Tomás Menéndez Márquez
Tomás Menéndez Márquez | |
---|---|
Born | Tomás Menéndez Márquez y Pedroso 1643 |
Died | 1706 | (aged 63)
Occupation | Official |
Tomás Menéndez Márquez y Pedroso (1643–1706) was an official in the government of
Early life
Tomás Menéndez Márquez was born in
Tomás Menéndez Márquez was the sixth child of Francisco and Antonia. His mother died before he was five years old, and his father died in 1649, when Tomás was six years old. The Menéndez Márquez family was well-to-do. They owned eleven slaves, and Francisco had established an estancia (cattle ranch) in Potano Province, which would become the largest ranch in Spanish Florida. Tomás's father and grandfather had held the position of royal treasurer of Spanish Florida for a combined total of 56 years. A few years after Francisco's death the accounts of the treasury were audited, and it was found that Francisco had borrowed between 16,000 and 20,000 pesos from the treasury. An attempt was made to recover the missing funds by selling the ranch, but no buyers could be found, and the ranch remained with the Menéndez Márquez family.[2][3]
The Menéndez Márquez ranch of
Ranching
In the early 1660s Tomás Menéndez Márquez was commissioned as an Adjutant in the garrison at St. Augustine. Tomás married María Ruíz Mejía de los Angeles in 1663. The next year his brother Juan purchased the office of royal accountant (contador real) for Spanish Florida[Note 2] and Tomás resigned his commission and assumed management of the family ranches. Construction of the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine began in 1672, creating an increased demand for food for the workers. The Menéndez Márquez ranches sent cattle to St. Augustine. Hides and tallow from the cattle were exported to Havana. Cattle were sometimes driven to Apalachee Province, as well. A port called San Martin was established in the early 1670s on the Suwannee River, and Tomás shipped hides, dried meat and tallow to Havana from that port. Tomás owned a ship which was engaged in the trade between San Martin and Havana. This ship also carried rum and Spanish and Mexican goods from Havana, maize and beans from Apalachee Province, and deerskins and furs obtained from Apalachicola Province.[8][9]
Cattle ranching boomed in Spanish Florida in the latter part of the 17th century. Tomás Menéndez Márquez and his son Francisco founded or bought most of the ranches located between the
Ranches and farms in Spanish Florida were taxed at two-and-one-half percent of their produce, which for a ranch meant that two-and-one-half percent of the calves born each year were sent to St. Augustine. In 1699 the Menéndez Márquez ranches paid a tax of 77 calves, implying that about 3,080 calves had been born on the ranches that year. This number was 35% of all calves paid in tax that year. However, ranching became less profitable with time. A beef steer was worth 21
Royal accountant
In 1684 Tomás succeeded his brother Antonio as royal accountant (Antonio had succeeded Juan when Juan was transferred to Havana in 1673). The governor, Juan Márquez Cabrera, disputed Tomás's right to fill the position because he was a criollo. The governor was overruled because Antonio had paid 1,000 pesos in 1673 for the right to succeed his brother Juan as royal accountant, and 500 pesos in 1682 to establish Tomás's right to succeed him.[Note 4] Tomás entered the position, with back pay, in 1686.[15][16]
One of the Florida treasury officials would travel to
Notes
- ^ Jerald Milanich states that Tomás was the brother involved in this incident,(Milanich: 113) but other sources say it was Juan,(Hann: 211; Worth v.1: 201) and Tomás would have been only 13 years old at the time.
