We have said that the administration of Angulo marked the nadir of early
Cuban history. It also marked the turning point, and the entrance of the
island into international affairs. Not yet had the great duel between
Spain and England begun; which in the next century was to have so
momentous results. France was the enemy. Francis I became King of that
country in 1515, when Velasquez was beginning the settlement of Cuba,
and Charles I (Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire) became King of Spain
in the following year; and in 1521, while Velasquez was still governor
of Cuba, those two monarchs began the first of their series of six wars.
Adopting the policy which was afterward pursued by England against Spain
and against France, and by France against England, France struck at
Spain in her American colonies. During the first, second and third wars,
French attention was chiefly given to conquests in North America, with
occasional raids against Spanish commerce in the Caribbean and along the
coast of Mexico. Cuba appears to have remained unscathed.
With the outbreak of the fourth war in 1536, however, trouble for Cuba
began. French privateers, little better than pirates in their practices,
sometimes, swarmed the Caribbean and the Gulf, preying upon Spanish
commerce and raiding Spanish seacoast towns. The first such blow was
struck at Cuba in 1537. A fleet of five Spanish ships, richly laden, was
about to set forth from Havana for Spain, by way of the Bahama Channel.
Just as they spread their sails and weighed their anchors, a venturesome
French privateer entered the harbor's mouth. The intruder hesitated at
sight of so many vessels, whereupon three of the Spaniards, being well
armed as well as laden, as most ships had to be in those troublous
days, gave chase. The Frenchman retired, fighting stubbornly, as far as
the harbor of Mariel, where he turned at bay and for three days kept up
the unequal conflict. Then, just as he seemed preparing to give up the
fight and flee, an unfavorable wind struck the Spanish ships, placing
them at such disadvantage that their captains ordered them to be
abandoned and burned. This was done, but the French boarded one before
the flames had made headway, extinguished the fire, and sailed away with
the prize. The daring Frenchman then returned to Havana, entered the
harbor with the two ships, and proclaimed to the alcaldes and citizens
that he would do the place no harm if none was done to him, but that if
any attack was made upon his ships, he would sack the town. After a
while he went out and sailed away to the west.
At that same time all commerce out of and into Santiago was practically
blocked by the presence of French privateers hovering off that port. In
April, 1538, an attack was made upon Santiago, and the place was
defended in a most extraordinary fashion. A Spanish vessel tried to
leave port, met a French vessel returning from a raid on Hispaniola, and
tried to scuttle back, but was overtaken and captured at the entrance to
the harbor. Next day, having despoiled the prize, the Frenchman sailed
into the deep harbor, which never before had been thus invaded, and
menaced the town. The town had no defences whatever, and the citizens
were unarmed. Guzman, then just at the end of his administration, was
furious at his helplessness. He railed against the citizens because they
would not rush down to the wharf and repel the invader with clubs and
stones. But railing was in vain, and so there was nothing to do but to
take to flight inland, which most of the officials and citizens did,
carrying all portable treasure with them.
The Frenchman then threatened to burn the town, which Guzman wished he
would do, in order to bring the King's government to its senses and
arouse it to the necessity of defending Cuba. But there chanced to be
in the port a certain merchant of Seville, by name Diego Perez, who was
at least as daring as the Frenchman himself. He had a little merchant
sloop, not more than half the size of the Frenchman, but well armed,
with guns that would carry at least as far as the Frenchman's. He ran
his little craft into water too shallow for the bigger Frenchman, where
he would be secure against ramming or boarding, and there began
peppering the enemy with his long range guns, Perez himself aiming the
best of them. The fight lasted all day, and Perez was ready to resume it
next morning. But in the darkness of the night the Frenchman stole away
and was seen no more in Santiago harbor. Perez had three men killed, and
his vessel was badly damaged; but the Frenchman probably suffered
heavier losses, since two of his men who were killed fell overboard and
were picked up and buried by the Spaniards, and there were almost
certainly others killed. For his valor on thus saving the capital of
Cuba from destruction, Perez received from the King a coat of arms with
a device emblematic of his achievement.
