Catalina de Habacoa

Whilst perusing Arranz Marquez's Repartimientos y encomiendas en la Isla Española: El repartimiento de Albuquerque de 1514, we saw yet another cacique from the western part of the island whose community was forced to serve encomenderos in what is now the Dominican Republic. According to Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, Habacoa was a district or canton in Guacayarima (the southwestern part of Haiti). Thus, the cacique, Catalina de Habacoa, whose 44 Indians were forced to work to 2 Spaniards in Higuey, likely had to travel from one end of the island to another. This obviously meant that many indigenous peoples were forcibly relocated from the area they called home before 1492, and this likely contributed to the high mortality rates of the native population as they resisted, succumbed to hunger, or experienced disease and horrendous working conditions. 

The Afterlife of Marien

 

Whilst perusing the very helpful tables of Arranz Marquez in Repartimientos y encomiendas en la Isla Española: el repartimiento de Albuquerque de 1514, we came across 5 caciques with "del Marien" in their names. None of them were linked to encomenderos in Puerto Real, the Spanish colonial city founded near the likely site of Marien's capital. Thus, within about 22 years of first meeting Columbus, the population of Marien was severely displaced and likely experienced high amounts of death through disease, forced relocation, disrupted food supply, and forced labor. Guacanagari's people were now spread around in La Concepcion and Bonao. In the latter town, a surprisingly high number of Indians tied to the Marien caciques Torres del Marien (170 indios) and Velazquez del Marien (70) were laboring for Juan de Ampies. In La Concepcion, 3 caciques from Marien were listed: Antonio Escobar del Marien, Barahona del Marien and Cristobal del Marien. The indios linked to them numbered 117. This suggests that by 1514, Marien (presumably its "core" had about 317 indigenous people who had been relocated through the encomienda system. Over half of this group ended up in Bonao. In Puerto Real itself, where it is probably safe to assume much of the indigenous population was from the old cacicazgo of Marien due to the absence of gold mining, it is difficult to trace where the caciques and their communities came from. 

In one case, that of Francisquillo de Bayaha, we can presume he was from the area of modern-day Fort Liberte. The cacique called Mayordomo de Hatiel may have come from a region that appears in the Morales map to be south of the Artibonite and east of its mouth. This area may not have been part of the Marien cacicazgo. According to Bernardo Vega, it likely covered the territory from Borgne to Monte Cristi.It is unlikely for the area south of the Artibonite to have been part of Guacanagari's spheres of influence. In the case of Diego Aynaguana, however, it is somewhat ambiguous. The cacique Diego Aynaguana in Azua may have been relocated there via the encomienda system. Once again, the Morales map provides a clue since it appears to identify a river called Aynagua northeast of Puerto Real. If so, that means at least 349 Indians were forced to relocate from the environs of Marien. 

And of the caciques in Puerto Plata and other regions, a few may have been linked to the period of Guacanagari's rule in the 1490s. One cacique from Marien went by the name Cristobal. Was this possibly in reference to Columbus? Another cacique, Juan de Manuy, was assigned to an encomendero married to a native woman, Gonzalo de Arevalo. We were unable to find out when he came to the island, but if his wife was from this part of the island, he may have used her kinship ties and connections that may have preceded 1492 and the calamities of the colonial conquest. Furthermore, the one cacique assigned to a Puerto Real encomendero with more than 100 Indians was a man named Fernando Guanabax. We know from Peguero and Oviedo that a relative of Guacanagari traveled to Spain with Columbus on his first voyage. He was baptized there and took the name Fernando de Aragon. Is there any chance Fernando Guanabax was the same man? We admit this is pure speculation and quite unlikely, but he was the only cacique with more than 100 followers in the Puerto Real area.

