The disastrous events which have been related in the preceding chapter
suggested to the Spaniards in Cuba and also to the government at Seville
the desirability, if not the necessity, of establishing a more militant
administration of affairs if the island was not to be the prey of all
comers and perhaps ultimately be lost to the Spanish crown. Thitherto,
with the exception of Velasquez and the possible exception of De Soto,
every governor of the island had been a civilian and a lawyer. It seemed
an experiment worth making, then, to appoint a military man to the
office, in the hope that he would be better fitted to provide for the
protection of the island against the privateers and corsairs who roved
the seas in increasing numbers and with increasing boldness. True,
immediately after the abdication of Charles I and the accession of
Philip II, in 1556, a truce was concluded between France and Spain,
which was to last five years. But few expected that it would last so
long, as indeed it did not, being broken in two years; and even while it
did last privateering was by no means abolished. In any case, be it
peace or be it war, Spain had tried to hold her western empire by virtue
of Divine Right and ecclesiastical decrees, and had failed. Now she
would try holding what was left of it with military and naval force; and
to that end would have a soldier for governor of Cuba.
The man chosen was indeed an expert and competent soldier, by no means
devoid of statesmanship. Diego de Mazariegos had been one of the most
efficient lieutenants of Cortez in Mexico, and distinguished himself as
a brave and skilful fighter against the Indians. He had also given much
attention to international relations, and to the privateering which had
become such a scourge of the seas. Indeed, it was through some of his
writings on this latter subject that the court of Seville was led to
consider him as a candidate for the Cuban governorship. Dr. Angulo had
been appointed in 1550, and five years was long enough, it was thought,
for a man to serve, unless he served better than Angulo had done in the
latter part of his term. So Mazariegos was selected to succeed him, in
March, 1555. Juan Martinez, a lawyer, was selected to go with him as
lieutenant governor. These were the last appointments made in Cuba by
King Charles before his retirement from the throne.
Some time was required for preparations for the voyage and for residence
in a new land, so that Mazariegos and Martinez did not sail from Spain
until late in the summer. On the way they suffered shipwreck and
Martinez and all his family were drowned. Mazariegos escaped, but lost
everything he had with him save the clothes which he was wearing. This
disaster made it necessary still further to postpone his assumption of
the governorship, so that he did not reach Cuba until March 7, 1556. It
is noteworthy that instead of landing at Santiago, as every other
governor had done, he went straight to Havana, where Angulo awaited him,
and the very next day, March 8, he was installed as governor. In
accordance with custom he conducted an investigation of Angulo's
accounts and general administration, which was permitted to pass as a
merely formal and perfunctory performance. The passionate demands for
Angulo's indictment and punishment were by this time forgotten.
Havana had been partially rebuilt since the raid of Captain Sores, and
had been completely transformed in character. It had a very much larger
population than before, and that population was restless and turbulent
to a degree. It contained adventurers from every country and of every
type; fortune hunters, fugitive criminals, gamblers, bankrupts, the
shady output of Mexico, Darien and Peru, who sought in Cuba a No Man's
Land in which they would not be troubled with law and order. In this
expectation they reckoned without their host. Or perhaps they counted
upon the rough and ready soldier as likely to countenance a large degree
of laxity. If so, they were mistaken. Mazariegos had indeed the personal
morals of a soldier of fortune. Soon after the death of Angulo he took
the latter's widow for his mistress and lived with her openly, to the
great scandal of the church, until after the death of the lady's mother,
when he married her, as he said he had all along intended to do; the
delay being due to his unwillingness to have a mother-in-law. But this
was regarded by the governor as a trifling peccadillo. Upon graver
offenses, murder, robbery, brawling and what not, he frowned with the
wrath of a Precisian.
Nor was he any respecter of persons. When Francisco de Angulo, the son
of the lady whom he had taken as his mistress and was soon to make his
wife, scandalized law and order with his drunkenness and brawling, he
exiled him to Mexico. For like offenses he also banished Gomez de Rojas,
the youngest brother of Juan de Rojas, one of the foremost citizens of
Havana; expressing as he did so a fervent wish that the young man might
quickly meet with an evil death. As for his own nephew, Francisco de
Mazariegos, when he became notorious for gambling, lechery and fighting,
he inflicted upon him with his own hands a physical chastisement which
was a more than nine days' example to all the other youth of the town.
