirees were women who retired to a convent without the intention of taking the habit.

25 The nuns entered Santa Clara’s two-storied choir chamber from the cloister to pray or hear mass.

26 AGI, SD 1134, Officers of Santa Clara to the Crown, April 17, 1761, summarized in a Consulta of June 20, 1764.

27 Lavrin, , “Women and Religion,” p. 48;Google Scholar Martín, , Daughters, pp. 245–257.Google Scholar

28 AGI, SD 1134 and 1136, Officers of Santa Clara to the Crown, April 17, 1761, summarized in consultas of June 20, 1764 and January 7, 1768.

29 AGI, SD 1136, Manuel Josef Crespo to Plácido de Pinedo, summarized in a Consulta of January 7, 1768.

30 Details that follow are from, AGI, SD 1136, Plácido de Pinedo to the Council of the Indies, November 30, 1766, summarized in a Consulta of January 7, 1768.

31 AGI, SD 1134, Officers of Santa Clara to the Crown, April 17, 1761, summarized in a Consulta of June 20, 1764.

32 AGI, SD 1136, Regulation, November 23, 1767, quoted in a Consulta of January 7, 1768.

33 Rents typically were derived from mortgages on urban or rural property by which the convent received an annual income of 5% of the principal.

34 AGI, SD 1136, Pedro Agustín Morell de Santa Cruz to the Council of the Indies, May 31, 1765, summarized in a Consulta of January 7, 1768.

35 AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel Estéves to the Crown, August 4, 1781, and Ana Antonia de la Natividad (abbess), María Isabel de San Miguel (madre de consejo), Agustina de Santa Coleta (madre de consejo), Bárbara de la Coronación (definidora), Manuela de San Francisco (definidora), María de Santa Clara (definidora) to Manuel Estéves, March 28, 1783; AGI, Cuba 1343, Manuel Estéves to Luis de Unzaga, March 31, 1783.

36 AGI, SD 1411, Opinion of the fiscal, August 7, 1777, Expediente of María Loreto Ruiz of the same date.

37 Gibbs, Donald L., “Cuzco, 1680–1710: An Andean City Seen Through its Economic Activities” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1979), pp. 66–67.Google Scholar

38 Lavrin, , “Colonial Woman in Mexico,” p. 34.Google Scholar

39 AGI, SD 1411, Manuel de la Vega to the Council of the Indies, October 9, 1777, Expediente of Maria Loreto Ruiz, March 3, 1777.

40 Kuethe, Allan J., Crown, Military, and Society (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986), pp. 52, 58–59;Google Scholar Nieto y Cortadellas, Rafael, Dignidades nobiliarias en Cuba (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1954), pp. 294–295.Google Scholar

41 The other two were Clara de Santa María de los Desamparados Guifano and María de Jesús Arrióla, AGI, SD 1411, Santiago José de Hechavarría to the Council of the Indies, July 16, 1775, summarized in Opinion of the fiscal, August 7, 1777, Expediente of María Loreto Ruíz, March 3, 1777.

42 AGI, Cuba 1343, Rosa María de la Purísima Concepción Guillen to Luís de Unzaga, March 25, 1783; Ana Antonia de la Natividad to Luís de Unzaga, March 28, 1783; Ana Antonia de la Natividad, María Isabel de San Miguel, Agustina de Santa Coleta, Bárbara de la Coronación , Manuela de San Francisco, María de Santa Clara to Luís de Unzaga, April 2, 1783; Francisca de Santa Catalina Bononía to Luís de Unzaga, April 9, 1783; AGI, Ultramar 396, Ana Antonia de la Natividad, María Isabel de San Miguel, Agustina de Santa Coleta, Bárbara de la Coronación , Manuela de San Francisco, María de Santa Clara to Manuel Estéves, March 28, 1783.

43 AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel Estéves to the Crown, August 4, 1781.

44 The intent was to have the calzadas imitate the more austere recoletos and descalzos of New Spain who observed the common life.

45 AGI, Ultramar 396, Cédula (copy), May 22, 1774.

46 AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel Estéves to the Crown, May 8, 1783.

47 AGI, Cuba 1343, Manuel Estéves to Luís de Unzaga, April 1, 1783, and Manuel Estéves to Luís de Unzaga, April 4, 1783; AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel Estéves to José Santiago de Hechavarría, April 9, 1783, a copy of attached to Luís de Unzaga to the Crown, March 20, 1784.