As for the area around Lares de Guahaba and Haiti's northwest, we are unsure. Las Casas seemed to exclude Guahaba and Amaguey (near modern Gros Morne?) from Guacanagari's Marien. Charlevoix, writing in the 18th century, believed Marien covered all of the north coast from Cap St. Nicolas (Mole St. Nicolas) to Monte Cristi, as well as a part of the northern Vegal Real. Moreau de Saint-Mery echoed that sentiment, including Port de Paix as once in the domain of Guacanagari. Indeed, he even believed the Artibonite was the southern border for Marien, implying Guahaba would have fallen under Guacanagari's control or influence. In the next century, Haitian historian Emile Nau also wrote of Marien including Guahaba and the western limits of the Artibonite (Nau, 36). Perhaps even more boldly, the Haitian author Gilbert Valme added Tortuga to Guacanagari's territor (Valme, 229). Interestingly, the remaining indigenes of Tortuga were assigned to an encomendero based at Puerto Plata in c.1514. In terms of other modern scholars, Deagan, the archaeologist who has presented the best case for identifying En Bas Saline as Guacanagari's capital, similarly included Guahaba in his land (Deagan, 240). 

Until scholars uncover new sources, the mystery of Marien's end will continue. Scholars have different theories on the death of Guacanagari, for example. It would appear that he was likely dead within 10 years after meeting Columbus. And while his capital was likely occupied until the 1520s, it too was eventually abandoned. With about 317 Indians from Marien serving encomienda holders on the other side of the island in 1514, one can imagine high mortality rates and labor exploitation wiped out much of the remaining population. Even Puerto Real itself was later disbanded. But if 317 Indians from Marien were enumerated in 1514, scholars might be able to reach more accurate population estimates of the region's population in 1492. To what extent Guacanagari was able to control other provinces is up for debate, but the large plaza and public architecture at his capital suggest he was not such a minor or subordinate cacique after all. Indeed, Las Casas personally claimed to have met several of Guacanagari's vassals who were of high standing, presumably meaning caciques and nitainos who occupied more than the region near En Bas Saline. 

Juan de Espinosa

Whilst perusing Vilma Benzo de Ferrer's Pasajeros a la Espanola, 1492-1530, we saw that the father of Pedro de Espinosa was a resident in today's Dominican Republic before moving to Puerto Rico with the conquest of that island. Established in the Santiago de Los Caballeros area in 1510, Juan de Espinosa later moved to Puerto Rico, where he was one of the early recipients of an encomienda. According to Vilma Benzo de Ferrer, de Espinosa also received 7 naborias de casa in Santiago (although we thought he was already residing in Puerto Rico by 1514?). It is strange although not surprising to see that a man a huge number of us descend from once lived in Santiago...

Juan de Espinosa and Pedro de Espinosa

While perusing an article by Burset Flores on the pattern of men marrying local women from established families to become wealthy in colonial Puerto Rico, we dug a little deeper into the origins of one woman involved in such a marriage. According to his research, this woman, Juana Manso de Espinosa, was a descendant (granddaughter) of Pedro de Espinosa, a regidor of San Juan and son of an early poblador of the island, Juan de Espinosa. Juan de Espinosa was apparently the recipient of an encomienda of 50 Indios (30, according to Esteban Mira Caballos) in 1511, supposedly from the territory of the cacique Azmia. Pedro de Espinosa, his son, also led one of the raids on the territory of the cacique Orocoviz in 1513, according to Moscoso's Caciques, aldeas y población taína de Boriquén (Puerto Rico), 1492-1582. By 1530, according to the "census" of de Lando (which enumerated vecinos, slaves, and "free" Indians in San Juan and San German), Pedro de Espinosa had 6 Indian slaves (non-native) and 17 naborias. While the census of 1530 was hardly an adequate tally of the total population of the island, it is clear that Pedro de Espinosa, who may have inherited the encomienda Indians of his father, had less than half of the total Indians his father supposedly received in 1511 from Ponce de Leon. 