Santiago still being the nominal capital of the island, the new governor
thought it incumbent upon him at least to visit it. In fact, he spent
nearly the whole year 1557 there, endeavoring to provide it with means
of defence against French privateers. He stationed a captain of the army
there, with four small cannon, some muskets and pikes, and a supply of
gunpowder, urging the citizens to learn to fight so as to defend
themselves. Then, in January, 1558, he hastened back to Havana to defend
it against raiders who were said to be on their way thither. Five months
later a French privateer visited Santiago, took the place without so
much as a blow from the captain, considered it too small and poor to be
worth looting or burning, and sailed away again after collecting only
400 pesos ransom; probably the smallest ransom on record for a capital
city!
On his return to Havana, Mazariegos showed the value of a military
governor for the protection of a city. For six weeks that summer a
French squadron of four vessels lay off Havana, without venturing to
attack the place, knowing that Mazariegos had mobilized and trained for
fighting every able-bodied man in the place, and even some robust and
athletic negro women. But the governor was not satisfied with defence
alone. He contrived to get word to some Spanish captains at Nombre de
Dios, who were going to convoy treasure ships to Spain, with the result
that they presently came up unannounced and captured the whole French
squadron. Again and again thereafter Havana was menaced, even attacked,
but invariably Mazariegos repulsed the enemy, generally with heavy loss
to the latter.
He felt, however, the need of better equipment, particularly of more
cannon, and asked the crown to provide it. The crown declined or at any
rate failed to do so, whereupon he set about doing it himself, and
succeeded in getting, sometimes by rather strenuous means, a number of
cannon and a good supply of powder. But a better fort than the ruins of
La Fuerza was also needed, and to that enterprise he turned his
attention with zeal. At the beginning of his administration Geronimo
Bustamente de Herrera was commissioned by the crown to build a new fort,
but after making plans and engaging workmen he fell ill and had to
abandon the job. At the beginning of 1558, just as Mazariegos returned
thither from Santiago, Herrera was replaced by Bartolome Sanchez, a
competent engineer; who prepared new plans for the rebuilding of La
Fuerza as it stands to this day. The Viceroy of Mexico, who was much
interested in the safety of Mexican treasure ships which might put in at
Havana, contributed 12,000 pesos in gold for the beginning of the work.
There was much trouble in getting laborers for the work, in Spain.
Sanchez wanted at least a hundred negro slaves. The government thought
the number excessive, and gave him authorization for only thirty;
whereupon he declared that the enterprise might as well be given up. In
fact he secured in Spain only fifteen workmen, and with them he sailed
for Cuba, hoping to secure the rest there, or elsewhere in the West
Indies.
The work began early in December, 1558. A stone quarry was opened near
Guanabacoa, and a kiln for making lime was built. But labor was still
lacking. Sanchez wanted two hundred, negro slaves or others, and
appealed to the people of the town to help him get them. In response
they procured for him thirty slaves--their own, whom they were willing
to turn over to him "for a consideration." Then the governor took a hand
in the game. There were forty slaves at Santiago, who had been brought
thither without the proper shipping papers, and were being held for that
reason. Mazariegos sent to Santiago, confiscated them all, and brought
them up to Havana, to work on the new fort. Some French prisoners who
had been taken in a fight off Matanzas were also set at work on it. All
tramps and vagabonds who were arrested were sent to La Fuerza or to the
quarry, and for a time, until the crown stopped it, one third of the
Indian village of Guanabacoa were kept at work on the fort.
