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The Columbus
Petition Document OF DON
PEDRO COLON DE PORTUGAL Y CASTRO Duke of
Veragua & La
Vega Marquis of Jamaica TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS MARIANA OF AUSTRIA Queen
Regent of Charles II of Spain FOR THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA1672
Reproduced
from the original document in the collection of the late Lady
HAROLD MITCHELL of PROSPECT Translated
by JEREMY
LAWRANCE Copyright
1992-2000-The Mill Press KINGSTON,
JAMAICA
This book is affectionately dedicated to the memory of the late Mary-Jean
Mitchell Green (1951-1990)
wife
of Peter Green mother
of Alexander and Andrew daughter
of the late Sir
Harold Paton Mitchell, Baronet of Tulliallan in the Kingdom of Fife, Scotland and
Luscar in the Province of Alberta, Canada and
to the late Lady
Harold Mitchell (1911-1992)
through
whose kind permission this historic document was reproduced from her personal
collection INTRODUCTION
This facsimile edition of the Columbus Petition
Document for the Island of Jamaica
is offered in the spirit of commemorating the Quincentennial, while bringing
to the attention of the people of the country of Jamaica and the world the
significance of the island historically as well as for its renowned
hospitality and beauty. Jamaica is the only country in the New World where
Columbus actually spent a period of time, albeit unwillingly, for a year and
five days on the occasion of his fourth and last voyage in 1503. If it
had not been for the hospitality of the indigenous Taino (Arawak)
inhabitants, a highly civilised and gentle, peace-loving people, Columbus and
his crew of 115 would not have survived to leave Jamaica’s
bounteous shores. A special debt is owed to Lady
Mitchell of Prospect for allowing the petition document to be reproduced from
her personal collection and dedicated to her late daughter, Mary-Jean Mitchell
Green. Lady Mitchell traces her ancestry on the distaff side to Isabel, the
granddaughter of the great explorer Columbus. The document appears to be unique,
although a small number of copies would most likely have been privately printed
for the members of the family of Colon and perhaps the Spanish Royal Council of
the Indies. To date no other copies have come to light. It was most probably
written in 1672 the Treaty of
Madrid having taken place in 1670,
fifteen years after the British conquest in 1655 when the island of Jamaica was taken from Spain. This would have
been during the reign of Charles II (1661—1700), son and successor of Philip
IV and the last of the Spanish Hapsburgs. Being a cripple in both mind and body,
his mother, Queen Mariana of Austria, was his regent. It is to the Queen that
the document is addressed.
Dr Jeremy Lawrance must be singled out for special acknowledgement. A
scholar of Spanish and Portuguese studies at Manchester University, his interpretive
translation of the document has been notably acclaimed by others in the field.
His unfailing response during the eight years gestation of this volume has been
admirable.
This version has been specially prepared for the web. It does not contain
the Spanish text, nor does it contain any of the illustrations, maps and the
other memorabilia that are in the bound version available from the Mill Press. VALERIE FACEY The Mill Press Kingston, Jamaica. April 2000 *
*Ferdinand Columbus’s biography was written in Spanish, but this copy
is now lost. The Italian version was printed in Venice in 1571.
SENORA DON PEDRO COLON DE PORTUGAL Y
CASTRO, THAT
having placed in Your Majesty’s royal hands a memorial in which he briefly
expounded the reasons which lead him to hope that Your Majesty’s royal
Highness might be pleased to order him compensation for the island of Jamaica,
Your Majesty was pleased to refer him to the Council of the Indies. And knowing
the justice of that tribunal, the duke again bows at Your Majesty’s royal feet
for the honour which you have been pleased to show him, and also to expound in
somewhat greater detail the foundations on which his claim is based. And he says: That he has succeeded
to the house and services of the distinguished and famous knight Don Cristobal
Colon, first discoverer and conqueror of the West Indies and New World,(l) which
were unknown to all the Old World until discovered by this brave captain, who
presented it to the crown of Castile in the reign of the glorious Catholic
Monarchs Don Fernando and Dona Isabel: a world overflowing with boundless riches
and extended over innumerable
kingdoms. From all this the Spanish nation gained great glory and fame, and its
kings new and splendid titles, huge wealth, newly-discovered natural products,
and finally a new and powerful monarchy so serviceable to God that, though the
treasures of gold, silver, pearls, precious stones, medicinal plants, spices and
other noble natural products which it paid and continues to pay daily in tribute
to Their Catholic Highnesses far exceed any conceivable figure, they
nevertheless valued more highly the gate which it opened to the spread of the
Christian faith and extirpation of idolatry. No doubt it was for this that God
provided this new monarchy for our lords the Catholic Monarchs, as a reward
for driving the Moors out of Spain, at the very moment when they were
accomplishing the deed. God gave them the gift of these extensive provinces to
employ their zeal, to the astonishment of other nations who thereby learnt how
greatly God esteemed and favoured the zealous and invincible armies of Spain by
granting them so great a space in which to exercise their calling to their own
greater glory; and also by choosing as his instrument the zealous, learned,
expert and valorous Christian Don Cristobal Colon, enlightening his
understanding and encouraging his valour for his unheard of and astounding deed,
fitting him with all the gifts he needed to dare to propose it, let alone
accomplish it, and inspiring him to choose the favour and auspices of such kings
as God deemed most worthy of having this most precious jewel and new-found
monarchy mounted in the costly gold of their crown. Great were the natural gifts, which
Divine Providence showered upon Don Cristobal Colon to make him the fitting
minister of so singular a task. God predestined this great world for the
Catholic Monarchs, whose zeal in the cause of true religion He had foreseen from
eternity, and for their successors; and to this end He also predestined the most
fitting means, namely the person of the admiral, Don Cristobal Colon, whom He
brought forward from illustrious forebears and equipped with knowledge of all
the natural phenomena of heavens and earth covered by astrology, geography,
hydrography and so forth, with rare practical experience of seas and provinces,
with bravery superior to all the set-backs before which a man of lesser courage
would have given way, and with invincible perseverance in all the great labours
which the elements set in his path on his stupendous navigation to discover
these measureless regions, four times repeated by different routes — and
what is more, to put up with the presumptuous ignorance of some and the malice
and envy of others, who in opposing him opposed the intentions of God. In
consideration and recognition of which Pope Alexander VI expressed the following
brief and weighty words: our beloved Cristobal Colon was equal to so great an
enterprise, and deserving of countless praises and rewards for the many
tribulations he confronted in order to discover so great a continent and such
remote and unknown islands in uncharted seas.(2) He was also and above all the ideal
instrument of divine choice because of his great Christian virtues and piety and
catholic zeal, never stained in all his continual dealings with peoples of all
religions, which shone out in all his actions and life. It is praised by Oviedo,
