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Gov Heredia uncovered an illegal Cuban-English trading triangle

Source: The Governorship of Spanish Florida #122

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Governor Fernandez de Heredia Uncovers an Illicit Trade Scandal
Not long after the Ambland affair, another illicit trade scandal broke in Florida. Actually the affair did not directly involve any Floridians except the governor, who exercised his judicial prerogatives and tried the illicit traders in his Florida court. But it was a significant event, and Governor Fernandez laid bare an illegal commercial enterprise that implicated many Cubans, including the governor in Havana.

The unlawful trade that Fernandez exposed had evidently been common practice for some time. Cuban sea captains, it appears, received licenses from the governor to fish from four to six months in waters off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. This, however, had become a cover for clandestine trade activities. Leaving Cuba with hidden cargoes of tobacco or sugar, Cuban sailors sailed for Charleston or another convenient harbor, where they exchanged their tobacco or sugar for goods like dishes, clothes, or furniture. They then went to another out-of-the-way port. Here they sold these articles for specie. With enough time still remaining to fulfil the terms of their license, the Cuban mariners sailed north to net a few cod and returned to Havana within the time prescribed by the governor’s license.

Governor Fernandez revealed this practice to his superiors in Spain when he brought the Cuban Captain Blas Angel to trial in 1756. Angel was master of the schooner Nuestra Senora de la Luz, which left Havana in the spring with a permit from the governor of Cuba to fish for four months in vaguely defined northern waters. Before departing, however, Angel had hidden 190 bags (zurrones) of Cuban tobacco on board his vessel. Initially things went well for him. The Cuban captain managed to slip his cargo out of Havana and exchange it in Charleston for clothes, blankets, silverware, crystal, china, foodstuffs, mirrors, and other articles.

All might have gone well for Angel if he had not chosen Saint Augustine as the outlet of the goods obtained in Charleston. On the surface the Florida capital seemed a perfect market—an easy voyage from the Carolinas and a town removed from the principal avenues of Spanish colonial trade where the people would welcome his niceties. But Angel did not or could not reckon with Governor Fernandez. Unlike his predecessors he was not willing to ignore illicit trade activities in his colony. He had high hopes of securing a seat on the Council of the Indies and meant to adhere to the letter of the law while he was in Florida. AN505 This would solidify his claims on the office and show he superiors his loyalty and talent for administration.

When the Nuestra Senora de la Luz and a second vessel, the San Joseph, appeared at the mouth of Saint Augustine Harbor, Fernandez acted immediately. Concluding that the vessels contained illicit cargoes, he ordered an aide, Domingo Perez, to take 60 men in two launches to investigate the cargoes and manifests of both ships in order to determine their reasons for entering the harbor. The ships were obviously not regularly scheduled vessels of the Havana Company carrying the subsidy to Florida, and Fernandez meant to establish their purpose in calling at Saint Augustine. When Perez and his men boarded the two vessels, it became immediately obvious that both contained articles of illicit trade that in no way agreed with the cargoes listed on their manifests. The 60 soldiers seized the six crewmen and four passengers and confiscated a variety of goods valued at 4,487 pesos. Fernandez imprisoned Angel and his crew, but the four passengers somehow managed to escape to the Franciscan convent, where they obtained the ecclesiastical sanctuary.

Blas Angel and his mate, Alberto Andrade, came to trial before the Florida governor and confessed their crime. The two admitted that they had sailed for Charleston with the 190 bags of tobacco hidden in their holds and had exchanged this for the articles Fernandez had seized on the two vessels. They explained further that the four-month license granted to them by the governor of Cuba gave them ample time to carry on their illegal trade and still fulfil the terms of the license. The other crew members and the four passengers, however, did not join Angel and Andrade in their confession. They feigned ignorance of the laws against the trade being carried on by their superiors and implored Fernandez to absolve them of complicity. They had wives and children in Havana who were going hungry while they were away.

The governor was not appreciably moved by their protestations of ignorance or their pleas for mercy. He first condemned both Angel and his mate to six years of hard labor on the fortifications at Saint Augustine. AN506 After the completion of this sentence, both men were required to serve in Spanish presidios in Africa. Neither might ever sail his own ship again. The master of the San Joseph and three of his four passengers received four years at hard labor in the Florida capital, while the other passenger and the remaining crewmen were sentenced to three years. One can only speculate whether the flight of the four passengers to the convent and the need for their forcible extraction made the governor less merciful.

Fernandez had dealt vigorously with the illicit traders, or so it seemed. He had proved his diligence and vigilance to the crown and demonstrated why he deserved a seat on the Council of the Indies. In Spain, however, events took their usual turn; the Council disapproved sharply of the governor’s actions. Its members believed that Angel and his cohorts deserved more severe sentences, more compatible with the grave crime they had committed. In addition, Fernandez had wrongfully seized the four passengers who had taken refuge in the convent. By extricating them forcibly he had desecrated the sacred rights and privileges of the Franciscans. Once again the governor had attempted to administer justice; once again he had received a reprimand from his superiors in Spain. He had violated the rights of ecclesiastical sanctuary and mitigated the sentences imposed on Angel and his crew. In its dispatch to Fernandez this seemed far more important that the governor’s vigorous efforts to expose the illicit trade scandal and to bring the guilty parties to justice. AN507

In Cuba there were serious repercussions from the Angel affair. The Council censured the Cuban governor for allowing his captains to abuse their licenses to fish. In the future, ordered the Council, he must concede licenses only for the time necessary to carry out the specific provisions of the ships’ manifests. A royal cedula of September 25, 1760, later confirmed the Council’s order. This specifically forbade the governor in Havana to issue licenses to Cuban mariners for periods that would enable them to trade illicitly in foreign ports.

(Tepaske GSF)