Although Sanchez was in charge of the work and was responsible for it,
Mazariegos spent much of his time there, watching it, directing it, and
chastising with tongue and sometimes even with rod all who seemed
laggards at the job. In time he succeeded Sanchez in authority. For
Sanchez incurred much enmity on the part of some influential citizens,
whose houses he took in order to make an open place about the fort. They
accused him of corruption, of making gross errors in the plans for the
fort, of fomenting discord, and of wasting money. He was too busy with
building the fort to pay much attention to these things, even when they
took the form of letters to the King. The outcome of it was that in the
summer of 1560 Sanchez was removed from his place, and Mazariegos was
put in charge of the completion of La Fuerza. A few months later Sanchez
reached Seville, and pleaded his case to so good effect that the crown
was convinced that injustice had been done him, and that he should not
have been discharged. However, it was not practicable to reinstate him,
though he was sent back a few years later to make an official inspection
of the completed fort.
In addition to La Fuerza, Mazariegos built the first forerunner of the
Morro Castle. In 1563 he built on the Morro headland a tower of masonry
more than thirty feet high. It was intended primarily as a landmark, and
was therefore painted white in order to make it visible at the greatest
possible distance. But a watchman was generally kept in it, to espy
approaching vessels and to signal to the city news of their approach.
The tower is said to have cost only 200 pesos, and was paid for by the
city of Havana.
Mazariegos presently became involved in affairs outside of Cuba. Many
men deserted at Havana from the vessels of Angelo de Villafane, governor
of Florida. Villafane complained and wanted Mazariegos to capture and
return them. Mazariegos replied that he could not do it; to which we may
doubtless add that he would not have done so if he could. He was
desirous of increasing the population of Cuba, even in that way. When
Villafane attempted to plant a Spanish colony at what is now Port Royal,
South Carolina, and failed, Mazariegos had some correspondence with the
King, and probably acquiesced in the royal opinion, that it would be
impracticable to establish a colony at that point. In 1563, however, the
King learned that the French had been quite successful in planting a
colony on that very spot where the Spaniards under Villafane had failed,
and he informed Mazariegos of the fact. The governor, acting upon his
own initiative, but shrewdly guessing what would be acceptable to the
King, sent Hernando de Rojas thither with a frigate and twenty-five
soldiers, to see how much of a settlement the French had made, and to
destroy it if he was able to do so with that force. In the summer of
1564 Rojas returned, reporting that the settlement had been abandoned by
the French. He brought back with him one young Frenchman as a prisoner,
and also a memorial stone which the French had set up to commemorate the
founding of the place, bearing the date, 1561. Mazariegos commended
Rojas for his work, sent the memorial stone to Seville, and then began
planning to go in person or to send an expedition to search the Carolina
and other coasts in quest of new French colonies. His theory was that
the more French settlements there were, the more French vessels there
would be, and therefore the more subject Cuba would be to alien
annoyance.
This, however, was not to be. The end of Mazariegos's administration was
already drawing near. He fell into some violent disputes with the
citizens of Havana, over the appointment of alcaldes, a duty which they
charged him with neglecting. He was also charged with packing the town
council with his own creatures, with tampering with the mails so as to
prevent people from writing to Spain any complaints of his
maladministration, and of other misdemeanors. Bartolome Sanchez, who had
returned from Spain and who had a bitter personal grudge against the
governor for supplanting him as builder of the fort, petitioned the King
to have a judge sent from Hispaniola to investigate him, but the King
refused. Mazariegos, learning this, and feeling unwarrantably secure in
royal favor, adopted a more arrogant attitude toward his opponents and
critics, which did him no good.
In the spring of 1565, Garcia Osorio de Sandoval was appointed to
succeed him as governor. Mazariegos thereupon wrote to the King, asking
that there be no unnecessary law suits brought against him, as he was
old, and ill, and poor. (He was not yet fifty years of age!) The King
granted his request, and in consequence instructed Osorio to make his
investigation as little annoying as possible. Osorio obeyed, and
although the report of the inquest filled three big volumes, Mazariegos
was not brought to trial on any charges and had no fines assessed
against him. He remained living at Havana for some time, and then
completed his career in the King's service as governor of Caracas,
Venezuela. His administration had been a stormy one, but on the whole
advantageous to Cuba, and had confirmed the Seville government in its
policy of appointing others than mere lawyers to the insular
governorship.