Herrera and others, and shone out in every pious and catholic disposition of his
last will and testament. If only misfortune had not prevented their due
fulfillment! It is quite certain that since the creation of the world or
scattering of races after the Flood, there has never been another man so apt and
suited, even to conceive of such an enterprise. But Don Cristobal Colon was
driven by heaven to disregard all the profound and even saintly authors who
thought the whole thing a mere fairy tale (for God, though he enlightened them
about so many subjects, did not enlighten them about this one);(3) and also all
the astrologers and modern philosophers who mocked his ideas as a baseless
dream. Instead, God gave him the knowledge to convince them and the perseverance
to prove by experiment the ignorance of two entire worlds, each of which thought
itself unique; to discover a passage from one to the other, to unite them in
commerce and religion to the greater glory of God and the kings of Spain, under
whose sway he placed all the races and treasures which are the talk of so many
tongues and pens of all nations that their abundance forces one to pass them
over—amongst such an immense chorus of praise for this prodigy, it is
insidious to single out one at the expense of another. Nevertheless, to show how
firm was the certainty with which Don Cristobal Colon, whether guided by
scientific evidence or divine enlightenment, carried out his purpose even when
it seemed most foolhardy, I cannot forebear to call to Your Majesty’s
attention the following words of the learned and discriminating Giovanni Botero:
There
never was a more persevering man in the world than Cristobal Colon, for be
resolutely persevered with an enterprise judged by many to be mad, by others to
be impossible, despised by the Portuguese and English in equal measure,
disdained by the catholic King; and all this with such firmness of purpose, and
demanding conditions so honourable and favourable to himself and his successors,
that it was as if he held the discovery and conquest of the New World in the
palm of his hand, not in his imagination. And he goes on to this effect at
length. If we link this resilient sense of certainty which led him to offer such
a novel gift to such monarchs with his swift and easily-won success, who can
doubt that it was divine rather than natural enlightenment which made this great
man the ideal instrument of God’s purposes? As for the outcome, let the words
of Gonzalo de Oviedo paint the picture. In his Sumario or preamble to
his later History,
addressing the emperor who had commanded him to write it, Oviedo mentions a
tiger which Admiral Don Diego Colon, Cristobal’s son, sent to the emperor at
Toledo. It was different from any tiger known in our hemisphere, and Oviedo,
without resolving whether it was the same species, says: About
many animals that exist in the New World the ancient writers knew nothing at
all, they existed in a region of the earth unknown to the geographical science
of Ptolemy, or anyone else, until Admiral Cristobal Colon revealed it —
a deed certainly more worthy and
incomparably greater than Hercules’ opening of the straits of Gibraltar from
the Mediterranean to Ocean, a passage unknown to the Greeks before Hercules,
from which arose the legend that the mountains of Galpe and Abyla which face
each other across the Straits, one in Africa and the other in Spain, were once
joined, and that Hercules split them apart and created the en trance to the Mediterranean where be set up his pillars, which Your
Majesty bears as the emblem on his arms with the motto PLVS VLTRA, words worthy
of so
great an emperor, and unsuitable to any other prince whatever, since Your Sacred
and Catholic Majesty has advanced the pillars to regions stranger and thousands
of leagues further away than Hercules and all the other heroes of the Old World
ever reached. Truly, sir, even if a golden statue had been erected to Colon the
ancients would not have considered it sufficient honour if he had lived in their
day.
All
this, which was addressed to the emperor, is worthy also of Your Majesty’s
ears. Besides these gifts, Colon had considerable knowledge of theology and of
some, indeed many, of the prophecies whose meaning has become clear since their
fulfillment. It seems as if God wished him to understand them beforehand, since
he was to be the minister and instrument of their fulfillment. Leaving aside
countless examples to be found in Solorzano and Thomas Bocio, the most famous is
that of Isaiah,(4) which contains all the details of the islands which were to
be discovered, and the ships which were to sail there, and compares the ships
with doves, which refer to the name and ancient coat of arms of the Colon family
(azure, three doves argent) with a helm and figure of justice above, and the
motto
Faith, Hope and Charity.
Three was the number of the ships or caravels in which Colon undertook the
first voyage, three the virtues which he girded on, three the doves on his arms,
which the prophet compares to ships. In all this the most serious authorities
(quoted above) recognize not a human plan, but a divine mystery to obtain such
immense profit, to harvest so many souls for God and such glory for His
favourites the kings of Spain. Eternal remembrance is likewise due to the man
whose hereditary blazon is Justice attended by Faith, Hope and Charity, virtues
which shone through all his actions; and whose spirit God raised to the great
task as if to confirm the prophecies, and especially a dream he had three days
before landfall, which acted as encouragement to his soldiers: it declared that
in three days’ time he would be able to give consolation to the faint-hearted.
Solorzano tells the story, basing it on Girolamo Benzoni, Peter Martyr and
others.(5) It all happened as foretold; and so certain was Colon of the outcome
that on the appointed day he stood watch at the masthead and was the first man
to sight land. The monarchs had promised a pension of 10,000 maravedis a year
for life to the first man who sighted land; therefore the admiral was granted
the pension from the excises of Cordova by royal privilege dated Valladolid 18
November 1493. Even in this detail God wished the deed to be entirely his. These revelations and ancient
prophecies and modem omens were numerous. Even the Indians themselves had
oracles, like the Sybils of our hemisphere in pagan times. These were so
well-known and public that they were sung aloud at their dances and festivals;
they warned that bearded and clothed men (the Indians were beardless and
unclothed) would come from the east and put an end to their sacrifices and
superstitions by force of arms. Another of these omens cost one of the chieftains
of Hispaniola five days of fasting; the story is told by Peter Martyr and many
others who are cited by Solorzano, along with many similar oracles. Even these
peoples Divine Providence treated as its own creatures, giving them warnings
for the correction of their ways as he did to Pharoah and even to the sensual
pagans before the Flood, and later to the despots of Babylon, Persia and Rome
though the kingdom of the New World is incomparably greater than all those
kingdoms together. So all this great work was God’s handiwork, inspired in
Admiral Colon as His unique instrument. But before getting down to details about
the person and descendants of the admiral, it is well worth emphasizing that
God had singled him out to serve the Spanish crown in these great matters, as
shown by the unusual way He brought it about— although he was partly connected
with it already, as a servant of the Habsburg house of Austria, to whom this
realm was later to belong. It happened in this manner: two knights of the Colon
family (as related by Sabellico, and Fernando Colon after him) were in the
