The successor of Rojas was Gonzalo de Guzman, who thus returned for a
second term of the governorship. That adroit, masterful and often
unscrupulous politician had spent his time in Spain to good advantage.
In various ways and through various methods, not altogether dissociated
from the golden treasure which he carried thither from the mines of
Cuba, he ingratiated himself with a number of influential courtiers, and
through them with the royal court itself. Before long he was able to
secure a revision of the sentence which Vadillo had passed upon him, and
a reversal of its most harsh decrees and a mitigation of others. Thus he
was largely vindicated, and was enabled to plume himself upon having
received the royal favor. At the same time he conducted, through his
faithful retainers, a campaign of intrigue in Hispaniola, with the
result that the Admiral, or Vicereine, the widow of Diego Columbus,
appointed him back to his old place as governor of Cuba. The appointment
was not to be effective, however, until ratified by the King, and such
ratification the King for some time delayed to grant.
Guzman was confident, however, of receiving the royal ratification, and
so, without waiting for it, he proceeded to Cuba as governor-elect, and
began elaborate preparations for resuming office. That was in the
midsummer of 1534, more than a year before Rojas was permitted to
retire. Indeed, we may well believe that it was the presence and conduct
of Guzman that made the island intolerable to Rojas. For Guzman
established himself in a fine house, with a retinue of servants, and
attracted to himself most of the practical politicians of Cuba,
especially those who were inclined to "welcome the coming, speed the
parting, guest." They all knew that Rojas was to retire, and that Guzman
was to succeed him; wherefore they paid all possible deference to the
former and treated the latter with neglect if not with contempt.
The actual change came, as we have already seen, in October, 1535. Rojas
relinquished the governorship, and Guzman resumed it; and a most
grievous decline of Cuba began. Guzman promptly set about serving his
own personal interests, rewarding his friends, and punishing all of his
opponents who were still within reach. Few of them were within reach,
however; all who could do so having fled the island, for Jamaica or
elsewhere. Cuba was thus deprived of some of its most useful citizens,
while its important public offices were filled with self-seeking
politicians.
Happily, this unworthy and detrimental administration was short lived;
and it was ended through what was nothing less than a peaceful
revolution in the political status of Cuba. For some time there had been
controversy and litigation between the heirs of Columbus and the Spanish
crown, concerning the rights, powers and privileges of the former in the
West Indies. The suits came to an end in the spring of 1537, when a
settlement was effected, one of the bases of which was the complete
renunciation, by the heirs of Columbus, of all right, title or
jurisdiction of any kind whatever over the island of Cuba. That of
course completely separated Cuba from the jurisdiction of Hispaniola,
and made it directly responsible to and dependent upon Spain. It was no
longer an adjunct to Hispaniola, but a colony of Spain.
Now thitherto the governor and most of the other officials in Cuba had
received their commissions from the Admiral or Vicereine in Hispaniola,
or from the Supreme Court there. Such was the case with Guzman, though
his Hispaniolan commission had received the ratification of the King. It
was therefore logically held that all commissions thus given in Cuba by
the Hispaniola government became null and void with the emancipation of
Cuba from dependence upon the other and smaller island. In consequence,
Guzman's second term in the governorship came to an end in March, 1537.
An interregnum ensued. The King was contemplating further reorganization
of his American domains, and consequently forebore for some time to
appoint a successor to Guzman, or indeed to any of the important
officials whose terms of office had been involuntarily ended. There had
just been, as we have seen, widespread investigations and trials of
royal functionaries for frauds, and the King was solicitous to find
someone who was indubitably trustworthy, before making further
appointments. The result was that the affairs of the island, which had
been gravely disturbed and damaged by Guzman, went rapidly from bad to
worse, and threatened to plunge into utter chaos.
Nor was the solution of this crisis for the advantage of the island. On
the contrary, it was to its still further detriment. Once before, in the
time of Velasquez, Cuba had been made to suffer greatly because of the
development of Mexico and the exodus of many enterprising Cubans to that
country. That experience was now to be repeated even more disastrously,
in the attempted development of Florida. That country had long been
known. It was placed upon the maps as early as 1502, and it was in 1513,
at the time when Velasquez was making his first settlements in Cuba,
that Juan Ponce de Leon obtained a royal charter to discover and to
settle the Island of Bimini, as it was called, on which there was
reputed to be a fountain of extraordinary curative powers, capable of
restoring to the aged all the vigor of youth. Actual colonization of
Florida was not undertaken, however, until 1521, in which enterprise
Ponce de Leon himself was wounded in a fight with Indians, and came to
Cuba to die. Again in 1527 Panfilo de Narvaez led a large expedition
from Cuba to Florida, in which he and all but four of his six hundred
men were lost in Indian fighting and in a great Gulf storm.
