Don Gabriel Montalvo was appointed to be Governor of Cuba early in
December, 1573. As was the custom in those days, however, he delayed for
some time actual assumption of office, so that it was not until October
29, 1574, that he entered upon his duties. He was also charged with some
important duties in Florida, but they were subordinate to those in Cuba.
He made his home in the island and spent most of his time there. Indeed,
he seems to have planned to make his home at Santiago, and to restore
that place to its former prestige. On coming to Cuba he landed at
Manzanillo instead of coming to Havana, and sent Diego de Soto to be his
representative, practically deputy governor, at the latter place. From
Manzanillo he went straight to Santiago, refurbished the governor's
house and the public buildings, and began planning an elaborate system
of harbor defences worthy of the capital of the island. He was naturally
received with great joy by the people of Santiago and of the eastern end
of the island generally, who saw in him, as they thought, a promise of
restoration of that region to its former importance.
From Santiago the governor set out on a tour of the eastern cities and
towns, and had got as far as Bayamo when there came a hurried and urgent
appeal for him to come to Havana. There was trouble in the city. Diego
de Soto, the deputy governor there, had made Gomez de Rojas commander of
La Fuerza--that reckless and truculent younger brother of Juan de Rojas
whom Governor Mazariegos had once exiled from the island for disorderly
if not criminal conduct. Now Gomez de Rojas was a land owner, and
therefore, under the law, ineligible thus to serve. But confiding in the
powerful influence of his family he ignored the law and held his place
in defiance of all protests and demands for his retirement. The town
council demanded his retirement, and the populace of Havana raged
against him, but he shut himself up in the unfinished fort, trained his
guns against the town, and prepared to resist with force any attempt
which might be made by force to compel his resignation.
Such was the emergency which sent a message post haste to the new
governor asking him to hasten to Havana. He came, and at his coming
Gomez de Rojas capitulated without a blow. Montalvo rebuked him severely
and imposed upon him a heavy fine, which was paid. But in this the
governor incurred the hostility of the Rojas family. The feud was taken
up by Juan Bautista de Rojas, who had succeeded his cousin Juan de
Ynestrosa, deceased, as royal treasurer. This official charged the
governor with conniving with smugglers and receivers of smuggled goods,
and also with those who exported goods to countries with which traffic
was prohibited, and on that account demanded for himself the right to
inspect vessels and their cargoes; a function which had been exercised
by the governor.
This demand was curtly rejected by Montalvo, who appears to have been a
stickler for dignity and technical rights. Thereupon De Rojas made
appeal to the King, coupling the appeal with a detailed and bitter
arraignment of the governor and an impeachment of his integrity. This
seems to have impressed the king deeply, for he presently decided the
controversy in favor of his own treasurer. He sent word to the governor
that thereafter he should not inspect or even visit ships, but should
leave that whole business in the hands of the royal treasurer. The
advantage thus gained was mercilessly pressed by the Rojas family, with
the purpose of compelling the retirement of Montalvo. They accused him
of employing for his own private work slaves belonging to the crown and
intended for employment on La Fuerza and other public works. They
charged him specifically with having made Bartolome Morales a notary for
a consideration of five hundred ducats; a transaction the evil of which
consisted not in selling the appointment for cash, but in selling it for
so little to a favored friend when it might have been sold to someone
else for twice as much. Finally he was accused of corruption and
maladministration in connection with La Fuerza, in that he had appointed
friends to places at exorbitant salaries, and that he had ignored the
suggestions of the royal officials in completing the plans of the fort.
These charges were serious, and there is reason to think that some of
them, at least, were true. The Rojas family made them and repeated them
to the king, again and again, until that monarch was constrained to
remark that the time seemed to be near at hand when an investigation
would have to be ordered, and Montalvo's administration be brought to a
close. Nevertheless the king's favorable disposition toward Montalvo was
potent, and prevailed. The governor had been appointed, as was the
custom, for the specific term of four years, reckoned from the date of
his appointment and not of his actual assumption of office, and the king
delayed calling for an investigation until the four years were so nearly
expired that they would be entirely filled out by the time the
investigation was completed and a new governor was ready to take the
place.
