http://www.cahe.nmsu.edu/pubs/resourcesmag/spring96/camino.html

THE CAMINO REAL:
Our tie with Mexico, yesterday, today, and tomorrow

by Miley Gonzalez

This article appeared in the Spring 1996 issue of New Mexico Resources.
Photography: J. Victor Espinoza.
Map Artwork by Jerry Downs.

(Editor's note: In addition to is very positive message, the site includes many photos and artwork.) 

Our view south no doubt possesses the certainty and hubris of the friars of old. Like them, we increasingly see our destiny taking us across the Chihuahua Desert region to create a greater union. This time we cross political borders and barriers never thought of 400 years earlier.

The Camino Real, or Royal Road, once the lifeline from Mexican civilization to New Mexico, could be born again as the symbol of a new unification for the region. Since coming to NMSU five years ago, my duties included building bridges with our colleagues to the south in a region that was very much part of my personal life as a Mexican-American with Spanish, Dutch, and Native American roots.

On this warm June day, I led a trio of modern-day Camino Real explorers from NMSU's College of Agriculture and Home Economics. Well supplied with pens, paper, and camera equipment, our group also included Terry Canup, agricultural communications department head; and Victor Espinoza, the department's photographer.

We met Francisco Valerio, a political science professor and student of local history from the University of Zacatecas, who guided us through the historical riches of the monastery adorned with 300-year-old paintings depicting the life of St. Francis of Assisi. While this was the religious heart of the Camino Real's southern terminus, the nearby silver mines of Zacatecas comprised the economic engine that pumped riches throughout the Spanish empire on four continents.

Francisco told of a Chinese professor he encountered, who knew of Zacatecas from the minting mark on an ancient Spanish coin he owned. Don Juan de Oñate, the father of New Mexico's colonization, was a child of Zacatecas.

Oñate's father Cristobal, a Basque by birth, was named the first regional governor of this northern frontier in the 1540s, having already founded the city of Guadalajara. Asked where we might find a monument to the Oñates, a blank and then quizzical look crossed Francisco's face. Conquistadors are not heroes in Mexico, he explained. Any monuments to them probably have long ago been toppled by the people.

That was a curious image considering the imposing monument to Don Juan de Oñate astride his horse at the Camino Real's northern terminus in Española, New Mexico. There, it is a symbol of Hispanic culture and pride. Another mounted figure in bronze did ride above Zacatecas atop the 8,000-foot peak called El Cerro de la Bufa, Basque for pig's bladder. The raised hooves of the horse indicated--by the standard code of war monuments--that the rider, Pancho Villa, had died in battle.

Villa was a hero to the people for his Chihuahua Desert campaign in the Mexican Revolution. As a youngster, I was given a storied view of that campaign from inside the Villa camp, where my grandfather and his brother-in-law fought, though they hailed from California.

At my great-uncle's house in California, I remember sitting in silence outside the circle of men recounting stories of the Revolution until 5 a.m. They told their stories santo y sena, or in infinite detail, as they not only told the beginning and end, but painted an intricate picture of the events of that time.

Even my name, it turned out, was a product of the Revolution, as my grandfather changed his name from Trujillo to Gonzalez to avoid reach of the Federales, when he crossed the border back to the United States. I will probably never understand the pull of the Revolution to grandfather, except that he believed it was a just cause. I find myself equally comfortable with Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who still identify with that history and those who tend to identify themselves as products of another time and place.

My grandfather seemed a soldier until the day he died in 1958, always carrying his sidearm to handle any problems of the day.

Without understanding the Revolution, the forces that led to it, and how vested the power structure is in its legacy, it is hard to understand the outlook of most Mexicans. As we look down from La Bufa, however, we see the legacy of Baroque Europe. The city could well have been lifted from Old Spain with intricately carved cathedral spires punctuating the skyline every few blocks, a testimony to the tremendous presence of the church and its many orders bent on converting the New World inhabitants.

From this vantage point, we could see numerous mines still producing silver. An old hacienda south of the city houses a silver smithy. The road south to Mexico City was known as Camino de la Plata, the Silver Road. That route gave early traders a means to provide food, supplies, and other commodities to the mining areas. Ranching became the second most important industry in the region, and the first cattle growers' association was established in Mexico City in 1537. Large quantities of grain, mostly wheat and corn, came out of rich, fertile valleys near Queretaro and Guadalajara. Roads from the western area of Michoacan, another important agricultural center, helped provide much needed food supplies to the region.

Zacatecas was not always so naked of trees. As a local professor told me, "I'm not sure which disappeared most rapidly, the Indians or the timber. Both were critical to the development of mining throughout Mexico, and we nearly did away with both completely."

From the mountain, we could see the hacienda of the conquerors Cristobal and Don Juan de Oñate. Unlike how we surround our homes with yards, colonial Spanish architects surrounded their yards with their houses. An inconspicuous nameplate on the outside wall is the only reminder that conquistadors once lived here.

Certainly grand in size, the hacienda once stood on the outskirts of the city, but now is just one of a host of 16th and 17th century structures lining the narrow cobblestone streets of the central city--a place of Old World charm that is still best enjoyed on foot. Strolling Zacatecans fill the streets on summer nights until 10 p.m. or later. Today, government offices fill the conquistadors' hacienda. Day-to-day business is matter-of-factly carried on within the walls of structures that would be hallowed historical treasures north of the border.

Such was the case for Antonio Valenzuela, dean of academic affairs at the University of Zacatecas, whose office is off the patio of one of the many old buildings the university occupies in the central city. One of my American companions comments on the style of meetings in Mexico. They are initially formal with each major player completing his thoughts at length without interruption. My message was a desire for our College of Agriculture and Home Economics to develop a strong working relationship with the university. Since 1992, the College has revisited its relationships with institutions in Mexico. The opening of the Mexican economy in the 1980s and the NAFTA treaty fed a fever of excitement about Mexico among private businesses and public institutions north of the border. A new emphasis on relationships to the south would spawn opportunity in the College, we reasoned. New agreements for joint research and student and faculty exchanges were signed with the Autonomous Universities of Chihuahua, Zacatecas, and Sinaloa; and the post-graduate college with branches in Chapingo, Puebla, and Salinas.

Some of the institutions across the Chihuahua Desert joined us in support of the Consortium of Arid and Semiarid Research Universities, and they offered support for the construction of NMSU's Center for Sustainable Development of Arid Lands. The project's Spanish acronym is CEDESZA.

While the fever cooled north of the border when the peso devaluated in 1994, I was determined to stay the path on these relationships. Today, I invited Antonio to send faculty to NMSU to complete graduate work.

We were hardly alone in seeking such relationships, it turned out, as major institutions in Spain, England, and other countries had trained Zacatecas faculty. Antonio's response was overshadowed by the recent peso devaluation, which made sending faculty to the U.S. almost impossible, he explained. Government support for faculty training would likely concentrate on what could be done at home.

The peso devaluation and the accompanying recession was ever-present in conversation. Four hundred years ago, those seeking riches, social standing, and a new way of life traveled the Camino Real out of Zacatecas to the fabled cities of gold to the north. Today, Jorge Bernal, graduate dean at the University of Zacatecas, tells us that people stream out of Zacatecas to the U.S. labor market, like no other place in Mexico. Jesus Delgado, an out-of-work electrician and cousin to our photographer Victor, confirmed that the road to Los Angeles is well-worn by Zacatecans who have no options but to leave their lovely city to find work.

It was my turn to ride the Camino, which I would do by air-conditioned coach, complete with videotaped Hollywood features for my entertainment. I mused about what it must have been like for Don Juan de Oñate to leave this place on Jan. 26, 1598. His entourage included more than 500 soldiers and settlers, a few friars, 83 carros or carts drawn by oxen, and more than 7,000 head of livestock. All were readying for a 1,000-mile journey. Six months later, the two-mile long column would reach Española, New Mexico.

The coach would take me through Nueva Viscaya, as it was known to the colonists, the vast Chihuahuan Desert region between Zacatecas and the Rio Grande. It was down this road that settlers would establish the agricultural traditions of the entire region. We started on a four-lane highway, but soon changed to an old-fashioned, two-lane road that took us through small farming and ranching communities. Famous mining towns would be found on a parallel route that went through the mountain towns of Sombrerete, Durango, Santa Barbara, and Hidalgo de Parral.

We instead went through endless miles of desert like that of the Jornada del Muerto, or March of the Dead, between Las Cruces and Socorro, New Mexico. The region was sharing New Mexico's woes of drought. A startling amount of the land in the basin north of Zacatecas was plowed. Irrigated lands were thriving, but dry-land crop fields were barren.

As I watched cattle grazing on cactus by the road, I was reminded of the common bond between Nueva Viscaya and Nuevo Mexico. I remember, as a boy growing up along the border in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, my dad and uncles talking about the Chihuahuan lands north and south of the Rio Grande as one. My dad and uncles were born in New Mexico and grew up working on ranches and farms in Chihuahua, New Mexico, Arizona, and California in the 1920s and 1930s. My mother was born in the Coachella Valley of California and spent her teenage years in Delicias, Chihuahua, where my coach ride would end this day.

It wasn't surprising that my first adult job was trading cattle on and across the U.S.-Mexican border. Later, I managed several spice farms in Mexico and marketed the yields in the U.S. It turned out to be tremendous good fortune to be raised in a region where it was normal to be bilingual and bicultural, as I pursued a career in academia. Soon, I managed American educational programs in Latin America and became a bridge between academics from both cultures.