That same Frenchman a little later, having repaired his vessel, wreaked
his revenge upon Havana. When he entered the harbor there the people
fled and left the town for him to loot at his leisure. It is recorded
that he took even the church bells. Moreover, being a truculent
Huguenot, he took an image of Saint Peter from the church and let his
men use it as a target to pelt with oranges! This incident caused De
Soto, who arrived at Havana a little later, to hasten work on the
defences of the place. For some time there had been talk of building a
fort, but no agreement had been reached as to where it should be;
whether at the Cabana, or the Morro, or on the hill in what is now
Central Park. But the Frenchman's raid brought the controversy to an
end, and De Soto was authorized to build wherever he thought best. The
result was the building of La Fuerza. It was hastily built, and
therefore badly, so that ten years later part of it had to be torn down
and the whole remodelled into its present form.
By this time it was considered certain that Havana would one day become
the capital and chief city of Cuba, wherefore it was decided to fortify
it rather than Santiago or any other port. Beside, it was the most
convenient port of call for treasure ships and others plying between
Mexico and Spain. A battery of cannon was therefore placed upon the
Morro headland, long before the building of the castle, and La Fuerza
was strongly armed. It became the custom for treasure ships to put into
Havana harbor, and if pursued to unload their treasure there, for safe
keeping on shore until the danger was past. But no further attack was
made upon Havana or any other Cuban port, and in 1544 the war was ended.
The prospect of Havana's becoming the capital seemed temporarily to be
realized in 1550, when Angulo established his permanent residence
there--the first governor so to do, though some of his predecessors had
spent some time there, and De Avila had actually established a residence
there. Angulo began building a large stone church at Havana, in place of
the wooden thatched hut which had served the purpose before him; he
built an addition to the hospital, two store houses and a slaughter
house, and rebuilt the jail. He also regulated the prices of food, so as
to put a stop to the artificial raising of prices whenever ships came in
for supplies. Yet when, in obedience to the orders of the crown, in
November, 1552, he issued an emancipation proclamation in favor of the
Indians, a storm of abuse broke upon him, in Havana as well as
elsewhere. Santiago, piqued because he had spent so much time away from
that place, took the initiative in demanding a judicial investigation of
his conduct, charging him with venality and peculations. But the city
council of Havana quickly followed suit, made more than fifty specific
charges against him, and provided a ship to fetch a judge from
Hispaniola to try him.
[Illustration: MORRO CASTLE, HAVANA
A grim guardian, seated on the headland at one side of the entrance to
Havana's peerless harbor; founded to protect the city from the
sixteenth-century corsairs; captured in the seventeenth century by the
British and the American Colonists after the most stubborn resistance;
and in later years the prison in which many Cuban patriots were
immured.]
Curiously enough, while Santiago was hostile to him because he would not
live there, Havana was hostile because he would live there. It was
specifically complained that he persisted in living at Havana against
the will of the people of that place. They did not want him there, they
said, because they were convinced that he was there for his own profit.
So they besought the court to compel him to return to Santiago. Other
complaints were that he had imposed various new-fangled devices upon the
city, that he was a gambler, that he engaged in trade for his own
profit, that he permitted his wife to decide suits at law, and that he
had instructed one of his officers to strike with a club anyone who did
not rise to his feet when the governor entered the church.
Angulo denied all the charges, and declared that they had been trumped
up against him because he had obeyed the King in emancipating the
Indians. He went to Hispaniola in person to argue his cause before the
Supreme Court, the chief counsel against him being Alfonso de Rojas. The
court decided in his favor so far as to suspend all action and let him
return to Havana, until the King could pass upon the case. No judge
would be appointed to investigate him, the court added, unless one were
sent from Spain. So the governor returned to Cuba in triumph. Landing at
Santiago, he proclaimed the freedom of all Indians there. Thence he
proceeded to Baracoa, to Bayamo, to Trinidad, and to Puerto Principe,
repeating the emancipation proclamation at each place. At the midsummer
of 1553 he reached Havana, to find that the town council had "deposed"
him, on the ground that he had been absent from his jurisdiction without
leave for more than ninety days; a decree which he ignored. Meanwhile
the crown had appointed a judge to investigate him, but the judge did
not come and the inquest was not held. Soon after his arrival at Havana,
finding that he would not give up the governorship at its word, the town
council begged the Hispaniola court to have him investigated, and the
court commissioned a judge for that purpose, who declined or at least
failed to act. This was in August, 1554.
Now trouble was renewed with France, the sixth war between Henry II, who
had succeeded Francis, and Charles beginning in 1552 and continuing
until 1559, Charles meanwhile abdicating in favor of Philip II in 1556.
