During the administration of Governor Manzañedas the city of Matanzas was founded. According to some authorities the name is derived from the Spanish matanza, which means slaughter or killing and it was supposed to refer to the extermination of the Indians who had been the native owners of that territory. Others derive the term from a corruption of the word martizaban, which the Indians had adopted from the Castilian when they wailed during the suffering inflicted upon them. Still others try to establish a certain connection between that name and the following story of Indian perfidy. It seems that some Spaniards had engaged a number of Indians to carry them in their canoes from one end of the bay to another. When they reached the middle of the bay, the Indians left the boats, and hitting the Spaniards on the head with the oars, tried to drown them, while they took to the mountains. Seven of the victims succeeded in escaping from death by swimming to the shore; but there they were caught by other natives, taken to the nearest pueblo and hanged. One of them however, managed to get away and reach another pueblo, whose cacique gave him shelter until the arrival of a Spanish rescuing force under Narvaez. The cacique, preceded by three hundred men carrying gifts, went to receive the party from Havana, leading the prisoner by the hand. In addressing Narvaez and P. Casas, who were the leaders, he told them that he had treated the man as if he had been his own son, that he had guarded and protected him for three years and had refused the strenuous demand of the other caciques to deliver him to them, knowing that they would have killed him.
Whatever the origin of its name may be, Matanzas eventually lived down its sinister significance. The bay of Matanzas with the canal opening into it, had long been considered a point of great importance. For it was patent that, if the British set out to capture it and succeeded in establishing themselves there, the danger to Spanish commerce and especially to that of Havana would be very grave. A village had existed there from the time of the Spanish conquest; it had grown in population and the surrounding land was well cultivated. Governor Manzañedas decided at once to begin to fortify the bay. He re-organized the administration of the place and raised it to the rank of a city, which the authorities named after San Carlos Alcazar de Matanzas.
The solemn ceremonies of its foundation took place on the tenth of October, 1693, in the presence of Governor Manzañedas and many other prominent citizens and high officials of the island. After an examination of the previously drafted plan a Plaza des Armas, or military parade-ground was the first to be decided upon; then the principal streets of the city were traced. Two days later an altar and a cross were raised on the square destined for the church, and Bishop D. Diego Evelino de Compostela blessed the spot, said mass over it and with the aid of Governor Manzañedas laid the first stone of the temple which was to have for its patron saint San Carlos Borromeo. On the following day the governor went to Punta Gorda on the north side of the bay and selected a place for the fort which was to be built. When the structure was completed it was in his honor given the name San Severino. The industry of the residents, the fertility of the soil and the unusually favorable location of the port made the small town grow within a few years into one of the most important cities of the island. Subsequently Matanzas developed to such size and prominence that it is to-day ranking next to Havana both in population and in commerce.
The administration of Manzañedas was toward the end disturbed by the scandalous dispute between the governor Villalobas and the Licentiate Roa, Lieutenant Auditor of the Royal Audiencia (a court of appeals in the West Indies). The affair created a great deal of sensation at the time, because it threatened to divide the population into hostile factions. Villalobas was charged with having allowed his adherents to call themselves Villalobistas, in opposition to those of Lieutenant Roa, who promptly assumed the name Roistas. Controversies and quarrels arose and grew to such alarming proportions that civil war seemed imminent. The two rivals fought each other mercilessly, until Roa fled to Madrid, where he died in exile. Villalobas justly feared that the report of these disturbances would damage his reputation at the court of Madrid and was taken dangerously sick. The Audiencia of Santo Domingo which had instituted an inquiry into the matter discharged Villalobas from his office. An Oidor (hearer or judge) of the Audiencia, D. Diego Antonio Oviedo y Banos was appointed to hear the arguments of the case. But Villalobas, a broken old man, was so grieved by the disgrace that he survived the ordeal only a few days. The administration of Governor Manzañedas came to an end in the year 1695 when he was appointed to the presidency of Santo Domingo.
CHAPTER XXVI
With the death of King Charles II. in the year 1700 the Austrian dynasty upon the throne of Spain became extinct. One daughter of his predecessor, Philip IV., had married a Bavarian prince, another had become the wife of Louis XIV. of France. The offspring of these marriages and other candidates presented themselves for the succession and caused endless diplomatic parleys and plunged Spain into a most harassing state of uncertainty, even before the King expired. He had signed a will in favor of the Bourbon claimant, Philip of Anjou, who succeeded him as Philip V., but the Austrian archduke Charles contested this succession, until the death of his brother. Joseph called him to the throne of Austria and forced him to relinquish his claim to that of Spain. The interval, however, was spent in what is known as the War of the Austrian Succession which was far more than a war of succession to the Spanish throne, but one which involved a European problem.
The hostility between England and France was known to be acute; the designs of Austria upon Spain were also known to be the source of incipient conflicts. In order to curb the insatiable ambition of Louis XIV., England had entered into an alliance with Austria and Holland. The unexpected ascension of the archduke Charles to the throne of Austria suddenly changed the political aspect of the time for England. Louis XIV. and Philip V. had agreed that in order to secure the balance of European power the crowns of France and Spain should never be united. Spain, however, was bound in the future to follow the trend of French politics. It renounced her rights to the Netherlands, which were the only barrier against invasions of France on the continent, and left England in possession of Gibraltar. As this was its most important fortress, Gibraltar was ever to be a thorn in the flesh of Spain.
The treaty of Utrecht, which was signed in the year 1713, seemed by its reapportionment of the countries and the readjustment of the map of Europe to have temporarily assured peace. But the price paid for this peace by Spain was hardly to be estimated in currency. As Guiteras justly remarks, Philip V. found Spain prostrate from the impudent efforts of the Austrian dynasty to preserve her predominance among the European nations. The wars waged during the reigns of his predecessors had drained the coffers of Spain and alarmingly decreased her population. The powerful kingdom which a century before had dared to threaten the independence of England and had enjoyed prosperity and opulence, had become almost tributary to France and England. The treaty of Utrecht reduced Spain to her peninsular provinces and her overseas colonies. Though united with them by the ties of racial origin, religion and tradition, it was not an easy task to defend them against the inimical designs of powers that planned to dominate the seas and usurp the place which Spain had won for herself.
Philip V. realized that the condition in which Spain had been left at the end of the wars that preceded his reign made it incumbent