Garcia Osorio de Sandoval became governor of Cuba on September 12, 1565.
As he was not a lawyer, the precedent which had been set in Mazariegos's
case was followed in his, of appointing a lieutenant governor who was a
lawyer to serve with him. His lieutenant was Luis Cabrera, who did not
reach Cuba until later in the year, having suffered shipwreck and been
obliged to put back to Spain and await the sailing of another vessel.
Osorio appears to have been a soldier, though probably retired from
active service at the time of his appointment to the governorship. At
any rate he made it his first care to improve the defences of the
island. It is related that he bore with him from Spain to Havana a cargo
of arms and munitions, including four brass cannon. These he placed upon
the fortification, thus making a battery of eight pieces, and built a
substantial platform of timber for them to stand upon. La Fuerza was not
yet completed, but he took measures to expedite the work and hoped to
have it finished in a year. In order to protect the place from possible
raids by land, he closed and blocked all roads and trails leading into
it from the west excepting the one along the beach. He organized a force
of seventy men armed with arquebuses, to be quickly summoned in an
emergency, and required them and all citizens to assemble for service
whenever a strange sail was sighted. In addition, as a permanent
contribution to defence, a spacious arsenal was built near the water
front, to contain the stores of ammunition and to shelter the guards and
citizens.
There was thus much promise that Osorio would prove to be an energetic
and useful governor. Unfortunately, at the very beginning of his
administration he came into conflict with another and much stronger
functionary of the Spanish crown; indeed, one of the most formidable
figures of the time. This was none other than Pedro Menendez de Aviles,
whose record fills so large a place in the early annals of Florida and
the West Indies. He took to the sea in boyhood, and became one of the
most expert navigators of Spain. At the age of thirty he was captain of
his own ship, and it was one of the most active and efficient vessels
among all that guarded and convoyed the treasure ships and fleets of the
Spanish Main. At that time he warned the government of Hispaniola and
also that of Mexico of the grave danger of letting the French get any
foothold upon those shores, or even of navigating those waters. The
Bahama Channel, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea should all, he
insisted, be declared and kept closed seas, into which no vessels but
those of Spain should enter save by special license.
[Illustration: PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILES.]
Menendez was, moreover, an ardent and indeed fanatical Catholic, who
deemed it a duty to extirpate "Lutheran dogs," as he termed the French
Huguenots and other Protestants; and as most of the French seamen and
foreign adventurers at that time were of the Huguenot faith, he
cherished a special animosity against them.
Now, his recommendations to the governments of Hispaniola and Mexico
were transmitted to Seville and were laid before the King. Charles was
at that time weary of royal cares and was about to resign them, and he
paid little or no attention to the letters of the young captain. But
when Philip II came to the throne, attention was given to them. That
painstaking monarch read them and was much struck by them, both in their
warning of military danger from the French and in their zealous
animosity against heretics. Their writer was evidently, he thought, a
man after his own heart. So he sent for Menendez, talked with him, and
commissioned him to be the guardian of the highway to the Indies, with
the title of captain-general. It was his function to guard Spanish
treasure ships all the way across the Atlantic, from Mexico to Spain, as
he had formerly guarded them in the narrow seas about the Indies. It was
thus that he was serving during a part of Mazariegos's administration in
Cuba, and in that capacity he spent much time at Havana. On one or two
occasions he took charge of the few little vessels which formed
Mazariegos's navy, and did good service with them. At this time, also,
he wrote to the King about the increasing ravages and peril of French
privateers in those waters, very much as he had written to the local
governments years before.
The result was that the King in March, 1565, appointed him to be
Adelantado of Florida, and captain-general of the Spanish fleet in that
part of the world specially commissioned to guard the coasts and ports
of the Indies. That was six months before Osorio became governor of
Cuba.