service of Emperor Frederick Ill in the war against the Venetians. The elder was
an old man, so that the second was nicknamed ‘the Younger’. They had a fleet
so large that on one occasion they captured four heavy Venetian galliasses of
incredible size and strength. So great was the terror Colon the Younger caused
on the high seas that his name became a bugbear to scare children. Now the crew
and soldiers who escaped were rescued by Joao II of Portugal, clothed and sent
back to Venice; and the Signory in gratitude sent Geronimo Donato as ambassador
to thank the king. But as these galliasses of the Venetians were returning from
Flanders, Colon the Younger and Admiral Cristobal, who was sailing with him,
engaged them in fierce battle between Lisbon and Cape St Vincent. During the
battle a Venetian ship grappled with Don Cristobal’s; they caught fire, and
since it was impossible to cut free, those who could abandoned ship. Don
Cristobal, who swam like a fish, laid hold of an oar which luck put in his way
and bravely swam two leagues to the Portuguese shore, where he arrived exhausted
and naked, as you might expect. He reached Lisbon, where he found many Genoese
to recognize his valour and good breeding and provide him with all his needs; so
that he set up house in that city, marrying Dona Felipa Moniz de Perestrelo a
lady of the convent of All Saints. (This has led some writers to assert that
Colon was of the noble lineage of Moniz and Perestrelo, when in fact it was his
wife who was the daughter of Pero Moniz de Perestrelo, a well-known Portuguese
knight.) And this was the strange way in which God brought the admiral from his
employment in the service of the house of Austria, to the position in the
service of the Spanish monarchy which He had chosen for him. Although nobility of blood was
quite superfluous where there were so many personal gifts, and the favour of
heaven besides, God desired that the admiral should lack nothing befitting His
chosen instrument for the heroic deed. He chose him, therefore, from the
illustrious and ancient house and blood of the Colombi of Cucaro, a castle with
lands in Monferrato which today belongs to the duke of Mantua.(6) The nobility
and antiquity of the counts Colombo, and their lordship of this castle of Cucaro,
as well as of numerous other towns and manors (all listed by name), are all
confirmed by a charter of 940 A.D. granted by the emperor Otto the Great
(Herrera was wrong to attribute it to Otto II). This not only confirms three
Colombo brothers’ feudal possessions and lordships, in recognition of their
services to the empire in command of its armies and the suppression of rebels,
but also makes further grants. In another charter of 1341 John Palaeologus,
marquis of Monferrato, confirms these graces and privileges upon Enrico Colombo,
heir of the three just mentioned and great-grandfather of the admiral. All this
is recorded by Herrera, who submitted it to the judgment of the Council of the
Indies, where, at the time he was writing, Count Baltasar Colombo of Cucaro was
a litigant. In default of any male issue in the house of Veragua, which was
founded as an agnatic entail by the admiral, Baltasar proved that he was a
direct descendant by the male line of Lanza Colombo, grandfather of the admiral
and father of Domenico, the admiral’s father, all of them descended from
Enrico Colombo. This knight’s lawsuit commenced on 12 January 1583 and lasted
for many years, until tenure was granted to Don Nufo Colon de Portugal on 22
December 1608; in the sentence of the court, it was stipulated that the said Don
Baltasar Colombo should be paid 2000 ducats from the sequestration, in
recognition of the said blood relationship traced and documented by twenty
charters, witnesses, affiliations and other legal instruments. This was equivalent to what was
done with the remaining female relatives and claimants; Don Baltasar was
excluded because he was not a direct descendant of the admiral himself, who
named only his own descendants. Hence the ancestry of this line is documented by
countless patents of nobility in the Council of the Indies. Such nobility and
antiquity may compete with the greatest, since this family can be traced back
nine hundred years with the title of counts of large fiefs and lordships in the
territory of the Empire; and its origins are known to be no less
grand, since the grant of Emperor Otto was not a new donation, but the
confirmation of all the fiefs which they already held in the towns of Asqui,
Savona, Asti, Monferrato, Turin, Vercelli, Bergamo, Parma and Cremona with all
their appurtenances, and of other possessions in other places in the whole
kingdom of Italy, together with the said counts’ rights of dominion over their
vassals; all this without conditions or obligations of any kind. The
charter is dated Pavia 1 4 February 940; and in addition to this confirmation,
they were granted fresh grants of castles in Cucaro, Conzano, Rossignano, and a
quarter of Bistagno, which at that time belonged to the emperor. All this is
confirmed in the said legal instruments. The castle of Cucaro, which despite the
revolutions of ages remains in the hands of the same family, is in the district
of Tortona, where its lands are situated1 and there the present
petitioner the duke lodged with his retainers when he was on service in Milan,
recognized and entertained by the count as a descendant of that same original
line from which sprang the illustrious branch of Admiral Colon. On this noble base heaven planted the scientific knowledge,
courage, religious and catholic zeal and special devotion to the crown of Spain
which enabled him to achieve the most astounding deed the world has ever seen,
or ever will see. In considering it, the English writer Alan Copp said that only
two deeds in the history of the world were greater than Cristobal Colon’s:
one, speaking of the natural order, being the creation of the universe and the
other, speaking of the supernatural, being the Incarnation of the Word and
Redemption.(7) And indeed this was no exaggeration: the glory of the creation
would not shine so brightly if half the world had remained ignorant of the other
and each existed as if the other had never been created. By revealing the one to
the other, Colon thus added lustre to the grandeur of the Creation. As for the
Redemption, if he did not extend its merits and greatness, he was at least the
instrument of its introduction in the New World, which knew nothing of it. He
thus played a large part in both these deeds, the greatest of God’s deeds that
we know of. Great and zealous writers cannot find words enough to express their
thoughts on this event.(8) The Frenchman Genebrard said, when discussing the
occasion when the Catholic Monarchs had just driven the Muslims from Spain and
were also undertaking to drive idolatry from an entire hemisphere, that it was
the particular mission of Spain to conquer all infidels; and Erasmus remarked
that Spain was the fated bulwark of the Faith and fortress of true religion. Nor
should we forget Mariana, an historian very sparing of his praises, who writes: The most memorable and honorable and
profitable enterprise ever achieved in Spain (he
might better have said in the whole world) was the discovery
of the Western Indies, on account of their
size rightly called the New World, a marvellous deed which had been reserved for
this age tbrough all the centuries. Cristobal Colon, Genoese by birth, who was
most experienced in the art of navigation, a man of great spirit and lofty
ideas. etc. And he adds: It is
noteworthy by that so great a deed, and one which was to prove of such immense
profit, was undertaken with a mere 17,000 ducats,
which the monarchs were obliged to borrow. Colon died, an eternally famous man,
in 1506. He was made admiral of the Indies and duke of Veragua, a just reward
for his great merits and services.
