She did not return to the plantation, storming instead to the parish church, where she sought the clergyman already subservient to her because of her wealth: ‘I have grievous news, Father, which I’m most loath to report, but my husband’s brother, Will …’
‘I know him, a most uncertain fellow.’
‘He’s taken to blasphemy. Abuses the Lord’s name most wantonly.’
‘That’s a grave charge, ma’am. Do you wish to lodge it formally?’
‘I do,’ she said sternly, and after reflection the clergyman replied hesitantly: ‘You appreciate that this will mean the pillory for your brother?’ She shocked him by adding with an obvious lust for vengeance: ‘I think he should be stigmatized, too, to make him mind his manners.’
At the utterance of the terrible word the churchman actually shuddered, for he could not support it: ‘No, ma’am, that would be too harsh.’ But when she insisted, the clergyman had to bethink her position in the community as well as his own, and supinely he consented: ‘I will propose it to the authorities.’
When she reached home that evening she assured her husband: ‘I’m sure we’ve scotched that snake. Never again will your brother be able to show his face in Barbados.’
The established church in the English islands enjoyed a special and important role. It was the guardian of both orthodoxy and propriety; it supported the government, especially when it involved royalty; since none of the islands had a press, it served as the disseminator of official news decisions, which is why the phrase ‘Ordered to be read for three Sundays in all Parish Churches’ appeared at the foot of documents; and in an age when blasphemy was a major sin, it was the protector of public morals.
So when Clarissa Tatum accused her brother-in-law of blasphemy, the elders of the church in St. Michael’s Parish had to listen, and when they had accumulated enough evidence against the young man they presented it to the magistrates, who sentenced him to ‘stigmatism and two hours in the public pillory where the main roads cross in Bridgetown.’ There, on a hot Wednesday at ten in the morning, a bonfire was prepared with so many short sticks of kindling that it would be sure to form a lively blaze, and when the flames were reassuringly high, Will Tatum was led to the nearby pillory and his head and wrists were thrust into the frame that would keep his face immovable. Then, while the townspeople watched, some in horror, some with grim satisfaction, an officer of the church thrust the iron brand B, for blasphemer, into the flames, waited till it became red hot, then pressed it strongly into Will’s left cheek, where it hissed until it drew blood and produced the permanent scar of the stigmata. Will fainted as some cried out in horror, and others in celebration of virtue’s triumph.
Will remained unconscious for half an hour, but then the flies tormenting his wound and eyes revived him, and the throbbing pain resumed. Forced to listen to the scorn of the public and see his own brother Isaac and sister-in-law Clarissa riding past at a distance to mock him, he remained in the sun, head exposed, and suffered a public agony that had not been intended for minor dissidents like him. His wretchedness was alleviated by Nell and Betsy, two brave women who dared public censure by attending to him, bringing cloths to wipe his face and unguents to soothe the scar. They also brought drafts of cold water to ease his parched lips. Nell was at his side first, and after she was gone, with protests sounding in her ears, Betsy came by with salves and a look of tenderness to let him know she loved him.
At two in the afternoon he was released by a verger of the parish church, and some watchers wondered what he might do. On certain memorable occasions men punished like this had gone straight to the church officials who had consigned them to the pillory and thumped them roundly, and in one case a man had struck the person responsible for denouncing him so viciously that death resulted. Then there had to be a hanging, and as that doomed man approached the gallows he shouted for all to hear: ‘May this whole island rot in hell,’ and he would have cursed more had not the black hood been drawn tight about his head.
Will Tatum did nothing like that. With a tight, fixed smile on his scarred and aching face he stalked through the silent crowd to his sister’s shop, climbed the stairs, kissed Nell and thanked her, then shook hands with young Ned, and said: ‘I’ll be back to watch over you,’ and disappeared down the stairs, walking straight down the street to the waterfront without having the courage to say farewell to Betsy Bigsby. With his cheek marked forever with the hideous B, he called for rowers from the Stadhouder still in the harbor, climbed aboard, and reported to Captain Brongersma: ‘I want to fight Spaniards,’ and he was seen no more on Barbados.