The demographic collapse of the indigenous population was likely following similar trends already evident in Hispaniola by 1514. One also cannot avoid acknowledging the huge imbalance in gender ratios among the population on the island, with Julio Damiani Cósimi's Estratificación social, esclavos y naborías en el Puerto Rico minero del siglo XVI. La información de Francisco Manuel de Lando. Ensayo de cuantificación y transcripción paleográfica finding disproportionately male slaves in San Juan and San German for both Amerindian and Africans. Presumably, since the Spanish were used to slavery and concubinage even before the conquests in the Antilles, many of the vecinos and other white men had indigenous and African women as partners. Indeed, some vecinos were even married to indigenous women (although not to the same extent as the 1514 Albuquerque Repartimiento of Hispaniola revealed). Julio Damiani Cósimi's transcription of the "census" indicates this gender imbalance and how Puerto Rico was already a slave society by 1530. It was this disturbing basis of wealth and power that paved the way for a soldier named Francisco Delgado to marry into money and status in the second half of the 16th century.

Cacica Catalina of Mayama

Although our descent from a man said to be of converso origins is through the Delgado Manso of Puerto Rico, he came to Hispaniola in 1514. The son of Diego Guillen and Mayor Gutierrez, he apparently, he enjoyed connections at court and was promised an encomienda. However, in the 1514 Repartimiento in the island, his name appears as one of the vecinos of Santo Domingo who received, in encomienda, 30 service Indians from the cacica Catalina of Mayama. In addition, ten naborias de casa were also assigned to Guillen. However, the same cacica Catalina de Mayama was also assigned to Gomez Diaz, which, if true, meant that Guillen had to share the 30 or so Indians with another vecino.

Guillen's daughter, Isabel, stayed on the island of Hispaniola. She married a Gonzalo de Guzman who first came to Hispaniola in 1502, with Ovando. However, Guzman had married Isabel with the expectation of a large dowry and access to more encomienda Indian labor. This did not materialize, although it does appear that Isabel father did indeed receive some Indians in the 1514 Repartimiento. According to Ida Altman, the daughter Isabel Malaber (Maraver) was the head of a poor household in the 1530s after her husband died. Her elderly father, Juan Guillen, was still alive, but the household also included mestizas, black slaves and an old Indian naboria women.

Although Altman believed Isabel Maraver possibly ended her days as a poor widow, it turns out she married a second time with Francisco Ruiz de Oviedo. References to her and this second husband can be found in Historia y Geografía Cuentas de las Cajas Reales de Santo Domingo 1544-1549. Now, our descent from Juan Guillen is via another daughter, Eufrasia Maraver. She came to Hispaniola in 1514 with her parents, but ended up in Puerto Rico as the wife of a Pedro Espinosa. According to research in the archives by Luis Burset Flores, the Delgado Manso family were descendants of Eufrasia Maraver through the Manso. Indeed, in 1568, a chubby Spanish soldier, Francisco Delgado, married Juana Manso de Espinosa, daughter of Alonso Díaz Manso and Isabel de Espinosa. Isabel de Espinosa, according to the sources cited by Burset Flores, was the daughter of Eufrasia Maraver, a child of Juan Guillen and Maria de Maraver.

Our descent from the Delgado Manso is actually the result of a descendant of this family marrying a woman of color in 1727. And while we are more interested in the African and indigenous contributions to the making of the Caribbean, it reveal how the events and places in the early Spanish Caribbean directly involved our ancestors, who came from all social classes. Some of our forebears, for instance, were living on Hispaniola during Enrique's revolt. Some, such as the father of Eufrasia Maraver, were apparently recipients of encomiendas in Hispaniola. Who was the cacica Catalina of Mayama? Presumably located somewhere not too far from Santo Domingo, what happened to the Indians? Were some of them among the mestizas and the old naboria living in Isabel Maraver's household in 1531? Was the cacica Catalina someone exercizing the position of cacica before the Spanish conquest or was her rise to power a result of the brutal Spanish invasion?