Great
indeed is the power of truth, which even Mariana’s pen could not deny, try as
he would to play it down ! The greatness of these services was recognized by the
Catholic Monarchs to a greater degree than Mariana’s history records: they did
Colon signal honours, since even before he set out on the conquest they made him
admiral of the Indies, (9) a title confirmed five years later for him and all
his descendants with all the honours, prerogatives, ranks and rights of the
holder of post of admiral of Castile, Don Alfonso Enriquez; and they ordered by
special writ (10) that this ancient entitlement be inserted in the title of
admiral of the Indies, so it should receive the same recognition and be accorded
the same rights in the Indies, with an eighth share of all booty and all the
rest as stipulated(11). The same patent granted Colon the
use of the title or form of address Don, which was then rare, for himself, his
brothers, and his successors; the same honour was granted at the time to Don
Alonso de Aguilar and to Don Francisco de Cordoba, the Master of the Guard.(12)
After the first voyage of discovery, the admiral came to Barcelona in 1493 to
tell Their Majesties what he had achieved and discovered; amongst other great
honours which they granted him on this occasion, retold by so many historians,
the greatest was to request him to be seated in their Majesties’ presence at a
public audience, and on a seat of the same size as their own just below the
royal throne. The king rose to his feet when Don Cristobal entered and allowed
him to kiss his hand instead of his feet. And when he paraded through Barcelona
on horseback the king made Colon ride at his right side, while his close kinsman
Prince Fortuna, the only person apart from Admiral Colon whom the king had ever
previously allowed to ride at his side, took the other side; and the king did
him other extraordinary honours never before granted to one who was not of the
blood royal. It is recorded in this connection, for instance, that the same King
Fernando allowed Don Fernando of Aragon, duke of Montalto, to be seated in his
presence in Naples, as the son of the king of Naples and his own relative. Colon
received these honours, proper to the son of a king, merely for his personal
achievements: a remarkable thing for those most politic monarchs who first
cloaked the Spanish monarchy in the rituals of majesty,(13) and the first
foundation of the grandeeship of the house of Colon, laid as a sublime
demonstration, never to be repeated with any of those who subsequently received
the privilege of grandees, of those great monarchs’ esteem for his merits.
Among the innumerable privileges ordained in his favour by these glorious
monarchs, the most lofty are the words with which they honour him and declare
his merits. These are often repeated in the charters whose originals are
preserved by his house, in which Their Majesties assure the permanence of their
honours and grants and affirm their intention to increase them. Let one
testimony suffice, a charter dated Valencia de la Torre 14 March 1502 which reads: You know
already the favour with which we have always ordered you to be treated, and we
are now more than ever determined to honour and treat you well. The grants which
we have made you will be observed in their entirety without
contravention according to the letter of the law and the tenor of the privileges
which you have received from us, and you and your sons will enjoy them as of
right. If it is necessary to confirm them again, we shall confirm them, and
command that your son he possessed of them all. And it is our will to honour you
further and to make further grants to you and your sons and brothers, and we
shall have all reasonable care in the matter. From these royal declarations it
was clearly no idle boast when the admiral said in his will:
My lords the king and queen, when I served
them with the gift of the Indies — I
mean ‘served’, since it is clear that by God’s grace I gave them the
Indies out of my own pocket, as it were; I may say this for I petitioned their
majesties about them when they were still undiscovered and the passage to them
hidden from all to whom I spoke of them, and in their discovery, besides
contributing my plan and person, their Highnesses spent nothing, and were
unwilling to spend anything, beyond one million maravedis (how far from the mark were Mariana’s sums, in the
passage quoted above!), and
I had to put up the rest of the money; so their Highnesses were pleased to grant
me my share in the said Indies, islands and mainland, to the west of a meridian
which they commanded to be drawn one hundred leagues beyond the Azores and Cape
Verde, of a third and an eighth of the whole profit, plus a tithe of all that is
in them, as shown at greater length in my said privileges.
Amongst
all these honours, one stands out: the addition to the hereditary arms of Colon
of a charge bearing the royal arms of Castile and Leon, with anchors and
islands, and the unique motto A
Castilla y a Leon nuevo mundo dio Colon (‘To Castile and Leon a new world was added by
Colon’). This was in exchange for the
admiral’s having brought about the addition to the royal arms of the pillars
of Hercules with the motto PLVS
VLTRA, as mentioned above. The admiral served in this great attempt
not only with his own person but also with those of his brothers Don Bartolome
and Don Diego Colon. The first was made captain-general of the Indies by Their
Majesties in return for his many important services, warlike valour, vital
capture of a powerful Indian chieftain, and repeated voyages.(14) Don Diego, his
brother, was viceroy during the absence of the admiral. Both achieved
distinguished works as the fruit of their zeal, according to the histories;( 1 5)
the present duke is heir to their services, as he is of Don Fernando Colon,
the admiral’s illegitimate son, who was appointed Cosmographer Royal to Their
Majesties for his learning and distinguished virtue, and who, after serving as
page to my lord Prince Don Juan together with Don Diego Colon, the admiral’s
legitimate son and heir, accompanied him on his voyages to the Indies. Both were
sons of noble mothers. Don Fernando was one of the judges named by the Spanish
crown in the controversy with the kings of Portugal over the demarcation of the
Moluccas, in which capacity he attended the meetings in Badajoz until their
dissolution. By his diligence many errors in
previous demarcations were corrected. Don Diego died on the return voyage from
the Indies, having set out to defend his rights before the emperor against his
persistent rivals, who indulged their greed under the pretext of protecting the
royal treasury. How swiftly and completely Don
Cristobal Colon fulfilled the great obligation he had contracted with the
monarchs, and with what profit to the royal exchequer ! Besides all the islands
and mainland which he discovered and conquered (which he mentions in his will
with references to his logbooks and charts, being the first to conquer the
island of Hispaniola, which has a circumference of 600 leagues, as the histories
all relate), and besides all the many rare natural products of those provinces,
and the pearls and precious stones beyond calculation, in the ten years which
the Catholic Monarchs enjoyed the revenues of the Indies until 1505,
when they were succeeded by Queen Juana, more than 60 million in gold and
silver reached Spain.(16) And since
that time the amount that has come in is impossible to calcuIate. The most
moderate estimate of the Seville bullion trade, excluding pearls and natural
products and counting only gold and silver, can be no lower than 7,000,000 per
annum, so that in the 170 years that have passed since the admiral’s conquest
1,190 million pesos have been extracted, excluding gems, pearls, and losses from
shipwrecks and pirates and unrecorded contraband.(17) The Catholic Monarchs also honoured
their promises, and made him the grants they had offered: namely, that Don
Cristobal Colon was to be admiral of all the Indies and Ocean Sea discovered and
yet to be discovered; and after him his successors, with all the
dignities and honours and emoluments of the post of admiral of Castile held by
Don Alfonso Enriquez; that he was to be perpetual viceroy of the
Indies, and his successors after him, and governor and captain-general of the
same, with authority to nominate all political and military officers, and to be
judge of appeal in all cases of first and second instance1 to levy a
tithe on all sales, discoveries and incomes in the Indies, without any
distinction or exception whatever; to finance an eighth share of any fleet
that might be armed, if he should so desire, and to take an eighth of the booty;
all this to apply to all parts of the Indies discovered or yet to be discovered,
(18) because he discovered them, conquered them, and took possession of them in
Her Majesty’s name. Out of all this the admiral founded an entail in fee
simple by royal licence as his own possession with the firmest title. The patent
of entail confirms all those pious and Christian dispositions which have since
been frustrated by alterations brought about by litigation. (19).
