Source: Amy Notes (ID702)
Author: Howard, Amy (ID633)
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have Juan Ignacio try to convince Indians that the Spanish king will hear their petitions
have Juan Ignacio try to convince Indians that the Spanish king will hear their petitions
Cross references
Lifestyle differences between the classes
Date Created: 2023-10-12 20:56:17
Source: The King?s Coffer (ID 83)
Author: Bushnell, Amy (ID 32)
Content_id: 3935
In spite of the high Florida prices, an officer found it socially necessary to live differently from a soldier, who in turn made a distinction between himself and a common Indian. Indians supplemented a maize, beans, squash, fish, and game diet with acorns, palm berries, heart of palm, and koonti root—strange foods which the Spanish ate only during a famine. [Note 55: Captain Alonso de Pastrana 2/29/1624; Florencia visita of 1694-95; Fr. Francisco Perez, seen in Council 7/28/1646; Alonso de Leturiondo 4/29/1697; Gov. Zuniga y Cerda, 10/24/1701.] An hidalgo’s table was set with Mexican majolica rather than Guale pottery and seashells. It was supplied with “broken” sugar at 28 reales the arroba, and spices, kept in a locked chest in the dining room. [Note 56: Fr. Juan Gomez de Palma, Madrid? 1640; Juan de Pueyo visita of 1695, in residencia of Gov. Torres y Ayala; Francisco Pareja’s 1613 “Confessionario”; Alonso de Leturiondo 4/29/1697; Francisco Ramirez, Juan de Cueva, and Francisco Menendez Marquez, 5/30/1627.] His drinking water came from a spring on Anastasia Island. Instead of the soldier’s diet of salt meat, fish, and gruel or ash-cakes, the hidalgo dined on wheaten bread, pork, and chicken raised on shellfish. Instead of the native cassina tea he had Canary wines at 160 pesos a barrel and chocolate at 3 pesos for 1,000 beans of cacao. [Note 57: Pedro Sanchez Grinan report, Madrid, 7/7/1756; Alonso de Leturiondo 4/29/1697; Alonso de Caceres report, Havana, after 12/12/1574.] Pedro Menendez Marquez, the governor, said he needed 1,000 ducats a year for food in Florida, although his wife and household were in Seville. [Note 58: Pedro Menendez Marquez, Havana, 5/15/1580.] An hidalgo’s lady did not use harsh homemade soaps on her fine linens; she had the imported kind at three pesos a pound or 19 pesos a box. [Note 59: Fr. Francisco Martinez, memorial, seen in Council 6/15/1658; Francisco Ramirez, Juan de Cueva, and Francisco Menendez Marquez, 5/30/1627.] In the evening she lit lamps of nut oil or of olive oil at 40 reales the arroba, instead of pine torches, smelly tallow candles, or a wick floating in lard or bear grease. There were wax candles for a special occasion such as the saint’s day of someone in the family, but wax was dear: a peso per pound in Havana for the Campeche yellow and more for the white. When the whole parish church was lit with wax tapers on the Day of Corpus Christi the cost came to 50 pesos. [Note 60: Francisco Ramirez, Juan de Cueva, and Francisco Menendez Marquez, 5/30/1627; Thomas Menendez Marquez and Joachin de Florencia, 12/29/1693; Francisco Fuentes to the Padre, San Luis, 11/27/1682, copy in the act on the Indian complaints, 10/30/1681 to 6/28/1683 AN419; Alonso de Leturiondo 3/18/1689 and 8/7/1697; Fr. Francisco Martinez memorial, seen in Council 6/15/1658.] In St. Augustine, where the common folk used charcoal only for cooking, the hidalgo’s living rooms were warmed with charcoal braziers. One governor was said to keep two men busy at government expense cutting the firewood for his house. [Note 61: Juan de Pueyo and Juan Benedit Horruytiner 11/10/1707; Thomas Menendez Marquez and Joachin de Florencia 7/6/1689.] Even after death there were class distinctions. The hidalgo was buried in a private crypt, either in the 16-ducat section or the 10-ducat. Other plots of consecrated earth were priced at three or four ducats. A slave's final resting place cost one ducat, and a pauper was laid away free. It cost three times as much to bury an attaché of Governor Quiroga y Losada’s (36 pesos) as an ordinary soldier (12 pesos), on whom the priest declared there was no profit. [Note 62: Alonso de Leturiondo 3/18/1689; Thomas Menendez Marquez and Joachin de Florencia 12/29/1693.] (Bushnell KC)