My great-great-grandmother Benjamina Martelo Pimienta (c.1864-1896), seen here in this beautiful 1883 photograph, came from a family of ranchers on the savannah of the old federal Bolívar State in Colombia, who drifted north from Sincelejo and Corozal (now Sucre Department) towards Mahates (Bolívar Department), where they founded the nearby town of San Joaquín.
Benjamina looks like the embodiment of Victorian ease, but her brief life was scarred by political violence and civil war. Benjamina's first husband, Captain Wolvert L. Ecker (1847-1885), her second husband Saturnino Lara (c.1851-1920), and father-in-law Pedro Antonio Lara de la Rosa (c.1829-1908) all fought for the Liberal Party to rule Colombia, but its progressive ideals remain unfulfilled to this day.
Pedro Antonio Lara de la Rosa was born around 1829 to Marcelino Lara and Rudecinda de la Rosa. He was probably born in Remolino, Magdalena, but some in the family say his birthplace was Ocaña, Norte de Santander. At the Convention of Ocaña in the previous year of 1828, the followers of Francisco Paula de Santander pushed for a federalist government for Gran Colombia, to counter Simón Bolívar, who favored centralist rule and declared himself a dictator-for-life. Gran Colombia splintered into several nations in 1830, and Santander's followers became the founders of Colombia's Liberal Party in 1848. The historian Jacobo Pérez Escobar notes that Pedro A. Lara was called a "spoiled child of the old golgotismo" (Golgotismo referring to the most radical branch of the Liberal Party). Pedro's close associate, Juan José Nieto (1805-1866), had been a supporter of Santander since the 1820s, and it's possible that Marcelino Lara was also an early member of this movement.
In 1850, Pedro A. Lara became editor of Gaceta Mercantil, an influential Liberal newspaper and printing house in Santa Marta, while its founder, future President Manuel Murillo Toro (1816-1880), served in Bogotá in the administration of President José Hilario López. During López's presidency, Colombia benefited from Liberal reforms like the abolition of slavery, freedom of the press, and separation of church and state.
President José María Obando, López's successor, enacted a new liberal constitution in 1853 that banned slavery, created universal male suffrage, and established federal rule. The radical gólgota Liberals did not feel Obando had gone far enough. Congressional efforts to pass free trade laws and reduce the size of the military angered Bogotá's artisans and soldiers, and so they plotted a rebellion in the capital.
Pedro A. Lara's life changed forever on April 17, 1854, when General José María Melo led a coup against Obando and served as a dictator until his military defeat in December. (This year of civil war appears in Juan Gabriel Vásquez's novel The Secret History of Costaguana.) Obando's government fled from Bogotá to Honda (now Tolima Department), investigated the April 17th coup, and called Pedro as a witness. Pedro was listed as a resident of Honda, a center of resistance against Melo's military rule. Pedro testified on October 11, 1854 that he knew a military officer who had plotted with both President Obando's forces and Melo's rebels, and described how the rebels armed themselves. By February 1855, the commission noted that Pedro had fled from Honda, down the Magdalena River towards the more Liberal Caribbean Coast, a move that probably saved his life.
Once Pedro A. Lara returned to Remolino in the State of Magdalena (either his birthplace or where his family came from), he used his doctorate in law to enter politics, becoming a Liberal delegate and then a senator. Pedro represented the State of Magdalena in the 1858 constitutional convention, which gave Colombia an extremely federal government. Pedro also became involved in the region's multiple civil wars. When General Juan José Nieto governed the state of Bolívar from the battlefield during the civil war of 1860, Pedro was his trusted secretary who maintained the rule of law through correspondence. When Nieto declared himself president of "the United States of New Granada" on January 25, 1861 in Barranquilla, Pedro helped him govern until he handed the presidency over to a fellow Liberal general, Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, that July. Pedro Lara and Nieto were so close, that "el ciudadano Jeneral Juan José Nieto" was a witness at Pedro's marriage to Isabel Surmay Bustos, an Afro-Colombian woman, in her hometown of Mompox on November 20, 1861.
General Juan José Nieto, Afrocolombian politician and friend of Pedro A. Lara.
Roughly a century and a half later, Pedro Lara's career appears to be a strange juxtaposition of proper oration and correspondence and repetitious, cynical killing and partisan destruction. In 1879, Pedro served as the secretary of General José María Campo Serrano, who led a successful coup against the president of Magdalena, Luis A. Robles. Nowadays, Robles is remembered for being the first Afro-Colombian to serve in the congress and presidential cabinet. An 1885 clipping shows the mask of propriety slip, preserving an amusingly bitchy quote by Pedro — "Dr. Pedro A. Lara said in a tertulia: 'Este Nicolás Jimeno es un hombre que da asco. [This Nicolás Jimeno is a nauseating man.]'"