The terrain on this trip was tremendously familiar to a New Mexican. Dusty old towns gave way to the green of irrigation at the Rio Navas, where Don Juan de Oñate had his moment of truth by rallying, with a rousing speech, restless soldiers awaiting final permission from the viceroy to venture into New Mexico.

Further north, as we entered the State of Chihuahua, a Western flavor was on the streets with posters advertising bullriding competitions. Cowboy traditions were born on the northern frontier of New Spain where the most skilled and sophisticated horsemen in Europe, the Spaniards, made their mark on the West as vaqueros.

Some of my fondest childhood memories greet me as I pass through the territory of my grandfather's ranch where I visited in the early 1950s. I remember tagging along as my father, uncle, grandfather, and others worked cattle--they on horses, me on burro. The family had always moved back and forth across the border to pursue a living in agriculture. My father recounted to me how, as a youngster in 1926, he rode across the Yuma sand dunes on a wooden tie road to cross the border to the family's Mexican homestead. After my grandfather died, however, the ranch he worked left the family.

Near Delicias, our traveling trio found a virtual oasis. Except for minor differences and the fact that the area was four times the size, we might have thought we were at home in the Mesilla Valley. We saw miles and miles of fields with pecan trees, alfalfa, cotton, vegetables, corn, grain sorghum, and other crops. A huge dairy complex, complete with an on-farm processing plant located just outside Delicias, dwarfs even the largest dairy farms in New Mexico. Agriculture is big business here. Through my previous travels, I knew that the business elite of Delicias were barons of agriculture.

The region was an important agricultural center as early as the mid-1700s. Later, it became the primary marketplace for merchants to the north. The section of the Camino Real from here north became known as the Chihuahua Trail. The great ranches and irrigated farms of Mexico were forerunners of large-scale agriculture in New Mexico. The acequias of north-central New Mexico were designed by the Spaniards of the Camino, who borrowed the work of the region's Native Americans.

Today, agricultural education continues more formally. Delicias is home to some of the agricultural programs of the Autonomous University of Chihuahua. Several professors from NMSU have conducted courses over several weeks here, and many of the agricultural faculty are graduates of our master's and doctoral programs at NMSU.

A recent graduate of our doctoral program in horticulture, Victor Guerrero, maintains ties with NMSU, organizing his fellow Aggie alums in Chihuahua. Victor joined us and NMSU faculty the next day in Chihuahua City for a journey to the Sierra Madre to visit the Tarahumara Indians at the Jesuit mission of Norogachi. We planned to gauge NMSU's potential for helping the drought-stricken subsistence farmers. (See Our Journey Begins in this issue.) There, too, it seemed, trees and Indians were being depleted.

Upon our return to the city, true to form, we chose to fly over the 275 miles of dry country where Oñate nearly perished of thirst before reaching the Rio Grande. As I flew over Nueva Viscaya and across the border, I considered the tremendous purpose that motivated Oñate and his party. They had New Mexico fever in a bad way, facing perils that were all too real--parched deserts of climatic extremes.                              

Today, we all too easily turn away from the Camino that could bring riches to both sides of the border. The greatest peril we face is a thin tolerance for change. There are signs of hope, however, such as the Camino Real Economic Alliance that is creating a forum for trade, industry, and agribusiness to benefit citizens from Mexico City to Santa Fe. If we develop sons and daughters who are multilingual, multicultural, and at the very least bi-literate, the Camino Real will be their road to opportunity.

 Submitted by Johanna de Soto                                                                 Return to Table of Contents

EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

Those who contributed to Spain's 1779-1783 War with England, as it related to Louisiana, directly or indirectly, included individuals, groups of citizens, militia, merchant mariners, Spanish naval ships and privateers, French naval ships and privateers, American naval ships and privateers, Spanish Army units, French Army units, and other American groups.  There were those who risked their lives in pre-war clandestine activities supporting the Americans.  There were background planners in Havana, Mexico City, Madrid, Paris, and other places who saw no combat, Burt whose roles were absolutely essential as government officials, financiers, and expediters for those who fought.  There were militia groups which saw no action, but were ready for it.  Many ordinary men and women who were asked to make donations to defray expenses of the war did so.  There were even the priests, who in the declaration of war were enjoined to pray for success against the English.  

The following is a listing of the summaries included in the book about each major campaign:.
Clandestine Aid
Recruiting Canary Islanders
Baton Rouge Campaign
Mobile Campaign
Battle of St. Louis
Pensacola Campaign
Natchez Uprising
Texas Drovers
Gálvez Later Campaigns
Miscellaneous Maritime Activities

This much awaited study  is now available from SHHAR Press.  The book, 198 pages, lists  alphabetically  individuals who were involved in any of the above events or activities. The authors  have designated with an asterisk those whom they believe would be suitable applicants for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution or Daughters of the American Revolution. SHHAR Board encourages its members to pursue this goal as living examples that our ancestors were involved in the development and freedom of the United States. 

Single copy $14.   (+$1.50 p/h) 
Two copies, $25. (+$2.25 p/h)
SHHAR, P.O. Box 490, Midway City, CA 92655                     Return to Table of Contents

Advocates of openness argue that telling children the truth early helps them incorporate the information into their sense of identity. Some of the donors want to meet their offspring, but some do not.  "Right now we act in the best interest of the sperm donor," said George Annas, a medical ethicist at Boston University. "It's time to start acting in the best interests of the child."

Extracts of article by Sally Jacobs, The Boston Globe, via Orange County Register, 12-5-2000 

"It's political correctness, and it's at the expense of history," said John Thomas Cripps, who plans to run for governor of Mississippi in three years with a Southern heritage platform.

Rep. Ed. Blackmon, a black commission member said that if the Mississippi defeats the new flag, "the economic and public relations consequences will be disastrous."

Orange County Register, 12-13-00. 

All fueled up and bound for Alabama, 29 American war veterans - average age defied warnings and set off December 12 to cross the Atlantic, from Gibraltar,  in an aging tank transport vessel with shaky steering and no safely equipment. 

The vessel - an LST, or landing ship, tank - was designed to land troops, tanks and other equipment directly onto a beach.  It participated in the invasions of Sicily and Salerno and reached Normandy six days after D-Day in June 1944.  It was decommissioned in 1946, put back into service in the Arctic in the 1950s, then lent to Greece in the 1960s.  The United states LST Assn. has fought since the 1980s to repatriate it.

Each veteran contributed $2,000 to cover meals and expenses, while British Petroleum Co. donated more than 50,000 gallons of fuel.

Los Angeles times, 12-13-00
  

MEXICO

Site Contents The Conquistadors - A list of over 760 individuals that served the King with Cortes and stayed in Mexico (with some notable exceptions). The conquest of the Mexica lasted from 1519 to 1521. 5 pages The Conquistadors of the Yucatan - A list of 160 of the individuals that served the King with Francisco de Montejo from 1526 to 1546. 1 page The Conquistadors of Nueva Galicia - A list of 280 of the individuals that served the King with Nuno de Guzman in 1530. Many went on to settle the area and had links to the earlier Conquistadors. 1 page Early Settlers of Nueva Galicia - 137 settlers arriving after the Conquest of the area. Some had links to the earlier Conquistadors. 2 pages The Coronado Expedition - A list of 322 settlers that served with the Captain Francisco Vazquez de Coronado. The expedition set out for New Mexico and Arizona but made it as far north as Kansas from 1540 to 1542. 1 page The Onate Expedition - A list of the 336 settlers that served with the Captain General Juan de Onate. The expedition set out to settle New Mexico in 1598-1600. 1 page New Spain - 433 surnames of the early settlers making their way north into Northeastern Mexico. Many decendants of the early Conquistadors. Their date of first mention in public records for the area is listed in most cases. 8 pages 1700-1726 - New wave of settlers to Northeastern Mexico. Some details are given on 81 surnames. 2 pages Surname Research - Here are Hispanic resources traceable to 320 surnames found in the American Southwest or Mexico. 3 pages Personal Genealogy - Personal family surnames of Felix, Loera, Santoscoy, Moran, Vejar and Castro are discussed or mentioned. Additional links of cousins doing research on these names are provided as well as other links. 1 page Photo Gallery - Old family photos. 1 page

Sent by Crispin Rendon                                                                            Return to Table of Contents

 I would like to share the information below with my fellow Somo Primosanos.  Jerez was an interesting Pueblo during the colonial period with its haciendas and ranchos. Its inhabitants were predominately of European stock. There were two interesting ranchos, Susticacan and Barrio de San Miguel where the majority of the Indian population resided.

"This list of last names which are unique and not common are found in the church books (1648-1821)of the Parroquia de Jerez, Zacatecas Mexico. Many of these last names have died out but can be found occasionally among the Mexican-American population in the US. 

