Читать книгу The History of Cuba (Vol. 1-5) - Willis Fletcher Johnson - Страница 15

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The early part of the administration of Gonzalo de Guzman was chiefly occupied with the investigation of his predecessors' stewardships, and with controversies with the municipal councils. There was also a controversy with the Crown over the payment to him of a salary for his services, which he requested of the King, and which the King ordered to be paid to him, but which he did not receive. Then came complications over the royal treasurership in the island. Christopher de Cuellar had been succeeded in that office by Pedro Nuñez de Guzman. The latter died, leaving a considerable fortune, and the colonial government at Hispaniola immediately designated Andres Duero to succeed him temporarily, until the King should make a permanent appointment; the expectation apparently being that Duero would be confirmed in the office. Unfortunately for the success of this design, however, the temporary appointment had been made without consulting the royal officials; who were not unnaturally piqued and offended. The result was that a protest was made to the King, not only against the method of his appointment but also against Duero himself. To this the King listened sympathetically, and he presently overruled the appointment of Duero, and in place of him named Hernando de Castro as temporary treasurer, until such time as he could have conditions investigated and could select some fitting man as a permanent incumbent.

Oddly enough, Castro had once before supplanted Duero, as the royal factor in Cuba. This office had first been held by Bernardino Velasquez, upon whose death Andres Duero had been appointed to hold it temporarily, only to be speedily replaced by Castro. The latter appears to have been one of the most enterprising men of affairs of that time, and to have done more than most of his contemporaries for the industrial and economic development of the island. He became engaged in commerce between Spain and the West Indies at an early date, and paid much attention to agriculture, which he believed would be the chief permanent industry of Cuba. It was he who introduced the cultivation of wheat and other staples, with a view to making the island self-supporting, and for such activities he received the formal thanks of the King. Unfortunately, he too somewhat compromised himself by attempting to appropriate as his own the native Cubans who had been the serfs of Bernardino Velasquez and whom Duero, the factor pro tempore, had seized.

Soon after the replacing of Duero with Castro as treasurer pro tempore the former died, and then the latter was in turn replaced by the permanent appointment of Lopez Hurtado, who held the place for many years, and who was distinguished at once for his honesty and his irrepressible cantankerousness. He seemed to have a mania for faultfinding; though doubtless there was much legitimate occasion for the exercise of that faculty. To his mind, almost every other man in Cuba was a knave, and he never wearied of reporting to the King, in interminable written messages, his complaints and accusations. Not only in spite of but also because of this he was a most useful public servant.

Pedro Nuñez de Guzman, who died in 1527, left, as we have seen, a considerable fortune. Practically all of it was left to his widow, and her the thrifty Gonzalo de Guzman presently married, and thus got himself into one of the most serious controversies of his whole career. A part of the fortune of Pedro consisted of about two hundred Cuban serfs. These Gonzalo de Guzman, as Repartidor, transferred to the widow, and then, of course, when he married her, they became his property. This roused the animosity of the honest but cantankerous Hurtado, who thought that the Cubans should have been given to himself, as their former owner's official successor; according to the example set by Hernando de Castro, as already related. Hurtado accordingly wrote to the King a long letter on the subject, which, though it did not cause intervention in that special matter, attracted the King's attention to the complications which the Guzman marriage was producing.

The mother of the late Pedro Nuñez de Guzman next appeared as a party to the controversy. This lady, Doña Leonora de Quiñones, who had remained in Spain, complained that a great injustice had been done to her and to her other children by the transfer of Pedro's entire fortune to his widow and thence to the latter's second husband, and she applied to the Spanish courts for relief. The result was a series of lawsuits, which scandalized the Spanish courts for a term of years. In these suits many prominent Cubans were involved, and nearly the whole population of the island took sides for one or the other of the parties. Street brawls occurred over it, and the violence culminated in a physical scuffle in the aisle of the cathedral, between Gonzalo de Guzman and the Alcalde of Santiago, in which the latter had most of his clothes torn from his back, and for which Guzman was required to do penance.

The King had given his assent to the Guzman marriage, and was unwilling to withdraw it, or to censure Guzman for taking and striving to retain all of Pedro's estate. Nevertheless he remonstrated with the litigants for the fury of their controversy, which he truly told them was not only a disgrace to the island but was also a grave practical injury to it. The conflict continued, however, until all the resources of the law courts were exhausted. By that time many of the lawyers were considerably enriched, but a still large part of the estate was confirmed in the possession of Gonzalo de Guzman and his wife. All this militated against the confidence with which Guzman had been regarded, and hastened steps for the subjection of him to the fate of his predecessors.

We have seen that Guzman had been commissioned to investigate the administration of his predecessor, Altamarino, and that he had performed that congenial task with energy and zeal. Now came his own turn to undergo the same treatment. It was only a little more than two years after his accession to the governorship that the King or the Crown officials in Spain concluded that it would be well to have his affairs looked into. For the performance of this work Juan Vadillo was selected, in the autumn of 1528. He was a notably efficient man. He had been employed for some time by the crown as a debt-collector in Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Porto Rico, and had been highly successful in that work; wherefore it was thought that he would subject Guzman's administration to a particularly thorough examination.

