Source: Amy Notes (ID702)
Author: Howard, Amy (ID633)
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I bet this was Juan Ignacio's job.
I bet this was Juan Ignacio's job.
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Arredondo took depositions in the investigation of Governor Moral
Date Created: 2023-10-12 20:56:17
Source: Situado and Sabana (ID 82)
Author: Bushnell, Amy (ID 32)
Content_id: 3710
Moral Sanchez did not realize it, but he himself was under investigation. The treasury officials, friars, officers, and principal vecinos of St. Augustine had written to their former governor, Benavides, now Governor of Vera Cruz, accusing Moral Sanchez of conducting commerce with Carolina under cover of provisioning the presidio. Benavides had sent the damning letters to the Secretary of State, don Joseph Patino, who in April 1736 forwarded them to Governor Guemes with instructions to investigate "this governor" and, if necessary, depose and replace him. The Cuban governor delegated the investigation to the Bishop of Tricale, the one person of authority in St. Augustine who could claim to be an outsider (Guemes y Horcasitas, 1736), and the bishop asked Arredondo, who had the skills of an historian as well as those of an engineer, to take the depositions. [Note: See Arredondo's Historical Proof of Spain's Title to Georgia (Bolton, 1925), introduced in The Debatable Land: A Sketch of the Anglo-Spanish Contest for the Georgia Country (Bolton and Ross, 1925).] Arredondo confided his private opinion of Moral Sanchez to Guemes in a classified letter: "Business preoccupies his discourse; trafficking in all kinds of materials and goods occupies his mind; and the free commerce with the English impedes him from attending to his duty. More than 60 Englishmen are here, the people of six vessels that are in this river. . . . Yet with all this abundance there are no victuals in the castillo. In fact, most of the vessels bring merchandise to exchange for provisions, and I remit [this] on a brigantine that is going to that city [Havana] with a load of tar" (Arredondo 1736). Among the depositions that Arredondo took, that of Father Juan de la Via stands out for the candour with which he voiced the elite's animosity toward someone they thought of as a common soldier who had risen above his station AN371. "The governor," affirmed Via on his honor as a priest, was "scandalously living in concubinage in this presidio with a woman he brought here from Havana" and had "made her father an ensign, when it is common knowledge that he is a mulatto." British ships entered the harbor freely with "all kinds of prohibited goods," which the governor bought up "at low prices in order to resell them to the poor, impeding anyone else from buying them." He reshipped part of the British manufactures, dried beef, and Madeira wines to Cartagena or Portobelo and had his servants sell the remainder from shops in the forts of Apalache and St. Augustine. "Instead of building so many castles and forts," the friar objected, "he should first have rebuilt the one castle of this place, which is falling down." The governor showed no respect for the bishop, Via continued, and he forced the Franciscans to do as he wanted. He kept the Christian Indians busy logging and sawing lumber for him to sell in Havana and paid them in aguardiente. Many of them abandoned the provinces to join the infieles, and others would have if their children had been older or if the bishop and the padres had not counseled them to stay. AN372 When Father Via was appointed doctrinero of the pueblo of Santa Catherina de Guale, its blockhouse was in a state of collapse. In view of the danger posed by the infieles, he proposed that his parishioners rebuild it. But the governor, contrary to custom, refused them a ration of maize while they prepared the logs, "without recalling that were it not for the few indios of these pueblos, the indios infieles or the English would have taken Florida many times over." AN373 Meanwhile, by systematically shortchanging the natives, the governor kept more than half of the 6000-peso Indian fund (Via, 1736). The united "indios and principales of St. Augustine" presented an itemized deposition. First: They did nothing all year but "work for the Lord Governor in the name of our King and Lord," producing charcoal for the forge and thatch for the galleys and houses, cutting firewood for the outposts, felling trees and making lumber for use at construction sites, and traveling as couriers to the provinces. His Lordship ensured promptness with cudgels and confinements in irons in the castillo for caciques and commoners alike. Second: The soldiers requisitioned two indios a month from each pueblo to go with them as hunters to the outposts in the provinces. AN374 They were absent from home three or four months at a time, during which the governor paid them nothing and there was no one to provide for their wives and daughters. The consequence was "shames and offenses against our God and Lord and against us their husbands," for the women survived "by friending themselves with other indios and by coming to the city to go from tavern to tavern with all sorts of espanoles," whereas "none of this would happen if we were not kept to those posts and on those errands, for we would keep them always in our company" and "work to support them." Third: The governor paid the indios "for the thatch, the charcoal, and the logs" mainly "in aguardiente, in tobacco, in shirts, and in leggings," which he obtained from the English at cheap prices and issued at inflated ones. Fourth: When the situado arrived in Florida the governor gave each indio 3 arrobas of maize, 2 varas of serge, and an occasional musket in exchange for his old one, which lasted 8 or 10 years. Each cacique received a blanket, and each pueblo a little aguardiente and tobacco to celebrate its saint's day, and that was the sum total of what they were given. Fifth: The governor invited their "worst enemies" to the presidio. The infieles noted where their pueblos were with respect to the castillo and returned in two or three months to wage war on them with the muskets, powder, and balls that the governor had given them. They were resistant to Christianity, saying frankly that "the reason why they did not wish to be converted or to unite with the espanoles" was the governor's treatment of the "Old Christians," that "they in their provinces were free from all that," that "the English gave them whatever they needed" without their having to do any work or pay for it, and that "they were not going to leave these conveniences to come among espanoles to be slaves." Sixth: They wanted a defender to stand up for them and shield them from the governors AN375. They also wanted some consideration shown to them in view of their standing as Old Christians. They had been to the bishop many times asking him as their "pastor" to intercede for them, but he merely counseled them to "have patience" and trust that in the end "God and His Majesty would remedy everything" (St. Augustine Principales, 1736). This last statement may have been added by the bishop, positioning himself as a peacemaker. (Bushnell SS)