- ^ Provinces in the Spanish Empire had a royal treasury controlled by a set of officiales reales (royal officials). The officials of the royal treasury included up to four positions: a tesorero (treasurer), the senior official who guarded money on hand and made payments; a contador (accountant or comptroller), who recorded income and payments, maintained records, and interpreted royal instructions; a factor, who guarded weapons and supplies belonging to the king, and disposed of tribute collected in the province; and a veedor (overseer), who was responsible for contacts with native inhabitants of the province, and collected the king's share of any war booty. The factor and veedor were combined as a factor/veedor from the establishment of Spanish Florida in 1565. In 1628 the position of factor/veedor was eliminated in Florida, and the treasurer became known as a treasurer-steward. The treasury officials were appointed by the king, and were largely independent of the authority of the governor. On the death, unauthorized absence, retirement or removal of a governor, the treasury officials would jointly govern the province until a new governor appointed by the king could take up his duties. Treasury officials were supposed to be paid out of the income from the province, but Spanish Florida had almost no income, and the salaries of the treasury officials were paid out of the situado, a royal subsidy. Treasury officials were normally prohibited from engaging in income-producing activities, but those restrictions were partially lifted and largely ignored in Florida.(Bushnell 1981: 1–2; Chipman; Parry: 202–203)
- ^ A Spanish map from 1764 shows eight ranches of 25 square leagues each west of the St. Johns River. Five of those ranches, including la Chua, were claimed by the Menéndez Márquez family. By then, however, all of the ranches had been outside of Spanish control for 60 years.(Bushnell 1991: 136)
- ^ Important (and salaried) positions in the government of the Spanish Empire in the New World were usually reserved for peninsulares, men born in Spain. However, Florida was an impoverished frontier post, and positions other than governor were commonly held by criollos. Purchase of official positions was common, and remained legal until the 19th century.(Parry:335-336)
Citations
- ^ Bushnell 1991: 118, 120, 122
- ^ Bushnell 1991: 118, 120, 122, 124
- ^ Worth: 200
- .
- ^ Borgen: 16, 26, 40, 64, 101
- ^ Hann: 210–211
- ^ Worth v.1: 200–201
- ^ Bushnell 1978: 422–424
- ^ Bushnell 1991: 128–130
- ^ Bushnell 1978: 428-429
- ^ Bushnell 1991: 130, 134
- ^ Hann: 194
- ^ Worth v.2: 131
- ^ Bushnell 1978: 421, 426, 429, 430
- ^ Bushnell 1981: 33, 148
- ^ Bushnell 1991: 132
- ^ Bushnell 1981: 148
- ^ Bushnell 1991: 134, 136
References
- Borgen, Linda Suzanne Cecelia (2011). Prelude to Rebellion: Diego de Rebolledo vs. Lúcas Menéndez in Mid-17th Century Spanish Florida (PDF) (Thesis). Pensacola, Florida: University of West Florida. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
- Bushnell, Amy (April 1978). "The Menendez Marquez Cattle Barony at La Chua and the Determinants of Economic Expansion in Seventeenth-Century Florida". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 56 (4): 407–431. There is no stable URL, but a PDF version of the article may be accessed at Florida Historical Quarterly archives.
- Bushnell, Amy (1981). The King's Coffer: Proprietors of the Spanish Florida Treasury 1565-1702. Gainesville, Florida: University Presses of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-0690-2. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- Bushnell, Amy Turner (1991). "Thomas Menéndez Márquez: Criolla, Cattleman, and Contador/Tomás Menéndez Márquez: Criolla, Ganadero y Contador Real". In Ann L. Henderson and Gary L. Mormino (ed.). Spanish Pathways in Florida/Caminos Españoles en La Florida. Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press. pp. 118–139. ISBN 1-56164-003-4.
- Chipman, Donald E. (2005). Moctezuma's Children: Aztec Royalty under Spanish Rule, 1520–1700 (Individual e-book (no page numbers) ed.). Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-78264-8. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
- Dubcovsky, Alejandra and Broadwell, George Aaron (2017). "Writing Timucua: Recovering and Interrogating Indigenous Authorship". Early American Studies. 15 (3): 409–441. .
- Hann, John H. (1996). A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1424-7.
- Milanich, Jerald T. (1996). The Timucua. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publications. ISBN 1-55786-488-8.
- Parry, John Horace (1966). The Spanish Seaborne Empire (First paperback (1990) ed.). Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07140-9.
- Worth, John E. (1998). The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida, Volume 1: Assimilation. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1574-X.
- Worth, John E. (1998). The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida, Volume 2: Resistance and Destruction. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1575-8.