Names:

Abasta, Acebes, Achurgia de, Aguayo, Alamillo, 
Alberas, Alberti de, Alosandara, Ambriz, Anceo, 
Andarza, Angon, Antillon, Árala (?), Aramburu, 
Arceo de, Arciniega, Argüelles Arguello, Arieo, 
Armendáriz, Arnay (Arnedo, Arnes) Arreo de, Arrisola, 
Asencio, Aviles de, Aviña, Báez de, Balaguer, 
Barajas, Barbosa, Barcena y Respuela, Bastardo, 
Bazan, Beitia de, Berumen, Bobadilla, Bocardo, 
Borondad, Boryon (Borjen), Botello, Bracho de, 
Brilanti, Calbillo (Calbijo), Calvillo, Camarillo, 
Cañas de, Cantero, Carasa, Careaga de, Carquisa (Urquiso), 
Casal, Casiano, Celaya de, Celis, Chirriaga (?), 
Contero (?), Cosió, Cota de, Coyaso, a Cuenca de, 
Cuesta de, Cueto, Damián, de la Águila, de la Bastida, 
de la Concha Alias Gallegos, de la Encina, de la Llana, de la Mora, 
de la O, de la Parra, de los Cobos, de los Monteros, 
del Piño, del Real, Dena, Dimas, Doñate, a
Donis (?), Dosal, Dueñas, Eamos, Enciso de, 
Escalera, Escamilla, Escareño, Espitia de, Fajardo, 
Gaeta de, Galán, Guitrago(Guitarra), Guitron (Guitio), 
Guizar de, Gurrola, Horca (Horta) de, Inguanzo, 
Isais, Jara, Larrañaga de, Larrasa (?), Larrea de, 
Lascano, Leizaola, Lemos de, Lespron, Licerio, 
Lizardo (Luzardo), Lobato, Lujano, Luzardo (?), 
Madera, Manzanares, Marroquin de, Marufo, Mayoral (Monjonet), 
Mayorga de, Medel, Mendiola de, Mendizábal, Mier de, 
Mijares, Millán, Mojica, Monquecho (Monquedo), 
Monsivais, Moraza, Morga, Morquecho, Murgia de, 
Murguía, Nafarrete, Navarrete, Navejas (Narvaja), 
Novoa, Negoa (Noboa), Noboa, Olivo, 
Ordóñez, Oredain, Oropesa, Orta de, Osorio, 
Oviedo, Oyarzabal, Palafox de, Palos de, Paniagua, 
Parada, Pedrosa, Peñalver, Pereida, Piñón, 
Posada, Puga de, Pulido, Quesada de, Quijas, 
Rabago de, Radas de, Raigosa, Rivadeneyra, Ron, 
Rubalcava de, Ruedas de, Saijan, Samaniego, Santillán, 
Santillana de, Segovia, Sertuchi, Sesati, Talavera, 
Tamayo, Tenorio, Tinajero, Tostado, Ubillos de, 
Ulloa de, Urbana, Ureña de, Uribe, Urista de,
Urquiso (Urquio), Usquiano de, Utrera de, Valadez de, 
Valdivieso, Verdugo y Santa Cruz, Vidales, Vidaurre, 
Villagomez de, Villagran, Villavicencio de, Vizagra (Vizcarra), 
Vizcarra, Zuazo,

Source: LDS Library" 
Source: Gabriel Gutierrez,  GGutier843@aol.com  
                                                                                               Return to Table of Contents

  http://home.att.net/~Local_Catholic/Catholic-Mexico.htm

Mexico History, Genealogy, Directories and Local Catholic Church History and Ancestors

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CARIBBEAN/CUBA

December 27th, Sila Maria Calderon became  Puerto Rico's first female governor.

Although the island of Cuba has always been world famous for its cigars, not much is heard about its cigarettes.

The first cigarette factory in Cuba was started by Bernardino Rencurrel in Havana in 1810.¹ Although not much is presently known about this family's early economic history, it appears that they were quite wealthy. This is suggested by the fact that, as a 20-year old, Bernardino was financially able to start his enterprise while his brother Marcos studied medicine.

Not much more than a `chinchal' or rudimentary factory, its first location was at 10 Cuna Street corner of Mercaderes Street in Havana.<sup>2</sup> This location probably was also Bernardino's home. This location was strategically placed across a marketplace known as the `Plaza Vieja' and, later, as the `Plaza de Cristina'.

Early Cuban cigarette manufacturing was completely done by hand. After `rolling' or `wrapping' the paper around the tobacco filler, the ends were crimped shut to prevent the spillage of the tobacco. This crimping was necessary since the wrapper did not have glue to seal it into shape.³

Two type of cigarettes were manufactured, one was think and the other thick, like a small cigar. They were sold loose or in bundles. The bundles sold for five cents each or three bundles for twelve and a half cents. Each bundle contained 32 thin or 20 thick cigarettes. Either kind was much larger than those made today.⁴

Evidence shows that Bernardino's business was not limited to cigarettes only. The Havana city directory of 1841 shows him as the owner of the cigarette factory as well as a tobacco and cigar warehouse.⁵
Rencurrel products were exported worldwide. An advertisement placed by Macondray & Co. in the newspaper `Alta California' of February 4, 1852 shows that 20,000 cigars have been received from Rencurrel (through spelled Rancurel). Macondray & Co. was one of the largest and earliest commission merchants of San Francisco, California.⁶

By 1859, the two main brands of cigarettes being produced were `Rencurrell' and `Astrea'. The 1866 Almanaque Mercantil (mercantile almanac) shows Bernardino as the owner of a first-class cigarette factory at 39 Merced Street in Havana. At the same time, there were four other first-class cigarette factories and fifteen second-class ones in the city of Havana.

During this time, the tobacco leaf was grown in a plantation located in the `Vuelta Abajo' region of Pinar del Rio Province, Cuba. This region has always been considered as the prime tobacco growing land in Cuba and, probably, the world. Rencurrel's planatation was known as `El Hato de San Luis'. It was located immediately south of the town of San Luis.⁷
After Brnardino's death in 1868, his grandson, Jose Manuel Rencurrel y Valdes-Tapia took over the concern and expanded it. First he moved production to a larger building at 82 Aguila Street, then he expanded production and exportation.

During the period of 1874 to the 1890s, the products of the factory were exported to ports in Venezuela, Honduras, Costa Rica and other countries of Central and South America. The shipments took place in barrels.⁸
With Jose Manuel's death in 1918, the end came to the first cigarette brand in Cuba. During its existence, several other brands were produced. These were `Galatea', `Andrea' and `Maceo' named after Antonio Maceo, a hero of the Cuban Revolutionary War of 1895-1898.⁹

The tobacco industry was one of the mainstays of the Cuban economy during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. At that time, tobacco and its products helped to bring Cuba to a place of prominence in world markets.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Spanish Names from the Late 15th Century by Juliana de Luna (Julia Smith, julias+@pitt.edu) © 1999-2000 by Julia Smith; all rights reserved.

Household accounts give a wealth of information about the lives of people in the past. These records of expenditures allow us to deduce a great deal about life: what goods were produced in the household and which were purchased, how many workers a family employed, and even the colors and kinds of fabric used in clothing. The account books of Isabel of Castilla (Isabella in English), the queen whose marriage to Fernando of Aragon united Spain and who sent Columbus on t his voyages of discovery, are also a wonderful source of data about naming practice. The names of 1957 men and 456 women who received money from the queen are mentioned.

From this data, a picture of Spanish naming practice in the last quarter of the 15th century can be drawn. Fifteenth century Spanish names reflect both traditional names that had been used for centuries and new names that were beginning to come into use. Names are fairly simple, with the vast majority of people having a single given name and a single element surname. Moslem and Jewish names appear in small numbers, and are identified separately.

Table of Contents

• Men's Given Names
  • The complete list of men's names by frequency
  • The complete list of men's names alphabetically
    
• Women's Given Names
  • The complete list of women's names by frequency
  • The complete list of women's names alphabetically
    
• Surnames
  
  • The complete list of locative surnames
  • The complete list of patronymic surnames
  • The complete list of "other" surnames
    
  Full Names
  • Christian Names
    • Full names of men: A - E
    • Full names of men: F - I
    • Full names of men: J - M
    • Full names of men: N - Z
    • Full names of women
      
  • Jewish Names
  • Moslem Names

Bibliography

• De Atienza, Julio, Nobiliario Español (Madrid: Aguilar SA de Ediciones, 1954).
• De la Torre, Antonio and E. A. de la Torre, eds., Cuentas de Gonzalo de Baeza Tesorero de Isabel la Cato/lica (Madrid: Biblioteca "Reyes Cato/licos", 1956).
• Diez Melcon, R. P. Gonzalo, Apellidos Castellano-Leoneses: Siglos IX-XIII, ambos inclusive (Universidad de Granada, 1957).
• Dutton, Brian, et al. Cassell's Spanish and English Dictionary (New York: Collier Books, New York, 1969).
• Talan Gwynek, "A Glossary of the Personal Names in Diez Melcon's Apellidos Castellano-Leoneses", Known World Heraldic Symposium Proceedings (SCA: Chicago, 1993).

Published by Arval Benicoeur.

HTML editing by Mari Elspeth nic Bryan & Arval Benicoeur

Sent by Johanna de Soto                                                               Return to Table of Contents

Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias
Mandadas imprimir y publicar por Carlos II En Madrid, año de 1681

Libro Primero. Título 22
De las Universidades, y Estudios generales y particulares

Ley primera 
Fundación de las Universidades de Lima, y México
http://www.filosofia.org/mfa/fae681a.htm

El Emperador D. Carlos y la Reina de Bohemia G. en Valladolid 
a 21 de setiembre de 1551. D. Felipe Segundo en Madrid a 17 de octubre de 1562.