In the long years ahead he would sometimes think of Betsy before attacking a Spanish treasure ship, or in a jail in Spain, or even when slogging through a swamp-ridden jungle, and in his mind’s eye she would be forever a beautiful girl of twenty with slim waist, braided hair and sparkling eyes. She would be with him in a hundred different scenes, always the same, always a burning memory, and for him she would never age. He would cherish her as the purest memory of an island which had not treated him well, perhaps because he did not treat it with the respect his brother did. He realized that night as he left Barbados that he was making a decision of profound importance. He was losing Betsy Bigsby, and might never see her again.
In 1660 the news that Barbados longed for arrived. Charles II was anointed King of England while perched upon the Stone of Scone, symbolizing the fact that he was also King of Scotland. Great celebrations were held which even reluctant Roundheads joined and there was general relief that things in Little England were back to normal.
As proof of everyone’s desire to forget old animosities, a document arrived in Bridgetown in the latter part of 1661 that gave great joy to the island: ‘His Majesty King Charles II has been pleased to award his faithful servants in Barbados seven baronetcies and six knighthoods,’ and people clustered about Government House to learn who would henceforth be called ‘Sir,’ with older citizens explaining to younger: ‘A baronetcy can be passed in the family from generation to generation forever; but a knighthood expires at the death of the recipient.’
The seven baronetcies caused quite a stir, because four of them honored Cavaliers who had from the first moment been loyal to the king, while the last three went to Roundheads who had served their parliamentary cause honorably, bowing at last to the popular will. If any gesture in this troubled period gave evidence of England’s desire to bind up old wounds, it was this bestowing of honors equally between victors and losers.
First on the list of baronets was, of course, Sir Thomas Oldmixon, who had never wavered in his loyalty, never drawn back from defense of his king’s name, whether in debate or war. His selection was loudly applauded, as was that of Sir Geoffrey Wrentham, another valiant defender of the king, but there was almost equal praise for the first of the Roundheads, Sir Henry Saltonstall, present whereabouts unknown.
When the reading of the six ordinary knights began, Isaac Tatum and his wife stood transfixed. They knew they had been stalwart defenders of the king, and both their social and economic position on the island entitled them to recognition. Their plantation was one of the biggest, and their yearly shipment of clayed sugar to England was surpassed by that of no other Caribbean planter. In the war they had fought bravely though briefly for the king, so it was not preposterous for them to hope, but they knew that things did sometimes go awry.
The first two names were those of well-known Cavaliers: ‘Sir John Witham, Sir Robert Le Gard.’ No surprises there, but the next two were of former Roundheads, and the Tatums’ brows began to show perspiration. But then came the clear voice of the clerk: ‘Sir Isaac Tatum,’ and he might have swooned had not his wife held him upright with a firm grip on his arm.
Some weeks later another bit of news arrived from London to gladden the hearts of Cavalier Barbadians: ‘The mob’s fury could not be contained. Shouting “The Abbey is contaminated!” the people rushed into Westminster Abbey, uprooted the grave of Oliver Cromwell,
dug out his corpse, and dragged it through the streets until they came to a gibbet, where they hanged it for the crimes its former owner had committed.’ When the news was confirmed and it was learned that the tale of vengeance was accurate, church bells rang and in certain parishes prayers of deliverance were offered.
It is difficult to explain how this little island, so fraught with differing loyalties, had been able to escape civil war, but a local official did suggest some interesting hints: ‘From the start we wanted Barbados to be a refuge for people offering new ideas, whether in religion or business, so we welcomed the Dutch traders, and the Quakers, a contentious lot, and invited Huguenots, an industrious people when France expelled them. Saltonstall before he left us was responsible for the law which admitted even Catholics and Jews, although he did add the warning, “providing they did not commit public scandal on our days of worship.” ’ Proof of this compatibility occurred at a gala dinner held shortly after the hanging of Cromwell’s corpse.