Interrogatorio de los Jeronimos

Reading Rodriguez Demorizi's Los dominicos y la encomienda de indios en la isla Española has been a profoundly rich source on the indigenous history of the island of Haiti. Including in its various sources the 1517 Interrogatorio de los Jeronimos, the reader is treated to the testimonies of several Spaniards on the island answering 7 questions on what can or should be done for the Indian population, the encomienda system, and if the Indians are capable of living politically or rationally, like a laborer or common person in Castilla. Unsurprisingly, most of the men shared a belief in the incapacity of the Indians to be placed in liberty. Even the lone person who thought so, Fray Bernaldo de Santo Domingo, believed that the freed Indians must be placed in communities under Spanish administration for a period. Nonetheless, these highly biased sources reflecting the views and opinions of vecinos, regidores, a treasurer and other men in colonial society do shed much light on the conditions of the colony and what the indigenous population was like. Indeed, one of the men who answered the questions was married to a native woman of the island and could draw from his own experience and that of his wife and her connections to buttress his claims about the Indian or Taino population in 1517.

First, the sources stress the indigenous populations inability to live politically or with reason. Unlike the average person in Spain, the Indians lacked the ability (to the Spanish) to save for tomorrow, work consistently or maintain any kind of devotion to the Catholic faith and meet tribute or tax requirements. Without Spaniards holding encomiendas or Spanish administrators to oversee them, the Indians were said by most of the informants to idle away their time with the batey ballgame, cohoba, areytos, and trading valuable things like hammocks for trinkets or things of lesser value. The informants cite numerous examples of this, including caciques who failed to meet tribute obligations before the repartimientos as well as the example of instances in which caciques or Indians educated or raised among the Spaniards completely failed to become successful holders of repartimientos. Instead, the whites claimed that these Indians, such as Alonso de Caceres and Pedro Colon, were addicted to wine and even exchanged their naborias for it or let others access their wives. Other educated caciques and Indians, such as Masupa Otex, don Francisco in Bonao and the Doctor (el Dotor) in Santiago also failed to be successful holders of repartimientos as their Indians produced less than those hold by the Spaniards and they wasted resources and time on what the Spaniards considered to be the typical idleness of the Indian. To the Spaniard, the Indian's inactivity and laziness meant they were even enemies of labor. They would always prefer to spend their time in leisure, playing the batey game, eating to excess and holding areytos, or wasting time with cohoba. The irony of Spaniards claiming Indians were incapable of living on their own account is rich, especially since the surplus of Taino production had enabled the sustenance of large populations before the conquest and even fed the Spaniards.

Indeed, the indigenous population of the island were often able to spend leisure time in what the Spaniards considered frivolities by their choices in settlements. While the original Spanish pueblos were often founded near the settlements of principal caciques, the Indian population of the island preferred to live at a distance from colonial pueblos. In fact, doing so was the best way to ensure some protection from the worst abuses of the colonial system. Nearly all the witnesses in the Interrogatorio claim that the Indian settlements were always at a distance from the Spanish towns, and if Spaniards made attempts to forcibly relocate these Indians, they either fled into the montes or killed Spaniards or threatened to commit suicide with the venom from yuca. Indeed, the threat of this vivid enough to be recalled when similar ideas were proposed for the Indians in the area of Azua and San Juan de la Maguana. There, the cacique Ojeda and other Indians conspired to flee and resist the Spanish attempt to relocate them. So, the Indian population was able to retain significant autonomy even under the abusive encomienda system. By choosing to live separately from the Spaniards, they could ensure that the 4 months or so of the year they had for themselves was spent in a way that was in accordance with Taino customs and practices. Verily, this was what motivated the desire by the Spaniards to reduce the Indians into pueblos in or close to the Spanish settlements, since they would be easier to monitor, proselytize, and control. Otherwise, left to their own devices in far away asientos or hiding in the montes, the Tainos were continuing their cemi worship, consultation of bohites (behiques), and pre-Christian customs that so offended the Spanish that some of witnesses referred to it as a bestial life. 