He declined, however, to accept the commission; for a variety of reasons. One was, that he had thitherto taken his orders and received his commissions directly from the King, and he considered it beneath his dignity now to be an underling of a mere Admiral of the Indies—or of the widow of the Admiral, since the commission for this job was to be given by the widow of Diego Columbus. Another reason was found in the terms on which the commission was to be granted. He was to be governor of Cuba for thirty days. During that time he was to conduct his investigation of Guzman's administration. Then, with the assumption that thirty days would afford him ample time to complete the work, he was to restore the governorship to Guzman, apparently quite irrespective of the result of his inquest. Still another reason was, that his instructions were not sufficiently explicit. It was not, for example, made clear whether he was to replace Guzman as repartidor as well as in the governorship. A final reason, perhaps not least of all, was that the salary offered was not sufficient.

While thus declining to accept the commission, Vadillo manifested his fitness for it and his serviceable interest in Cuban affairs by pointing out to the sovereign various grave defects in the administration of Cuban affairs, particularly in that of the repartidor's functions. One important object of the repartimiento system was to assure a suitable distribution of native labor throughout the island. It was in fact operating to just the contrary effect. Some parts of the island were overcrowded, while others were almost entirely destitute of labor. These representations had their effect at court; not, it is true, in the ordering of correction of the evils, but in confirming the desire to have Vadillo investigate insular affairs.

After more than two years' delay, then, on February 27, 1531, another summons was sent to Vadillo. This time it was not a request but a peremptory order to go at once to Cuba and undertake the work. The conditions were, however, materially changed. He was to have his commission from the King. He was to be governor for sixty days instead of thirty. He was to be repartidor, also, in conjunction with the Bishop of Cuba. He was to have an adequate salary. And at the end of his investigation of Guzman's administration he was to hand the governorship over, not necessarily to Guzman again, but to anyone whom he might choose, until the widow of Diego Columbus should make a permanent appointment.

On these conditions Vadillo accepted the commission and entered upon his work with the efficiency and zeal that had marked his former undertaking. He quickly found that there was much need for investigation, and of thorough reforms. The whole administration had become demoralized by the personal jealousies and local feuds which for years had been raging. Bribery, slander, false arrest, even murder, had been resorted to by political partisans for the accomplishment of their ends, until something like chaos had been precipitated upon the unhappy island. It was in November, 1531, that Vadillo arrived at Santiago de Cuba on his formidable errand. He purposed to spend a few weeks in preliminary surveys of the ground, announcing that his sixty days' incumbency of the governorship would begin on January 1.

On the latter date the actual house-cleaning began. The tremendous indictment which Guzman had made against Altamarino was a petty trifle in comparison with that which Vadillo launched against Guzman. There was scarcely any conceivable form of maladministration which was not charged against the governor. He had, said Vadillo, interfered with freedom of suffrage at elections. He had levied and collected taxes for which there was no warrant in law. He had appointed and commissioned notaries, although he had no legal power to do so. He had failed to compel married men either to return to their wives in Spain or to send for their wives to come to Cuba. He had permitted illicit trade in slaves. He had been biassed and partial in his administration of justice. All these and other accusations were made with much circumstance and with a formidable array of corroborative testimony, against Guzman as governor. Against him as repartidor it was charged that he had been guilty of gross and injurious misrepresentations to the Crown and to the people; that he had assigned natives as serfs to his relatives and friends in defiance of law; and that he had made the distribution of native labor inequitable.

All these charges were indignantly denied by Guzman, who defended himself with much vigor and shrewdness. But Vadillo found him to be guilty of almost every one of them, and sentenced him to pay a heavy fine and to be removed from office, both as governor and as repartidor. Against this judgment Guzman made appeal to the Council for the Indies, in Spain. In order to bring all possible influence to bear upon that body, he himself went to Spain, in August, 1532, carrying a vast mass of documents, and accompanied by Bishop Ramirez, who was returning to Spain to be consecrated. This ecclesiastic had been Guzman's most staunch and zealous partisan during the investigation. He had gone so far as to threaten with excommunication anyone who should testify against the governor, and had actually excommunicated Vadillo. Against this act Vadillo had protested to the King, and the King had reprimanded the Bishop and had compelled him to withdraw the writ of excommunication. Guzman therefore took the Bishop along with him, partly so that the latter might be formally consecrated and have his conduct if possible vindicated, and partly to aid himself in his appeal to the Council for the Indies.

Vadillo did not trouble himself to go to Spain to counteract Guzman's appeal. A month before the departure of Guzman and the Bishop he left Cuba for Hispaniola, conscious of having done his duty. He had been a fearless and thorough investigator and a just judge; and he had rendered to Cuba and to the Spanish crown services far greater than he ever received compensation or credit for. Indeed, he did not enjoy so much as the gratitude of the people of Cuba, most of whom were partisans of Guzman or of some other political leader, and had become so accustomed to the corrupt ways which had been followed for years that they were inclined to resent any attempt at reform.

Upon the expiration of his sixty days' incumbency, Vadillo designated Manuel de Rojas to be governor in his stead, until an appointment of permanent character could be made by the Admiral at Hispaniola. Rojas was reluctant to accept the place, knowing that he would find it more arduous and even perilous than before, but he was finally prevailed upon to do so, apparently more through a sense of public duty than for any expectation of personal advantage.