Para servir a Dios nuestro Señor, y bien público de nuestros Reinos conviene, que nuestros vasallos, súbditos y naturales tengan en ellos Universidades y Estudios generales donde sean instruidos y graduados en todas las ciencias y facultades, y por el mucho amor y voluntad, que tenemos de honrar y favorecer a los de nuestras Indias, y desterrar de ellas las tinieblas de la ignorancia, criamos, fundamos y constituimos en la Ciudad de Lima de los Reinos de el Perú, y en la Ciudad de México de la Nueva España, Universidades y Estudios generales, y tenemos por bien y concedemos a todas las personas, que en las dichas dos Universidades fueren graduados, que gocen en nuestras Indias, Islas y Tierra firme del Mar Océano, de las libertades y franquezas de que gozan en estos Reinos los que se gradúan en la Universidad y Estudios de Salamanca, así en el no pechar, como en todo lo demás: y en cuanto a la jurisdicción se guarde la ley 12 de este título.

Sent by Johanna de Soto

From Conquest to Colonization: Spain in the Mariana Islands 1690-1740
Francis X. Hezel and Marjorie C. Driver

 (Editor's note:  This is only the first part of a very well documented study, touching many very fascinating aspects of  Spanish colonization.)

The Marianas, a chain of volcanic islands running north-south with Guam at the southern tip, were the first Pacific group colonized by a European nation. Magellan had touched there in 1521 on his celebrated voyage across the Pacific, and other expeditions flying the Spanish flag visited the group later in the 16th century. Although Legazpi formally took possession of the archipelago in the name of the Spanish Sovereign in 1565, Spain had neither the resources nor the inclination to establish a colonial government there and for a century the island group served as nothing more than a re-provisioning stop for Spanish galleons on their yearly run from Mexico to Manila. It was in 1668 that the first steps were taken to colonize the archipelago, and then only at the insistence of Jesuit priests and their influential advocates in Madrid. In June of that year Fr Luis Diego Sanvitores, with five other Jesuits, a group of lay catechists and a company of troops, came to establish a permanent mission in the Marianas.

Almost from the first the mission met with opposition from segments of the local population, and violence erupted within a few months of the arrival of the Spanish. The next several years were marked by sporadic outbreaks of fighting occasioned by local political intrigues and rivalries, grievances suffered  at the hands of the Spanish troops, and the program  of cultural reform initiated by the missionaries. This initial troubled period of Spanish colonization ended with a final major uprising in 1684 and a concerted effort on the part of hostile Chamorro factions to drive out the Spanish once and for all. After some months the Spanish garrison suppressed the uprising with the help of their Chamorro allies, and by 1685 all hostilities were concluded. Twelve priests, perhaps 20 of their lay helpers, and an uncounted number of soldiers and Chamorro warriors died in the periodic skirmishes that occurred over a 17-year period, but the Spanish had completed the first stage of the conquest of the islands.⁽¹⁾

On Guam, the largest of the islands and the headquarters of both the Jesuits and the troops who came to protect them, Spanish presence had been most strongly felt during these early years. By the late 1680s Spanish administrators began the formal 'reduction' of the island--that is, the relocation of people from the scattered hamlets that they had formerly inhabited into villages, where they were to live under the spiritual care of a priest. Over the next several years, at the insistent urging of the missionaries, Governor Damian Esplana, battle weary and increasingly timorous, made a few desultory attempts to subdue the islands to the north, but with no real success. Within months of Esplana's death in 1694, however, Jose Quiroga, commander of the garrison for 15 years and now interim governor, struck out for the north in a series of expeditions that brought the remaining islands to submission. Quiroga first took Rota in a bloodless campaign; a year later he subdued Tinian and Saipan, the next in the chain of islands, resettling the people of Tinian on Guam as a punishment for their armed resistance. In 1698 the Spanish mounted a final expedition to demand the submission of the northernmost islands, collectively known as Gani, whose inhabitants were subsequently relocated on Saipan and Guam. By the turn of the century, 30 years after the onset of Spanish colonization, the reduction of the Marianas was complete and the entire Chamorro population was concentrated on three islands: Guam, Rota and Saipan.

Although the story of Spanish colonization in the Marianas as presented in the scholarly and popular press usually concludes here, it had in truth only begun. The second stage of colonization, between 1690 and perhaps 1740, has been generally neglected by historians, partly because it is less richly documented than the preceding years and partly because it lacks the high drama of the conquest. Nonetheless, this period is vital for an understanding of the Spanish colonization of the Marianas, for during this time were established the essential patterns of foreign administration and colonial village life that would survive in the archipelago for another two centuries. This article is an attempt to rescue this period from the obscurity in which it has hitherto been buried.⁽²⁾

Spanish interest and presence in the archipelago was confined to Guam after the pacification; the indigenous population on Saipan dwindled away by mid-18th century and Rota's small colony was left without priest or administrator to fend for itself in virtual isolation. Ever eager to group the local population into manageable units, the Spanish divided Guam into six partidos, or districts, each containing a modest settlement that could loosely be called a village. These villages consisted of little more than a church and rectory surrounded by a sprinkling of houses, almost all built of nipa thatch, with 200 or 300 inhabitants.⁽³⁾

The local people, who continued to support themselves by subsistence farming and fishing, divided their time between their ancestral estates and the village settlement, where their lives were increasingly regulated by the church bells that tolled for morning mass, afternoon rosary, the Angelus thrice a day, and the De Profundis at a death. Agana, the seat of government and site of the presidio, rapidly grew to  a town of over 700 and took on some of the features of a Spanish provincial capital. Ringing the town plaza were a coral-block church, the governor's palace, a wooden frame building that housed 14 Jesuit missionaries, a boys' school run by the priests, the military barracks, and a building that served as the government storehouse.⁽⁴⁾ The administration of each village was carried out by an alcalde mayor appointed by the governor whose main responsibility--since Chamorros were exempt by royal decree from all tribute and tax--was to oversee the use of the extensive Crown lands within each partido and supervise work projects. The alcalde, normally chosen from among the Spanish and Filipino retired soldiers, shared authority in the village with the parish priest, who not only provided for the spiritual needs of his flock, but often for their economic and social welfare besides.

The peaceful village life in the colony may have been a welcome respite after years of intermittent warfare, but it did nothing to reverse the serious population decline from which the islands had suffered since the coming of the Spanish in 1668. It is impossible to measure the early population loss with precision since the figures given by the early Jesuits for the size of the pre-contact population are so wildly improbable.⁽⁵⁾

One of the early governors, on the other hand, put the aboriginal population of the archipelago at 24,000.⁽⁶⁾ Although this figure might be a bit low, it is very unlikely that the true number exceeded 30,000 and unthinkable that it should have been greater than 40,000. Moreover, the governor's figure is consistent with other estimates of the population at various stages of the decline: Salgado's estimate of 13,000 in 1683 and Astrain's figure of 9,000 for 1690.⁽⁷⁾

Data for the years around the turn of the century when the people had been gathered into villages are far more reliable, since the Jesuits were required to keep a strict count of infant baptisms (in effect, the number of births) and those who died each year.⁽⁸⁾

Between 1698 and 1702 there were an average of 240 births and 600 deaths a year, yielding a net loss of 1,800 people during these five years alone.⁽⁹⁾

Although figures for the following years are much sparser, it appears that there were about 200 births and 350 deaths yearly with an annual population loss of 150. Thus, the decline for the years 1703-20 would have amounted to another 2,700 inhabitants.⁽¹⁰⁾

If these computations are accurate, the Marianas saw a population loss of 4,500 between the final reduction of the islands in 1698 and 1720. Or put another way, the local population decreased by 70% in a matter of 23 years--and this during a time of peace in the islands."⁽¹¹⁾

The major cause of the precipitous decline in population is no great mystery, if we are to believe the Jesuit sources from this period. The Chamorro people, already weakened by the years of sporadic warfare and flight and now required to adjust to an unfamiliar mode of life, were repeatedly subjected to the sorts of illnesses that decimated many indigenous peoples at early contact. To make matters worse, they were beset by other demands made by priests and civil administrators alike at the very time that their powers of physical resistance were at their ebb. For years epidemics broke out in the islands shortly after the visit of the annual galleon--with such regularity that the illnesses were known as 'sickness of the ship'. One such epidemic, which appeared after the arrival of the ship in 1688, was characterised by a 'bloody rheum and fever' and infected virtually the entire population of Guam.⁽¹²⁾

Another, more deadly outbreak followed the galleon's arrival the next year, this one bringing with it diarrhoea, chills and high fever. Twenty people died of the sickness in a single week, and by the end of three months more than 80 had succumbed to the disease, we are told in a Jesuit letter.⁽¹³⁾

By this time the missionaries, well aware of the frequency of these epidemics and their own powerlessness to provide medical assistance, added to their staff a Jesuit brother trained in pharmacology who treated victims of these periodic illnesses for nearly 50 years. The outbreak of influenza-- if it was indeed influenza--that raged on Guam from June to December 1700 was probably one of the most severe epidemics of the entire period, 'worse than anything Br. Chavarri had read about in his medical books or seen in the hospitals of Europe', the Jesuit annual report states.⁽¹⁴⁾ There were over 650 deaths reported that year, and though not all resulted from the flu, tradition has it that the corpses were left unburied for lack of people to inter them.⁽¹⁵⁾

Again in 1709 the islands were struck with a serious illness that took many lives, while lesser contagions continued occurring with some frequency throughout the remainder of the period.⁽¹⁶⁾

One of the early governors, whose judgments on many other matters were highly questionable, stated the truth with stunning simplicity when he wrote that 'epidemics are destroying the people of the islands'.⁽¹⁷⁾

Although open hostility between Spanish and Chamorros had ended, the colony was not without its troubles during the early years of colonization. In 1702 three men who had been resettled in Guam from other islands conspired to catch the Spanish off guard and seize the government boats, with which they planned to return to their homes. Their hope was that this would trigger a widespread revolt and that the Spanish would be wiped out in the uprising. In their attempts to recruit sympathizers for their cause, word of the plan was carried to one of the priests, who relayed the news to the governor. The watches on the ships were doubled, the plot checked, and the conspirators apprehended and hanged.⁽¹⁸⁾

Some years earlier, at the shipwreck of a galleon off the coast of Guam in 1690, there was similar trouble but from a different source. Twenty convicts from Mexico who were being transported to a penal colony in the Philippines when they were stranded on Guam plotted to seize weapons from the presidio, slay the soldiers and missionaries, and flee the island in one of the government boats. Just a few days before the plan was to have gone into operation the conspiracy was discovered, again by one of the priests, and the convicts were executed by firing squad in Agana.⁽¹⁹⁾

Incidents like these, although rare, only confirmed the worst fears of some of the missionaries as to what might happen if the garrison were ever reduced in size, much less disbanded completely. Hence, the troops remained on Guam in as strong a force as during the years of actual fighting: two companies of Spanish soldiers, drawn in large part from Mexico, and another company of Pampangos from the Philippines.

