Throughout the wars of independence (1868-78) (1879-80) and (1895-8) Antonio Gonzalez de Mendoza ensured that the family maintained its status and wealth as Cuba transitioned from colonial, slave-based economy to one oriented to the U.S. market.
“Amargura” the massive house inherited by Antonio and Chea from Joaquin Pedroso, served as stable base. There, the adult Mendoza children paired with spouses from old families (two married cousins) and produced numerous children. Meanwhile, its street-level legal offices served as one of the pre-eminent trade law practices in the country.
Chea’s children who survived infancy, in birth order between 1856 and 1872, were: Miguel, Julia, Claudio, Maria Antonia, Felicia, Victor, Ramon, and Pablo. Click to enlarge
“Amargura“
When Antonio took possession of Amargura #23 (now 205) at the corner of Amargura and Aguiar streets. He converted the ground floor for his law practice. Later, when Mendoza sons Claudio and Ramon and grandson Antonio became lawyers, they set up their offices in the adjoined house at #25. His son in law Gonzalo Arostegui, a doctor, set-up his consulting rooms on the Aguiar side. The above photo shows the latter including the entrance for horses and coaches at the far side. (street numbers were subsequently altered ) Chapter 5. photos by the author 2009Amargura (bitterness) street derives its name from the fact that it was the route of the Holy Week Via Crucis procession that began at the eastern end at the church of San Franciso de Asis continuing to the western end at Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje.Following the Mediterranean tradition, colonial houses featured an interior patio, window blinds, high ceilings and galleries, elements designed to admit light and air while dividing the home between the upper domestic spaces and the ground floor business areas. Today, after renovations in the late 2000’s, the house is a community mental health clinic.All legal papers had to be filed at an office near the Plaza de Armas. According to Natalia “Nena” Arostegui who lived there as a child, on weekdays, the sound of typewriters (among the first in Havana) filled the air in the downstairs law offices. Vertigo del Tiempo
In 1886 all the family members were sketched in small groups to be collectively set in the composition of a large oil painting. The painting celebrates Don Antonio presiding over an inwardly turned society. Behind him, family members are set off by their musical instruments books and paintings, symbols of the cultured life of Amargura.
Portrait of the Gonzalez de Mendoza family, 1886, Jose Arburu Morell. Reproduced in La Sociedad Cubana del Siglo XIX. (A large-scale color reproduction of the painting was displayed at the 2007 Gonzalez de Mendoza reunion.)left to right: Ramon, Julia and Maria Antonia, Jose Maria Arellano, Maria G. Montalvo, Felicia holding child, Miguel. In front: Melchor Batista by piano and Claudio, seated. (left portion of reproduction Aruburu painting shown at 2007 Gonzalez de Mendoza family reunion)Gonzalo Arostegui, Maria Teresa Freyre de Andrade, Victor, seated, Antonio and Chea. (Pablo, boy in center, cropped from this right portion of reproduction).In 1883, Julia married Melchor Batista, a young lawyer who had joined the family law firm. Above, the Batista-Mendoza boys in Amargura in 1900 . Left to right: Victor, Manuel, Julio, Ernesto (behind chair), Agustin (in chair), Jorge and Melchor.
Chea, who died in 1896, helped by buying clothing for the Batista children when Melchor’s reduced income due to illness made it impossible to maintain the appearance required in image conscious Havana society. Chapter 5Santa Gertrudis plantation house as seen in The Cuba Review, August 1917, a year after the sugar mill was sold to an American company. The bell to alert the workforce is visible in the background. The ingenio had served as the Mendoza family refuge during epidemics and war. After the revolution a village, north of Colon, grew among the remains of the mill. See Chapter 6El Figaro, 11 diciembre 1904, La Manifestacion Catolica pp 2-3 (Julia centre of row) A staunch defender of the role of the Church in education, Julia sent her daughters to join the rest of the Mendoza granddaughters to Sagrado Corazon, a private Catholic school. This march demonstrated women’s support for the continued involvement of the Church in education after the 1902 Constitution secularized all public education.
Don Antonio, on the other hand, was in favor of the separation of church and state. Before his death, his sons and grandsons did not attend religious schools as the Catholic Church in Cuba was seen by nationalists to be practically an arm of the Spanish government. As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during the 1899 Marriage Law Controversy Antonio had spoken-out to protect the state’s primacy over the church as the exclusive regulator of marriage as he considered that institution the founding stone of society. See Part VI (p.355) for discussion of the roots of post 1959 debates on the balance of power between the revolutionary state and family.
After the death of Don Antonio in 1906 the extended family gradually dispersed as each branch moved into homes in El Vedado. A decade later, Amargura served as the premises of Colegio de La Salle. The Christian Brothers (a French order unaffected by the Spanish colonialist attitudes that pervaded the Jesuits and thus more acceptable to the nationalist Mendozas) was invited by the family to open a boys’ school. It, along with the girls’ school, El Sagrado Corazon, became their bedrock institutions. Chapter 10
In 1899 the American government of occupation decreed a new judicial system and appointed Don Antonio the first Justice of the Supreme Court. However, after a year in office he resigned. A contemporary source claimed the resignation to be a protest against American attempts to undermine the judicial process. Chapter 7
ForTimeline of Events Discussed in Chapters 5 – 7 See Part II (pp. 144-8)
