The History of Cuba, vol. 1

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

From Caonao the expedition moved westward, through the southern part of the Province of Camaguey, where the natives were so frightened that they fled to the little islands off the coast which Columbus had named the Queen's Gardens. Thence it went across the island to the north coast, and probably in the region of Sagua la Grande, in Santa Clara Province, found some small deposits of gold. After stopping there for some time, it continued its progress into Havana Province, where more gold was found and where, unhappily, serious trouble with the natives was renewed.

On the way across the island Narvaez had heard of three Spaniards, a man and two women, who had been shipwrecked on the coast and were living with the Indians somewhere in the west. He sent word of this report back to Velasquez, who returned him orders to search for the castaways even in preference to gold, and who also dispatched a ship along the north coast to meet Narvaez and his party in the region to which they were going. In Santa Clara the two women were found, unharmed and well, and they presently married members of the expedition. Finally, in Havana the man also was found. He too was unharmed and well, though he had become in speech and habits more like an Indian than a Spaniard. According to his story, he and the two women were the sole survivors of a company of twenty-six. They had fled from Ojeda's ill-starred settlement at Uraba, on the Gulf of Darien, and were trying to make their way back to Hispaniola, but had been driven out of their course around the north coast of Cuba. Not far from Cape San Antonio they had been shipwrecked and thence had made their way by land, along the north coast. Most of them had been killed by natives while trying to cross an arm of the sea, which has been assumed to have been the Bay of Matanzas, which was so named on that account.

On the Havana coast the expedition met the vessel which Velasquez had sent. But leaving it in port there the expedition went across the island again to Xagua, or Cienfuegos, there to meet Velasquez himself and another expedition which he was leading, and there to spend with him the Christmas season of 1513. At the beginning of 1514 Narvaez and a hundred men returned to Havana and thence marched westward into Pinar del Rio, the vessel keeping in touch with them along the coast. How far they went in that province is not now certainly known. Some accounts have it that they stopped at Bahia Honda and there took ship back for Baracoa, while others insist that they got as far as Nombre de Dios. All that is certain is that Narvaez and his comrades visited on this expedition all parts of the island, and thus completed the nominal exploration and occupation of Cuba in the early part of 1514.

CHAPTER VI

Velasquez was for a number of years the dominant figure in Cuban history, and he much more than any other man is to be credited with the settlement of the island and its social, political and economical organization. He was married at Baracoa in the early part of 1513 to Donna Maria de Cuellar, daughter of Christopher de Cuellar, the royal treasurer in the island, but within a week was left a widower. To find solace for his grief in action, he threw himself with extraordinary energy into the work of exploring, pacifying and colonizing the island.

After founding the town of San Salvador de Bayamo he went westward, as already stated, to meet Narvaez and to spend Christmas at Xagua or Cienfuegos. Less than a month later he founded La Villa de Trinidad, and later in the year La Villa de Sancti Spiritus and, finally, Santiago de Cuba. At all of these places excepting the last named gold was found, though not in any large quantities. He was thus encouraged to continue his search for that precious metal, while at the same time he was admonished not to look too much to it for the prosperity of the Island, but to pay attention to the development of its other resources, and particularly its obvious agricultural potentialities.

Accordingly in the spring of 1514 he sent a vessel to Hispaniola for horses and cattle with which to stock Cuba, and for supplies of grain and other seeds, and agricultural implements. In the cargo which it brought back to him lay the germ of the subsequent agricultural greatness of Cuba. At about the same time, also, he founded Cuban commerce by the establishment of regular communication between the island and Jamaica, Darien and other Spanish settlements at the south. In this latter enterprise the King was especially interested, and his directions to Velasquez were that he should develop it to the largest possible extent. He did not expect Cuba ever to rival Darien and other regions in mineral wealth, but that island could, he thought, surpass them in agriculture, and thus could serve as a source of supply to them, and as a base of operations.

It was, indeed, in pursuance of this policy of commerce with the countries at the south and west of the Caribbean that Santiago de Cuba was founded as the seventh of the seven cities among which the island was partitioned, and that it was made the insular capital. The site was, as already stated, the only one at which gold was not found. It was selected partly because of the secure and commodious harbor, one of the finest anywhere on the shores of the Caribbean, and partly because its situation on the south coast made it particularly accessible to and from Jamaica, Darien and the other regions in which the Spanish crown was interested. As soon as it was founded, the seat of civil, military and ecclesiastical authority was transferred thither from Baracoa, and Santiago de Cuba became the second capital of the island. Meantime Narvaez, at the north, had founded Havana, which was destined to be the third and final capital.

Each city or town was made, however, a capital unto itself. The principle of local autonomy or home rule had long been cherished by the Spanish people in the Iberian Kingdom, and it was transplanted by them in an increased degree to their Antillean colonies. In accord with that principle, these first seven cities were planned and arranged with a view to civic self-sufficiency. The plan was uniform. Each place had its central park or plaza, upon which fronted the town hall, the parish church and the residence of the governor or the alcalde. The plan of government was also uniform. In each place Velasquez appointed an Alcalde, who was not a mayor but a judge of first instance; a Deputy Alcalde, and three regidores or councillors; the Alcalde and the regidores sitting together forming the Town Council. There were also a procurador, or public prosecutor; an alguacil, or sheriff; and one or more escribanos, or notaries public.

There was also at this time established throughout the island a social and economic system borrowed from Hispaniola, where it had not been in operation long enough for its evil effects to be demonstrated. Its intention was unquestionably benevolent, and, given a sufficiently altruistic quality of human nature, its results might have been good. With human nature what it was, it became almost unrelievedly evil. This was known as the system of Repartimiento, or Encomienda. First of all, the whole territory of the island was partitioned among the seven cities. Then in each there were appointed persons whom we might describe as land-holders and slave-holders. The former, known as vecinos, were the representatives of the king in ownership of the land, all of which was regarded as the property of the crown, to be apportioned for working to suitable loyal subjects. The latter were called encomenderos, and to them were apportioned the native population, in tutelage and servitude.