[Illustration: HERNANDO DE SOTO]
There next came upon the scene a far more formidable personage than any
of these, or indeed than any who had visited Cuba since Columbus with
the exception of Cortez. This was none other than Hernando de Soto. Like
many another famous Spanish conquistador, he was an impoverished
nobleman of Estremadura, who had been in youth a protege of the infamous
Pedrarias d'Avila, the constructive murderer of Balboa and the scourge
of Darien. Through the bounty of d'Avila he had passed through a
university; he had gone to Darien with his patron in 1519; and in 1532
he had gone with reenforcements to Pizarro in Peru. There he played a
great part, personally seizing the Inca monarch, Atahualpa, and
discovering the mountain pass which led to the treasure city of Cuzco.
Incidentally he seized for himself a vast fortune, with which he
returned to Spain, where he married the daughter of d'Avila and for a
time settled down in splendid state.
When, however, Cabeza de Vaca, one of the four survivors of the last
expedition of Narvaez, reached Spain with stories of the marvellous
wealth of Florida, de Soto's adventurous spirit, or his cupidity, was
again aroused. He disposed of part of his estates, purchased and armed
four ships, recruited a force of 620 foot soldiers and 120 horsemen, and
sought from the King a commission to explore, conquer and colonize
Florida. In him the King apparently saw, as he imagined, the solution of
the problem, what to do about Cuba. He accordingly joined Florida and
Cuba together, politically, making de Soto Adelantado of the former and
governor of the latter. With this commission de Soto sailed from Spain
in April, 1538, bound first for Cuba and thence for Florida. The
expedition called for a time at the Canary Islands, where its members
were richly entertained by the Governor of Gomera. There De Soto's wife,
the Lady Isabel, engaged the beautiful daughter of the Governor to
accompany her as her chief lady-in-waiting, a choice which led to some
interesting personal complications, actually affecting the progress of
the expedition.
It was on June 7, 1538, that De Soto arrived at Santiago with probably
the most imposing fleet that had ever yet visited that port or the
waters of Cuba. It comprised more than a score of vessels, carrying more
than a thousand soldiers. This armada comprised the galleons _San
Cristobal_, _Buena Fortuna_, _Magdalena_, _Conception_, _San Juan_, _San
Antonio_, and _Santa Barbara_; one caravel (a three-masted vessel), two
light brigs (two masted), and about a dozen smaller craft. Juan de
Anasco was chief pilot of the expedition, and the captains were Nunez
Tobar, Luis Morosco de Alvarado, Andres de Vasconcelas, Arias Tinoco,
Alfonso Robo de Cardenosa, Diego Garcia, and Pedro Calderon. Among the
commanders of the troops were Carlos Enriques, Micer de Espinola,
Dionisio de Paris, Rodrigo Gallego, Francisco del Poso, and Diego
Banuelos. Nor was the propagation of the True Faith neglected. It was
entrusted to a mission comprising four priests and a number of Dominican
friars, under the leadership of the friar Luis de Soto, a cousin of the
generalissimo of the expedition. Santiago was naturally selected for the
entry to Cuba seeing that it was still the official capital and that De
Soto was already commissioned Governor. There was a narrow escape from
shipwreck in entering the narrow and somewhat tortuous mouth of the
great harbor, after which the Governor was received by the municipal
functionaries with all the pomp and dignity of which the capital was
capable. Tidings of the coming of the new Governor had spread
throughout the Island and people of consequence from all parts had
flocked to Santiago to welcome him, to seek to ingratiate themselves
with him and to celebrate what they fondly hoped would prove to be the
beginning of a new and splendid era in the history of Cuba. It is
recorded that the gentlemen of the town sent down to the boat landing a
fine roan horse for De Soto to ride and a richly caparisoned mule for
Dona Isabel. He and all his company were lodged in the most luxurious
quarters the town could afford and were hospitably entertained without
cost to themselves. Santiago had at this time about eighty houses which
were described as spacious and well appointed. About half of them were
of masonry and tile and the remainder of boards and thatch. There were
also many attractive country estates surrounding the city.
The day following his landing De Soto formally assumed his authority as
Governor, and Bartolome de Ortiz became Alcalde mayor of Santiago.