Even if they were needed, the troops were a constant irritant for the Chamorro people and their pastors through the years. In a strong indictment in 1681, a Jesuit charged that the soldiers were 'Spaniards in name only--cowardly, spoiled, and good for very little . . . The crimes of these soldiers are too long to recount . . . They robbed the mission and violated the Indian women.⁽²⁰⁾

To judge from reports in later years, the soldiers then were no more virtuous than their earlier counterparts. In 1720 Jose Quiroga, retiring commander of the garrison, judged the 'licentiousness of the troops' to be one of the main scourges imposed by God on the local people as a retribution for their earlier resistance to the faith.⁽²¹⁾

The missionaries, no doubt, fully agreed with his assessment, for they related numerous attempts of soldiers to compromise the local women. Often soldiers went so far as to threaten the husbands with physical harm if they did not leave the house and surrender their wives for their pleasure.⁽²²⁾ Even those who retired, married locally and were appointed alcaldes often used their influence and relative wealth to seduce women they fancied and, when this failed, simply raped them with impunity.⁽²³⁾

Back in 1681 Fr Manuel Solorzano had complained that most of those inducted into the garrison were actually criminals from Mexico. This complaint was echoed 40 years later by Quiroga. The latest recruits, he wrote, 'are scum--some chased out by their parents, others simply exiles or vagabonds'.⁽²⁴⁾ The truth is, however, that a good many of the soldiers seem to have been recruited on shipboard from among the passengers on the galleon who were seeking their fortunes overseas. According to the Archbishop of Manila, who himself crossed the Pacific in 1698, the captains paid to recruit and train troops for the Marianas and Philippines all too often pocketed the money and stayed at home, appointing substitutes to muster whomever they could from the ship's complement to fill the requisite positions.⁽²⁵⁾ Under such conditions it is no surprise that the troops made as bad a showing as they did. As garrison commander, Jose Quiroga appears to have taken repeated and rather heavy-handed measures to reform barracks life: he had the troops say morning and evening prayers in common each day and marched them to mass and confession regularly.⁽²⁶⁾ After one such attempt in 1688, however, the soldiers, who had no desire to live like monks, rebelled and locked up their commander until the return of the governor from the Philippines.⁽²⁷⁾

At its roots the problem of the unruly soldiery went far beyond poor recruitment and lack of discipline. For years the soldiers had been underpaid and left to fend largely for themselves in the matter of clothing and other necessities. The salary of the ordinary soldier in 1711 was 315 pesos a year, and the amount of subsidy received from Mexico each year was dependent upon the number of positions, or plazas, funded by authorities there, regardless of the actual number serving in the garrison.⁽²⁸⁾ In 1681 there were only 40 salaried positions for a garrison that then numbered 115 men.⁽²⁹⁾ Each soldier, then, received an equivalent of one-third of his stipulated wages; to make up the difference he was left to his own devices. Thirty years later, in 1711, the situation had not improved despite the addition of 20 more salaried positions, for the strength of the garrison had been increased to 168.⁽³⁰⁾

Governors and missionaries pleaded with the King and his ministers to redress this unhappy situation, and the latter issued decrees from time to time ordering an increase in the subsidy, but all to no effect. As the financial pressure on the colony increased, the clothing allotment that the soldiers had once received was withdrawn and they were compelled either to buy material from the government store at very high prices or to beg clothing from the priests.⁽³¹⁾

They were a ragtag outfit, not only without uniforms but many of them shirtless and barefoot as well. The lot of the common soldier in the Marianas was not a happy one; and one could readily understand how they might be tempted to prey off the local populace just as they were preyed upon by others.

Not the least of the burdens the colony had to bear during much of this period was the corrupt administration of the governors themselves, who shamelessly exploited troops and local people to make their own fortunes. The governors were probably little different from many higher officials in the Philippines, who seem to have been conspicuously unable to resist the temptation to use their privileged position to enrich themselves through the lucrative galleon trade.⁽³²⁾

Three of the governors--Damian Esplana (1683-94), Juan Antonio Pimentel (1709-20), Luis Antonio Sanchez de Tagle (1720-25)--were especially notorious for their corruption, as the documents of the period well attest. The judicial investigations that were held at the conclusion of a governor's term of office turned up damning evidence on Pimentel and Tagle, while Esplana was spared this disgrace only because he died while still in office. The three of them governed the Marianas for a total of 27 years. Little is known of the practices of the other governors during this time, but many of them were interim appointees who, whatever their proclivities, did not have time to work out the contrivances that the three successfully employed for their own gain.

Underlying the corruption of these years was the attraction that speculation on the galleon trade held for provincial governors such as these. Each year one or two galleons left Manila with valuable cargoes of Chinese silks and other luxury items bound for Acapulco, where the goods were sold at a handsome profit in the annual bazaar. On their return voyage to Manila the ships carried payment for the goods in the form of silver bullion, officially limited to twice the declared value of the goods but nearly always in fact many times more than this. Speculators in the Manila trade, then, stood to make profits far beyond the 100% ceiling that was imposed by law. One authority relates that governors of the Philippines, although forbidden by law to engage in trade for personal profit, sometimes accumulated between 300,000 and 500,000 pesos through their investments by the end of a five-year term.⁽³³⁾ Would-be speculators had to obtain tickets (or boletas) for shipping freight packages to Mexico, but these could be procured for a price from those Manilenos who were entitled to them but lacked the capital to invest in the trade themselves. A reliable agent in Manila and good political connections there--advantages that Esplana, Pimentel and Tagle enjoyed--were all that were needed to take advantage of this lucrative opportunity.⁽³⁴⁾

Finding the wherewithal to invest in the galleon trade was a problem easily solved by a governor with even the slightest imagination. The same galleon that brought speculators from Manila the return on their investment stopped at the Marianas to drop off the yearly subsidy from Mexico to finance the administration of the colony. This yearly subsidy usually amounted to about 20,000 pesos, besides the special mission subsidy of nearly 10,000 pesos, all of it earmarked for salaries: the governor's own salary of about 1,600 pesos, and the military commander's salary of half that amount, as well as the salaries of the troops of the garrison.⁽³⁵⁾

Since there was no trade to speak of in the colony other than the small amount that was conducted with the galleon for food and other provisions, the annual subsidy constituted the total yearly income for the Marianas. The main objective of the trade-minded governor, therefore, was to work out ways, short of stealing it outright, by which the greatest possible portion of that subsidy might remain in his pocket so that it could be sent on to Manila and invested in the galleon trade. According to later authors, some of the governors were extremely successful in this regard--successful enough to re-acquire nearly the entire subsidy within a matter of weeks.⁽³⁶⁾

If the governors could make a few extra pesos through the re-provisioning trade during the short layover of the galleon in Guam, so much the better.

The ease with which governors could gain possession of virtually the entire yearly subsidy for personal investment was due to their direct control of the government storehouse, the only channel of imported goods into the colony. It was left to the discretion of the governor whether the troops were to be paid in currency or materials; but whatever the case, the net result was about the same. Soldiers who needed foreign-made items were forced to buy from the government store at prices determined solely by the governor. In a letter to the Crown complaining of the abuses by the governors, Quiroga reports that the mark-up for the normal food items--chocolate, sugar, biscuits, tobacco, honey and wine--was ordinarily as high as 400 or 500%, and more than double that in years of scarcity when the galleon did not arrive.⁽³⁷⁾ Cloth, too, fell under the government monopoly, and the sad condition of the troops' dress was attributed to the exorbitant prices that were charged for even the simplest items of apparel in the government store. The governors found excuses to withhold even the small allotment of cloth to which the soldiers were entitled, thus forcing the latter to buy this from the store. The profits from the store went to the governor, who at such prices soon found nearly the entire payroll back in his coffers ready to be reinvested in personal ventures. Governors even as early as Esplana were quick to discover that their own profit margins could be increased by buying supplies at relatively low prices in Manila rather than the more expensive Mexican imports. This undoubtedly accounts for much of the interest that Esplana showed in building boats capable of making the Guam-Manila run, as well as the fact that Pimentel's first request upon becoming governor was for a ship to handle traffic between the two ports.⁽³⁸⁾ At Esplana's death, nearly 10,000 pesos were discovered to have been sent by the governor to his agent in Manila for the purchase of items that were needed for the garrison.⁽³⁹⁾ Aware of the potential for abuse in the transfer of large sums of the royal subsidy to business agents, Spanish authorities soon explicitly forbade the practice.⁽⁴⁰⁾

Like so many other regulations designed to check government corruption, however, this became a dead letter.

