Havana

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

1. San Cristobal de La Habana is the walled Spanish city and landlocked harbour on the north coast of western Cuba, at a bay opening on the Straits of Florida; English official and cartographic usage of the period writes the place with the definite article, as the Havana. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period state papers: Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 29, entry 328 and enclosures, and Thomas Jefferys, Plan of the city and harbour of the Havana, London, 1768, Library of Congress G4924.H3 1768.J41, for the English form "the Havana" in 1716 and 1768 (Confirmed). The transfer of the governor's seat from Santiago de Cuba is Disputed between 1553 and 1563, and that dispute is not resolved on the page
2. Havana was governed from within by a resident governor and captain general of Cuba with a garrison, a cabildo whose minutes survive as the Actas Capitulares, and royal treasury officials receiving the Mexican silver subsidy known as the situado; it was never a pirate haven in this period but the state port from which counter-piratical force was projected, a negative put no higher than Probable because the sources consulted evidence Spanish counter-piracy rather than the absence of harbouring across thirty-five years. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. State papers and secondary narrative: Adrian L. Denis, "Treasure City: Havana," Commonplace, July 2003, and the Actas Capitulares del Ayuntamiento de La Habana, 1550 to 1898, Archivo Historico de la Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad de La Habana, for the governor, the cabildo and the situado (Probable); Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 29, entries 308 and 328, for the counter-piratical posture of the port (Confirmed). The negative is put no higher than Probable: no source consulted can establish the absence of harbouring across the whole window
3. Under the Spanish convoy regime the Nueva Espana fleet loaded at Veracruz and the Tierra Firme fleet at Cartagena and Portobelo, and both made for Havana to combine before the run home through the Straits of Florida on the Gulf Stream; the fleets of 1690 to 1725 were fewer and more irregular than that ideal, but Havana's function as the last watering, provisioning, careening and mustering point before the Atlantic was unchanged. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Secondary narrative: David Wilson, "The 1715 Plate Fleet and the Rise of the Pirates," History Today, 30 July 2015, and "The Nueva Espana fleets (1715)," shipwrecks.es, for the combination of the fleets at Havana and the homeward passage through the Straits of Florida (Confirmed); Adrian L. Denis, "Treasure City: Havana," Commonplace, July 2003, for the port's provisioning and treasure functions (Probable)
4. The Spanish plate fleet of 1715 was destroyed on the Florida coast. The earliest English official notice is Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood's report from Virginia of 24 October 1715, that the fleet consisted of eleven sail and that all but one were cast away in the Gulf of Florida to the southward of St Augustine, and that a barcolongo sent from Havana to fetch off passengers of distinction, having recovered a considerable quantity of plate from the wrecks, was cast away in her turn about forty miles to the northward of St Augustine. The departure from Havana on 24 July 1715 under Juan Esteban de Ubilla and Antonio de Echeverz y Zubiza, the date of the wreck on 30 to 31 July and the number of the dead are not established here; only the Contratacion registers at Seville could fix them. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. State papers: Lieut. Governor Spotswood to [? Mr. Secretary Stanhope], Virginia, 24 October 1715, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 28, 1714-1715, ed. Cecil Headlam (London, 1928), no. 651, at p. 317, C.O. 5, 1342. No. 3, read on British History Online: "Here is advice of a considerable event in these parts, that the Spanish Plate Fleet richly laden, consisting of eleven sail, are, except one, lately cast away in the Gulf of Florida to the southward of St. Augustin, and that a barcolongo sent from the Havanna to fetch off from the Continent some passengers of distinction, who were in that Fleet, having recovered from the wrecks a considble. quantity of plate is likewise cast away about 40 miles to the northwd. of St. Augustin"
5. Salvage of the 1715 wrecks was organised from the Cuban side, Juan del Hoyo arriving in September 1715 to direct it and about four million pesos being recovered within a few months of the camp near the Sebastian River, out of a cargo put at about seven million pesos in one modern account and at twelve million or more than fourteen million in others; Lieutenant Governor Heywood reported from Jamaica on 11 August 1716 that near twenty vessels had been seized by Spanish picaroons and recorded Lord Archibald Hamilton's receipt of 468 pounds 5 ounces troy of plate. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. State paper and secondary narrative: "The Nueva Espana fleets (1715)," shipwrecks.es, for Juan del Hoyo's salvage from September 1715 and the recovery totals (Probable); David Wilson, "The 1715 Plate Fleet and the Rise of the Pirates," History Today, 30 July 2015, for the competing cargo value (Disputed); Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 29, entry 308, Lieutenant Governor Heywood to the Council of Trade and Plantations, Jamaica, 11 August 1716, C.O. 137, 12, Nos. 21, 21 i to iv, for the picaroon seizures and the plate received by Hamilton (Confirmed)
6. The deposition of Richard Ward, taken at New Providence on 14 October 1715, states that the Spaniards at the Havana were preparing to cut off the inhabitants of the Bahama Islands on account of piracies committed upon them from thence, and Thomas Walker of New Providence travelled to Havana before August 1716 and on his own account prevented the design of the provoked Spaniards before fleeing New Providence for South Carolina; both documents are calendared in one bundle of Colonial Office papers, which preserves most of the English-language record of Havana's anti-piracy posture. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. State paper: Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 29, entry 328 and enclosures i to iii, including the deposition of Richard Ward, New Providence, 14 October 1715, and Thomas Walker's account of his voyage to Havana, C.O. 5, 1265, Nos. 52, 52 i to iii, The National Archives, Kew, calendar published by British History Online (Confirmed)