Scarcely had he done this, however, when news came that a French corsair
had attacked Havana, ransacked the church, and burned a number of
houses; after which he had sailed away. De Soto at once sent Mateo
Aceituna to the scene, with a company of soldiers and artisans, with
instructions to rebuild the houses and then to begin the construction of
a fort which would serve as an adequate defence for the town. Having
done this, he sent Lady Isabel, escorted by his nephew Don Carlos, to
Havana by sea, with a strong squadron, while he himself with the
remainder of his company set out on horseback for a tour of the islands.
He first went to Bayamo, and thence to Trinidad, and Puerto Principe.
From the latter place he went in a canoe to the great country estate of
Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa at Camaguey, there to get news of Lady
Isabel's arrival at Havana. Thence he proceeded to Sancti Spiritus,
which at that time was a place of only about thirty houses. Half of his
company landed there, and half went on to Trinidad, which was a still
smaller place of not more than twenty houses, though it contained a
hospital for the poor, the only such institution on the whole Island.
Thence he proceeded to Havana without finding another town or settlement
of any kind on the entire road.
During his stay in Havana De Soto deprived Nunez Tobar of his rank as
Captain-General and gave it instead to Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa,
because Tobar had made love to Dona Isabel's lady-in-waiting, the
daughter of the Governor of Gomera, and indeed had seduced her. In
spite, or perhaps because of this punishment Tobar thereupon married the
girl and afterward joined De Soto's expedition to Florida in a
subordinate capacity.
There can be no question that Hernando de Soto came to Cuba with a
prestige far surpassing that of any of his predecessors. He was in the
prime of manhood and at the height of his fame. He had been the hero of
great adventures and of marvellous achievements, and was possessed of
great wealth. He was not only governor of Cuba but also Adelantado of
Florida, which meant all the lands at the north of the Gulf, from the
Atlantic to Mexico, and thus, it was confidently assumed, Cuba would
become the chief province and Santiago the capital city, of an empire
exceeding in extent and wealth both Mexico and Peru.
These brilliant anticipations were, however, doomed to speedy and most
crushing disappointment. It soon became clear that de Soto regarded Cuba
as a mere stepping stone to Florida, and that he was not merely willing
to sacrifice the island's interests to the gratification of his
continental ambitions, but had from the first been intent upon so doing.
He paid little attention to the representations which were made to him
in behalf of Cuba, or indeed to the duties of his office as governor.
Instead, all his thought seemed to be given and all his efforts
directed, to preparations for proceeding on his way to the alluring
regions beyond the Gulf. Moreover, he tempted into joining him in that
enterprise many of the richest and most forceful men of Cuba. Among
these was Vasco de Figueroa, who had been a comrade of Velasquez. He had
settled in Camaguey as early as 1514, and had grown very rich. We may
say, indeed, that he was the richest and most influential man in all
that part of Cuba. He eagerly accepted an invitation to join the
expedition, as de Soto's first lieutenant, and he drew along with him
many other substantial men from Camaguey and other parts of the island.
Nor was the island thus to suffer for the sake of Florida, merely as a
whole. The capital, Santiago, was specially to suffer. Its traditions
and its long-established interests were nothing to De Soto, who looked
for nothing but to promote his Florida venture. Manifestly, Santiago was
no place to serve as a base of operations to the northward, so he
presently transferred his headquarters to Havana. That city had been
founded in 1514 on the south coast, near what is now Batabano, but a few
years later had been transferred by migration of populace and name to
its present commanding site at the north. In 1537 it had been raided and
partly destroyed by fire, by buccaneers, but at the time of de Soto's
coming was rapidly being rebuilt and restored to greater importance than
before.
So a few weeks after his arrival at Santiago, in the early part of
August, 1538, de Soto ruthlessly closed his mansion at Santiago and
removed his whole household to Havana. His household and his foot
soldiers were sent thither in his vessels, of which he now had five. He
himself with his horsemen travelled overland, Vasco de Figueroa acting
as guide. The beauty and riches of the island seem not greatly to have
impressed the great adventurer; certainly not enough to withhold him for
one moment from his quest. Mountain and plain were alike to him merely
the road toward Florida.