Yet Pedro Lara was also a man of principles, who cared deeply about Colombia's national sovereignty. In 1858, he wrote and published a "Manifesto Directed to the Nation," criticizing the proposed Herran-Cass Treaty between Colombia and the U.S. The treaty came about in response to a riot in Panama City in 1856 that had killed at least two U.S. citizens and led American soldiers to briefly occupy Panama City's railroad station, marking the first U.S. intervention in Panama. Pedro objected to the U.S. demand to lease or buy an island in the Bay of Panama for a coal station, and that demand was eventually repealed.
Colombian sovereignty again inspired Pedro A. Lara to publish in 1880 a series of articles called Los estremos (The Ends), which discussed La Guajira, the northern peninsula of the State of Magdalena, and Colombia. He wanted to bring this arid, sparsely populated, Indigenous area to national attention, writing, "enclavada la mayoría de la Nación en sus grandes cordilleras, no se apercibe de lo que pasa en sus estremos [the majority of the Nation embedded in their large cordilleras do not notice what happens in their extremities]." Pedro also wanted to hammer home the exact border with Venezuela, based on historical sources, and also pointed out that nearly 10,000 Indigenous people had been enslaved in La Guajira and brought to work in haciendas along the Amazon River, likely to harvest rubber. While Pedro investigated the international border, "so that we all know what corresponds to us and what we should defend," for the remainder of his life Colombia suffered from domestic struggle.
Dr. Pedro A. Lara steadily reached the pinnacle of his political career, serving as the president of the federal state of Magdalena in 1882-1883. He inaugurated construction of a railroad in Santa Marta and led celebrations of the centenary of Simón Bolívar's birth. Then, in 1884, Pedro married his second wife, Manuela Collante, in Remolino. The fateful year of 1885, radical Liberals waged civil war yet again, with the more conservative and centralist rule of President Rafael Núñez. Pedro joined the rebel ranks and served as the "governor of Barranquilla."
The delegates of the Liberal Party's 1897 Convention in Bogotá. A red paper clip points out Pedro A. Lara, seen in close-up on the right. (Photos from Pedro's great-grandson, Jerónimo Lara Licona)
During that time, Colombia's Liberal forces were plotting a major attack: the last major naval siege of the famed walled city of Cartagena. Among the rebel ranks was a ship captain from the United States, Captain Wolvert L. Ecker (the middle initial standing for "Lawrence" or "Lachlan").
Wolvert was born in 1847 in the port of Darien, Georgia. His father, William Badger Ecker (1810-1854), was a Yankee from New York who went down South during the cotton boom of the 1830s to make his fortune. W.B. Ecker became a lumber measurer and married Margaret Christiana Miller (c.1822-1884), who was born in St. Marys, Georgia to a British father, Robert Miller (died 1835), and his Scottish wife, Margaret (1782-1852).
By 1850, W.B. Ecker owned 19 slaves and 800 acres along the Altamaha River. The 1860 U.S. slave census shows the widow Ecker as owning 21 slaves in Darien, but she is listed in the main 1860 census as living in New York State, the ancestral home of the Eckers. It seems Margaret Ecker happened to sell off her slaves shortly after the census, in June 1860.
Young Wolvert was named after his great-grandfather, Wolvert Ecker (1732-1799), a Minuteman captain in the American Revolution and another slave owner who lived in the Gomez Mill House of Newburgh, N.Y. The elder Wolvert was in turn named for his grandfather, Wolfert Acker (c.1668-1753), a son of Dutch colonists and a supposed councilor for Peter Stuyvesant who was known for his homestead Sunnyside, which was immortalized in Washington Irving's book Wolfert's Roost.
Choosing to become a sailor instead of a yeoman, the younger Wolvert started as a cabin boy at age 13, and by age 23 was serving as first mate. In 1873, 26-year-old Wolvert registered with Lloyd's of London as a captain for the British-owned Atlas Mail Line, which sent steamships laden with mail, merchandise, and passengers from New York and Liverpool to the Caribbean and back. Two voyages of the S.S. Etna commanded by Ecker in 1874 will give an idea of his monthly schedule: June 3rd it left New York; June 17th it reached "Santa Martha" in Colombia; June 23rd it reached Savanilla in Colombia (an old port 15 miles from Barranquilla); June 26th it reached Kingston, Jamaica; it arrived in New York on July 4th; reached Santa Martha on July 25th; reached Savanilla on July 31st; reached Kingston on August 5th; left Santa Martha on August 7th; arrived in New York on August 12th.