Damian Esplana, the man whom one of the Jesuits referred to as 'God's scourge to the people of the Marianas',⁽⁴¹⁾ accumulated enough wealth during his 11 years as governor to keep his relatives busy contesting his estate for another 10 after his death. Born in Peru and a veteran of over 20 years of military service there, Esplana first arrived in the Marianas in 1674 as military commander for two years and returned in 1683 to assume the governorship of the colony.⁽⁴²⁾ After he was attacked and nearly killed in an uprising the year after he became governor, Esplana begged to be relieved of his duties and allowed to return to the Philippines. When permission was not forthcoming, he left anyway in a small boat that he had built (and later sold for a good profit in Manila), pleading the need for urgent medical attention. The fact that the galleon had not touched at Guam for the two previous years must have added to the governor's distress. Not only was the colony without subsidy and supplies during this period, but Esplana had no way of getting the large share of the subsidy of earlier years that had found its way into his pocket into the hands of his investment broker so that it could be parlayed into even larger gains. Esplana was tried for desertion of his post, but was acquitted and allowed to resume his position as governor. After a year in the Philippines, Esplana's strong desire to find a replacement suddenly cooled and he seems to have been happy enough to return to Guam where he again took up residence in Umatac, the main port and a splendid vantage point from which to oversee his trade interests in the galleon.⁽⁴³⁾

From then until his death in 1694 his investments appear to have been his sole absorption, even as his relationship with Quiroga and the missionaries, never very warm, deteriorated still further. The man's avarice had overcome the almost pathological fear of a violent death at the hands of the islanders that he showed in later years, and he established an unhappy pattern of commercial manipulation for future governors of the colony.

GovernorJuan Antonio Pimentel, who took office in 1709 and held it for 11 years, had a good deal in common with Esplana. Like him he was Peru-born, a long-time resident of the Philippines, and appointed to his position by the Court of Madrid. The two had been old friends, shared a deep dislike for Quiroga, and were unequalled in the degree to which they exploited the poor Spanish colony.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Pimentel, if anything, only refined and perfected the methods employed by his predecessor for bilking the troops out of their share of the subsidy. During the fair that followed the arrival of the galleon, according to one of his contemporaries, he had his servants hawking chocolate, biscuits, and other goods at the usual inflated prices.⁽⁴⁵⁾ To loosen up those married troops who might have been inclined to put away their savings for their families there was also aguardiente, a local fermented drink made from the coconut palm by Chamorros and bought by the governor for a pittance. The governor was also said to have organized gambling among the troops, despite the fighting that invariably resulted, with a good percentage of the earnings going into his pocket. For those who had spent their salary Pimentel gladly arranged loans at 100% interest. The governor deliberately encouraged indebtedness among the troops, Quiroga charged, so that he could conveniently withhold part or all of their salaries at the arrival of the next subsidy. As a matter of fact, those who refused to go into debt to the government store ran the risk of having their names withdrawn from the muster list and losing their salary altogether. Consequently, nearly all the Filipinos and Spaniards in the colony were in debt to the store--in effect, of course, the governor--and Pimentel had little trouble claiming for himself virtually the entire government subsidy to use for his own financial ends.

The Chamorro people themselves suffered no less than the troops from the corruption of their governors. Although the natives of the Marianas were expressly exempted from the royal tribute that colonial populations normally paid, the governors routinely imposed labor demands of their own on the people. The villagers were required to plant and tend fields of rice, corn, melons and root crops on royal land, as well as raise pigs and poultry--all of which was supposedly for the support of the troops, but in fact was used for the governor's own table or sold to the galleon or the garrison for his personal profit.⁽⁴⁶⁾

Even the women had their compulsory work: they collected copra to feed the pigs, made salt and oil, and plaited sleeping mats and canoe sails of pandanus to be sold in the Philippines.⁽⁴⁷⁾

For both men and women this meant perhaps two days a week, and in some cases more, of intense labour at the behest of the governor and the alcaldes. As compensation for a full day's work, the villagers were given merely two or three leaves of tobacco grown in the Philippines and priced at double its value.⁽⁴⁸⁾ The daily wage amounted to about a 20th of a silver real, or an 80th of a peso. At this rate a Chamorro would have had to work four to six months to buy enough cheap cloth for a pair of pants.⁽⁴⁹⁾

It was no wonder that the missionaries themselves had to give out clothes to keep their people dressed in what they regarded as a proper manner.

In his letter of 1706, Fr Gerard Bouwens was already complaining about the excessive labour imposed on the islanders. Between the work that was required to rebuild their own houses after the frequent typhoons, the cultivation of their own crops, and the additional demands made by the government, 'their toil is almost continuous', he wrote.⁽⁵⁰⁾ A few years later, soon after his arrival in Guam, Governor Pimentel, himself one of the worst offenders, commented on the excessive burdens borne by the local people, but he attributed much of the misery on the island to the resettlement of the population in villages at the urging of the missionaries and the corvee labor that he claimed was imposed by Quiroga.⁽⁵¹⁾ Pimentel's own excesses, which were documented in vivid detail by Quiroga, led to an outcry on the part of the Jesuits in sermons and through their letters to their superiors in Manila and Mexico City. For their denunciation of these abuses from the pulpit two of the missionaries--Fr Ignacio Ibarguen and Fr Antonio Cantova--were banished to the outlying villages by the governor on the charge of sedition.⁽⁵²⁾ It was only the lack of means to convey them to Manila that prevented their expulsion from the Marianas altogether. Widespread reports of Pimentel's oppressive measures elicited a flurry of correspondence from Spanish authorities in Spain and Mexico and an extensive investigation of his misconduct, although the strongest censure against him at the end of it all was his failure to defend the colony against the British privateers who put in at Guam unchallenged in 1710.

Governor Luis Tagle, Pimentel's replacement in 1720, was admonished by superiors to correct the injustices committed by his predecessors, but the report at the conclusion of his five-year term reads like that of Pimentel. He continued the practice of forced labour under terms very similar to those during Pimentel's time. If anything, the work load seems to have been increased under Tagle, for the missionaries were forced to rescind the church ban on manual labour on feast days so that the people could rebuild their houses after storms and provide sustenance for their families.⁽⁵³⁾ The charges against him at the end of his term were familiar enough: he had commandeered the government wares and sold them for personal gain; he had forced the islanders to work in the fields for the government in return for a few leaves of tobacco; and he had requisitioned poultry and eggs for private purposes for next to no payment. His major crime, by Spanish standards of justice, however, was to fire upon a Spanish ship in an effort to force it to return to port, and when threatened with arrest he surreptitiously left the Marianas for the Philippines and slipped into a monastery where he found refuge from the authorities. Tagle died before he could be prosecuted.⁽⁵⁴⁾

Throughout all this the Chamorro people were steadily depleted in numbers and strength. So worn down were they by the burdensome work schedule, something to which they were unaccustomed, that some of those who fell ill were reputed to have said that they would prefer to die at once rather than to live a life of slow attrition.⁽⁵⁵⁾ Spanish reforms, as was often the case in the distant royal colonies, were slow in coming and often ineffective when they were finally imposed. For years Spanish authorities in Manila, Mexico City and Madrid argued over the merits of paying all local people in currency in an effort to standardize wages. In the end this proposal was rejected, although some of the missionaries suggested that a standard salary scale and rates for island products be established, whether the payment be made in money or goods.⁽⁵⁶⁾

The governor who succeeded Tagle in 1725 began paying the soldiers each month in cash, which they were to use to buy food from local farmers as well as imported goods from the government store; but this reform did not survive very long.⁽⁵⁷⁾ Neither did the elimination of the alcaldes and the relegation of their functions to the local Chamorro leaders, another reform initiated at this time. The local leaders evidently proved unequal to the task of organizing relief work in the wake of a typhoon that did serious damage to the island in December 1725.⁽⁵⁸⁾ An expansion of the role of the church in the administration of the colony was also contemplated as a check against future abuses: the Archbishop of Manila was to be consulted on the choice of future governors of the Marianas, and the Jesuit mission superior was to monitor the distribution of the annual subsidy.⁽⁵⁹⁾

Ecclesiastical law, however, forbade the latter and the badly strained church-state relations in the Philippines during this period ruled out the former. Most of the proposed reforms, then, were never implemented, and those that were had a very short life-span. Even so, the mere show of concern to correct the injustices of the past two decades represented a significant step forward. Many of the abuses reappeared throughout the century and later, but the worst was over for the colony.

Spanish attitudes towards the tiny colony in the Marianas had been ambivalent from the very beginning. The Queen Regent Mariana, who lent her name to the island group, had overridden the objections of lesser officials to the initial missionary venture there on the grounds that Spain had a sacred obligation to provide for the spiritual welfare of the inhabitants of these islands. There was a certain quaint nobility in the axiom of Spanish imperial policy of the day that maintained that 'a king holds some states because he needs them, and others because they need him'.⁽⁶⁰⁾ This principle, which was invoked often enough to justify retaining Spanish interests in the Philippines, was all the more applicable to the Marianas. More than once throughout the early years of armed struggle in the Marianas, the Crown had found it necessary to remind its representatives in Mexico City and Manila that any expenses, no matter how great, must be weighed against the main purpose of their endeavor: the conversion of the islanders.⁽⁶¹⁾

http://www.micsem.org/pubs/publications/histwork/concol.htm

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by GUILLERMO MacLOUGHLIN 

In memory of Edward A. Coghlan, 1997

As an introduction, we must emphasize that Argentina was the destination of the largest Irish emigration to a non-English speaking land, where nowadays more than half a million people could claim some Hibernian origin.

