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Pedro Menendez Marquez got investigated by Spain
Source: The King?s Coffer #83
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In 1573 the king moved to establish royal control by appointing Dr. Alonso de Caceres, a distinguished member of the audiencia of Santo Domingo, to investigate Pedro Menendez Marquez’s term as Cuban lieutenant governor. [Note 14: Cedula to the royal officials of Santo Domingo 2/18/1573] At the time, the outside investigator was the crown’s chosen means of detecting frauds and recovering treasury deficits. There were three kinds of investigation: a pesquisa was a secret inquiry into almost anything; a residencia was a judicial inquiry into a bonded official’s completed term; AN37 and a visita was the investigation of an entire local bureaucracy and its activities, past and present. In practice the three were not strictly differentiated. Dr. Caceres first conducted a pesquisa and came up with 50 counts on which to try Menendez Marquez. As judge of the residencia he found him guilty on 38 of them and referred his case to the Council. Caceres had also been ordered to go to Florida for a one-month visita, but he never embarked on it. Menendez Marquez and Esteban de las Alas were heard to boast at the door of a tavern that they would put the judge ashore at Tequesta and let the Indians see that he did no further harm, and it was possible that they meant it. [Note 15: Alonso de Caceres, sentence of Pedro Menendez Marquez, Havana 2/20/1574; Francisco Manrique de Rojas, declaration, in act against Pedro Menendez Marquez, Havana 6/31/1574] AN38 Without visiting Florida, Caceres nonetheless formed an opinion on how it was being managed. In a lengthy report which avoided direct accusation of the adelantado, he explained that the numerous lieutenant governors and officials in the Florida forts were kinsmen or close connections of the Menendez clan in Cuba, all of them doing as they pleased what would profit them. No one outside their group could ship salt meat or any other foodstuff to Florida, for no skipper would load it. The clan monopolized shipping, priced the supplies, figured the payroll, and took each other’s accounts, “and so they remain with everything.” [Note 16: Alonso de Caceres report, Havana, after 12/12/1574]
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