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Updated: June 1, 2025
Such things are not for me, I tell you, nor for you, who seem to me to be honest men." And they, perceiving that Caparra would not do their will, asked him who there was in Florence who might serve them; whereupon, flying into a rage, he drove them away with a torrent of abuse. He would never work for Jews, and was wont, indeed, to say that their money was putrid and stinking.
The Soderini have been fast friends of the Medici, but what has happened is likely to open Pagolantonio's eyes to the good of our old Florentine trick of choosing a new harness when the old one galls us; if we have not quite lost the trick in these last fifty years." "Not we," said Niccolo Caparra, who was rejoicing in the free use of his lips again. "Eat eggs in Lent and the snow will melt.
The first samples of gold from Puerto Rico were taken to the Española by Ponce, who had obtained them from the river Manatuabón, to which the friendly cacique Guaybána conducted him on his first visit . This river disembogues into the sea on the south coast near Cape Malapascua; but it appears that the doughty captain also visited the north coast and found gold enough in the rivers Cóa and Sibúco to justify him in making his headquarters at Capárra, which is in the neighborhood.
In 1519 licentiate Rodrigo de Figueroa sent a lengthy exposition accompanied by the certified declarations of the leading inhabitants regarding the salubrity of the islet and the insalubrity of Capárra, with a copy of the disposition of the Jerome fathers authorizing the transfer, and leaving Ponce, who strenuously opposed it, at liberty to live in his fortified house in Capárra as long as he liked.
Immediately on receipt of the news from the grange, Ponce sent Captain Miguel del Toro with 40 men to the assistance of Soto Mayor, but he found the settlement in ashes and only the bodies of those who had perished. Salazar's arrival at Capárra with a handful of wounded and exhausted men revealed to Ponce the danger of his situation.
We sealed the bargain in a glass of the local mixture, and I thereupon demanded a caparra a monetary security that he would keep his word, i.e. be round at my door with the animals at two in the morning, so as to reach the uplands before the heat became oppressive. His face clouded a good omen, indicating that he was beginning to respect me.
The site for his first settlement, chosen by Ponce, was a low hill in the center of a small plain surrounded by hills, at the distance of a league from the sea, the whole space between being a swamp, "which," says Oviedo, "made the transport of supplies very difficult." Here the captain commenced the construction of a fortified house and chapel, or hermitage, and called the place Capárra.
Ponce's house, afterward built of stone, served as a fort. A church or chapel existed already, and we know that there was a smelting-house, because we read that the first gold-smelting took place in Capárra in October, 1510, and that the king's one-fifth came to 2,645 pesos.
Later came Ponce de Leon, who founded Caparra, now Pueblo Viejo, across the bay from San Juan, to which spot he shifted a little later and built the white house that may still be seen. San Juan is the oldest city of white origin in the Western world, except Santo Domingo, albeit Santiago de Cuba and Baracoa claim to be contemporary.
These "rails" are an exquisite net-work of iron wrought by hand, with an art emulous of that of Nicolò Caparra at Florence.
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