After the death of Admiral Cristobal Colon, his son and heir Admiral Don
Diego succeeded to the possession of all these grants. He voyaged to the Indies
with his wife the vicereine Dofia Maria de Toledo to carry out his duties as
admiral, perpetual viceroy and captain-general; where, having inherited his
father’s bravery, religious zeal and loyalty to the monarchy, Diego advanced
his father’s conquests. On the death of this uncle the adelentado mayor Don Bartolome Colon, this title was added to those
of Admiral Don Diego by a further grant.(20) He distinguished himself as a
knight in the king’s service, particularly in putting down the dangerous
revolt of the blacks in Hispaniola; this he did with great courage and skill, as
Oviedo and the rest relate.(21) His government was recognised for its
rectitude; not seeing eye to eye with the officers of the Audiencia, those of them who opposed him were severely punished by
His Majesty or came to a disastrous end because of their own crimes, whereas one
with whom he was friendly because he was an upright man never had any charge
against him, nor could all the malice of tyrants ever invent one. All this is
retold and weighed by Oviedo, an eye-witness and royal overseer, who expresses
fulsome praise of Admiral Don Diego. With the permission of His Imperial
Majesty, this knight retuned to Spain in order to carry forward his lawsuits;
but, while following his Majesty and the court on a journey from Seville in 1526,
he arrived in Toledo on 2 1 January with his health broken, and refusing
stubbornly to take a rest pressed on to Puebla de Montalban, where he died a
Christian death on the 23rd of the same month, as Oviedo recounts in great
detail. He was succeeded by Admiral Don Luis, his eldest son by the vicereine
Maria de Toledo, who, hearing of her husband’s death, held a funeral service
for him in Hispaniola and then retuned to Spain. Since the lawsuits had cost her
husband his life, he left her the disconsolate task of continuing them. Hence
her younger son Don Diego was chosen as page to Prince Felipe, and the Empress
made him many grants. But the fervour of the monarchs’ appreciation and
rewards for these singular services had now cooled1 and so during
Emperor Charles V’s reign only the most important of the grants registered in
the capitulations of the letters-patent were attended to, because they began to
realize, as the discoveries and wealth which flowed in grew ever larger, that
the admiral’s family would become extraordinarily wealthy and greater than
befits vassals. A resolution was therefore taken, after ten years of protracted
lawsuits conducted by Dona Maria de Toledo in her capacity as guardian of
Admiral Don Luis, who was a minor, to modify the grants. A compromise was
proposed and drawn up on her behalf and the emperors by Cardinal Loaisa, the
president of the Council of the Indies. Dona Maria was a woman, a widow, and the
guardian of minors, what could she expect? How was she to refuse any
agreement however unjust, so long as she obtained her longed-for peace and an
opportunity to give her time to the upbringing of her children? Even so, she can
have had no doubt that the arbitrator, however talented and just, was a minister
of the very king against whose exchequer she had just spent ten years of
litigation. Finally, in 1536,
an agreement was reached which made the following settlement on Don Luis: The title of Admiral of the Indies,
with the rights and dignities pursuant thereto in the time of his father and
grandfather; Ten thousand ducats annual pension
in perpetuity drawn on the public exchequers of the Indies. The island of
Jamaica, one of the greatest of the many discovered by the admiral, with all His
Majesty’s property therein both secular and ecclesiastical, mines, fruits,
vassals and ports, without any retention to the crown save the supreme
jurisdiction and a prohibition against building any fortification without royal
licence. The title of duke or marquis of
Jamaica, at his choice. Plus twenty-five square leagues of land in the province
of Veragua (one of the first discovered by the admiral on the mainland), with
the title of duke (which was dispensed so rarely that the emperor granted it
only to the houses of Colon and Medina de Rioseco), with all His Majesty’s
property within its boundaries, fruits, mines, vassals and townships, without
any retention save the supreme jurisdiction and a prohibition against
fortification. The first to set foot in this land was Don Bartolome Colon, with
seventy men, on the orders of his brother the admiral; and there he gave his
labour and risked his life in war against the natives, as Peter Martyr and the
rest relate. The office of Supreme Constable of
the Royal Audiencia, cities and villages of the island of Santo Domingo,
otherwise known as Hispaniola. Nevertheless, all these grants and
emoluments were further narrowed down and modified by this and other compromises
and later transactions, in which large, unjust and unnecessary concessions were
made by a certain head of the family (not the ancestor of the present petitioner
Duke Don Pedro, who is the son of Dona Isabel Colon, daughter of Admiral Don
Diego, and of Don Jorge de Portugal, Count of Gelves). These have led to such a
diminution (though the treasures which the Indies render in tribute to the Crown
have not diminished but rather increased, and without any fault or demerit in
the descendants of the famous conquistador but rather despite their continuous
services), that the grants have been reduced to the simple title of Admiral of
the Indies, Duke of Veragua and of La Vega, Marquis of Jamaica, and 16,000
ducats income paid from the royal exchequer, with all the accidents, delays and
costs that are notorious. And this scant fortune and
remuneration, so short in comparison with the measureless services whose
greatness and copious and never-ending fruits have closed the doors against
Oblivion have left the family — without a spot or blemish of unworthiness in
its successors — so destitute and naked as to offer a striking example of the
fickleness of fortune. Only the corpse remains to show where once was life, as a
warning against the glittering prizes of human existence! Inconstancy rules even
the great gifts of the just and Catholic Monarchs, awarded for the greatest
services in the world, and not only by the dictates of distributive justice
which is the duty of kings, but also by commutative and contractual justice (to
both of which the monarchs appeal in the preamble or narrative of their grants
and privileges to the admiral, professing that commutative
justice is between one man and another, without regard to the king’s rank) — as if this
family’s enrichment by these prizes was not a reward for having served their
kings with such immense treasures and dominions, by a contract agreed by both
parties and adjudicating to the family a share much inferior to his
contribution. It may justly be observed that, since it is certain and undeniable
that no one who has a proper zeal for the service of his kings and country can
doubt that the deeds and services of Admiral Columbus were the greatest and most
important of all that any employee in the royal service has ever accomplished,
it cannot be equitable that he should have not merely less than the least
well-paid of those who have profited by favour, fortune, or memorable or worthy
action, but indeed so much less that it is almost nothing at all. It is indeed
as far from being a just reward for all that has been described above as his
family is from being able to support itself in the style of a man of moderate
means. His services being as great and his deeds as famous in both worlds as
they are, foreigners imagine with envy the exalted situation which so great a
hero’s successors must enjoy, in so great a monarchy and one so indebted to
them; whereas the truth is that the heirs in fact enjoy only the wind and name
of the dignities to which their merits raised them, without even a modest competence
to eke out the rank and pomp befitting those same dignities. Yet, amongst the
relics of their grants, they still possessed the island of Jamaica, with its
civil and criminal jurisdiction and all the profits of mines, gold, silver,
lands, pastures, and all other emoluments whatever, without any other exception
than the prohibition against fortification without royal licence; and in the
ecclesiastical realm the rights of advowson and presentation to the abbacy,
dignities and canonries of the Collegiate church and the benefices of all the