It is also important to point out that the Irish migration to Argentina, as well as to South America, is different to those that took or are taking place world-wide, as we will see in this work.

For many years we have tried to find out if there was any Irish presence in Admiral Cristobal Colon’s armada (1) or in any other Spanish or Portuguese naval expedition that contributed to the discovery of the new World. We do not accept the theory of the first Irishman to place a foot on South American soil was Father Thomas Field, a Jesuit missionary, native of Limerick, who arrived at Brazil on December 31st., 1577. Anybody we could also mention Saint Brendan’s voyages, but it seems that he has visited mostly North and Central America, rather than the South.

As we announced in Dublin during the first Irish Genealogical Congress in 1991 (2), there were three natives of Galway members of the crew of the Spanish Admiral Hernando de Magallanes who arrived in South America in 1520. We consider them the first Irishmen to arrive to South America.

Immediately after this event, some documents revealed more Irish presence. For example, in the foundation of Buenos Aires city in 1536, the names of John and Thomas Farel (Farrell) are well documented. Other Irishmen seemed to have been present in the foundation of other cities, like Asuncion, in Paraguay, or Corrientes, in North-Eastern Argentina. Also we must point out, as Thomas Murray indicates in his work regarding the Irish in Argentina (3), that it is hard to establish the exact origin of various conquerors, such as Moran, Martin, Colman or Galvan, whose surnames could be as much Spanish as Irish.

During the early Spanish and Portuguese colonial administration many Irishmen came to South America as soldiers, officers or members of the administration, as well as priests of the Dominican, Franciscan or Jesuit Orders. The largest group of priests were Jesuits, spread through the entire continent until their expulsion in the second part of the XVIIIth. century.

Among many others, we can mention Frs. Thomas Browne and Thaddeus Ennis and Br. William Leny in Paraguay; Frs. Richard Carey and John Almeida (Martin) and Br. William Lynch in Brazil; Frs. Francis Lea and Robert Kyne and Br. Thomas Lewis in New Granada -at present Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador-; Brs. Ignatius Walter and Maurice O’Phelan and Frs. John Brand and James Woulfe in Peru; as well as Fr. Michael Lynch in Bolivia.

The first attempt to establish an Irish settlement took place in the Amazon region as of 1612. Phillip and James Purcell, Irish traders, established a colony in Tocujos, on the mouth of the Amazon river. They were interested in tobacco, dyes and hardwoods that they could obtain and that they could later sell with good profits.

Another settlement, leaded by Bernard O' Brien, was established nearby in 1620, in an area with English and Dutch establishments as well. But the prosperity did not last much time due to the Portuguese government that wanted the total control of the trade in that area. The importance of these Irish settlements are well documented in Joyce Lorimer’s "English and Irish Settlements on the River Amazon, 1550-1646" (4).

In Colonial times.

Many Irish held important positions in the military and civil administration during the colonial period, in areas that were ruled by the Spanish monarchy, due to the warm treatment Irishmen received from their "cousin", the Spanish king (5).

Undoubtedly, the most outstanding Irish of this group was Ambrose O’ Higgins, a native of Co. Sligo, who fulfilled important positions in two different countries. He was the Governor General of Chile in 1787 and subsequently, he was appointed Viceroy of Peru -the most powerful government position in South America- in 1795 until his death in 1801 at the age of 80. He was also named Baron of Ballenary and Marquis of Osorno in recognition for his services. He was also the originator of the first Irish-American political family dynasty, as his son Bernard later became the Liberator of Chile and its first Supreme Director (President).

Many others Irish immigrants, like the Murphys, O’Haras, Carrs and O’Donnells were in military capacities in Argentina and other neighboring countries. Merchants and members of local governments were Irish born who came after spending some time in Spain, or were descendants of distinguished 'Wild Geese'.

Among them, we can mention the Lynchs, Butelers (Butlers), Sarsfields, Cuelis (Kellys), O’Ryans and other families and specially Michael O’Gorman (1749-1819), a physician from Ennis, Co. Clare, who was appointed as first chairman of the Medical School of Buenos Aires in 1799.

We can also trace other Irish families who came through Spanish possessions, as the Cullen family, who came from the Canary Islands.

In Brazil, there were also similar cases, as Lawrence Belfort, a Dubliner, who had a very respectable family which is still remembered in that country with one of Brazil’s most highly-prized soccer award that is named after one of his descendants.

There was also a different form of Irish migration to South America. As a result of political affairs in Europe, for many years, Spain and England were at war, so it is not surprising that there were some British colonizing attempts in Colombia or in the River Plate, which were rejected by the local people.

One of them, commanded in 1763 by captain John MacNamara, an Irishman under the British service, was defeated in the Colonia del Sacramento, presently located in Uruguay, where 262 men were killed and 78 taken prisoners and confined into the country. These English, Scotch and Irish people, after sometime, raised local families and their descendants signed a presentation to general Jose de San Martin, the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, when he was forming his army in Mendoza in 1817.

In this document they declared they were "grateful for the good hospitality and full of enthusiasm for the rights of men, and that they could not see with indifference the risks that threatened the country, and they were ready to take up arms and give their last drop of blood, if it was necessary, in its defense" (6). Some of the signings were John Heffernan, W. Manahan, Timothy Lynch, John Brown, John Young, Thomas Hughes, William Carr, Daniel MacGeoghegan and others.

Another British attempt, and successful for a short period of time, took place in Buenos Aires in 1806. It was commanded by the Irish-born general William Carr Beresford, who was proclaimed Governor of Buenos Aires. Bereford, who afterward was named Viscount, acted as British Minister in the court of Rio de Janeiro. The following year there was another English expedition under the command of general Whitelocke. In both British armies, many officers and soldiers were of Irish origin, such as Browne, Nugent, Kenny, Donnelly, Murray, Mahon, Cadogan and Duff. The last one, was in charge of the 88th. Connaught Rangers Regiment, entirely formed by Irishmen (7).

Among the "criollos" (Spanish people born in South America) who fought against the invaders we can recall Domingo French and Ignacio Warnes, who belonged to Irish families established in Spain, whose descendants came to America, as well as general Juan de Pueyrredon, whose mother was a Dogan (Duggan). Here we have clearly a case of Irish fighting against Irish as-we will see many times in South America.

Some prisoners of these frustrated military adventures, as well as many others who deserted from the British, decided to establish themselves in the River Plate. The most famous was Peter Campbell, who became later a prominent figure in Uruguay.

We must also mention other British expeditions to South American shores, as those commanded by Admirals Anson and Vernon, with military presence in the northern part of the continent, with Irish soldiers among their crews. In the Spanish side there were also Irish presence, as Brigadier John Baptist MacEvan, who was in charge of designing the defense of the fort of Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia (8).

Also, it is worthy to mention that among the pirates who devastated Spanish fortifications in Colombia and Venezuela there where many Irish, men and women, some of whose descendants later came to South America through the Antilles.

In this period, and in subsequent years, there was an active trade between Irish and South American ports. It was not surprising to see in Cork or in Belfast merchandise consigned to several places, as Mejico, the West Indies or South America.

At the time of independence.

The different movements for independence in the world, as the French and North American revolutions, as well as the Napoleonic war, affected the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. They also influenced the citizens of South America, where the new ideas towards the independence of the colonies began to flourish, specially in the Spanish possessions.

The Irish, totally integrated into the local communities, where not an exception to these ideas. At the beginning of the 1810’s different Irishmen held important positions in the newly independent countries. As a brief example, we can mention that James Roth (Ross) was President of the first government formed in Venezuela; general John Mackenna -born in Clogher, Co. Tyrone (1771-1814) and John Michael Gill where signators, respectively, of the Chilean and Paraguayan declarations of independence; and Joaquin Campana (Campbell) demanded the dismissal of the Spanish Viceroy in the town council held in Buenos Aires in 1810. The following year he served the local government.

Not only in politics the Irish were involved. They had a very active participation in the struggle for independence, with remarkable presence in the military and naval forces.

Generals Jose de San Martin and Sim6n Bolivar were the two most important leaders in the wars of independence of the former Spanish South American colonies. They both had large armies in which there was important Irish presence.

One of San Martin’s officers was general Bernard O’ Higgins, the son of Ambrose O’ Higgins, who also was a politician and became the first President of Chile. In this nation he is regarded as the father of the country’s independence.

Among many other officers of Irish origin, we must also recall general John Thomond O’Brien, who was aide-de-camp of general San Martin. We must pay attention to this man, native of Co. Wicklow, who after the war ended dedicated his personal efforts to business, specially in the mining sector, in Peru and Bolivia, as well as promote Irish immigration to America. In 1824 he signed an agreement with the Argentine authorities to establish 200 compatriots in this country, but the proposal failed due to the opposition of the British government. Also, in 1828, general O’Brien gathered in Buenos Aires a group of distinguished Irish people to decide how they could best help the struggle for Catholic Emancipation in Ireland.