The order for the investigation was given in February, 1577, and at the
same time, on February 13, Captain Francisco Carreno was named to
succeed Montalvo as governor. The investigation was vigorously
prosecuted, and some of the charges against Montalvo were proved. Yet so
great was the king's personal regard for him that he was permitted to go
with a nominal fine, and was retained in the royal service in important
capacities for some years thereafter. He remained governor of Cuba until
the accession of his successor, which did not occur until June 2, 1578.
The administration of Montalvo was unfavorably marked by three things.
One was, the continuance of the contraband trade already referred to,
in both imports and exports; in which, as already related, the governor
himself was charged with participating. Montalvo at any rate gave the
appearance of striving to suppress it. He sent agents to investigate the
business, some of whom found their own relatives engaged in it and
therefore refrained from reporting upon it, and some were prevented by
the people from executing that for which they had been sent. Not merely
the people, but the local officials all along the southeastern coast did
all in their power to hamper and prevent investigation or any
interference with the contraband trade. Indeed, alcaldes and other
officials were foremost among those engaged in the unlawful commerce.
The second feature of the administration was the persistent ravages of
the French. Despite the fact that they were engaged in contraband trade
with the people of Cuba, the French were at this time the most frequent
raiders of Cuban coast towns; sometimes directing their attacks against
the very towns in which they had been peacefully trading, while the
people were quite ready at any time to trade with those who just before
had visited them with fire and sword and demands for ransom. It was a
curious circumstance that by far the most efficient guardian of Cuba
against such raids was that same Gomez de Rojas who had been exiled by
Mazariegos and who had illegally assumed command of La Fuerza and had
bitterly quarreled with Montalvo. After being compelled to leave La
Fuerza he had taken to seafaring, and as commander of a Spanish vessel
he drove more than one French privateer away from the neighborhood of
Havana.
Montalvo was the first to urge that Cuba be protected not alone with
land fortifications and batteries but also by naval vessels.
Particularly he wished for a powerful war-galley, which the king did not
provide him. In 1576 French raiders attacked Santiago, and were with
difficulty repulsed; upon which Montalvo sarcastically reported that if
another such attack occurred he would himself be relieved of the
necessity of fortifying the harbor and city of Santiago, for the place
would cease to exist. A little later a daring French raid was made upon
Spanish shipping just outside the harbor of Havana. This greatly
incensed Montalvo, and caused him to renew his pleadings for a galley.
He urged that the whole Cuban coast should be patrolled by light, swift
vessels, preferably frigates, and that strong galleys should be
stationed at the chief ports. He would have had the frigates, at any
rate, built in Cuba and at least partly paid for by that island; but the
Havana municipal council protested against this, demanding that Cuba be
entirely exempted from the costs of defending her from enemies. The
result was that in the lack of means of defence Cuba suffered more and
more from the ravages of privateers and freebooters, which became more
frequent as the island increased in population and wealth and thus
became better worth raiding.
The third unfavorable feature of the time was the haggling over La
Fuerza. Begun by De Soto, and later almost entirely rebuilt, that famous
fortress seemed to be under some malign spell which made it a source of
injury rather than of benefit to Havana. Year after year passed,
appropriation after appropriation was made and expended, and still it
remained unfinished. Man after man undertook the task of completing it,
only to fail and lose his personal reputation either for efficiency or
for honesty. Moreover, as the work proceeded grave faults were
developed, both in plan and in construction. The fort, which at first
had been denounced as needlessly large, was seen to be entirely too
small to shelter a garrison sufficient for the defence of Havana. The
original design had been to make it a shelter to which all the people of
the town could flee in case of attack, and it might have served this
purpose at a time when the people of Havana were numbered by scores, or
at most by a hundred or two. But with the figures extending into
thousands it became evident that La Fuerza was entirely inadequate to
any such purpose. Indeed, it was realized that that design was
ill-conceived, for if the place was to grow into a considerable city it
would be impracticable and undesirable to make any fortification large
enough to hold all the population.
The construction was also faulty. The fort was built of stone, but there
had thoughtlessly been chosen for the purpose a stone which had the
advantages of being plentiful and so soft as to be easily worked.