It was late in December before all members of the expedition were
assembled at Havana. There it was necessary to remain a while, to refit
the vessels, gather provisions, and prepare for an adventure into an
unknown and potentially hostile wilderness. Additional ships were
sought, and more men; and recruits came flocking thither eagerly from
all parts of the island. Meanwhile, a scouting party of fifty, with one
vessel, was sent to the Florida coast, to discover a desirable spot for
the landing of the whole expedition. It returned in February, 1539, with
the report that no suitable place could be found, and with a
recommendation against undertaking the venture. This incensed de Soto,
and he made the men hasten back to Florida and not return until they had
found that which was the object of their quest. Their second expedition
lasted three months. At the end of that time they reappeared at Havana,
disembarked, fell upon their knees, and on their knees made their way
from the wharf to the church, where they offered thanks for their
deliverance. This was their fulfilment of a vow which they had made when
they were in imminent danger of death; and they would not so much as
speak to the governor or to anyone until the pious act was completed.
They then reported to de Soto that amid great perils they had found a
place which would be suitable for his purpose. They had named it the Bay
of Espiritu Santo, as it is to this day called, on the West Coast of
Florida. To this place accordingly de Soto hastened, at the end of May,
1539, with nine vessels, more than 500 men beside sailors, and half as
many horses; leaving his wife at Havana as acting governor in his
absence, with Juan de Rojas as her chief assistant. Vasco de Figueroa
soon returned, disgusted with Florida, which he described as a land of
interminable swamps, but he left his son with de Soto to serve as
lieutenant in his stead. Then Gomez Arias, brother of Lady Isabel de
Soto, also returned, with glowing reports of the beauty and wealth of
Florida, and it was proclaimed throughout all Cuba that the expedition
was succeeding beyond all expectation, and that Florida was the garden
of the world. The effect was to excite the Spaniards of Cuba with
eagerness to leave their homes in quest of fortunes in this new land.
Accordingly, when in February, 1540, Diego Maldonado came from Florida
to Havana, to obtain recruits, arms and provisions, there was no lack of
response to his call. It seemed as though almost every able-bodied man
in Cuba had caught the Florida fever, and went flocking to Maldonado's
standard. Eight great ship-loads of men, horses and provisions were
quickly obtained, and sailed away for Florida, leaving behind them three
classes of people in Cuba. There were those who lamented that there had
not been room enough on the ships to take them, too. There were those
who lamented that Cuba was thus being stripped and impoverished to
enrich another country, if not in a vain and profitless quest. There
were also those, the surviving Indian natives, who rejoiced, because the
Spaniards were all leaving Cuba, so that the natives could come to their
own again. But all three classes were mistaken in their views of the
situation.
Maldonado and Gomez Arias sailed away with their eight ships, to meet de
Soto at an appointed place on the Florida coast. Months later they
returned without having met him or having been able to ascertain any
information of his whereabouts. That was in 1541. In 1542 they sailed
again to meet him at the same place; with like result. In 1543 they made
a third such venture, and explored the entire coast from the southern
extremity of Florida to Mexico. They posted messages upon trees, rocks
and headlands. They sent Indian runners inland to inquire for the
adventurers. They resorted to every effort they could devise to find
their missing chief, but all in vain.
Meantime at Havana the Lady Isabel awaited his return, with unfaltering
loyalty and unshaken hope. Bartholomew Ortiz, alcalde mayor, by her
lord's appointment, relieved her of the technical duties of
gubernatorial rule; which was well, for there was much trouble
abroad in the island. It was thus left for her to watch and wait for
the coming of the ship which never came. At morning and at evening, day
after day, she paced the little pathway on the crest of a fort which her
husband had begun to build, the beginning of La Fuerza--of which we
shall hear much more. Hour by hour she gazed from that parapet
northward, not on guard for hostile sail, but to espy the first glimpse
of one returning from the Land of Flowers. There is no more touching
picture in all the early history of Cuba than that of this devoted
woman, scanning the northern horizon in vain for the appearance of one
whose restless and adventurous body was sleeping the last sleep in the
bed of the Father of Waters.
[Illustration: LA FUERZA
Havana's oldest and most famous fortress and the oldest inhabited
building in the Western Hemisphere. The construction of it was prolonged
through the administrations of many Governors and was for years the
chief issue of political contention in the island. It was long the
Governor's residence as well as a fortress; from it Hernando de Soto set
out for the exploration of Florida and the discovery of the Mississippi
River, and from its ramparts his wife, Dona Isabel, long but vainly
maintained her daily vigil for his return.]
News came at last, to end in grief her agonizing vigil. It was near the
end of 1543 that some three hundred weary and worn survivors of de
Soto's expedition reached Panuco, on the Mexican coast, with tidings of
their leader's death and the destruction of all the rest of the party.