other churches in the island, leaving to the Crown only the supreme jurisdiction
and office of dealing with titles of candidates for benefices; and this was the
only remaining statue or pyramid to preserve the memory of their great deeds and
services. And now even of this the family has been deprived, like all the rest:
first, by the violent invasion of the English, and second by the conditions of
that treaty which Your Majesty concluded with the king of Great Britain last
year in 1670, by which he and his heirs are ceded in perpetuity and with full
right of dominion and ownership all the lands, regions, islands, colonies and
dominions situate in West India and in any part of America which the said king
and his subjects held under occupation at the time, so that there may or ought
never under any pretext to be any further dispute or complaint over the matter. In view of this, and of the fact
that the armed occupation by the English of Jamaica was motivated not by any
special hate or enmity against the heads of this family, but simply by national
self-interest, which has always been their motive in similar invasions of other
places, and also because of the hostilities between these kingdoms and England;
and since in the supreme sovereign rights which Your Majesty’s royal ancestors
reserved for themselves, and which are inseparable from their crown, is expressly
included the defence and protection of this island and its donee vassals and
inhabitants, for keeping the peace and defending them against aggressors and
providing your royal armies to resist any possible or actual invasion (and this
applied in particular to Jamaica, since it was in view of this royal protection
that successive members of this family were prohibited in the act of donation
from fortification without royal licence); it was for some greater reason that
Your Majesty, in your sovereign power and judgement, for unknown purposes
omitted to provide this protection and instead, in the interests of universal
peace and utility and public order, was pleased to dispose of this island and
transfer its dominion to the King of Great Britain, thus abdicating and
separating it from the estate and entail of the present petitioner without any
hope of restitution nor any other recourse than the merits of obedience and
veneration to Your Majesty’s resolutions. But the petitioner finds himself
for all these reasons obliged to beg Your Majesty’s sovereign attention please
to consider that, since by the said clauses of the treaty all the other vassals
of your kingdoms and of the Indies have obtained the benefit and fruits sought
and expected from the peace, it is unjust that the entire cost and loss should
fall upon the present petitioner alone, or that the common gain should occasion
so great a private loss to him, leaving him defrauded of his whole island and
its jurisdiction, honours, and incomes, especially when this was but the last
remaining remnant of the recognition granted to his family for being descended
from a man who once did such service to this crown and the universal Church; and
when Your Majesty’s predecessors attended with such special care to the
preservation of his line, having declared it to be an obligation to the Crown
and a royal charge on the crown estate, the most important in the Indies, as is
documented in many dispatches, the most recent being that of His late Majesty,
dated 3 June 1664, in which, addressing the governor of Terra Firma on the
payment of the 16,000 ducats pension, he said: Without it being exemplary or
consequential to anybody, by the nature of this item, which is a royal charge,
and the foremost in the Indies. Natural reason and justice demand
that equity be accorded to vassals in cases of this kind; and that the damage
which one suffers for the common good be compensated by an equal return to the
loser for his lost dominions, rights, shares and private interest. This is the
common rule both in Roman law and in the statutes of these kingdoms, and also in
canon law, which does not permit new occupants to profit at the expense of the
old, especially those whose sweat, industry and hard work have brought the
Church’s lands under cultivation and made them fruitful. These are phrases confirmed in
practice by innumerable examples of sovereign princes, and especially Your
Majesty’s ancestors, who gave due and just recompense to vassals of whose
properties, dominions, jurisdictions and rights they availed themselves by
incorporating them in the Crown’s estate or selling them to other persons for
the sake of peace or the common good, or for any other reason not arising from
wrongdoing on the part of the party incurring the loss. Even if it be denied
that these are proper precedents for this case, it will be of small importance:
the merit of Don Cristobal Colon is so singular and unprecedented, his memory
and house so worthy of most special remembrance, that (as His late Majesty
himself said) it cannot serve as a precedent or consequence for any other, nor
any other family for it, being the foremost and most privileged of all. In
saying which His Majesty had doubtless reflected upon and bore in mind all that
is here represented to Your Majesty, and considered that everything belonging to
this family in any part of the Indies should be maintained, as he signified in
those royal words as
being a royal charge, and the foremost in the Indies,
by
which he declared all the Indies to be obliged to pay this pension. And the
possession and dominion of the island of Jamaica is as much a part and parcel of
that pension as the place where the charge is levied; so that, just as the levy
was transferred from its original placement in the exchequer of Santo Domingo
to that of Panama, when the former became unable to meet the charge, and was to
be transferred to another capable of meeting the payment if this latter were to
fail —that is what being ‘a royal charge, and the foremost in the Indies’
means, without setting any precedent for others — so the same ought to be done
in the case of Jamaica, which is of the same kind and belongs to the same
privilege, arises from the same root, and is a branch of the same tree. Now Your
Majesty has ceded this island and alienated it: hence it cannot be denied that
there is an obligation to recompense, nor that the obligation applies to the
whole of the Indies. Even in lesser and not specially privileged cases, it is
customary in these same Indies that any grant of some fixed-income encomienda made by the royal Majesty should, if devalued by some
mischance, be replaced or restored to the designated value by a proportionate
amount of the same kind and quality. This custom is agreed even when the loss of
value has not been caused by the Crown’s will or resulted in a profit to the
crown, but is simply the result of chance or accident. Hence even if the island
of Jamaica were not such a specially privileged token for this family, and a
royal charge on the exchequer of the Indies, compensation ought to be given,
even if it had been swallowed up by the sea in an accident. All the more
obligatory does this entitlement become, when Your Majesty has ceded and
disposed of the island in the public interest. In addition to all the
representations above, never the least scruple of disgrace has arisen (by Divine
mercy) in the family of the Duke Admiral. On the contrary, the great merits of
Don Cristobal Colon, founder of the line, and of his sons and brothers have been
piled up and increased by the merits of Don Alvaro de Portugal Pereira (son of
Don Fernando II, Duke of Braganca, and great-grandson of Dom Joao II of
Portugal, nephew and cousin of Her Catholic Majesty Isabel and of Don Juan II of
Castile and of Dom Manuel), the petitioner duke’s fourth grandfather, who
lived in Castile in the service and retinue of the Catholic Monarchs, greatly
esteemed and rewarded by Their Majesties through all the vicissitudes of war and
peace. In 1487 he found himself with the monarchs at the siege of Malaga, where
the African Moor Abraham al-Gherri entered the camp with the intention of
assassinating the monarchs; arriving at the tent where Don Alvaro was visiting
Dona Beatriz de Bobadilla, Marchioness of Moya, and supposing that they were the
monarchs, al-Gherri attacked Don Alvaro, giving him such a slash with his
scimitar that he left him in danger of his life, and immediately laid about the
Marchioness. The Catholic Monarchs made him president of the Council of Castile,
an office in which he succeeded Crown Prince Juan and which he exercised with
great praise and satisfaction, and also the post of Contador mayor.