Unhappily it had also the very serious disadvantages of being so soft
that it would probably soon be battered to fragments by cannon balls,
and of being so porous that water soaked into and through it as through
a sponge. During the rainy season the place was flooded, water standing
in pools on the floor, and the magazine being so wet that gunpowder
could not be kept there without spoiling; wherefore another building, of
wood, had to be provided for that purpose. The same kind of stone was
used, moreover, for the reservoir which was to provide fort and city
with water, with the result that its contents quickly leaked out. There
arose a proverbial saying in the city that the powder magazine was
always wet and the water reservoir was always dry; and it was
sarcastically proposed that the functions of the two be exchanged. The
powder would be kept dry in the reservoir, and there would always be
plenty of water in the magazine! Nor was this the only error in
construction. The whole structure was said to be dangerously weak, so
that if all its guns should be fired simultaneously, the shock might
tumble the walls into ruin. The guns were available for use in only a
narrow zone; they were of too short range to carry to the other
extremity of the harbor, and they were so placed that they could not be
depressed so as to hit vessels which had come close in toward the water
front of the city. Therefore a hostile ship with long range guns could
lie out of reach of La Fuerza and bombard the fort and city at will. Or
one could sail swiftly in, running the gantlet of the narrow zone of
fire, and gain a place under the walls of the fort where it would be
quite safe for the guns of the latter while it could use its own at
short range with deadly effect. It was also complained that the parapet
was too low to afford shelter to the men serving the guns, and that the
four big wooden gates were a source of fatal weakness.
It was presently perceived, too, that fortifications elsewhere than in
the heart of the city were needed for adequate defence of the place.
Especially were such works needed at the headlands commanding the
entrance to the harbor. Without them, a daring enemy might seize one of
those spots, bring up some long range guns from his ships, and have not
only Havana but La Fuerza itself at his mercy. Montalvo appears to have
recognized this need, and to have urged the construction of such forts,
especially on the Cabanas hill, but to no avail. Instead, the royal
government proposed the construction of a strong wall around the entire
city, including the water front. It actually ordered that work to be
undertaken, the first step being to destroy a large part of the city,
including the church, to make room for the wall. Against this suicidal
policy Montalvo effectively protested, declaring that if the city were
thus demolished it would never be rebuilt, and also pointing out that
the day of walled cities was past. In the face of his representations
the wall scheme was abandoned; but his wise suggestions of forts
commanding the harbor were not acted upon until years afterward.
It is to be recorded to his credit that Montalvo gave more attention
than his immediate predecessors had done to development of some of the
natural resources of the island. He interested himself in forestry, and
soon had an immense trade in timber and lumber between Cuba and Spain.
The exquisite cabinet work of the Escurial, in Spain, was made of wood
from the forests of Cuba--mahogany, ebony, ironwood, cedar, and what
not. Wood was supplied for other purposes, too, notably for
ship-building. It was at this time that interest arose in the great
island just off the southern coast, which at that time was so richly
clad with pine forests as to receive from Montalvo on that account its
present name of "Isle of Pines." During the administration of Menendez
the whole island was granted to Alfonso de Rojas for a cattle range, a
purpose for which it was admirably adapted, and there are legends to the
effect that the water between the Isle of Pines and Cuba was at times so
shallow as to make it possible to drive herds of cattle across from the
one land to the other. It is to be observed, in passing, that thus early
in history was the Isle of Pines recognized as an integral part of Cuba.
Montalvo also did much to promote agriculture, and the raising of swine.
He endeavored to revive interest in both gold and copper mining, and
seems to have been persuaded that there were enormously rich deposits of
the former metal hidden somewhere on the island, in places known only to
the natives. He strove diligently and persistently to get from the few
surviving Indians information concerning these mines, but in vain. If
the Indians knew, they would not tell; but it seems altogether probable
that they did not know, and that no such mineral wealth existed on the
island.
It was in Montalvo's time, too, that what was destined to become Cuba's
greatest industry had its permanent establishment. At various times and
places thitherto men had experimented with sugar growing and
manufacture, with varying degrees of success. But every such undertaking
had after a while been abandoned, either for lack of profit or because
of the superior attractions of something else. It was not until 1576
that plantations were established which were never to be abandoned but
were to continue in cultivation down to this present time, and that
sugar mills of similar permanence were put into operation. The scene of
this epochal enterprise was the region around Havana, particularly
between Havana and Matanzas. There in the year named at least three
mills were established, a fact indicating that a considerable area was
planted in cane. These mills were of the most primitive description,
each consisting of three wooden rollers, formed of logs of trees denuded
of the bark, mounted in a rude frame of timber, and caused to revolve by
a long pole of which one end was fastened to the end of one of the
upright rollers while to the other was hitched a mule or an ox, which
walked in a circle around the "mill." The expressed juice was caught in
trays or jars of earthenware, and then was boiled in open pans. The
sugar thus produced was not refined beyond the stage of what would now
be considered a very coarse brown sugar, but it served the uses of the
island. It does not appear that any considerable quantity was exported
until a number of years later. These primitive establishments in 1576
were, however, the beginning of Cuba's gigantic sugar industry.
