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Key to the Indies: Port Towns in the Spanish Caribbean: 1493–1550

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2016

Ida Altman
Ida Altman*
Affiliation:
University of Florida Gainesville, Florida
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Extract

Seaborne commerce, communication, and transportation to a great extent defined and enabled the Spanish enterprise in the Caribbean from the time Europeans first arrived in the islands. With the exception of a minority of towns such as Concepción de la Vega in Española that were established in the interiors of the islands to provide access to gold mines and the indigenous labor to exploit them, the majority of new towns and cities were located on the coasts. Although Santo Domingo, San Juan, and eventually Havana emerged as the principal ports and administrative capitals of the large islands of the northern Caribbean in the first half of the sixteenth century, many secondary and small port towns played essential roles in the rapid development of systems of local and regional exchange, indigenous slave raiding, and transatlantic commerce that linked the islands to Seville, the Canaries and other islands of the Atlantic and the southern Caribbean. Allowing island residents to take advantage of waterborne transportation often via indigenous-built canoes, linking the islands to one another and the circum-Caribbean mainland, and serving as staging grounds for slave-raiding and other expeditions that radiated out from the islands, these towns helped to forge a diverse and dynamic region that was closely tied both to Spain and later to the developing societies of Spanish America.

Type
Articles
Information
The Americas , Volume 74 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 5 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2016 

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References

1. Scholarship on the early decades of Spanish activity in the Caribbean has lagged, although new research is beginning to address topics that have been inadequately covered. For recent work with implications for maritime and commercial activity and the roles played by port towns, see Wheat, David, Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570–1640 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016)Google Scholar; Erin Stone, “Indian Harvest: The Rise of the Indigenous Slave Trade and Diaspora from Española to the Circum-Caribbean, 1492–1542),” (PhD diss.: Vanderbilt University, 2014); and Spencer Tyce, “German Conquistadors and Venture Capitalists: The Welser Company's Commercial Experiment in 16th Century Venezuela and the Caribbean World” (PhD diss.: Ohio State University, 2015).

2. An important exception is Enrique Otte's Las perlas del Caribe: Nueva Cádiz de Cubagua (Caracas, 1977), which goes well beyond a study of Nueva Cádiz to examine the intricate and extensive commercial and maritime networks that tied it to the other Caribbean islands, the Canaries, and Spain. The main focus of Alejandro de la Fuente's excellent Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century (written with the collaboration of César García del Pino and Bernardo Iglesias Delgado; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008) is the second half of the sixteenth century, especially after 1570 when notarial records become available. For the seventeenth century Rupert's, Linda Creolization and Contraband: Curaçao in the Early Modern World (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012)Google Scholar, which focuses on the Dutch entrepôt that had close ties with Spanish territories, is an important addition to the scholarship on port cities. Sauer's, Carl O. classic work, The Early Spanish Main (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966)Google Scholar, is still useful as regards early Spanish settlement of the islands and Tierra Firme but includes little material on ports.

3. See Deagan, Kathleen and Cruxent, José María, Columbus's Outpost among the Taínos (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 50–52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. They argue that the discovery of a “second, satellite community in the river drainage area” and the existence of a “stone quarry located between the two settlements [that] provided building materials and a source of lime. . . considerably alters the traditional view that Columbus made a misguided and poorly informed choice of site that led ultimately to the colony's demise” (98–99). See Sauer, The Early Spanish Main, 75, for an older, negative view of Isabela's potential.

4. Deagan and Cruxent, Columbus's Outpost, 54–70. For a good discussion of how the interplay of various factors (proximity of indigenous communities, suitability of the land for agriculture, access to coastal and overland transportation) contributed to the establishment of Cuba's seven towns in the second decade of the sixteenth century, see Davis, Dave D., “The Strategy of Early Spanish Ecosystem Management on Cuba,” Journal of Anthropological Research 30:4 (Winter 1974), 294–324 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. In the early sixteenth century the island was called San Juan and the principal port Puerto Rico. I use the modern designations so as not to confuse readers, that is, San Juan refers to the port and Puerto Rico to the island. Caparra was principally a mining town, located some distance from the coast. Caparra grew rapidly, but according to Badillo, Jalil Sued, El Dorado borincano. La economía de la conquista, 1510–1550 (San Juan: Ediciones Puerto, Inc., 2001), 55 Google Scholar, it “never went beyond being a settlement of bohíos and some wooden houses,” with the exception of the stone house that Juan Ponce de León built for himself.

