Source: Amy Notes (ID702)
Author: Howard, Amy (ID633)
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Content id: 26679
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this must be the reason for Juan Ignacio's last name.
this must be the reason for Juan Ignacio's last name.
Cross references
Gentlemen in SA were surrounded by dependents
Date Created: 2023-10-12 20:56:17
Source: The King?s Coffer (ID 83)
Author: Bushnell, Amy (ID 32)
Content_id: 3926
A gentleman was surrounded by dependents. The female relatives who attended his wife had their male counterparts in the numerous down-at-the-heels nephews and cousins who accompanied his travels, lived in his house, and importuned him for a hand up the social ladder. [Note 32: Juan Menendez Marquez 4/13/1601; cedulas to Juan de Cevadilla and Lazaro Saez de Mercado 4/13/1577, and to the governor 9/19/1593.] As if these were not enough, through the institution of compadrazgo he placed himself within a stratified network of ritual kin. On the lowest level this was a form of social structuring. Free blacks or mulattoes were supposed to be attached to a patron and not to wander about the district answering to no one. Indians, too, accepted the protection of an important Spaniard, taking his surname at baptism and accepting his gifts. AN412 AN413 The progress of conquest and conversion could conceivably be traced in the surnames of chiefs. Governor Ybarra once threatened to punish certain of them “with no intercession of godfathers.” [Note 33: Juan Menendez Marquez, Havana, 6/10/1600; Gov. Navarrete 11/15/1749; Pedro Sanchez Grinan, report, Madrid 7/7/1756; Gov. Ybarra to Fr. Benito Blasco 12/7/1605.] The larger the group the hidalgo was responsible for, the greater his power base. He himself had his own more important patron. Between people of similar social background, compadrazgo was a sign of friendship, business partnership, and a certain amount of complicity, since it was not good form to testify against a compadre. Treasurer Juan Menendez Marquez was connected to many important families in town, including that of the Portuguese merchant Juan Nunez de los Rios. Although it was illegal to relate oneself to gubernatorial or other fiscal authorities, Juan was also a compadre of Governor Mendez de Canzo and three successive factors. [Note 34: Santos de las Heras to the lord secretary, Mexico City, 3/15/1654; Diego de Evelina Compostela, Bishop of Cuba, to Gov. Torres y Ayala, 5/30/1697, included with Gov. Torres y Ayala 7/2/1697; Bartolome de Arguelles 10/31/1598 and 3/18/1599; Alonso de las Alas 1/12/1600; Parish Register Baptisms 9/10/1597 to 3/7/1619.] Servants filled the intermediate place in the hidalgo’s household between poor relatives and slaves. Sometimes they had entered service in order to get transportation to America, which was why the gentleman coming from Spain could only bring a few. One manservant coming to Florida to the governor’s house had to promise to remain there eight years. [Note 35: Cedula to dona Maria de Solis 1/31/1580.] The life of a servant was far from comfortable, sleeping wrapped in his cloak at the door of his master’s room and thankful to get enough to fill his belly. Still, a nondischargeable servant had a degree of security, and though not a family member he could make himself a place by faithful service. The Parish Register shows how Francisco Perez de Castaneda, who was sent from Xochimilco as a soldier, came to be overseer of the Menendez Marquez ranch of La Chua and was married in the home of don Thomas. [Note 36: Miguel Geronimo Portal y Mauleon’s lawyer 1630; Parish Register Marriage 4/20/1678; Florencia visita of 1694-95.] (Bushnell KC)