One other incident of Montalvo's administration must be recalled, to
wit, his quarrel with the church, or at least with the Bishop. Diego
Sarmiento, who became Bishop in De Soto's time, had been gathered to his
fathers, and had been succeeded by Bishop Durango. The latter had in
turn died, and in 1560 had been succeeded by Bernardino de Villapando,
who spent only three years in the island and then departed for Mexico
under unpleasant charges of embezzlement of funds. The charges against
him do not appear to have been pressed, nor did they affect his standing
in the church, for he was presently transferred to the then much more
important see of Guatemala. Moreover, despite the charges made against
him, he was recognized as a most energetic and successful prelate. He
established many mission stations throughout the island, and expedited
the completion of the cathedral at Santiago.
Upon his promotion to Guatemala after three years' service Bishop
Villapando was succeeded by Juan de Burgos, who continued with much
success the work of his predecessor. He secured the erection of a large
church school on the site now occupied by the Hospital of San Juan de
Dios, at Havana, and there the famous missionary preachers and teachers,
Juan Roger and Francisco Villaroel, gave instruction to Indian youths in
the Christian religion and in the Spanish tongue. In connection with
this school there was built the church of San Juan de Dios, and from the
establishment thus founded by Bishop Burgos grew the first hospital in
Havana. It took originally the form of a military hospital, for the
soldiers of the Havana garrison and for soldiers in transit to or from
Florida, Mexico and other places. It is recorded that for his work
Bishop Burgos depended entirely upon the offerings of the people;
demonstrating what could be accomplished by an honest and businesslike
administrator.
The next Bishop of Cuba was Pedro del Castillo, who came to the island
from the University of Salamanca. He was a most aggressive and strenuous
prelate, with policies of his own and with the courage to enforce them.
Arriving in Cuba in 1570, he glanced at Santiago when he landed there,
crossed the island to Havana, where he spent a little time, and then
proceeded to Bayamo, where he established his home, preferring that to
any other city of Cuba. He then laid claim to the island of Jamaica as a
part of his bishopric, and succeeded in carrying that point despite the
opposition of the Archbishop at Hispaniola. Then he complained that the
royal officials were not properly collecting the tithes, or at any rate
were not paying him his proper revenue; wherefore he himself began
collecting the tithes. This brought him into conflict with the crown, a
circumstance which did not alarm him nor swerve him from his course. He
made a number of appointments of the clergy under him which he deemed to
be for the good of their parishes but which made him unpopular with
them. Also he incurred much unpopularity among the people by his
insistence upon certain reforms in their morals.
This strenuous policy presently led Castillo into conflict with
Montalvo. The Governor thought that the Bishop ought to reside at
Santiago, where were his official residence and also the Cathedral.
Castillo refused to do so, on the nominal ground that he considered
Santiago an unhealthful spot. There is reason to suspect, however, that
he preferred Bayamo because of certain very rich legacies which had been
left years before for the erection of a masonry church and parochial
school at that place. The provisions of these wills had not been carried
out, and the strenuous Bishop set himself to the task of finding out why
the church and school had not been built, and of getting possession of
the legacies and administering them himself. In the litigation which
ensued he quarrelled with Montalvo so bitterly that he excommunicated
him; an act which the governor did not take greatly to heart. The strife
between the two accentuated, however, the antagonism between church and
state which was even at that early time beginning to prevail.
[Illustration: SAN FRANCISCO CHURCH
One of the most ancient of the many ecclesiastical edifices in Havana,
built in 1575 and rebuilt in 1731, and presenting a singularly perfect
and characteristic example of ancient Spanish architecture. In late
years it was used by the Government for a custom house, and post office.
The illustration presents it in its earlier aspect with its former
surroundings restored.]