Enslaved Ancestors

Although we are more interested in Haiti, genealogical research in Puerto Rico is usually easier. Much of the parish books are available online and quite a few have been indexed on the Family Search Website. This, plus the large volume of digitized material on the site, makes it somewhat easier to trace ancestry back to the 17th century. This time, we would like to emphasize on an ancestor, Maria Faustina baptized in the early 1700s but born to an enslaved woman.

We know Maria Faustina, the wife of a "pardo libre" named Marcos Rosado (also known as de la Rosa), was baptized in 1703. Her mother, Simona, was a "negra esclava" owned by the estate of a Maria (?) or Andrea Amezquita in the San Juan area. Her godfather, Jacinto Gomez, is unknown. However, perusing the parish registers of San Juan for other Amezquita reveals it to have been a large family. They were presumably related to the Amezquita who defended the city against a Dutch attack in 1625. Jacinto Gomez was also the godfather to another "pardo" child in 1709, this time to the daughter of the alferez Agustin Ruiz and Maria de la Cruz. Jacinto Gomez may have been in the military and knew the father of Maria Faustina. 

What do we know about Simona, the black slave mother of Maria Faustina? Sadly, nothing. However, it is possible that the inheritors of the estate that owned her came from the family of Juan Amezquita, the owner of an ingenio and slaveholder in the late 1600s. According to the 1673 "census" of San Juan, studied by David Stark, Juan Amezquita owned 25 people. Perhaps Simona was one of them? Slaves in late 17th century and early 18th century San Juan were also of diverse origins. The African-born ones were often from Angola, but Maria Amezquita and Isabel Amezquita also owned "Tari" slaves who had their children baptized in the San Juan church. According to David M. Stark, the Tari were from the region of the Slave Coast (modern-day Benin) but West Africans were outnumbered by Central Africans in the early 18th century. Overall, adult slaves baptized in San Juan during the end of the 17th century were from Angola, Loango and Tari. Assuming Simona was African-born, and probably came to the island in the later decades of the 1600s, she was probably from West Central Africa. 

Details on Maria Faustina's life can only be gleamed through the baptisms of her children with Marcos Rosado. Marcos Rosado and Maria Faustina appear to have been "pardos" (or classified as such). Marcos Rosado, the son of a Maria de la Rosa, was baptized in 1702. His mother may have been the Maria de la Rosa baptized in 1688, the daughter of two slaves, Geronima and Tomas, owned by the Andino. If true, then her parents were owned by Don Baltazar Andino's family, a captain in San Juan who was also involved with illicit trading. If Geronima and Tomas were typical adult slaves of the 1680s, and they were born in Africa, perhaps origins in West Central Africa are most likely. 

Of course, we need more proof of the identity of Maria de la Rosa, Marcos's mother, before we can confirm our theory that she was the daughter of two slaves owned by Captain Baltazar de Andino. Interestingly, the priest who recorded her baptism in 1688 described her parents as legitimately married. However, when searching San Juan marriage records, we could not find them. Nonetheless, some of the general trends scholars have noticed among the enslaved population of San Juan in the late 1600s and early 1700s does tell us something about the world in which our ancestors lived. 

The House on the Lagoon

Although I could not finish The House on the Lagoon a year ago when I attempted to read it, this time it was a breezy and entertaining read. Telling the story of 20th century Puerto Rico through the wealthy San Juan-based Mendizabal family, the novel is ostensibly the manuscript of Isabel, describing the origins of the her and her husband's families from the Spanish-American War to the turbulent 1970s of independentist radicalism. As the daughter of a Puerto Rican governor and with somewhat of a similar background as Isabel, one assumes Rosario Ferre based some of the characters on people in her own life, while fictionalizing historical events in Puerto Rican history (such as the Ponce Massacre). There is a strong feminist undertone to the novel, which illustrates across class and racial boundaries the role of sexism in limiting the fate of women in Puerto Rican society, although the class and racial politics of Isabel, a "liberal," usually leave more to be desired.

The most interesting aspect of the novel are the Afro-Puerto Rican servants, living in the cellar of the titular house on the lagoon. Led by Petra, the daughter of African slaves from Guayama, who is a devotee of Eleggua and healer, the black characters, who link the elite Mendizabal family with the slums of Las Minas, are often in the shadows but reveal the racial domination built into Puerto Rican society. Petra, who lives in the house for over 50 years, has a special influence on Buenaventura Mendizabal, the "alleged" descendant of Francisco Pizarro, and her presence is the stone upon which the house on the lagoon endures and, eventually, falls. 

Her devotion to Eleggua and observation of African-derived rites and beliefs ultimately has a major influence on Isabel, and Eleggua, the intermediary communicator and guardian of the crossroads, seems to appeal to her. She cannot decide which political path to take (independence, statehood, commonwealth) or personal (remain with Quintin, continue her novel, or leave), and Eleggua, via Petra, becomes the bedrock of support and eventual decision-making. There is no elaborate description of Santeria or Afro-Puerto Rican spirituality here (and Isabel conflates Angolan and West African traditions somewhat lazily in her manuscript), but there is an undeniable presence of the orisha and Black Puerto Rico throughout the narrative. Indeed, even the lagoon or swamp and the nearby Lucumi Beach or Las Minas slum hint at the ever-present black past. 

While reading this, I could not help but recall Du Bois's Quest of the Silver Fleece, which also uses a swamp and hints of non-Christian African-American religion through the character of Zora. Or, without the swamp but similar attention to water and the sea, the works of Jorge Amado. Yet Ferre creates far more appealing and complex women characters while bringing Puerto Rican history to life. One should read this novel alongside Puerto Rico in the American Century.

Some Images of Puerto Rico in 1899

Ponce in 1899. All images are from Margherita Arlina Hamm's Porto and the West Indies.

A laundress in Puerto Rico

Mayaguez

San Juan Marina

View of San Juan from the Harbor