The commission of Menendez bade him to "guard the coasts and ports of
the Indies." Very well. Cuba was certainly one of the Indies. Therefore
he was commissioned to guard the ports and coasts of Cuba. Being
familiar with Cuba, and recognizing its very great importance, he
naturally deemed the guarding of that island as one of the very first of
his duties. Mazariegos did not demur, since he was himself soon to
retire from the governorship. But when Osorio came to Havana six months
later, and found Menendez in command of all that pertained to harbor and
coast defence, there was trouble. Osorio asserted his rights and
authority as governor of Cuba. Menendez replied with an assertion of his
as captain-general "to guard the coasts and ports."
The first clash came because Menendez interpreted his jurisdiction as
extending to fortifications on land as well as to shipping; which we
must regard as extreme if not overstrained. He assumed direction of the
garrison of Havana, and had two hundred men sent thither from a large
detachment which was sent to Florida. As La Fuerza was not yet finished
sufficiently to accommodate them, houses were hired to receive them.
Osorio was not notified in advance that they were coming, or that they
had arrived; and after they were there they refused to regard his
authority but took orders solely from Baltazar Barreda, a captain whom
Menendez had assigned to their command. Presently Barreda took charge of
La Fuerza and began moving thither the artillery, including the four
pieces which Osorio had brought with him from Spain. Osorio
remonstrated, saying that the fort was not yet sufficiently completed
for use. Barreda defied his authority, and was sustained by Menendez,
who happened to be in Havana at the time. The governor yielded, for the
time. But as soon as Menendez was out of the city he clapped Barreda
into jail, after a violent physical struggle, and appointed Pedro de
Redroban to the command of the fort in his stead. News of this reached
Menendez and he hastened back and released Barreda. As for Redroban, he
and half a dozen of his men fled to the woods, in well-founded fear of
Menendez.
Now, Redroban was one of Menendez's soldiers, just as much as Barreda,
and was probably as loyal to him as Barreda. But he had deemed it
incumbent upon himself to obey the commands of the governor of the
island. Nevertheless, Menendez charged Osorio with having incited mutiny
in the garrison, and he denounced Redroban as a deserter and traitor,
who should be captured and put to death, and his head exhibited in the
market-place with an inscription proclaiming him a traitor to the King
and disobedient to his commander. Redroban and some of his comrades
were captured, tried, and condemned to death; but on appeal to the crown
their sentences were commuted. Menendez then ordered Barreda to set the
garrison at work digging a moat about the fort, and demanded picks and
shovels from the governor for the purpose. These Osorio refused to
supply, and Barreda thereupon secured them from the people of the town.
Still another cause of friction was found in the coming to Cuba of many
men, both civilians and runaway soldiers, from Florida. These Osorio
received and sent to the interior of Cuba to engage in agriculture.
Menendez complained that Osorio was inciting and assisting desertions
from Florida; and Osorio bitterly replied that affairs were so bad in
Florida under Menendez's rule that people had to flee from the place to
save their lives from starvation and pestilence.
Whatever were the general merits of the controversy between the two men,
it was certain from the beginning that Menendez would win. He had the
higher official rank, and he enjoyed the special favor of the King. More
and more he made Havana his headquarters, preferring it to any port on
the Florida coast; to which it was, of course, naturally much superior.
More and more, too, he assumed authority in Havana, not alone in
military but even in civil affairs. More and more Osorio was ignored.
And as Menendez had the stronger force of men, and was backed by the
approval and favor of the King, it was in vain that Osorio resented the
slights which were heaped upon him.
Matters reached their climax in the matter of further fortifications.
Osorio wanted to build a sea wall in front of the city, such as the
engineer Sanchez had planned years before, at the beginning of
Mazariegos's administration. Menendez curtly dismissed that scheme, and
commissioned his son-in-law, Pedro de Valdes, with some other officers
from Florida, to survey the waterfront of the city and recommend
additional fortifications. They reported that it would be folly to
build a sea wall, and that all that was needed was a round tower, about
thirty-seven feet high, on the headland opposite the Morro, on which
latter an observation tower had already been erected. Valdes suggested
that the tower might be built by the garrison of La Fuerza, at no cost,
if the governor would provide the materials. This Osorio refused to do.
