Hanyguayaba Cacicazgo of Hispaniola

One area we wish to learn more about is the Hanyguayaba Cacicazgo of Haiti's Southwest. An important node near the "anus" of the living animal that was Hispaniola (in the mind of the island's native populations), our only detailed references to it are a few allusions in the Spanish chronicles and encomienda records. However, we know the plain of Les Cayes was an attractive area of settlement due to the fertility of its land. Indeed, the numbers from Arranz Marquez's study (the source of the table) of the 1514 repartimiento of Hispaniola suggest the area once had a substantial Indigenous population. In fact, the number of enumerated Indians here (835) exceeded that of Vera Paz (built near the ruins of Xaragua's capital). Of all the Spanish settlements in what is now Haiti, only Yaquimo had a larger population of Indians, but only slightly more than Salvatierra de la Sabana. Of course, the numbers reflected here in 1514-1515 are not necessarily very reliable for what population patterns were like before 1492. Indeed, it is likely that the area of Salvatierra de la Sabana may have experienced less population displacement or relocation since it was so far away from centers of gold mining. 

From the little one can glimpse of Hanyguayaba from reading Las Casas, the area was ruled by a powerful cacique who acted as an independent lord due to the distance from Xaragua. Like Xaragua, this cacicazgo was also destroyed after Ovando ordered the destruction of Xaragua. Indeed, Diego Velazquez, the future conqueror of Cuba, had Hanyguayaba's paramount cacique hung. Since the area still had a larger Indian population in 1514, and Las Casas might be more reliable than Oviedo here (the latter, as well as Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, believed that cave-dwelling or hunter-gatherer "primitives" still resided in Haiti's Southwest), we suspect the Hanyguayaba cacicazgo was once a prosperous area. The elusive "primitive" population described in Spanish records was likely fugitives from the destruction of the cacicazgo who sought to maintain their autonomy from the Spanish settlements at Salvatierra de la Sabana. 

However, one cannot help but notice that some of the caciques (and their subjects given in encomiendas) were rather large groups, with Diego de Matute leading a group of 86. Even more striking is the rather large child population for Indians in this part of what later became the country of Haiti. In the Southwest, about 95 out of 835 Indians were children, or about 11% of the total population. This is a far higher proportion of children than any other area of western Hispaniola. The only other areas in western Hispaniola that even come close to this proportion of children were Yaquimo (6%), La Vera Paz (8%) and Puerto Real (6%). Of course, if one assumes the 715 adults of child-bearing age were evenly split between men and women (which is likely a false assumption), there may have been around 358 women in this part of the island in 1514. If there were only 95 children, that means there were only 0.26 children per woman, far below what would have been necessary to sustain population increase. The only parts of the island where one could have found more children were in the eastern half, where the majority of the island's population was already shifted to by 1514. For example, San Juan de la Maguana may have had about 0.24 children per woman, slightly fewer than Salvatierra de la Sabana. On the other hand, the Santo Domingo region had 520 children, slightly more than a third of the entire enumerated child population. However, for western Hispaniola, more than 1/3 of its share of the total child population lived in the Salvatierra de la Sabana area/Southwest. 

1514 Repartimiento and Cacica Catalina de Mayama

Although our descent from a man said to be of converso origins is through the Delgado Manso of Puerto Rico, he came to Hispaniola in 1514. The son of Diego Guillen and Mayor Gutierrez, he apparently, he enjoyed connections at court and was promised an encomienda. However, in the 1514 Repartimiento in the island, his name appears as one of the vecinos of Santo Domingo who received, in encomienda, 30 service Indians from the cacica Catalina of Mayama. In addition, ten naborias de casa were also assigned to Guillen. However, the same cacica Catalina de Mayama was also assigned to Gomez Diaz, which, if true, meant that Guillen had to share the 30 or so Indians with another vecino.

Guillen's daughter, Isabel, stayed on the island of Hispaniola. She married a Gonzalo de Guzman who first came to Hispaniola in 1502, with Ovando. However, Guzman had married Isabel with the expectation of a large dowry and access to more encomienda Indian labor. This did not materialize, although it does appear that Isabel father did indeed receive some Indians in the 1514 Repartimiento. According to Ida Altman, the daughter Isabel Malaber (Maraver) was the head of a poor household in the 1530s after her husband died. Her elderly father, Juan Guillen, was still alive, but the household also included mestizas, black slaves and an old Indian naboria women.

Although Altman believed Isabel Maraver possibly ended her days as a poor widow, it turns out she married a second time with Francisco Ruiz de Oviedo. References to her and this second husband can be found in Historia y Geografía Cuentas de las Cajas Reales de Santo Domingo 1544-1549. Now, our descent from Juan Guillen is via another daughter, Eufrasia Maraver. She came to Hispaniola in 1514 with her parents, but ended up in Puerto Rico as the wife of a Pedro Espinosa. According to research in the archives by Luis Burset Flores, the Delgado Manso family were descendants of Eufrasia Maraver through the Manso. Indeed, in 1568, a chubby Spanish soldier, Francisco Delgado, married Juana Manso de Espinosa, daughter of Alonso Díaz Manso and Isabel de Espinosa. Isabel de Espinosa, according to the sources cited by Burset Flores, was the daughter of Eufrasia Maraver, a child of Juan Guillen and Maria de Maraver.

Our descent from the Delgado Manso is actually the result of a descendant of this family marrying a woman of color in 1727. And while we are more interested in the African and indigenous contributions to the making of the Caribbean, it reveal how the events and places in the early Spanish Caribbean directly involved our ancestors, who came from all social classes. Some of our forebears, for instance, were living on Hispaniola during Enrique's revolt. Some, such as the father of Eufrasia Maraver, were apparently recipients of encomiendas in Hispaniola. Who was the cacica Catalina of Mayama? Presumably located somewhere not too far from Santo Domingo, what happened to the Indians? Were some of them among the mestizas and the old naboria living in Isabel Maraver's household in 1531? Was the cacica Catalina someone exercizing the position of cacica before the Spanish conquest or was her rise to power a result of the brutal Spanish invasion?