6. According to Wright, Irene A., The Early History of Cuba (New York, 1916), 63–64 Google Scholar, Baracoa initially was designated a “city” and its church a cathedral, but Santiago overshadowed it almost from the outset. Generally the term ciudad was reserved for municipalities that were expected to become important centers for institutions, economic activity, and population. Concepción de la Vega in Española's interior and the site of the island's first cathedral and bishopric, for example, initially was designated a ciudad. Archaeological work at the original site (the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1562) shows the ambitious construction in stone that took place there in the early years. See the Historical Archaeology website of the Florida Museum of Natural History, https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/histarch/concepcion.htm. See also Pauline M. Kulstad, “Concepción de la Vega 1495–1564: A Preliminary Look at Lifeways in the Americas’ First Boom Town” (MA thesis, University of Florida, 2008).

7. In the mid 1530s a copper mine was opened three leagues (around five miles) from Santiago. Archivo General de Indias [hereafter AGI] Santo Domingo 1121, L. 2.

8. See ibid., and Hoffman, Paul E., The Spanish Crown and the Defense of the Caribbean, 1535–1585 (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1980), 52–54 Google Scholar, 98.

9. Officially, the town was named Nueva Sevilla but in contemporary documents it appears as the villa of Sevilla. Jamaica had another small port on the southwestern part of the island, Oristan, probably in the area of present-day Bluefields. It is mentioned in a letter of 1532 from the oidor Dr. Infante in AGI Santo Domingo 49, ramo 3, n. 18, published in Morel, Genaro Rodríguez, Cartas de la Real Audiencia de Santo Domingo (1530–1546), (Santo Domingo, 2007), 86 Google Scholar.

10. AGI Santo Domingo 1121, L. 2. Spaniards in the islands frequently looked to Portugal for potential settlers.

11. Although the majority of Africans imported to the island in this period probably were brought from Cape Verde and São Tome as slaves, a minority came from Spain or Portugal, probably spoke at least some Spanish or Portuguese (hence the term ladino), and were Christians. The term bozal referred to Africans who did not speak Spanish. Africans who came to the islands probably included some free people. Small numbers of morisco men and women (descendants of Muslims converted to Christianity) were brought to the islands by Spaniards as servants or slaves.

12. AGI Santo Domingo 10, n. 5. Both the physical locale of smelting and the process itself were called fundición. By far the most thorough study of early gold mining in the islands, focused mainly on Puerto Rico, is Sued Badillo, El Dorado borincano. Two prominent men named Diego Caballero were active in Española in these years. They were compadres, very possibly relatives and at times business partners, making it difficult to tell one from the other in the historical record. The wealthier of the two was known as Diego Caballero el mozo or de la Cazalla and later el mariscal, a title he received before returning permanently to Spain in 1535. He held rights to the office of contador in Santo Domingo but transferred it first to a nephew and then in 1529 to Diego Caballero de la Rosa, who also would serve as secretary of the audiencia. It was this man, not the mariscal, who was the author of the report and letter referenced here.

13. AGI Santo Domingo 77, n. 82.

14. Both in AGI Santo Domingo 1121, L. 1.

15. AGI Santo Domingo 10, n. 48.

16. Residents of San Juan responded to questions regarding the island's ports for a report compiled by lieutenant governor Francisco Manuel de Lando in 1530-31, which appears in AGI Justicia, leg. 106. There is an incomplete version in AGI Santo Domingo 155, ramo 1, n. 1. The full report has been transcribed and published by Julio Damiani Cósimi, Estratificación social, esclavos y naborías en el Puerto Rico minero del siglo XVI. La información de Francisco Manuel de Lando (San Juan, 1994).

17. Dr. Infante to the king May 27, 1532, AGI Santo Domingo 49, ramo 3, n. 17, published in Rodríguez Morel, Cartas, 80.

18. Vadillo to the king September 24, 1532, AGI Santo Domingo 49, ramo 3, n. 19, published in Rodríguez Morel, Cartas, 99. A residencia was a judicial investigation into an official's conduct during his term of office. Vadillo took advantage of his stay in Cuba to report on a number of aspects of the island's situation.