The French navy was more potent than ever, and French privateers swarmed
the Spanish Main. Every Cuban port was warned to be on its guard against
attack, Havana most of all, since it was now the richest and was in the
most exposed situation. It was not until the fall of 1553 that the
official news of the renewal of hostilities reached Cuba, and great was
the consternation which it caused.
Juan de Lobera was at that time the commander of the fortifications of
Havana, to wit, La Fuerza. He appears to have been a man of strangely
mingled temperament, at times fearful and timorous, at others resolute
and valiant. At the beginning the former characteristics prevailed. He
realized, only too truly, that the fortifications and petty garrison
would be entirely insufficient for the protection of the place against
any considerable force, such as even a single French ship might bring
against it, and he fell into something like a panic. Happily, however,
he did not desert his post, but made passionate demands upon the
governor and the town council for additional guards. Happily, too, in
the presence of menace the animosities of faction were stilled, and the
council cooperated heartily with the governor whom it had just been
trying to depose and whom only a little later it denounced to the court
as worthy of investigation and indictment.
New guards were supplied. Day and night the beach was patrolled.
Watchmen were stationed on the Morro headland to espy approaching
vessels and to signal the tidings to the fort and city. At the mouth of
the Almendares River, where it was supposed that invaders were likely to
land, horsemen were stationed, to hasten back to the city with news of
any such landing or of the appearance of a hostile vessel. Twelve men,
expert in arms, were held in readiness day and night to man the fort the
moment a strange vessel was reported; La Fuerza being otherwise without
a garrison--which amply justified the commander's lack of faith in its
defensive efficiency. In case of an attack, all able-bodied citizens
were to present themselves in a massed levy under command of the
governor. Every man was to be armed, at least with a sword, day and
night, and none was to absent himself from the city without the
permission of the governor. Every vessel of any kind that approached the
harbor was signalled to stop outside until it could be visited and its
identity be established; though if any refused thus to halt there was no
adequate power to compel it to do so. However, refusal to stop would of
course be regarded as proof of hostile character.
With all these preparations the defensive ability of Havana was
pitifully if not ludicrously slight. Three small cannon manned by twelve
volunteers constituted the armament of a fort which might be attacked by
a ship of twenty guns and two hundred men. The "army" of the place
comprised sixteen horsemen and less than seventy footmen, scarcely any
two of them armed alike. The chief commander under the governor was Juan
de Rojas, who was the governor's bitterest political enemy, though he
had once been his close friend and deputy. He was a brother of the
former governor, Manuel de Rojas. In these circumstances the commander
of the fort awaited with unspeakable trepidation the anticipated
approach of the enemy.
His fears were presently realized in the coming of perhaps the most
formidable of all the Frenchmen then scouring the seas; the famous
Jacques Sores. This daring captain was not only a Frenchman and
therefore hostile to Spaniards on racial and political grounds, but he
was also a Huguenot, like many other French seamen of that day, and
therefore hostile to them on religious grounds. He was supposed to be
under the patronage of the great Conde, and also at one time to have
received material aid from Queen Elizabeth of England. Indeed, he was at
this time regarded as the foremost champion of the Protestant cause at
sea. Although a privateer, he commanded not a single vessel but a
squadron of three, which he handled with the skill of a master mariner.
Sores did not, however, deem it needful to bring his whole array against
Havana. A single vessel, a brigantine, would be sufficient. So it came
to pass that in the early morning of July 10, 1554, a signal came from
the watchers on the Morro headland, that a strange sail, probably
French, was approaching. A shot was fired from La Fuerza, to summon the
men of Havana to arms. Lobera led his garrison of twelve men to their
places within the fort. Angulo took command outside. For an hour or two
there was uncertainty as to the identity of the vessel, and horsemen
were dispatched to the beach to watch its movements. They presently
hastened back with the news that the brigantine had cast anchor off what
is now San Lazaro and had sent ashore two boatloads of armed men, who
were now approaching the city through the jungle. This indicated
treachery, for the jungle was impenetrable save by a certain secret path
which no strangers could know, and indeed it was presently disclosed
that the invaders were guided by two men who had formerly lived in
Havana, one of whom had been a harbor pilot.
