Documents Transferred From The Chapter Minutes Collection

DOCUMENTS TRANSFERRED FROM THE CHAPTER MINUTES COLLECTION R. Zédula EL REY. Minister of the Countryside Don Severino de Manzaneda, Knight of the Order of Santiago, my governor and Captain-General in the Interim of the Ysla of Cuba, and the City of Havana, by Dispatch of the twenty-fifth of July of this year you will understand what is going on. I urge you to order that as soon as possible the fortification and town, which I had previously resolved to be made in the Bay and port of Matanzas, be put into execution, and I told you that for this town thirty relatives from the Canary Islands would be sent, which they remained requesting and having conferred in my Council and Board of War of Yndias. the equity that it will be good to see to these families for their preservation, and alibio, and having consulted me about it, I have resolved, to order and command you (as I do) to arrive at that port, to go and populate them in the place of Matanzas, in the same paraxe q. is delineated in the plan that is sent to you, embied by your predecessor Dn. Josef Fernandez de Cordoba, arranging the construction of the houses in which they are to be built, taking particular care, in the outside of the castle, nor their vicinity under any pretext, it is necessary to make a building, a house or a cave, within a cannon shot of the fortification, as I charge you, pointing out to them, and giving them allotments of land to work and cultivate with those kinds, and fruits that are most compromising to them; and giving fifty pesos to each family so that they may be able to provide for their preservation, making this assistance to them as I command you to give them any effects and my property that may exist, and I will enter these Caxas, without reservation of millions. Some, because it is my will, will be prompt and effective for them as soon as they arrive in Matanzas. I have also resolved, that these thirty Canarian families for the time of twenty years shall be free from Taxes, and without any burden of any duties in all that may be of husbandry, breeding, and manifolding; q. as soon as they arrive, and the work begins, they are received by furnace workers to work on it, paying them the same furnace, that the others who will work there, and that if these families arrive after the work and fortification of Matanzas is finished, in this case it is my will that they be given soldiers' places, in the castle that will be built there, with the quality of q. on the days when they are not on guard duty they may be away attending their avitations and tillages; all which ye shall execute, and cause to be executed, thus giving the combent orders, for their better, shorter, and effectual execution. Being warned that any person of the q. who compose these families must be able to remain in that City of Havana, nor go elsewhere; but on the right, they are to be aloxated in Matanzas; A penalty of q. if any or some of them are lost, those that fail to arrive there will be forwarded at our expense, besides that it will be of the utmost displeasure to me, since as a command it is one of the Offices and Chapters of Residence, in which you are to be taken from the exercise of your government, if you fail to give an account of those that have arrived, and you will be able to live in Matanzas; and considering as it ought to be considered, the great benefit which the proprietors of the Yngenios, Estancias, and other lands which the aforesaid fortification shall cover, I command you, and command you, acknowledging what they are, to solicit from their Owners, and the City, the service which they shall render, both for the said fortification and for its maintenance, and that of the families who are to make up the population, for it is one, and the other must be so benefited, ceasing to them the losses which they now experience from being harassed by the Pirates who so frequently infest those paraxes; and of the receipt of this Dispatch, and of what is expressed in it in all the points expressed therein, you will give me an account on the occasions that may be offered, as well as of what will result from the service that (...) the owners of the Estancias and Haciendas adjoining Matanzas will try to do, in order to find me with notice of it; and my accountants who reside in the said my Council of the Yndias, dated from Madrid, on the twentyth, and fifth day of September, one thousand six hundred and ninety = I THE KING= By order of the King Our Lord Don Antonio Ortiz de Otarola, will take account of the present one. Note: The Accountants of His Mgd. Q. resided in his Royal Council of the Yndias = Dn. Luis de Astorga = Dn. Juan de Velasco, y Angulo.