For years the island had faced war and invasion, and its citizens were at each other’s throats, with all suffering real privation, yet it was possible, only a short time after hostilities, to hold this dazzling feast. It was best described by a French visitor, who, being neither Cavalier nor Roundhead, submitted a report which can be accepted as accurate:
It was fortunate that I had met the newly knighted Sir Thomas Oldmixon, for he told me that tomorrow afternoon a fellow knight, Sir Isaac Tatum, is offering his admirers what he assured me would be a ‘master celebration,’ and when I asked what was being celebrated he said: ‘The hanging of Oliver Cromwell,’ and he explained how the corpse had been removed from Westminster Abbey and desecrated, very un-English I thought.
Last night we rode out to the plantation of Sir Isaac, who had invited some fifty of his friends to a celebration of the honors list. He and his wife had arranged tables at which some thirty slaves in uniform served the guests a variety of dishes that would have made Lucullus twitch with envy. At the end of the ninth or tenth dish, when it became obvious that many more were to come, I asked permission of our host to make a list, and I was afraid this might be resented as an intrusion, but I think he was proud of the variety he was offering.
For the occasion he had killed a young ox and now served its meats in fourteen divers ways: rump boiled, chine roasted, breast roasted, cheeks baked; tongue, tripe and odds minced for pies seasoned with suet, spice and currants; and a dish of marrow bones. Next came a potato pudding, collops of pork, a dish of boiled chickens, a shoulder of young goat, a kid with pudding in his belly, a suckling pig, a shoulder of mutton, a pasty of young goat, a young shoat, a loin of veal with a sauce made of oranges, lemons and limes, three young turkeys, two capons, four ducklings, eight turtle doves, three rabbits.
For cold meats we had two Muscovy ducks, Westphalian bacon, dried tongue, pickled oysters, caviar, anchovies, and the best of fruits: platanos, bananas, guavas, melons, prickled pear, custard apple and water millions. For drinks we had mobbie, brandy, kill-devil, claret wine, white wine, Rhenish wine, sherry, canary, red sack, wine of Fiall, and other spirits come from England which I did not recognize.
The host gave all as cheerful and as hearty a welcome as any man in these islands can give to his closest friends. What astonished me was that in this case his ‘friends’ included all his past enemies, including especially those Roundheads who had received knighthoods at the time he did. I am told they call this island Little England, but when you are in the care of Sir Isaac it becomes Big England.
That night, after the guests were gone and the Tatum slaves, including the cook, had more or less put the remainders of the food away, Sir Isaac and Lady Clarissa sat in their handsome front garden and looked down upon the roofs of Bridgetown as they glistened in the moonlight. Several ships rode easily in the bay, two showing lights which made silvery paths across the water, and a sense of ease came over the master and mistress of this fine plantation. At one point Clarissa did say reflectively: ‘I sometimes wonder what Will’s doing on a night like this,’ and had she been told that he was at that moment in a Spanish prison waiting to be burned alive, she would have had no comprehension of how he could have reached such a conclusion to his life or what it signified.
Sir Isaac did not care to speculate on the whereabouts of his feckless brother: ‘Forget him. He was worthless when we knew him, and he’s sure to be worthless now. Besides, just before the dinner I received excellent news.’ His wife leaned forward, for she enjoyed her husband’s triumphs and often felt that she had been of some help in achieving them: ‘The clerks who tracked down Henry Saltonstall to alert him to his knighthood and the fact that the agreement ending our war entitled him to reclaim his old plantation were told by him: “To hell with Barbados. Boston’s better, even with snow.” ’
The two sat in silence for some time, reflecting on the turbulent storms their island had experienced in recent years, and finally, as Sir Isaac led his wife to bed, he said with justifiable pride: ‘With the price of sugar so high, and our slaves multiplying as they do, these lands for which we paid not over ninety pounds are now worth more than ninety thousand, thanks to our husbandry,’ and when his wife clasped his arm to show her approval, he added: ‘No matter what the turmoil, we kept our balance, preserving the old virtues and proving to all witnesses that we truly are Little England.’