However, the question of what to do with the Indian population posed so many problems. The aforementioned practice of flight to the mountains, suicide and revolt was paired with a fear of the African population on the island. While one witness claimed the cacique Tamayo fled to the mountains because of African maroons who kidnapped women from his community, other Spaniards expressed deep fear of an alliance of the Indian and African population. If forcibly relocated, they feared that the Indians would flee to the mountains and collaborate with the negros alzados to attack the Spaniards and possibly take the island. Even if they did not, forcing the Indians from their homes to live in new settlements closer to the Spaniards would eventually culminate in the depopulation of the island. The Indians would resist, flee to the mountains, kill Christians, possibly align themselves with Africans, with whom they were allegedly friendly according to one witness and then the mining and agricultural economy linked to the encomiendas would collapse. In order to preserve the colony, while also ensuring the better treatment of Indians held in encomiendas, the witnesses believed it was better to assign encomiendas to Spaniards who were, ideally, married and dedicated to staying on the island. If they were planning on building stone houses and/or had participated in the conquest of it, they were even better, since these men were more likely to reside on the island for a long-term, to be invested in the island's well-being, and more likely to care for and treat their assigned Indians better. Thus, to most of these witnesses, the encomienda system was best kept as maintained, with assignments to men likely to stay on the island and no more absentee holders. Perhaps, over time, the better treatment Indians received from resident encomenderos and the attraction of a better meat diet would have been enough to gradually convince the Indians to stay permanently on or nearby the land of their encomendero. This, was of course, wishful thinking but it was likely true that the Indians held by absentee encomederos fared even worse than the others while the Indian diet and the negative impact of moving back and forth between their homes and that of their encomendero placed an additional burden. 

What is most intriguing to those eager to understand the nature of the Taino cacicazgo and society, however, are the numerous details on the role of behiques or bohites and the cemi spiritual tradition. Indeed, the bohites, who could be male or female, were considered worthy of a special punishment in one rather utopian experiencia conceived by the final witness. Bohites and old Indians were also blamed for the lack of Christian devotion and practice among the Taino. For instance, the elders were said to have mocked younger Indians who adopted or disseminated Christian teachings. Furthermore, the bohites were at the center of an island-wide conspiracy to kill the Christians and retake the island. After the initial success of Agueybana and the revolt in Puerto Rico, his relative, a cacique named Andres in Higuey, celebrated the success of the rebels in Borinquen. Then, with other caciques and bohites or shamans, they plotted to use what amounted to chemical warfare against the Spanish! Unfortunately for the indigenous population of Hispaniola, the conspiracy was unveiled and the bohites were revealed to have been the ones who knew how to prepare the toxic gas. So, the behiques or bohitis were central to ongoing Taino resistance to Christian evangelization and were, with caciques, part of a plot to kill the Spanish. While their revolt was ultimately unsuccesful, one can see how the combination of cemis, caciques, and cohoba continued to be central to cacicazgos after the conquest. Indeed, elements of Taino religion likely persisted well into the colonial era since the population had managed to live apart from the Spaniards for so long and chose to either flee or resist when the Spaniards attempted to do so. 