The governor unhesitatingly considered discretion to be the better part
of valor, and betook himself to instant flight, conveying his family and
such of his property as he could carry to the native village of
Guanabacoa, at the other side of the bay, where he was joined during the
day by a majority of the residents of Havana. Lobera, on the other hand,
now that he was face to face with a great crisis, forgot his fears and
acquitted himself as a man of valor. With his little garrison, half of
whom were negro slaves, and with a score of refugees, old men, women
and children, he shut himself within the fort, with its walls of stone
and gates of timber, and prepared to fight to the death. He had found
three more cannon and had taken them into the fort, thus totalling six,
with a good supply of ammunition and provisions. He dispatched a message
to Angulo, reproaching him for his cowardly flight and imploring him to
send all able bodied men to the aid of the garrison, for the honor of
Spain. This the governor promised to do at or before nightfall; a
promise which was not kept.
The invaders were commanded by Captain Sores in person. They took
possession of the town without resistance, and then summoned the fort to
surrender; expecting to find in it much treasure from Spanish vessels
which had recently been wrecked on the Florida coast, though in fact no
such treasure was there. Lobera unhesitatingly refused to surrender, and
the fight began. The first assault upon the fort, from the landward
side, was repulsed. Then the brigantine was seen to be approaching at
the other side, accompanied by another and larger vessel of Sores's
squadron, which had just arrived; wherefore Lobera had to transfer two
of his cannon to that side of the fort to prevent a landing of more
troops. A second assault was repulsed, during which a Spanish gunner
shot down the French flag from the staff on which Sores had raised it at
the stone house of Juan de Rojas, which the French had occupied as
headquarters. A third assault, near nightfall, was also repulsed, but
the two wooden gates of La Fuerza were burned with nearly all the
contents of the tower. The little garrison and the refugees spent the
night on an open terrace, with only a little powder and shot and not a
day's food left. Hoping for help from the governor and citizens, Lobera
fired his largest gun at intervals during the night, beat the drums and
sounded bugle calls; but all in vain. "The darkness gave no token."
The French demanded his surrender, promising good treatment, but
threatening a ruthless assault which would mean death if he persisted
in trying to hold his indefensible position. Lobera refused, until the
break of day. Then he saw that no help was approaching from Angulo, that
an overwhelming force of French soldiers surrounded him on all sides,
and that successful defence was impossible. His ammunition was all but
gone. The cords of the crossbows with which his men were armed were
frayed and broken. Some of his men were slain, while some of the
survivors, especially one German gunner, mutinously held converse with
the enemy. The refugees fell on their knees before him bidding him die
fighting if he would, but to let their lives be spared. In this
desperate plight Lobera yielded, offering to surrender on honorable
terms, if the lives of his men were spared and the women were protected
from dishonor. To this Sores gave his word, and the fort capitulated.
The flag of France was raised over La Fuerza, and twenty-odd Spanish
subjects were prisoners.
The women and children were quickly released, but all the men were
locked up in the house of Juan de Rojas, which was the strongest stone
building in the city. About a score more were added to their number, of
Spaniards and Portuguese whom Sores had captured elsewhere.
A few hours after the surrender, word was received from Angulo. He had
at last organized a force of about fifty men, chiefly Indians, and had
started to the relief of the fort when he heard of its capitulation. At
this he realized that all was lost, and retired to Guanabacoa, there to
seek negotiations with the French for the ransom of Havana. A truce was
declared, and the prisoners were released from Rojas's house on parole,
pledged not to fight, or to leave town, and to return to their prison at
nightfall. Angulo offered a ransom of three thousand ducats, declaring
that no more could be raised. The Frenchmen scorned the offer, and
demanded thirty thousand pesos--eighty thousand had been collected at
Santiago the year before--and a hundred loads of bread. Angulo
protested his inability to raise such an amount, but begged for time in
which to see what he could do.
A week passed, the French occupying Havana at their ease and Angulo
scouring the surrounding country, ostensibly for ransom money but in
fact for men and arms. By the end of the week he had surreptitiously
collected a force of 335 men, of whom about thirty-five were Spaniards
and the rest negroes and Indians. They were armed chiefly with clubs and
stones. Himself and eight others were mounted on horseback. With this
motley force he hoped to surprise the French by night, and to capture
Rojas's house, where he would take Sores himself prisoner and release
the Spanish captives.