BY THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY the mountain-girt inland city of Potosí in eastern Peru was one of the most opulent settlements in the Americas, North or South. Its fabled wealth derived from the lucky chance that one of the nearby mountains was practically solid silver; there was nothing comparable in the world, and the city’s coat of arms justly boasted: ‘The king of all mountains, and the envy of all kings.’
On the morning of 6 October 1661 overseer Alonso Esquivel, in charge at the largest of the silver refining mills, directed his Inca slaves to break away the sides of the mold in which he had formed his final silver ingot. When the ironwood sides were removed, the precious ingot, a cone some nine inches high, stood in the sun.
It did not glisten, for the silver was not totally pure, and the wooden mold in which it had been formed did not have smooth sides, but in the bright sunlight its handsome roughened surface bore the unquestioned appearance of wealth. When purified in the smelters of Spain or the Netherlands, the ingots would be highly polished to form objects of great value or silver coinage to pay for the king’s adventures on the battlefields of Europe.
Proud of his accomplishment in meeting the strict requirements of the viceroy of Peru, with each ingot of his quota filled, all hundred and nineteen of them at verified weight, Esquivel took a brush charged with heavy black ink and marked this last ingot P-663, a code number which would identify it as completion of the total Potosí contractual obligation for 1661.
When the fifty mules were loaded, muleteers stood ready at the heads of their beasts and thirty armed soldiers, helmets shining, awaited the commands of the captain-in-charge. Esquivel saluted, a bugle sounded, and the precious cargo started on its long mountainous journey down the slopes to the important Pacific Ocean seaport of Arica more than 340 miles distant.
At first, the ancient roadway, wide enough for two such caravans, passed through fairly open fields where the danger of assault by robbers was minimal and the military guards could relax and carry their heavy guns in any fashion, but for the last thirty miles the terrain roughened and a heavy growth of trees impeded progress. Now the caravan passed through tunnels of matted branches of trees, and the file became so strung out that one mule could scarcely see the tail of another. Here the danger of attack by robbers was great, so each soldier diligently guarded two mules, the one beside him and the one ahead.
On 10 November 1661 the captain-in-charge sighed with relief as his fifty mules brought their treasure safely to the dockside at the port of Arica, where it was quickly loaded onto the exquisite little Spanish galleon La Giralda de Sevilla, which set sail immediately for Callao, the seaport
serving Peru’s nearby capital of Lima. This 750-mile stage of the journey was an uneventful run to the north, but at Callao many important things happened: the viceroy came down to inspect the galleon, the number and quality of the silver ingots were certified, officials headed home to Spain embarked, gold bars from the mines of northern Peru were added to the cargo, and a contingent of soldiers marched aboard to guard the increasingly precious cargo and the equally important official passengers.
Seven days were wasted at Callao, but on 2 December 1661 the Giralda set sail for the great Pacific Ocean city of Panamá. This 1,600-mile leg of the voyage was very dangerous, because in these waters French or English pirates sometimes struck, knowing that galleons from Lima were apt to be heavily laden. To capture one northbound galleon would justify ten years of fruitless prowling, so the Spanish soldiers remained alert, even titled passengers served as volunteer lookouts, and the captain reminded each watch: ‘It was in these waters that Francis Drake captured the great Cacafuego in 1578.’
Again, the passage was uneventful, and after fifty-six days at sea, Ingot P-663 rested safely off the crucial port of Panamá, where the vast wealth of Spanish America became concentrated. Panamá was a city to enflame the imagination, where entire warehouses were crammed with gold and silver bars, where every household could accumulate its share of coins, and where rich goods imported from Spain, France and the Netherlands were stored before onward passage to the towns and cities of Peru. It should not, in those rich days, have been called an entrepôt—a port city into which goods came and out of which they quickly went—because Panamá was more a kingdom of its own, center of an incredibly wealthy empire, feeding goods east and west, north and south, as deemed best. It was also one of the largest cities in the New World, and one of the best defended, for as the governor boasted: ‘If Drake was unable to capture it in 1572 when it had only meager fortifications, what chance could an invader have today?’