The administration of Sancho Pardo Osorio was marked with much energy in advancing the defences of Havana and in caring for the commerce which frequented or touched at Cuban ports. The former work proceeded slowly, because of the necessity of depending almost exclusively upon the local community for aid. At this time also was effected the immensely important reform of codifying the municipal ordinances. This work was done under a commission of the Supreme Court by Dr. Alfonso Casares, of Havana, who on January 14, 1577, presented the results of his labors to a council consisting of Sancho Pardo, the Alcaldes Geronimo de Rojas Avellaneda, and Alfonso Velasquez de Cuellar, and the Regidores Diego Lopez Duran, Juan Bautista de Rojas, Baltasar de Barreda, Antonio Recio, and Rodrigo Carreño. The code was unanimously approved by them, and it remained in force and active practice until the War of Independence in 1898.
CHAPTER XVII
Menendez was governor of Cuba for a little more than six years, from October 24, 1567, to December 13, 1573. Those were important years for the world at large. They saw the Duke of Alva, as governor of the Netherlands, establish there the Bloody Tribunal, and in return the "Beggars of the Sea" engage in their indomitable campaigns against the oppressor, extending even to the coasts of Cuba. Spain engaged in a great war with the Ottoman Turks. France had the second and third civil wars, culminating in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. Elizabeth of England fully committed herself to the Protestant cause and was excommunicated by the Pope. Mary of Scotland fled from her throne and was succeeded by young James VI.
Menendez, more a statesman of world-wide vision than any of his predecessors, was not unmindful of these transactions, or of the far greater events which they portended, and he strove after his fashion to prepare Cuba for her part in great affairs. He realized that in the wars of the European powers their American possessions were increasingly likely to become implicated. Despite his utmost efforts, various other nations sent vessels to West Indian waters, to harry the fleets of Spain. The numbers of such intruders were increasing. His utmost efforts had not been sufficient to drive the French away and to keep them away. Now others than the French began to appear. The "Sea Beggars" of the Netherlands were daring navigators and formidable fighters, and they began to prowl around the coasts of Cuba. English captains had found their way to the Spanish Main, and Hawkins made his way to Vera Cruz, and Drake plundered Nombre de Dios.
Finding himself unable to protect the Spanish treasure ships and to keep all enemies away from West Indian waters, Menendez sought at least to make Cuba secure against invasion, or its capital—for such Havana was about to become in name as well as in fact—secure against capture and looting by buccaneers. To this work he gave his chief attention, and, above all else, to the completion of La Fuerza. The rebuilding of that fortification dragged scandalously. Sometimes it was for lack of money, sometimes for lack of workmen. Menendez told the Council for the Indies that in its unfinished state it was an actual menace to the town, because a hostile force could easily land and capture it, and having done this, they could quickly complete it and make it almost impregnable against any attempt to drive them out. He did not explain why he could not complete it as quickly as an invading force could, but he asked for a force of three hundred negro slaves to work on it. With them, he said, it would be possible to finish the fort in two years. The Council was not favorably impressed. It could not understand how a few score buccaneers, landing and seizing the fort, could finish it in a few days, while it would take Menendez with three hundred slaves two years to do the work.
Diego de Ribera, as Acting Governor, also took up the matter. The fort was already sufficiently advanced to permit him to mount eight pieces of artillery, but he wanted twenty more. Also, he wanted a large permanent garrison of professional soldiers. It was unsatisfactory to have to depend upon a rallying of the citizens, because it interfered with the occupations of the citizens, because they were not expert in arms, and because when they were summoned not more than half their number responded, so that the commander never knew how many he could depend upon. There should, he urged, be a permanent garrison of two hundred men, under the command of the governor. Of course such a garrison could not be furnished by the town itself, because there were not in all Havana more than two hundred fighting men, all told. This gives, by the way, a hint concerning the rapid growth of the place at the time of Mazariegos. A town containing two hundred men capable of bearing arms must have had a total population approximating two thousand.
Ribera's arguments and appeals appear to have been more effective than those of Menendez. The Council for the Indies, and the King, too, ordered practical steps to be taken for finishing and equipping the building which had so long been neglected. As Cuba, or perhaps especially the port of Havana, was of no great importance to the Spanish colonies on the mainland, for the safeguarding of their shipping, and also as Cuba had been so drained of men and supplies in former years for the exploitation of colonies on the main land, it was but justice as it was a matter of practical convenience and expediency for the government to call upon Mexico and Castilla del Oro to contribute largely to the payment of the cost of fortifying Havana. That place was a little later called, by royal decree, "Llave del Nuevo Mundo y Antemural de las Indias Occidentales," or Key of the New World and Bulwark of the West Indies. Certainly it was fitting that the New World should pay for its key and that the Indies should pay for their bulwark.
So Mexico was required to contribute four thousand ducats, and Florida to provide fifty good men to form the garrison of La Fuerza. The cost of maintaining the garrison was charged against Venezuela and Darien. The providing of labor was a more difficult matter. It seemed to be settled that negro slave labor must be employed. In order to secure it at little cost it was proposed to give slave-traders the privilege of taking as many slaves as they pleased to Cuba, provided that they would lend them to the government to work on La Fuerza until its completion; after which they might be sold or otherwise disposed of at the traders' will. The objection to this from the traders' point of view was the length of time that it was expected to take to finish the fort. The government estimated it at three years. Now the traders would have been willing thus to lend their slaves for a shorter time, for six months, or for a year. But they considered three years entirely too long. After working for so long a time, under a rigorous taskmaster, the average slave would be so nearly worn out that his value would be much impaired. So that scheme failed.
The next plan for getting labor for the fort was disastrous. A contract was made with a trader to provide three hundred negro slaves, by the end of 1572. He did deliver 191 of them in the summer of that year, and later sent the rest but they never got further than Hispaniola. The 191 whom he did deliver were, however, infected with small pox. A number of them died of that plague after their arrival at Havana, and the contagion got abroad in the city with the result that many other slaves and a number of the Spaniards also perished from it. Still, enough of the slaves in that plague-stricken cargo survived to cause the authorities of Havana much embarrassment in feeding and clothing them. Agriculture was not yet receiving the attention which it deserved, and even a hundred or a hundred and fifty more mouths to feed overtaxed the local resources. Requisition was therefore made upon the government of Yucatan to send a sufficient supply of corn and meat to feed the slaves, while the king himself undertook to clothe them. He was led to do this in a way which strikingly indicates the limitations of Philip's mind. To all appeals for clothing for their comfort or for decent appearance's sake, he was deaf. But when it represented to him that they must have clothes in order to be able to attend mass, he at once ordered them to be clad from his royal bounty!
More money was needed, and was raised in various ways. An examiner went about the island, looking into the accounts of public officials. Generally he found that there was something due to the state from them. Of the money thus collected, nearly all, to the amount of nearly four thousand pesos, was devoted to the costs of the fort. Other funds were taken for the purpose, and when there was still a deficit it was actually proposed to sell some of the slaves to pay for the maintenance of the rest. This counsel of despair was not, however, acted upon. Instead, Sancho Pardo Osorio when acting governor, near the end of Menendez's administration, advanced much money from his own purse, trusting to the government to reimburse him. Another draft of four thousand ducats was finally obtained from Mexico, and smaller sums came from Venezuela and Darien. Thus the enterprise dragged on, until the summer of 1573 found the fort still far from finished, the builders of it heavily in debt for labor, materials and maintenance, and the garrison, workmen, and citizens of Havana all profoundly dissatisfied.