But the most important Irish contribution for independence was in Bolivar’s army. In 1818 general John D’Evereaux organised in Dublin a famous "Irish Legion". Many ships left Irish and British ports, carrying some 6.500 men, mainly Irish, for service in the Liberator’s force, where they played an active role in securing the independence of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

General Bolivar had a notable inclination for Irish officers. For many years several countrymen acted as his aide-de-camp. We must mention the names of Charles Chamberlain, James Rooke, William Ferguson -who died in Bogota saving the life of the Liberator in an assassination attempt in 1828-, and finally, the greatest, general Daniel Florence O’Leary, another Corkman, who is the author of "Memorias" (9) a monumental work that -describes in 32 volumes the events of those days in the northern countries of South America. He was also involved in politics and in the diplomatic career in both the Venezuelan and British services. In 1852 he visited, once again, Ireland, donating a collection of South American minerals, plants and birds to Queen’s College, which is now University College Cork, where this Migration Conference is taking place (10).

Although many Irishmen died due to war or bad climatic conditions or returned to their homes, many others settled in South America, raising important families. The most prominent was general Francis Burdett O’Connor, from Connorville, Co. Cork, to whom we pay homage here in this county where he was born. After serving with generals Bolivar and Sucre he settled in Bolivia, marrying a distinguished local lady. He became Minister of War and wrote his famous "Recuerdos" (memoirs) (11). His descendants are still important members of Bolivia’s ruling class. One of his great-grandsons is Ambassador Edward Trigo O’Connor, at present Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Other similar cases are those of Charles Minchin, from Co. Tipperary, who settled in Venezuela and integrated the cabinet of this republic, and Arthur Sandes, from Co. Kerry, a politician and educational innovator in Ecuador.

The numerous participation of Irish people in the campaigns for independence are well documented by the Irish historian Eric Lambert (12). Among others, we must also add the surnames of Phelan, French, Reynolds, MacLoughlin, Byrne, Thomson, Hogan and Keogh as well as Maurice O’Connell, a relative of Daniel O’Connell, with whom Bolivar exchanged correspondence.

In the navy there was also a very important Irish participation. Undoubtedly, the most prominent was Admiral William Brown (1777-1857), a native of Foxford, Co. Mayo, and founder of the Argentine Navy, whose biography is now available in English, thanks to the contribution of Dr. John de Courcy Ireland (13). He won the naval battle of Montevideo, on March 17, 1815, which assured the independence of Buenos Aires from Spanish rule. Brown began the action with the band playing the song "St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning" in homage to the Saint’s day. This song is now one of the officials in the Argentine Navy.

Brown also fought against the Spanish forces in Peru and Ecuador and was Commander-in-Chief in the war against Brazil which ended with the independence of the Republic of Uruguay. He was also Governor of Buenos Aires, in 1828, which was at the time equivalent to be President of the Argentine Republic. In his numerous campaigns, Admiral Brown was accompanied by many Irish officers, such as Craig, King. Kearney, Turner and others.

We must not avoid mentioning Admiral Thomas Charles Wright, who after fighting against Napoleon and in the Anglo-American War, offered his services to Bolivar. Later on, he founded the Ecuadorian Navy, as well as Peter Campbell, from Co. Tipperary, who fought with general Artigas and founded the Uruguayan navy.

http://migration.ucc.ie/conferences%20and%20publications/
   conferences/scattering/conferencepapers/MacLoughlin.htm

Sent by Johanna de Soto                                                            Return to Table of Contents

                                                    by Lillian Ramos Wold

Bernie my husband  and I decided to study the areas that his Beaton and Lyons ancestors settled. The history of these places usually explains the reason for settlements and migration patterns. I have highlighted the years and places where these ancestors settled and why they moved to these areas.

The Mimac Indians inhabited Prince Edward Island for thousands of years. The Indians called it Abegweit, "land cradled on the waves".

The first Beaton in Bernie's family to emigrate to Prince Edward Island, shortly after its conquest by the British in 1771, was Donald Beaton Cameron. Donald died at his residence, at East Point. He also lived, at one time, in St. Peters, Prince Edward Island, which is located close to East Point. His son, John, was buried on the west side of the Island in Egmont Bay. 

French explorer, Jacques Cartier, discovered the Island in 1534 and called it.. "the fairest land 'tis possible to see!". Named Ile St. Jean by explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1603, the first permanent settlers arrived in 1720. By 1758, Great Britain had gained control of the island and deported most of the French inhabitants called Acadians. These Acadians became the Cajuns of Louisiana. In Nova Scotia (New Scotland), Scottish colonists arrived in 1621 and disputed the Acadians' claim to the land. After the 1713 treaty of Utrecht, the Acadians of Nova Scotia, refused to take a loyalty oath to Great Britain and were expelled and formed the Cajun population of Louisiana. (I have included information about the Acadians because our Hamilton grandchildren's grandfather, Charles Hamilton, may possibly be a descendant of the Acadians of Nova Scotia as his ancestors were born in Nova Scotia).

St. Peters (on the East end of Prince Edward Island), was named San Pedro by its Portuguese founders (1521-1527). Nicolas Denys developed the area and established a fur-trading post protected by a fort. Successively renamed St. Pierre and Port Toulouse, the port remained a French stronghold until 1745, when the British plundered the community and burned four schooners at anchor. The French returned and undertook the enormous task of building a road from the post to Louisbourg. This connection proved fatal, however, and Port Toulouse tumbled with the final fall of Louisbourg in 1758. Renamed St. Peter's, the town boasted Fort Granville, built in 1793 by Lieutenant Colonel Moore.

Near the lighthouse on the eastern side of the harbor are the ruins of one of the oldest lighthouses in North America. Built in 1730-33 by order of Louis XV, the Louisbourg Lighthouse was damaged by fire and the British siege of Louisbourg in 1758.

In 1764, St. John's Island, as the British called it, was divided into 67 lots of 20,000 acres each. These lots, granted to wealthy Englishmen, were the cause of a century-long struggle by local farmers against their absentee landlords. The Island became a separate British Colony in 1769 (Donald Beaton immigrated to this Island about 1772, possible on the ship named "Hector". The remainder of the 18th century saw the population increase, as Loyalists moved north after the Revolutionary War and the Scots seeking a better standard of living, crossed the ocean. In 1799 the island acquired its present name, when it was renamed for Queen Victoria's father, Edward, Duke of Kent. The 1800's brought additional immigrants, mostly from Ireland. Agriculture, shipbuilding and fishing were the most common occupations during the mid-1800s. In 1799, Donald Beaton bought Lot 47 from John Steward on the 14th day of November on the "40th year of the reign of our sovereign Lord George by the grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King defender of the faith". Absentee landlords finally ended in 1875, when the Land Purchase Act enabled the province to buy out the British landlords. 

Economically-difficult times in the 1890s forced many Islanders to leave their homes and seek employment in larger, more stable provinces and to the New England areas of the United States. Bernie's great-grandfather Lemuel Beaton left Prince Edward Island in the fall of 1867 and moved to Calais Main at the age of 23. In 1869, he moved to Chicago to continue his trade as a shipbuilder. Lemuel finally settled in North Dakota where his son was the first white boy to be born around West Fargo in the Dakota Territory.                                          Return to Table of Contents

http://www.hfhr.com/websites2.htm

Websites of Genealogical Interest
in Relation to the Americas and Europe

Created by Rebecca R. Horne and maintained by Salena B. Ashton. 

General World-wide Sites

• Archival and Historical Websites: http://www.uwec.edu/Admin/Library/archweb.html
• Archives and Manuscript Collections Outside Columbia University: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/subjects/speccol.html
• Archives in the World (UNESCO): http://www.unesco.org/webworld/en/archives.htm
• Cyndi's List of Genealogical links: http://www.cyndislist.com/
• FamilySearch Data Base (from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)http://www.familysearch.org
• International Phone Directories:http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/wwphone/world.html
• World History Archives: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/index.html
• Yahoo's listing of Genealogy Sites: http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/Genealogy/

Sent by Johanna de Soto

HISTORY

Many people dismiss Washington's prayer at Valley Forge as sentimental legend. Yet the story is well-grounded in the historical record. 

The chief source is the eyewitness testimony of Isaac Potts, a Valley Forge resident who shared the following story with the Rev. Nathaniel Randolph Snowden (1770-1851), who then recorded it in his "Diary and Remembrances." 

"I was riding with Mr. Potts near to the Valley Forge where the army lay during the war of ye Revolution, when Mr. Potts said, 'Do you see that woods & that plain? There laid the army of Washington. It was a most distressing time of ye war, and all were for giving up the Ship but that
great and good man. In that woods (pointing to a close in view) I heard a plaintive sound as of a man at prayer. I tied my horse to a sapling and went quietly into the woods. To my astonishment I saw the great George Washington on his knees alone, with his sword on one side and his cocked
hat on the other. He was at Prayer to the God of the Armies, beseeching to interpose with his Divine aid, as it was ye Crisis & the cause of the country, of humanity and of the world. 

"Such a prayer I never heard from the lips of man. I left him alone praying. I went home and told my wife. We never thought a man could be a soldier and a Christian, but if there is one in the world, it is Washington. We thought it was the cause of God and America could prevail.'"

Submitted by Lewis Stokes                                                           Return to Table of Contents

Source: Rootsweb

MISCELLANEOUS

CONTACT:
Ken McGinnis, VP
Millennia Corp.
PO Box 1800
Duvall, WA 98019
(425) 788-3774 office
(425) 788-4493 fax
KenMcGinnis@MillenniaCorp.com

Sent by Lorraine Hernandez                                                       Return to Table of Contents

12/30/2009 04:48 PM