19. Información de Bernaldino de Quesada, 1538.AGI Santo Domingo, leg. 10, n. 18.

20. Rodríguez Morel, Cartas, 101.

21. Ibid., 100.

22. AGI Santo Domingo 77, ramo 3, n. 56.

23. Adorno, Rolena and Pautz, Patrick Charles, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), vol. 3, 224–226 Google Scholar.

24. AGI Santo Domingo 1121, L. 2 (1534). Provisioning Tierra Firme quickly became an important component of the trade from many ports of the northern Caribbean. In a letter of 1539 from Santiago Gonzalo de Guzmán, former lieutenant governor of Cuba, complained that by reserving provisions for his expedition to Florida and prohibiting their export Hernando de Soto had ruined many vecinos of Santiago who depended on that trade. Guzmán alleged that Soto had threatened shipmasters who attempted to trade for provisions and horses with the death penalty and as a result they had ceased to call at the port. AGI Santo Domingo 118, ramo 1, n. 71. Thanks to Shannon Lalor for providing me with a copy of Guzmán's letter.

25. AGI Santo Domingo 1121, L. 1.

26. AGI Patronato 177, n. 1, ramo 17. The regidores usually elected the alcalde or alcaldes. The term bohío was from the Taíno language. As used in Spanish, it usually implied a modest structure built with local materials.

27. Ibid.

28. AGI Santo Domingo 10, n. 35.

29. Ibid., n. 48.

30. AGI Santo Domingo 99, ramo 1, n. 9. An estanciero was the manager or overseer of a farm or ranch. Most town dwellers had rural properties in addition to their residences in town, so typically an estanciero would be in residence on those properties full time to run things. On the other hand, some men who might be counted as vecinos of a town could not afford to maintain an urban residence and instead lived on their rural estancias.

31. Rodríguez Morel, Cartas, 108 (from AGI Santo Domingo 49, ramo 3, n. 20).

32. Marte, Roberto, ed., Santo Domingo en los manuscritos de Juan Bautista Muñoz (Santo Domingo, 1981), 407 Google Scholar.

33. Information on Benito de Astorga comes mainly from the deposition he compiled in 1527-28, in AGI Santo Domingo 9, ramo 2, n. 18. For his sugar estate, see AGI Santo Domingo 77, ramo 3, n. 66 (1533); and AGI Justicia 13, n. 1, ramo 3 (1533-35). His wife, Isabel de Mayorga, lived in their home town of Astorga in León. Whether she ever joined him in Española is uncertain.

34. AGI Santo Domingo 10, n. 32.

35. See Caballos, Esteban Mira, “Urbanismo y arquitectura en los primeros asentimientos antillanos (1492–1550) in La Española, epicentro del Caribe en el siglo XVI (Santo Domingo, 2010), 443–468 Google Scholar.

36. For testimony that Juan Ponce de León's house and the fort in Caparra were built of imported brick, see Tió, Aurelio, Nuevas fuentes para la historia de Puerto Rico (San Germán, 1961), 282 Google Scholar, 287, and 288 (1564 petition of Juan Troche Ponce de León, Juan Ponce's grandson).

37. See the testimony of Juan Ponce de León's son-in-law Garci (or García) Troche, who served in a number of offices in Puerto Rico in Damiani Cósimi, Estratificación social, 38–39; other witnesses provided the same information. On the tiendas for rent, see 43.

38. “El dicho Manuel de Yllanes tiene asi mismo en esta ciudad y en lo principal della unas casas muy suntuosas y labradas de piedra las mejores que hay en esta dicha ciudad”; deposition in AGI Santo Domingo 10, n. 41. Yllanes maintained two work gangs with a total of 40 African slaves who worked in gold mines. He also raised cattle and horses and owned the half-share of a tile-works in the city. He had served as alcalde ordinario and married the daughter of a regidor of the city council.

39. AGI Santo Domingo 10, n. 46.

40. For a thorough examination of the progress of and strategies for defense in the region, see Hoffman, Paul E., The Spanish Crown and the Defense of the Caribbean, 1535–1585 (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

41. Marte, ed., Santo Domingo, 430.

42. Sued Badillo, El Dorado borincano, 397.

43. AGI Santo Domingo 10, n. 18.

44. Ibid. All details and testimony about this episode are from this document. On this episode see also Wright, The Early History of Cuba, 218–220. According to Wright the same French ship went on to attack and loot Havana.