They had wandered through what is now the State of Georgia northward as
far as the Tennessee Mountains, thence back to Mobile Bay, in Alabama,
thence northwest to the Mississippi, and to the Ouachita, or Washita, in
Arkansas. While thence descending the Mississippi, in June, 1542, de
Soto had died, and his body had been sunk in the great river. The
remainder of his company, led by Luis de Alvarado, had continued down
the Mississippi River to the Gulf, and thence sailed along the coast to
Panuco.
Thus ended the career of one of the most famous of all the Spanish
explorers; and thus ended another brief but disastrous chapter in Cuban
history. The island had been drained of men, horses, supplies of all
kinds; for its population was still so small that the loss of a few
hundred of its best men and horses was a serious deprivation. Its own
domestic interests had been neglected. Its government had become
inefficient. The Indians, taking advantage of the weakness of the
Spaniards, had begun to cherish hopes of regaining their old freedom,
and in some places had risen forcibly to seek that end, with the effect
of enraging the Spaniards against them even to the extreme of resolving
upon either their complete enslavement or their extermination.
Indeed, serious trouble arose with the Indians during de Soto's brief
stay in the island. Shortly before his arrival there had been an
outbreak of the natives at Baracoa, which resulted in the partial
destruction of that town by burning. Towns built entirely of sun-dried
thatch were easily burned. Hearing of this, de Soto in almost his first
official utterance in Cuba authorized the sending of strong expeditions
against the natives, to hunt them down and destroy them ruthlessly. The
offending Indians were all Cimarrons, or "wild" Indians who had never
been under the repartimiento system, and who expected and solicited the
"tame" Indians to rise and join them. The latter not only refused to do
this, however, but offered to go out and fight and subdue the Cimarrons,
provided they were permitted to do so without being accompanied by
Spanish troops; to which the authorities unfortunately would not agree.
De Soto sent all available men out against the Indians, and suppressed
them, for the time. But as soon as he left Santiago for Havana, taking
with him all the fighting men in the eastern end of the island, the
Cimarrons sprang to arms again behind him and became more menacing than
ever. They again threatened Baracoa, and were active even in the suburbs
of Santiago itself. The departure of Vasco de Figueroa from Camaguey was
disastrous. He had been vigorous and unsparing in his suppression of
even the slightest uprising, and in his absence the Indians were freed
from the greatest restraining influence in that part of the island.
The general confusion of affairs was further aggravated by the intrigues
of two marplots. One of these was Gonzalo de Guzman, who had remained in
the island after his removal from office, and who was never weary in
mischief-making. He kept himself in frequent communication with the
government in Spain, and made all sorts of complaints against de Soto
and against the Florida enterprise. Doubtless he was right in saying
that the taking of so many fighting men out of Cuba for Florida
endangered the peace and safety of the island; though we must think that
he exaggerated the condition of Cuba when he wrote to the Spanish
government that two-thirds of the island had become depopulated, and all
of the towns in the central part of it had been or were in imminent
danger of being burned.
The other trouble-maker was the new Bishop, Diego Sarmiento, who had
succeeded Bishop Ramirez, deceased. He maintained a large establishment
of slaves, and continued the political policy of his predecessor. He had
arrived in Cuba almost simultaneously with de Soto, and inclined toward
the policy of the latter in respect to Florida.
A strong governor might have saved even this unfortunate and unpromising
situation. But there was none. Lady Isabel died of grief a few months
after learning of her husband's fate, and for a time thereafter there
was no actual governor at all. De Soto had been empowered to appoint an
alcalde mayor to serve as his substitute while he was out of the island,
if he so desired. He did thus appoint Bartholomew Ortiz; a good enough
man but aged and infirm, and quite unable to cope with the problems
which confronted him. He found himself involved in a vigorous rivalry
between Santiago and Havana in the matter of fortifications. De Soto had
begun the construction of an earthwork fort at the entrance to Santiago.
Then when he went across to Havana he ordered the building of a strong
fort there of stone masonry. This of course aroused the jealousy of
Santiago, whose indignant citizens pointed out that their city was and
always would be the capital of the island, and was therefore at least as
well entitled to a stone fort as Havana. The sacking and burning of
Havana, and of Carthagena and other places on the continent, alarmed
them, lest Santiago should suffer a like fate. Their insistence was
finally rewarded in the building of a stone fort near the mouth of the
harbor.