48 The vicaria de la casa was second in command, in terms of elected officers.

49 The maestra de novicias was powerful because of the unmatched influence she enjoyed over the novices ( Martín, , Daughters, p. 264).Google ScholarPubMed

50 The other 11 professed nuns were María Jesús de San José Arrióla, Margarita de la Presentación Poveda, María Josefa de Jesús en el Huerto Guixano, Bárbara María de la Santa Corona de Leyba, Antonia de San Joaquín Tamayo, María Catalina de Santa Inés San Martín, Tomasa María de San Diego Coca, María Josefa de la Asunción Ayala, Juana de Jesús Nazareno Trevejo, María Concepción de Santa Margarita Acosta, and María Jesús de Santa Ana Arrióla, AGI 396, the aforementioned 11 to Manuel Estéves, March 22, 1783, a copy of which is found in the Testimony of Josef Antonio Barrios, May 16, 1785; The six novices compelled to embrace the regimen were Antonia de la Resurrección Contreras, María Josefa del Corazón de Jesús Domingues, María Josefa de San Antonio Pimienta, María Loreto de San Gabriel Ruiz, María de San Juan Nepomuceño Acosta, and María Francisca de Santa Catalina de Bononía Guazo, AGI, Cuba 1293, Manuel Estéves to the Crown, March 24, 1783.

51 The definidoras were members of the abbess’ personal cabinet.

52 The madres de consejo were a circle of advisors to the abbess.

53 AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel Estéves to the Crown, May 8, 1783.

54 Kuethe, , Crown, Military, and Society, p. 58;Google Scholar Nieto, , Dignidades, pp. 250–251.Google Scholar

55 Allan Kuethe notes that the second Conde de Gibacoa, José María de Jesús Espinosa de Contreras y Jústiz y Zayas-Bazán, had to leave the army to attend to the family mayorazgo and his four unmarried sisters after his father’s death, Kuethe, , Crown, Military, and Society, p. 120.Google Scholar Because Antonia de Contreras was a professed nun by 1787, she probably was not included in this number. For reference to Antonia de Contreras as a nun see AGI, SD 1142, Consulta, June 28, 1788. In addition, two of Antonia’s sisters were married at the time of the Conde’s death. Ignacia Josefa de la Luz Espinosa de Contreras y Jústiz married Juan Clemente Núñez del Castillo y Molina, the fourth Marqués de San Felipe y Santiago, on October 12,1772 and María de la Luz Espinosa de Contreras y Jústiz married José Késsel y Van Huf-fill, the second Barón de Késsel, on June 29, 1782, Nieto, , Dignidades, pp. 298, 482.Google Scholar

56 AGI, SD 1142, Consulta, June 28, 1788; Nieto, , Dignidades, p. 298;Google Scholar Sherry Johnson says that unlike Creoles elsewhere in the Spanish empire, those in Cuba tended to remain connected into Iberian kinship networks, which explains a marriage of this sort, Sherry Johnson, M., “Honor is Life”: Military Reform and the Transformation of Cuban Society: 1753–1796” (Ph.D. dissertation University of Florida, 1995), p. 296.Google Scholar

57 Kuethe, , Crown, Military, and Society, p. 120;Google Scholar Nieto, , Dignidades, pp. 251–252.Google Scholar

58 Lavrin, , “Ecclesiastical Reform,” p. 184;Google Scholar Gallagher, , “Family Background,” p. 86.Google Scholar

59 AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel María Trujillo to the Council of the Indies, March 29, 1787.

60 Lavrin, , “Ecclesiastical Reform,” p. 200.Google Scholar

61 AGI, Ultramar 396, Ana Antonia de la Natividad to the Crown, May 24, 1783.

62 AGI, SD 2241, Francisca de la Santa Catalina, María de Santa Clara, Josefa de la Santísima Trinidad, Nicolasa de San Francisco to the Crown, June 14, 1783.

63 AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel María Trujillo to Antonio Ventura de Taranco, March 29, 1787; AGI, Ultramar 396, Manuel María Trujillo to Antonio Ventura de Taranco, November 5, 1788.

64 AGI, SD 2241, Francisca de la Santa Catalina, Maria de Santa Clara, Josefa de la Santísima Trinidad, Nicolasa de San Francisco to the Crown, June 14, 1783.