45. Hoffman, The Spanish Crown, 51–59. See also Esteban Mira Caballos, “Apuntes sobre la organización militar en el Caribe en la primera mitad del siglo XVI,” in La Española, 389–403. The term adelantado was used by the crown for individuals who were charged with occupying a new territory and granted broad civil and judicial powers.

46. AGI Santo Domingo 49, ramo 1, n. 9a, reproduced in Rodríguez Morel, Carta, 51–52. Frey Nicolás de Ovando was from a noble family based in Cáceres in northern Extremadura. Rodríguez Morel dates this unsigned letter to 1530 but that seems unlikely since it includes references to Vaca de Castro and Blasco Núñez Vela as well as the possibility of financing the fortifications with money from Peru. More likely it was written around 1540. Hoffman, in The Spanish Crown, 49, writes that “in 1538-39 Blasco Nuñez Vela provided the Council of the Indies with an appraisal of the military situation in the Caribbean which was the complement of his memorandum about naval defenses.”

47. AGI Santo Domingo 10, n. 31. The details regarding the condition of the fortress and the employment of guards come from Fernández de Oviedo's deposition and the witnesses thereto.

48. Fernández de Oviedo testified that at one time he had employed two gunners. One, Tomás Alemán, agreed to a salary of 18,000 maravedis (mrs.) on the condition that he could continue to live in his own house nearby. The other, Simón, no longer served at the fortress but while there he had earned the same salary and had continued to practice his trade of tailor. The year before, when war with the French seemed likely, Fernández de Oviedo had employed an additional gunner, Maestre Pedro, who received a considerably higher although still unimpressive annual salary of 100 pesos, more than double what Tomás and Simón earned. The king sent yet another gunner, Juan de Mata, ordering that he be paid an annual salary of 60,000 mrs. Even more galling, the crown recently had provided gunners for both San Juan and Cuba, promising them 150 gold pesos (67,500 mrs) a year. A number of other men received even lower wages: 11,000 mrs each for two guards of the fortress, and 7,200 mrs for a page and guard.

49. According to Hoffman, The Spanish Crown, 24, this really was one long conflict, “with only the interruption of the ill-kept Truce of Nice from June 1538 to July 1542.”

50. AGI Santo Domingo 1121, L. 2.

51. Details of this incident and the direct quotations are from AGI Santo Domingo 9, n. 21.

52. “Les habia hecha relacion como la dicha nao era del dicho rey de Inglaterra y que ella y otra nao juntamente habian salido podia haber nueve meses de Inglaterra por mandado de su rey para hacer cierto descubrimiento por la banda del norte entre la tierra de Labrador y los bacalaos creyendo de alli hallar estrecho.”

53. Most scholars believe that the ship was the Mary Guildford under the command of John Rut, who was commissioned by Henry VIII to seek the Northwest Passage. My thanks to Philip Morgan for this reference. In Spanish Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Caribbean 1527–1568 (London, 1929), Irene A. Wright includes translations of Tapia's deposition (AGI Santo Domingo 9, n. 21) and two additional documents, the originals of which I have not seen (see Documents 1-3, pp. 29-59). In one of these, the king expresses his disappointment that the ship was not detained, although he found Tapia to be blameless. The oidores used the incident as a pretext to argue the need for more funds for defense. Wright argues (1–2) that some of the facts are not consistent with what is known of John Rut's expedition.

54. The fleet system was established in the early 1560s, as was illegal trade in much of the Caribbean. On patterns of raiding and trading from the 1560s onward, see Hoffman, The Spanish Crown, 115–121. He writes of the port of Santiago de Cuba, for example, that “by the end of the century, it could be charged that the local clergy and justices of the peace (alcaldes) were the leaders of the trade. That charge probably applied equally to the entire area [eastern Cuba], and on Española, in the period considered here” (119).

55. See Schwartz, Stuart B., ed., Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic Word, 1450–1680 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially the articles by Genaro Rodríguez Morel on Española and Alejandro de la Fuente on Cuba. According to De la Fuente, sugar production got underway considerably later in Cuba than it did in Española and Puerto Rico.