Update this timeline entry

Royal cedula requesting information on Santa Catalina and Guale (Mont 12)

Source: The Struggle for the Georgia Coast #129

Project ID

Chapter

Timeline title

Start date

End date

Filename received

Filename assigned

Content

(Worth SGC)
DOCUMENT 12: ROYAL CEDULA TO GOVERNOR QUIROGA Y LOSADA, 1689

[f. 1]

Year of 1689, Number 12(1)
NOTE 1. Castilla made this note on the upper margin of the original cadula.

The King
Don Diego de Quiroga y Losada, my governor and captain general of the city of St. Augustine in the provinces of Florida, or to the person or persons under whose charge might be its government. In view of what Don Juan Marquez Cabrera, your predecessor in that government, represented to me in a letter of the eighth of December of the past year of sixteen eighty(2)
NOTE 2. This letter appears in AGI SD 226.

about the Indians having abandoned the Island of Santa Cathalina (which is in the province of Guale) due to the invasion which the English of the town of San Jorge and the Chuchumecos made against them, and the great suitability of settling it again, it being fertile and abundant in provisions, and the relief and aid of that presidio, I ordered the president of Canaria, by cedula of the tenth of November of the year of sixteen eighty-one,(3)
NOTE 3. The text of this cedula appears in AGI SD 839.

to see to it that in the ships which go to Havana from those islands there should embark some families, aiding them like those who embarked or were ready to embark in the ships (naos) of Barlovento, having understood [f. 1, vto.] that not because some of the said families might arrive at it [Havana] did they have to continue on to settle the Island of Santa Cathalina until they had my resolution for it, and that of the Junta de Guerra of the Indies, and so that I could determine if they were to settle or not, I ordered by cedula of the same day, the tenth of November of sixteen eighty-one, that [Governor Marquez Cabrera] should inform me of the district which all those provinces of Florida comprise, sending a map adjusted at the base with distances, of the situation of them, and of the said Island of Santa Cathalina, with all distinction and clarity of form which could be entered in the understanding of all its district and jurisdiction, and of that which relates to this province, explaining the benefits that would result from settling the island, and if they were looking after only the greater abundance of people, or in what consisted the suitability of its population, the fruits which it produces, in what quantity, and of what types, and if they are the same that are gathered on the mainland, and if they will be so necessary that without them they will not be able to sustain themselves, and if the island is at risk that foreigners might settle and fortify themselves on it; and by your predecessor not having made the said report up to now, it has seemed suitable to order and command you (as for the present I do) to do so immediately because it is greatly [f.2] needed, and by the Junta needing to have it present, and that you should remit it on the first occasion which offers itself to the hands of my undersigned secretary, expressing in it everything which occurs to you to say and prepare, so that with entire understanding of it a resolution can be taken once and for all on the settling of the said Island of Santa Cathalina. By dispatch of the date of this one, the same report is requested of the Bishop of Cuba, for thus is suitable to my service. Signed in Buen Retiro on the twentieth of May, sixteen eighty-nine.

I, the King

By order of the King, Our Lord,
Antonio Ortiz de Halora
Duplicated
[paraph] [paraph] [paraph] [paraph] [paraph]

To the governor of Florida, ordering him to make immediately the report which was requested by cedula of November 10, 1681, about the settling of the Island of Santa Cathalina, because it is greatly needed.

Corrected [paraph]
Official

[f.2]

I made a copy of this royal cedula which remains placed in the archive of government under my charge. Florida, August 6, 1739.

Castilla(4)
NOTE 4. Here the 18th-century notary Francisco de Castilla placed his certification of having made a copy of this original cddula.

Duplicated from number 75 of the third legajo.(5)
NOTE 5. This filing note was placed vertically on the outside of the last folio of the cedula and refers to the specific filing location of the document.