Consequently, the foundations of cacique authority persisted in a weakened fashion after the Spanish imposed the repartimientos, yet the caciques were not able to command their naborias to produce gold or labor along the lines of what the Spanish sought. Instead, the authority of caciques appears to have been based on command of their subjects in terms of food production, fishing, and related activities. In other words, a tributary system in which caciques exerted some authority over the labor of their subjects, but without the full means to enforce what the Spanish encomienda system was intending to procure for the Crown and the colonial government. Moreover, the Indian population was best not concentrated near the Spanish to avoid conflicts between caciques over women, resources and followers. This matches what Las Casas wrote about past conflicts between cacicazgos and suggests another reason why Indian demographic patterns favored a dispersal away from the Spanish and other possible competitors. Perhaps the cacicazgo, even in its attenuated and somewhat weakened form due to the pressure of the Spanish conquest, can still partially reflect the precolonial cacicazgo? Of course, in a highly modified fashion with smaller populations and the addition of Spaniards and Africans who, in some cases, joined Indian communities. In fact, such an experience allegedly occurred with some of the Spaniards married to Indian women who lacked encomiendas. Nevertheless, this source is quite suggestive on the nature of the Taino polity and how early colonial society in Hispaniola (and Puerto Rico and Cuba) was still fragile. 

Indian Puerto Rico Under Bondage

Another mention of Diego Muriel digitized at PARES contains some very interesting information on the Indian laborers of  the royal Hacienda of Ribera de Toa in 1528. Established with indigenous Puerto Rico caciques and Indian laborers, the document provides some powerful testimony about the exploitative conditions in which Indians in the encomienda system toiled under. Reading between the lines, one can surmise that the "Taino" of Puerto Rico, at least in this hacienda, were scarcely acculturated into Spanish ways. The document lists the improved treatments to be given to the Indians, including ensuring their indoctrination in the Catholic faith and having access to Mass twice per week. One can probably conclude that before 1528, and perhaps after this year, they were not devout or deeply Catholic. In addition, the stipulation that Muriel see to it that the Indians understand marriage and cease the practice of males shifting to different women suggests the indigenous laborers were not following Spanish or Catholic norms of marriage and domestic organization. 

The other proposed methods to improve the treatment of the Indian workforce included the provision of meat, hammocks or blankets, and additional clothes. Perhaps the population was still wearing Indian-styled clothing of enaguas and whatever they received for use during worktime. Overall, this suggests an indigenous population that was probably maintaining older, precolonial practices in religion, spirituality, diet, and dress to whatever extent that was still possible in 1528. As Guitar revealed in her dissertation on Tainos of Hispaniola, the indigenous population in Puerto Rico was probably still practing their areytos, cohoba rituals, and the ballgame, too. Unfortunately for us, however, no one recorded more of the traditions, areytos, or customs of the Puerto Rican Indian that may have given us far more information on precolonial, pre-Hispanic history. But the thin or superficial conversion and Hispanization of the indigenous population definitely explains why their legacy is so strong in Puerto Rico and the Spanish Caribbean. 

Encomiendas and Indian Slavery in Puerto Rico

Eugenio Fernandez Mendez's Las encomiendas y esclavitud de los indios de Puerto Rico, 1508-1550 is a brief study of the forced labor and coercion in the first half of 16th century Borinquen. Drawing primarily from the Spanish chroniclers and sources such as those compiled in Tapia's Biblioteca de Puerto Rico, this short book focuses on the Spanish conquest and the various repartimientos and divisions of Indians into encomiendas until the final dissolution of the encomiendas. Unfortunately, by c.1550 their population was decimated and devastated by the encomiendas and outright enslavement. "Carib" and Indian slaves from Yucatan, Panuco, or Tierra Firme were still not enough to address the labor shortages and other problems facing the colony. However, the indigenous population of the island survived and went on to form part of the Puerto Rican population. Fernandez Mendez cites sources attesting to an Indian presence larger than that asserted by Rodrigo de Bastidas for the 1540s. Indeed, even after the Laws of 1542, illegal enslavement of Indians continued. These and other "free" Indians not enumerated in the 1540s undoubtedly persisted, helping to explain some of the markedly "Indian" features in Puerto Rican culture long after the demise of encomiendas. What would have made this study more valuable would have been an examination of Taino resistance to the encomiendas after the 1511 rebellion. Perhaps a deeper look at indios alzados and African slave rebels could have shed light on this other dynamic in 16th century Puerto Rico.