The garcia de la paz

Abstract

The article concerns one settler family of Montevideo and focuses on the familial group's attitudes and strategies, and rules of coexistence and forms of adaptation. We use notarial sources, cabildo (town council) documents, list of inhabitants, books of marriage, and traveler reports. Emphasis is placed on the family's women, their everyday realities, and their perception of the environment and of their role inside the family and social circle. Their behavior is examined through analysis of marriage, procreation, and inheritance, as well as through their personal relationships with the familial group and in the community. This examination of the demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and psychological contexts of female activities is meant to develop a model for dealing with the history of the family in marginal zones.

Notes

1 We will be especially concerned with the family that started with the marriage of the two Canary Islanders Francisco Garcı́a de la Paz y Marı́a Antonia Rivero; the analysis will be extended to the first two generations born in Montevideo.

2 The first group consisted of 96 people arriving in November 1726, and the second of 136–137 individuals arriving in April 1729.

3 To analyze the first group we use the Padrón Millán, created in December 1726, published and noted by Juan Apolant (PM, pp. 85–104). For the second, we use the list recreated by the same Apolant from varied documents he gathered in several repositories in Uruguay and Spain (LM, I, pp. 105–135).

4 Gracia Francisca, mother-in-law to one of the heads of family (Tomás Gonzalez), 56 years old, had decided to follow her married daughter, together with other two single daughters: Bárbara Francisca (Hernandez) and Isabel Francisca (Hernandez), who were 30 and 28 years old, respectively (LM, I, pp. 105–153).

5 Marı́a Gerónima (Barrios-Marrero o Marı́a Padilla) who appears in the rolls as relative of the head of the family, Felipe Perz de Sosa, was the mother of one of his cousins, who was 24 years old and was also part of the group (LM, I, pp. 153, 210–211).

6 Francisca Rosa Barroso (Francisca Rodriguez Barroso ), widow, 42 years old, and her daughter Marı́a Gonzalez (Barroso), also a widow, came with the family of Juan Martin (ez de los Santos).

7 According to Apolant, the children's father must have died during the voyage or soon after arrival (LM, I, p. 121).

8 Marı́a Antonia Rivero and her sisters, Antonia de la Cruz, Josefa Catalina, and her brother, Luis Joaquı́n, had been born in the Laguna de la Gran Canaria and they were legitimate children of Eufrasia Dı́az y Méndez and Cristóbal Rivero (see the list of Canarian settlers of the second group of arrivals [LM, I, pp.116–117, 228–232]). In the petition for the recognition of purity of blood made by the husband of one of these sisters, there was a verification of the origins of their parents, Cristóbal Rivero and Eufrasia Dı́az y Méndez, neighbors of the city of the Laguna, in the Canaries (AGNU; AP, 1, 3).

9 Marı́a Gerónima Barros (-Marrero-Padilla), Marı́a Gonzalez (Barroso), Sebastiana de Saa y Ocanto, Andrea Morales, Marı́a del Rosario Ramos, Marı́a Felipa Diaz y Mendez and Josefa Perez de Abal (LM, I, pp. 159, 210, 228–229, 252, 257, 427).

10 By 1729 there were about 350 people in Montevideo, about 100 of Canarian origin, including children; another group of 100 soldiers in the garrison, about 50 of whom were used on ships, in travels and for cutting wood; as well as workers, builders and craftsmen, together with about 100 of Guaranian Indians who were used in the building of lodgings (Azarola Gil 1975, p. 120).

11 See Libro Primero de matrimonios (LM, I, II, and III).

12 Marı́a Antonia Rivero married Don Francisco Clemente Garcı́a de la Paz. He had been born in the island of Gomera and was a neighbor of Tenerife, and had arrived at the end of 1726, as an addition to the family of Juan de Vera Suarez. He was 20 years old (LM, I, p. 228).

13 LM, I (pp. 232, 325).

14 They were Juana Isabel and Anastasia Arébalo, both daughters of Antonia de la Cruz Rivero They married a criollo, the son of a marriage of first settlers from the Canary Islands, and with a first settler who arrived with his parents in 1729, respectively (LM, I, p.628 and II, p. 1089).