He had no money for such a purpose, and no authority to spend any for
it. Moreover, he condemned the plan of thus dividing the garrison,
holding that it would be far better to finish La Fuerza and concentrate
all the forces there. The outcome of it was, therefore, that the
proposed Punta Castle had to be for the time abandoned; Menendez
perforce contenting himself with some earth-works on Punta, in which he
placed a couple of cannons.
At the same time other friction arose at Santiago, a place which could
not yet be altogether neglected. Menendez's attention was called to that
place by having one of his own ships chased into Santiago harbor by a
French privateer. The captain of that ship reported to him that Santiago
had a fine harbor but practically no defences. A fort had indeed been
begun on the headland at one side of the harbor entrance, but had not
been finished, and the sea wall for which the people had petitioned had
not been started. Menendez thereupon sent thither a company of fifty men
with four cannon, under command of Captain Godoy; without, of course,
consulting Osorio as governor of the island.
This force remained there about three months, in the summer of 1567. It
saw nothing of French privateers, or of any menace of an attack upon the
town. But it did see a good deal of merchant ships of various nations,
French, Scottish and Portuguese, which came thither with slaves and
merchandise, but which seldom ventured in for fear of Godoy and his men.
For such trade with foreigners, and particularly with those who were or
were suspected to be heretics was strictly forbidden. Godoy and his men
were therefore most unwelcome visitors, to the merchants and people of
Santiago, and to the lieutenant of the governor, Martin de Mendoza. It
was suspected, not without reason, that Osorio had sent word to Mendoza
to antagonize Godoy as much as possible. At any rate, one day a
particularly big French merchant vessel came into the harbor; Godoy
rallied his men to the battery near the wharf, to prevent it from
landing its cargo; and Mendoza arrested Godoy and sent him to jail,
where he kept him until the cargo had been discharged and another taken
on in its place, amid the jubilations of the people. Then Godoy was
released, with profound apologies for the error which had been committed
in arresting him!
Godoy remained for some time thereafter at Santiago, though much against
his will. His superior officer commanded him to remain. But he sent an
appeal for relief to the Supreme Court of Hispaniola, with the result
that Mendoza was removed from office, in the winter of 1557-58. This was
a relief to both Mendoza and Godoy, though it did not make their
feelings less bitter. On Palm Sunday the two met at church, Mendoza
accompanied by his wife and Godoy by a friend named Cordoba. The latter
two grossly insulted both Mendoza and his wife, then ran into the church
for security from chastisement, forcibly resisted arrest, and committed
acts of sacrilege. They were finally overpowered, and on being brought
to trial before the local court were condemned, Godoy to be hanged and
his body quartered, and Cordoba to be flogged and sent to the galleys.
The sentence was executed, Godoy being hanged on a gallows at the door
of the church the sanctity of which he had violated. When Menendez heard
of this he was furious. He instituted proceedings against Mendoza and
the local alcaldes at Santiago, charging them with conspiracy to destroy
Godoy so that their illegal traffic with Frenchmen and other foreigners
would not be molested. Mendoza thought it prudent to remove to
Carthagena, in New Granada, for fear of personal violence; whence he
proceeded to Spain, where he was acquitted of all the charges which
Menendez had made against him.
Meantime, the governorship of Osorio had ended. Early in 1567, at the
time when the controversy arose over the sea wall and the Punta
fortifications, he had realized that his usefulness as governor was
ended, and had asked the King to accept his resignation; declaring that
his presence there was no longer of value to his majesty. In August,
1567, the King appointed Diego de Santillan to be governor in his stead,
and commissioned him to investigate Osorio's stewardship, and
particularly to bring him to trial on certain charges of false arrest
and cruelty to a prisoner. But just as Santillan was about to embark for
Cuba, in October, 1567, his commission was revoked and Menendez was
appointed governor of Cuba in his stead. It has been said that this
appointment was made by the fanatical King to show his approval and
appreciation of Menendez's act on September 20, 1565, when he massacred
the French garrison of Fort Caroline, Florida, "not as Frenchmen but as
Lutherans."