His sons by his wife Dona Felipa de Melo, Countess of Olivenca, were the
Marquis of Ferreira, Count of Tentugal in Portugal, and Don Jorge de Portugal,
later Count of Gelves in Castile. This last knight, who married Dona Isabel
Colon, the grand-daughter of the first admiral, from whom the present petitioner
is descended, served the Emperor Charles V in all the major events of his reign,
especially in putting down the revolt of the
comunidades,
where his
finesse was rewarded by His Imperial Majesty by the grant of the county of
Gelves and wardenship of the Royal Palaces of Seville, whose surrender he had received
after their capture by the
comuneros
as recounted by bishop Fray
Prudencio de Sandoval in his
Carolina
under the year 1 520, and
other authors. Don Alvaro de Portugal, second Count of Gelves, served King
Philip II and was a gentleman of the bedchamber to Crown Prince Don Carlos. The
third Count of Gelves, who was prevented by his premature death from continuing
these services, left a female heir; but her husband Don Fernando Ruiz de Castro,
the petitioner’s grandfather, continued them, serving as Gentleman of the
Bedchamber to King Philip, Your Majesty’s grandfather. Duke Don Nuno, the
petitioner’s paternal grandfather, was continuously engaged in the lawsuits
brought against him concerning the family succession; but his son Don Alvaro,
the petitioner’s father, who was Gentleman of the Bedchamber to His Majesty,
ignored the lawsuits and continued the services of his ancestors in Flanders,
with celebrated success. {line cropped by binder}as general of the great Armada, died
at sea of a contagious fever which broke out aboard his ships. The petitioner
duke was sewing with his father on this occasion, although of tender years; from
that day to this he has never left Your Majesty’s service, in all the
different posts documented in other memorials, and with all the fine and
noteworthy acts recounted in them. It thus emerges that he has served, more or
less as a soldier of fortune, for over thirty-six years to earn the post in
which he now finds himself. A further contribution was the
death on active service in Flanders of Don Cristobal Colon, the petitioner’s
paternal uncle, a cavalry captain of some years standing, in the relief of
Bruges. Likewise, and with the same zeal, the death in the flower of his youth
of the present duke’s only brother Don Fernando Colon y Portugal, who
accompanied him on service in Guyenne as a captain of infantry in the fleet of
the Ocean Sea, and died in the estuary of Bordeaux. This small selection from the
historians seemed to the duke to be worth representing to Your Majesty to remind
you of his claim and corroborate his expectations, which rest chiefly upon your
royal justice and greatness. But the compensation to which he
lays claim and confidently expects, whether it be in arithmetic (one for one) or
geometric proportion, requires a statement of the value of the article to be
recompensed. It is therefore necessary to make a general statement about the
island of Jamaica, of which he finds himself dispossessed. This island, Madam,
which was discovered by Admiral Don Cristobal Colon after Hispaniola and Cuba,
is described by Don Pedro Martyr, the illustrious chronicler of the New World
and most favoured servant of the Catholic Monarchs, who served as a soldier
until the fall of Granada, and later, after entering the priesthood,(22) as the
first chaplain of the Royal Chapel of Granada (where he lies buried in a
magnificent tomb) and as a member of the Royal Council of the Indies, where
because of his learning and erudition in all the sciences he was responsible for
examining and overseeing all the reports from the New World; furthermore, in his
capacity of abbot of Jamaica by the emperor’s election (after having served as
the Catholic Monarchs’ ambassador to the sultan of Egypt, and in Venice on a
most important mission), he must certainly have had a very special knowledge
of Jamaica. He writes that the island is longer and broader than Sicily, very
fertile and full of native inhabitants (as indeed it then was); its natives were
skilled in handicrafts, being more quick-witted than those of the other islands,
and more warlike too, offering a show of armed resistance to the admiral
wherever he attempted to make landfall and even engaging him in battle. Martyr
gives its exact measurements in another passage, written about the time when he
already held the abbacy by grant of the emperor, and hence called the island his
bride and earthly paradise:
sixty
leagues long, some add a further ten, and thirty broad at its widest point. He was abbot from 1524. Martyr asserts that the island compares with and even exceeds
Sicily; Facelo writes that the latter has a circumference of 624 miles or 208
leagues. Giovanni Botero says in his Descriptions of the World that Jamaica lies
to the west of Hispaniola and is about the same size as San Juan de Puerto Rico,
which is three hundred miles long and sixty wide, but that Jamaica has much more
convenient and secure harbours, more abundant crops, and other advantages.