15 In this matter some were luckier than others. Isabel Texera, whose husband had been a bricklayer and one of the builders of the first Mother Church (opened in 1740), owned, in the 1750s, one of the largest fortunes in the place, estimated in that time in about $5988 or 600 pesos for the house and location, $400 for three slaves, $300 for a chacra, $500 for the land of an estancia, $4000 for 2000 cattle, $100 for 200 female horses, and $88 for 250 sheep (LM, I, pp. 230, 282, and 362).

16 The claimant, Petrona Gonzalez, was wife of Pedro Sacristán, Infantry Lieutenant in the Garrison in Montevideo.

17 According to one of the witnesses, the father and grandfather were natives from Arure, with a mayorazgo or kinship group in the valley of Hermigua. Among his aunts on his father's side there was a nun from the Order of Santa Catalina, who lived in the Convent of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and two priests, in addition to three lay uncles. Testimony of purity of blood (AGNU; AP, 1, 3).

18 The copy was found among the papers of Clara Zavala, daughter of Francisco Bruno de Zavala and Josefa Cecilia Garcı́a de la Paz (AGNU; AP, 1, 3).

19 From a record of salaries from August 1792, it can be seen that Francisco Bruno de Zavala, received 1,200 pesos per year for his function as governor, in addition to his salary as a captain.

20 Even though the marriage was in November 1767, the first daughter, Marı́a Nicolasa Josefa Clara Zavala, was born in August 1763 (LM, III, pp. 1738–1739).

21 Although we have not had access to her baptism act, it appears in this way in her will and in a letter from her father to Don José Poo. See Clara Zavala's will (AGNU; PEP c [1800-II]) and Francisco Bruno de Zavala's letter (AGNU; MHN, 4, 1798, C. 4, Leg. 1798).

22 In the marriage register, it is stated that Thomas Soriano married Eufrasia de la Paz, 16 years old, on the sixth of June, 1751, their children having been born from 1752 to 1773. As regards Rosalı́a Garcı́a de la Paz, it is stated there that she married Bernardo Rodriguez on the 20th of November, 1760, when she was 13 years old, and her sons were baptized from 1763 to 1770 (LM, I, pp. 771, 1251).

23 In the will written by Francisco Garcı́a de la Paz on April 11, 1784, it is stated that his debts to his son-in-law, Bernardo Rodriguez, had been canceled. Those debts had arisen from the rent of his chacra in Migueletes for two years. The will also stated the debts of two other tenants (AGNU; PEP a, pp. 67–80).

24 Travel of Fernando Borrero by Maldonado and Rocha in 1783, mentioned by Elisa A. Menendez (1953)(p. 157).

25 The denial of his brother-in-law was followed in a series of written documents, without reaching a definite solution; the second valuation was made in September 1786. Civil Autos between Don Thomas Soriano and Don Bernardo Rodriguez about a house and site (AGNU; CM b [1780]).

26 Legal presentation of Clara Zavala de Vidal to the governor of Montevideo, 1796 (AGNU; AP, 1, 3).

27 “Such outstanding women as Inés and Antonia Chauri, single sisters of the Dean of Buenos Aires Cathedral, were completely illiterate”(Socolow 1991, pp. 50, 51).

28 Francisco Garcı́a de la Paz died on April 24, 1784, when he was about 80 years old (LM, I, p. 231).

29 Marı́a Antonia Rivero died on August 15, 1796 (LM, I, p. 232). Rosalia and Eufrasia would be bequeathed 112 pesos and 20 cents, respectively, sums of money which had already been supplied to them. See Marı́a Antonia Rivero's will, October 14, 1791 (AGNU; PEP b, pp. 254–257).

30 30. Her granddaughter was Clara Zavala, daughter of Josefa Cecilia Garcı́a de la Paz and Francisco Bruno de Zavala, married to Eusebio Vidal.

31 No mention was made here of the debt they had with Vidal, neither he nor his wife were named executors, and the commission which had been assigned to them at the beginning was finally entrusted to another person. Marı́a Antonia Rivero's will, October 14, 1791 (AGNU; PEP b, pp. 254–257).

32 See the testament of Eusebio Vidal , April 18, 1791 (AGNU; AP, 1, 3). In the testament of Francisco Garcı́a de la Paz one can already see the possibility that part of the inheritance would have to be sold to pay for the debts (AGNU; PEP a, pp. 67–80).

33 The contract for buying the house is dated November 1.