Menendez was not able, however, as Adelantado of Florida, to reside
permanently in Cuba, or indeed to spend much time there; wherefore it
was arranged that a lieutenant governor should be the actual
administrator in his stead. The man chosen was Francisco Zayas, a
lawyer, who had been selected by the King to be lieutenant governor with
Santillan. He reached Havana in July, 1568, and at once assumed the
office which Osorio was glad to relinquish. It cannot be said that he
was greatly welcomed by the people of Havana or of any part of Cuba,
since it was assumed that he would be a mere puppet acting for Menendez,
and it was feared that Menendez would use Cuba as a mere stepping stone
or adjunct to Florida, draining it of men and resources for the benefit
of the larger province on the continent. This apprehension, happily, was
not realized.
Osorio personally had cause for fear. Zayas was commissioned to conduct
the investigation into his affairs, and there was every reason to
suppose that Menendez would compel him to make the inquest as drastic as
possible and to impose the heaviest possible penalties for any
misdemeanors which might be proved against him. But Zayas was after all
a just and reasonable man, who was not afraid to assert his independence
of Menendez, particularly since, as he pointed out, his commission as
lieutenant governor antedated that of Menendez as governor by two
months. Moreover the people of Havana, through dislike of Menendez and
fear of his policy, gave their strongest support to Osorio, testifying
in his behalf, and at the end sending a great memorial to the King,
signed by almost every man of consequence in Havana, petitioning for the
utmost possible favor for the governor. The result was that the lightest
of sentences was passed upon Osorio, two years after his actual
retirement from office.
In dealing thus with Osorio, however, Zayas sealed his own fate. Nothing
that he could do thereafter pleased Menendez, while he was called upon
by the latter to do or to sanction things which offended his sense of
right. By the beginning of May, 1569, relations between them reached the
breaking point. Menendez caused the city council to protest that Zayas
had never filed the bond which was required of a lieutenant governor,
and to characterize this as a grave offence, indicating criminal intent.
Zayas thereupon resigned his office. Suits were instituted against him
and his wife in Spain, by Menendez, and he returned to the country to
meet them. He appears to have been successful in his defence, since the
King subsequently appointed him to be a judge in the Canary Islands.
Menendez appointed in place of Zayas as lieutenant governor Diego de
Cabrera, who had filled that place under Osorio. His term of service was
short, however, and no fewer than five others succeeded him, one after
another, during the administration of Menendez. They were Diego de
Ribera; Pedro Menendez Marquez, a nephew of Menendez; Juan de
Ynestrosa; Juan Alfonso de Nabia; and Sancho Pardo Osorio.
Diego de Ribera, who served for a brief space under Menendez as
lieutenant-governor, was captain of the galleons, and was presently
commissioned for an expedition to Florida. He was succeeded by Pedro
Menendez Marquez, a nephew of Menendez. He was an accomplished navigator
and on that account was directed by his uncle to sound and chart the Old
Bahama Channel, a much-frequented route of commerce and approach to Cuba
from the north and east. To this undertaking he devoted only a few
weeks, but his observations were so exact, thorough and comprehensive
that the Council for the Indies, on receiving his charts, immediately
approved them and ordered them to be regarded as the authority for
navigation of those waters.
The administration of Sancho Pardo Osorio was marked with much energy in
advancing the defences of Havana and in caring for the commerce which
frequented or touched at Cuban ports. The former work proceeded slowly,
because of the necessity of depending almost exclusively upon the local
community for aid. At this time also was effected the immensely
important reform of codifying the municipal ordinances. This work was
done under a commission of the Supreme Court by Dr. Alfonso Casares, of
Havana, who on January 14, 1577, presented the results of his labors to
a council consisting of Sancho Pardo, the Alcaldes Geronimo de Rojas
Avellaneda, and Alfonso Velasquez de Cuellar, and the Regidores Diego
Lopez Duran, Juan Bautista de Rojas, Baltasar de Barreda, Antonio Recio,
and Rodrigo Carreno. The code was unanimously approved by them, and it
remained in force and active practice until the War of Independence in
1898.