The desperate plan would probably have succeeded had not some of the
Indians indiscreetly uttered their war cry as they rushed upon the
house, arousing the Frenchmen and giving them time to close and bar the
massive doors. The few Frenchmen who were sleeping outside of the house
were quickly overcome and slain, and Angulo laid siege to the house
itself, summoning Sores to surrender. The French commander was furious
at what he not unreasonably regarded as a breach of the truce. Moreover,
his brother was among those who had been killed outside the house. In a
fury he ordered that all the Spanish prisoners in the house be put to
death. This was quickly done, with the exception of Lobera, who was
confined in an upper room. Sores reserved the killing of him for
himself, and entered the room where Lobera was for that purpose. Lobera
defended himself, meanwhile protesting that he had had no part in the
treachery; and his evidently honest pleas moved a French officer to
intervene in his behalf and to disarm Sores. Then, at the direction of
Sores, Lobera showed himself at a window and addressed Angulo,
reproaching him for the breach of truce, and imploring him to withdraw.
Angulo refused, declaring that he had already recaptured the town, and
that at daylight he would complete the work by capturing the Rojas house
and its inmates.
With the coming of daylight, however, the folly of this course became
apparent. Angulo had, indeed, a larger force than the Frenchmen still
remaining in Havana; though as the latter were far the better armed a
conflict between them would probably have been disastrous to the
Spaniards. But the two ships in the harbor were now aroused and began
firing upon the Spaniards with their artillery, while reenforcements of
men for Sores put off for shore in boats. Sores and his companions made
a fierce sally from the house. The few Spaniards made a stand, but the
negroes and most of the Indians would not oppose clubs and stones to
swords and arquebuses. They fled incontinently to the jungle, followed
by Angulo himself.
His victory thus completed, Sores returned to the house where he had
left Lobera locked in a room with the dead and dying. He absolved the
commander from all responsibility for Angulo's treacherous conduct, and
complimented him upon the valor with which he had defended La Fuerza as
well as upon his good faith. He would not, however, release him without
a ransom, according to the custom of the times. In default of the
ransom, he would take him to France as a prisoner, though treated with
all consideration. Lobera was without means, but his friends with whom
he was permitted to communicate soon raised the required sum of two
thousand two hundred pesos, and he was set at liberty. He thereafter
went to Spain, carrying with him the news of what had happened to
Havana.
The negotiations for the ransom of the town were less successful. Angulo
had fled far inland, and could not be reached, and the Spaniards who
remained could not offer more than a thousand pesos, a sum which Sores
scorned. In default of ransom, therefore, the place was looted and
burned. Three buildings alone remained standing: La Fuerza, the church,
and the hospital. Indeed, the interior of the church was almost entirely
destroyed. Sores and his men were fierce Huguenots, and they tore down
the images of saints and took the robes and altar vestments to make
cloaks for themselves. All the boats found in the harbor were burned.
The neighboring estates for miles around were destroyed, and some of the
negroes who offered resistance were hanged. The harbor was carefully
surveyed and sounded, to facilitate future entries. Finally, his work
being thus thoroughly done, Sores sailed away at midnight of August 5,
less than a month after his arrival.
At the end of September a little French vessel, containing only a dozen
men, entered the harbor, inspected the ruins of the city, and seized a
Spanish caravel which lay there, taking it away with them to the harbor
of Mariel, where there were several French ships. Ten days later the
entire French force entered the harbor of Havana and landed many men.
They did not, however, molest the Spanish residents nor destroy the new
buildings which they were beginning to erect, but seemed to regard them
with good humored tolerance, as too insignificant to merit attention.
Indeed, there were only a few dozen of the Spanish, all told, and they
were helpless and disheartened. The Frenchmen contented themselves with
going to several of the outlying farms and taking all the hides they
could find to add to the cargo which they were already carrying. They
remained there, on amicable terms with the Spanish, for more than a
fortnight, and then sailed away.
These things occurred at the time when Philip of Spain was marrying
Queen Mary of England and was taking possession of the Netherlands, and
when Spain vaunted herself as the foremost military power of the world.
It must not be wondered at that the people of Cuba, and particularly of
Havana, regarded themselves as grievously neglected by those who should
have been their protectors, and bitterly reproached not alone the
governor but even the King himself for not having afforded them more
ample protection. The explanation was, doubtless, that Spain regarded
Mexico, South America, and of course her European possessions, as of
far greater importance than the island whose gold mines were about
exhausted, which had failed to provide iron for Spanish artillery, and
which had served chiefly as a stepping stone to more valuable lands. It
was a strange irony of fate that the island which was thus slighted was
destined to be the most faithful and the longest held of all the
colonial possessions of Spain.