España. Ministerio de Cultura. Archivo General de Indias. MP-Santo Domingo, 468. Plano de las Tierras del Cobre, Pueblo Santiago del Prado, c. 1767 (left). MP-Santo Domingo, 847 (above).
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The map demarcates the lands belonging to the pueblo of El Cobre. The circle delineates a radio of one league around the center of the pueblo, the legal minimal standard jurisdiction of pueblos in the Spanish empire. Members of the community had usufruct rights to land within that perimeter. Red lines mark private property encroaching within the perimeter of local jurisdiction and the encroachments are further specified in the explanation of the map as well as land inside the jurisdiction held by members of the pueblo. The official demarcation recognized the corporate character of the pueblo, a controversial issue in itself since the majority of its residents were royal slaves who in principle had no rights to constitute, or be part of, a corporate body with rights to land. Behind the status of El Cobre as a pueblo was a formidable story of royal slaves--or slaves of the Crown--making claims to the rights of free men to live as a pueblo, and by extension, making claims to freedom. The map identifies the by then famous Sanctuary (to the Virgin of Charity) that flourished in the midst of this black community, the parish church and the cluster of houses that point to the existence of a Christian community living as a pueblo. This otherwise unremarkable working map is signed by a professional land surveyor, Don Josef Zayas, from the city of Santiago de Cuba, and was made for a royal administrator c. 1767.
OF FURTHER INTEREST
Selection from M.E. Díaz, The Virgin, the King and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre,Introduction