Bishop Casas asserts that in these two islands of San Juan and Jamaica there
were more than 600,000 native inhabitants. Its new English occupants draw the
island in their latest maps as sixty leagues long and proportionately varied in
width. It has an excellent harbour, fertile mines, cotton, livestock, pepper,
lignum vitae and fisheries, not to mention every species of fruit known in the Indies. A more detailed account
of its value is set out in the following pages, where the annual income is
displayed from the books of the duke’s accounts. The duke possessed everything there was in this island,
secular and ecclesiastical, except the royal sovereignty; and it included at the
very smallest estimate four thousand households of vassals. In view of which the
duke awaits every satisfaction and favour from your Majesty’s great justice
and benignity. The
Island of Jamaica is at the centre of a circle formed by all the land embraced
by the coasts of the kingdoms of the Indies to form the Gulf of Mexico; it thus
enjoys the best and most favoured position which Nature could contrive,
dominating all the ports of those lands from its harbour. It is located almost
18 degrees north of the equator, and is sixty leagues long from east to west and
thirty wide at the broadest, twenty at its narrowest, from north to south. The terrain of the island is for the most part folded into
attractive, fertile mountain ranges and beautiful pastures. It abounds with
rivers and fresh-water springs; the climate is pleasant, the airs healthy, and
hence the vegetation so lush that its wild forests spontaneously produce a rich
variety of root-crops, oranges and lemons of all sorts. It also produces pepper,
and a type of tree with bark so similar to cinnamon that I reckon it needs only
a little improvement to equal it. It also produces brazil wood, granadillo which
is similar to ebony, palo santo, and immense amounts of cedar, mahogany, oak,
pine, guasima, Cuban baria, two kinds of capaz and many other timbers for
shipbuilding. And because of this fertility the woods and forests are full of
wild herds of cattle, pigs, mules and horses. The products harvested there on
plantations and factories were cocoa, sugar, skins, salt meat, lard, fat and
cotton, in all of which the islanders carried on an active trade to the ports of
Cartagena, Portobello and Veracruz, making large profits and thus bringing the
lord of the island a considerable income. The principal settlement on the
island was Santiago de Ia Vega, two leagues inland from the main port, called
Guavayara by the Spaniards and Port Royal by the English. It had six hundred
households, amongst them some distinguished families descended from the
conquistadors. Their houses were for the most part built of plaster, wood and
tiles, but well-constructed and designed; and there were some of brick, valued
at 40,000 ducats and still preserved today. The city plan was well proportioned
and symmetrical, with streets, squares and other public places, and especially
the Dominican and Franciscan convents. There were hermitages of Our Lady of
Bethlehem, St Lucy, St Jerome and the Calvary, all very decent and venerable. The minster of this town was built
of stone and brick, an impressive edifice of most attractive construction. It
had an abbot, provost, two beneficed curates and many priests, who made a fine
show in the choir and celebrated mass in decent and becoming style. This dignity
and all the remaining ecclesiastical advowsons were in the gift of the Marquises
of Jamaica, universal patrons of the island and its churches, to whose income
were apportioned the ecclesiastical tithes of the island, a sizeable sum capable
of supplying 4000 ducats for the abbot and 800 pesos to each of the curates. The Marquises of Jamaica also held
the right to appoint the governors of the island, with the titles of
captain-general and five captains of infantry, four of them troops of local
militia and one troop of foreigners, and a further company of cavalry with 150
horsemen whose duty was to patrol the island’s coasts where the enemy were
likely to attack. The marquis also had his counting-house, with an accountant,
treasurer and excise-men to collect his dues and rents. For the discipline and
command of the militia the island had a quartermaster always chosen from the
gentry, who aspired to the quality and rank of the post by their merits and
services; as well as a sergeant-major, the second in command, who assisted him
with the work and responsibilities of the parades and marches which were
regularly arranged for training the citizens in the use of arms. The town council was composed of
the principal members of the nobility descended from the conquistadors. It had
two elected mayors, two mayors from the Confraternity, one chief constable one
ensign, six aldermen, one procurator-general, and for the business of the courts
the governor’s lieutenant-general and four notaries, including the town clerk
and the registrar of shipping. Apart from the main town, the
island had more than 4000 arable farms where land was under the plough, corrals
for pigs, ranches for cattle, and sugar mills, all with their farmhouses, some
of them fine country mansions, and all with their complement of servants and
slaves and their own stewards when the size of the estate called for one. On the
north of the island, their sites ran from Guanausa, La Bacagua, Liguani, Morante,
La Caoba, Rionuevo, Santa Ana, and Maimon del Almirante as far as El Negrillo,
at the western tip of the island; and on the southern side as far as Punta de
Morante, which is at the other end of the island; and on the east the ports of
La Habana, Oristan, Pereda, Puerto Viejo, Esquivel and Ayala, most of them
sheltered harbours with good roadsteads for sea-going ships; not counting those
inland, which are too numerous to name. None of the other islands to
windward, excluding Havana, had a port so busy as Jamaica, which, being en route
for all shipping, offered a safe haven for all, whether driven by storm or
brought here by design. Hence its trade was great, the profits for the
inhabitants large, and the income of its lord abundant. Not counting the products carried
by foreign ships working on the local householders’ account, every year three
and four vessels laden with harvests left the port, sometimes of over 400 tons,
bound for the above-mentioned ports of Cartagena, Portobello and Veracruz, where
they unloaded and sailed back laden with return cargo. As a result there were
many rich men. A few managed to salvage some remnants from their downfall, and
survive on what is left in the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and a
few on the mainland. Jamaica has always had shipyards as
well, where many large ocean-going vessels were built and gained renown among
the galleons of the silver fleet, as well as merchantmen for the local Indies
trade. Although there was never a lack of foreign-owned yards, native Jamaicans
have always kept their own, especially the families of Leyva, Isasi and Naveda,
as well as some private individuals, and this was no small part of the
marquis’ profits. The people of this island were
always adventurous and resolute in their enterprises; they set little store by
their lives in questions of honour, as they proved by stubbornly defending their
homeland for seven years, though they were few in number and armed only with
pikes, against the canon and might of England. And it is well-known that, had it
not been for their ignorance of the defeat inflicted upon the English in Santo
Domingo and for the assurance of the peace treaty with that nation which was
still in force in 1655, they would never have allowed the English under this
pretext to enter their stronghold, which the latter seized along with the rest
of the island by treachery and subterfuge and false promises of friendship.
Their behaviour was barbarous, the outcome cruel, and the invasion against every
law of nations. Annual value of this island until 1655, the year of
the English invasion
First, for the plantation of 12,000
cocoa trees on the duke’s estate at Huanaboa, rented out at one silver peso per tree per annum
12,000 pesos For two sugar mills at Liguani, yielding 2000 arrobas of sugar per annum each, at 2 pesos
8,000 For the rents on the principal buildings in the square, used
as the town hall, for which the town paid 300 pesos
300 For the rent of three pairs of houses which the duke had in
different parts of town, per annum
350 For 6000 uncured skins per annum from the two cattle-ranches
at his estate at Maimon del Almirante, at 10 silver reales each,
in total 7,500 For 4000 arrobas of tallow from the said herds, at 6 reales
3,000 For the rent of his three tanneries in the Belen quarter, at 600 pesos per annum
1,800 For the excise duties, rented out annually at 8000 pesos
8,000 ________________________________ Total forty thousand nine hundred and fifty pesos
40,950 pesos
________________________________ This does not, of course, include the costs of administering
the estate and transport of the proceeds to Spain. Nevertheless discounting
these costs, the net profits exceeded 30,000 pesos per annum. Footnotes From The Original Spanish Text
1. Annibale Rosellio, a most learned man, in his
Commentarii in Mercurium Trismegistum V. II, Dialogue 5 De nouo mundo, says:
The
author of this recent discovery was Christopher Columbus born near Genoa in a
hill town as I myself saw in 1563. P.Merula, Geographia 1.3. I 5:Towards
the west the first who dared enter this vast ocean was Christopher Columbus of
Genoa Paulus Jovius, Elogia uirorum bellica uirtute illustrium
(Basle,1 575):
That
is Cristobal Colon discoverer of that stupendous and unknown world, whose birth
was undoubtedly attended by the most benign and healthy Conjunction of stars, so that from such a man Liguria
might gain incomparable honour, Italy immortal renown, and our century a shining
torch to outshine the ancient heroes Hercules and Bacchus. Juan Solorzano Pereira, De Indiarum iure
disputationes(1625)1.5:First praise for so great a
discovery is by universal consent due to Christopher Colon or Columbus Cristoforo Bessoldo, Synopsis: Ferdin |