65 The fiscal of the Council of the Indies saw the value of reintegrating those in private life but stressed that they should only be allowed to participate in a position such as definidoras, contadoras, madres de consejo or even as “vicaria de la casa.” The abbess, he reasoned, should always serve as an example for the rest, AGI, Ultramar 396, Opinion of the fiscal, November 8, 1787; But there is no evidence that those in private life ever had the opportunity to hold convent office. As late as August 1799, Commissary General Pablo de Moya, commenting on a request that two nuns be allowed to return to the common life, said that the two should be allowed to return to private life and enjoy the benefit of a personal servant but without the option of holding office (“sin obción los oficios”), AGI, SD 1454, Pablo de Moya to Francisco Cerdá, August 6, 1799, attached to an Expediente of María de Santa Ana de Zayas and Juana de San Martín, July 5, 1799.

66 AGI, SD 1418, Marqúes de la Torre to the Crown, June 17, 1772.

67 AGI, Cuba 1343, Francisca de Santa Catalina Bononía to Luís de Unzaga, Aprii 9, 1783.

68 Among those who interacted with the nuns in the locutorio was the mayordomo, who administered the community’s external financial affairs. He oversaw its rural and urban properties and collected rents from tenants.

69 AGI, Ultramar 396, Pablo de Moya to Francisco Cerdà, August 20, 1796, and Manuel María de Trujillo to Antonio de Ventura Taranco, November 5, 1788 (copy), attached to Pablo de Moya to Francisco Cerdá, August 20, 1796.

70 Ibid.

71 AGI, SD 1497, Gertrudis del Corazón de Jesús Morodo (abbess of the clarisa community of Santo Domingo) to Fernando Portillo y Torres, July 23, 1798.

72 Commissary General Pablo de Moya first raised the issue of whether a moratorium should be declared on the admission of new novices at Santa Clara in an August 20, 1796 letter to the Crown: AGI, Ultramar 396, Pablo de Moya to Francisco Cerdá, August 20, 1796.

73 Huerta, , “El monacato feminino,” p. 501.Google Scholar

74 AGI, SD 1491, Superiors of Santa Clara to Felipe Josef de Trespalacios y Verdeja, May 27, 1796, copied in the Testimonio of Francisco Fonte, June 28, 1796, pp. 7–9.

75 AGI, Ultramar 396, Consulta, December 22, 1796, and Council of the Indies to Pablo de Moya, February 13, 1797.

76 AGI, Ultramar 396, Pablo de Moya to Antonio Porcel, November IO, 1807, copied from book 8, folio 197 of the Secretariat General of the Indies for the Franciscan Order by Bonifacio Gonzalez, Secretary General of the Indies for the Franciscan Order, attached to Pablo de Moya to Esteban Varea, March 9, 1815.

77 Ibid.

78 Pérez, , Between Reform and Revolution, p. 72.Google Scholar

79 Fraginals, Manuel Moreno, El ingenio: complejo económico social cubano del azúcar (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1978), p. 108.Google Scholar

80 Pérez, , Between Reform and Revolution, p. 73.Google Scholar

81 Kirk, John, Between God and Party: Religion and Politics in Revolutionary Cuba (Tampa: University of South Florida, 1989), p. 19.Google Scholar

82 The Cortes of Cádiz abolished the Council of the Indies on April 17, 1812. It was reestablished by Ferdinand VII after his restoration in 1814 ( Haring, Clarence, The Spanish Empire in America (New York: Oxford University, 1947;Google Scholar San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), pp. 108–109 (page citation is to the reprint edition).

83 AGI, Ultramar 396, Royal Order, June 8, 1813; AGI, SD 1306, “Estado que comprende los bienes que poseen en esta Isla los conventos de regulares de ambos sexos que en ella existen,” Havana, 1837.

84 In 1800, Ambrosio de Mendoza y Zayas, teniente of the Navy of the Royal Armada cited the “grave infirmities” (“graves enfermedades”) and “advanced ages” (“edades avanzadas”) of his two aunts, María de Santa Ana de Zayas and Juana de San Martín de Zayas, and reported that it was “impossible for the two to continue without the services of a servant” and, thus, asked that they be allowed to leave the common life. The Council of the Indies denied his petition which had the support of the Commissary General Pablo de Moya, AGI, SD 1454, Expediente of María Jesus de Santa Ana de Zayas and Juana de San Martin, July 5, 1799; AGI, SD 1454, Pablo de Moya to Francisco Cerdá, August 6, 1799, and a report of the abbess of Santa Clara, both of which are in the Expediente of María de Santa Ana de Zayas and Juana de San Martín, July 5, 1799; AGI, SD 1454, Opinion of the fiscal, March 8, 1800, and acuerdo of the Council, March 11, 1800.

85 Lavrin, , “Ecclesiastical Reform,” p. 202.Google Scholar

86 Burns, , Colonial Habits, pp. 186–187, 200–202 and 207–211.Google Scholar