By 1877, Wolvert had an American wife, Rose G. Ellis, and a one-year-old daughter, Harriet Evangeline Ecker, but slowly he was identifying more with the Caribbean. In 1879, as Wolvert and Rose were granted a divorce in Brooklyn, NY, Wolvert's illegitimate son was born in Cartagena. By 1881, Wolvert listed himself on a ship manifest as a resident of the "United States of Colombia" (the country's old federalist name).
Somehow, Wolvert came to the lakeside town of Mahates, Colombia, about 25 miles inland from Cartagena. There, he stayed the night and met Benjamina Martelo Pimienta, the petite, pretty brunette daughter of a ranching family. They married in 1882 and had two daughters, Jessie and Maggie, the latter named for Wolvert's mother.
Wolvert Ecker and Benjamina Martelo, c.1883. Courtesy of their direct descendant Elizabeth Rivera.
Their idyll in Mahates was soon shattered by civil war. President Rafael Núñez of Cartagena took command of the country in 1884 and installed strong centralized rule and reversals of the past 20 years' mild attempts at a more secular country. Soon, Liberals on the Caribbean coast formed armies to rebel against Núñez, and Wolvert, with his knowledge of the area's ports, rivers, and lakes, was recruited.
On May 7, 1885, a small Liberal flotilla approached the walls of Cartagena, ready to lay siege. Wolvert commanded the boat "Colombia" which bore the country's only modern cannon, nicknamed El Vigilante. A legend repeated in newspapers and history books says that Wolvert fired the first shot and the last shot of the siege. When he fired the cannon for the last time, the cannon backfired and tore him in half. The Conservative historian José María Samper wrote, "And there are those who deny the justice of Divine Providence, manifest in the logic of Good and Evil!" One American newspaper called Ecker a "soldier of fortune" but a Liberal memoir by Foción Soto remembered him as being sincere to their cause.
The siege of Cartagena failed and Núñez's centralist Constitution of 1886 was law for the next century, but the Liberal struggle continued. Pedro A. Lara remained a prominent Liberal Party member through the 1890s, maintained correspondence with ex-President Aquileo Parra, and was one of the delegates in the Liberal Party's 1897 convention in Bogotá. This 1897 convention marked the end of Parra's leadership of the Liberal Party, as younger members like Rafael Uribe Uribe refused to participate in the following year's election and prepared for civil war. Pedro A. Lara lived through yet another senseless civil war, the Guerra de mil días ("War of a Thousand Days," 1899-1902), and died in Remolino on June 8, 1908 at age 79, and was buried the same day.
On May 7, 1885, a small Liberal flotilla approached the walls of Cartagena, ready to lay siege. Wolvert commanded the boat "Colombia" which bore the country's only modern cannon, nicknamed El Vigilante. A legend repeated in newspapers and history books says that Wolvert fired the first shot and the last shot of the siege. When he fired the cannon for the last time, the cannon backfired and tore him in half. The Conservative historian José María Samper wrote, "And there are those who deny the justice of Divine Providence, manifest in the logic of Good and Evil!" One American newspaper called Ecker a "soldier of fortune" but a Liberal memoir by Foción Soto remembered him as being sincere to their cause.
The siege of Cartagena failed and Núñez's centralist Constitution of 1886 was law for the next century, but the Liberal struggle continued. Pedro A. Lara remained a prominent Liberal Party member through the 1890s, maintained correspondence with ex-President Aquileo Parra, and was one of the delegates in the Liberal Party's 1897 convention in Bogotá. This 1897 convention marked the end of Parra's leadership of the Liberal Party, as younger members like Rafael Uribe Uribe refused to participate in the following year's election and prepared for civil war. Pedro A. Lara lived through yet another senseless civil war, the Guerra de mil días ("War of a Thousand Days," 1899-1902), and died in Remolino on June 8, 1908 at age 79, and was buried the same day.
The widow Benjamina Martelo de Ecker married in 1892 Pedro's son, Dr. Saturnino Lara (c.1852-1920), who was a lawyer educated in the prestigious Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá. Saturnino was a 33rd degree Mason and his Liberal ideas led to his frequent imprisonment in the bóvedas, vaults built into the walls of Cartagena. Saturnino and Benjamina had four children, and then on May 2, 1896 their life together came to a tragic halt — Benjamina saw from afar her house set on fire by criminals and she died of a heart attack. Partisan struggles, murder, and internal displacement plagued Colombia during the Guerra de mil días and then La Violencia (1946-1964), a bloody civil war that almost lasted 20 years and was succeeded by a guerrilla war that still continues to this day.
Now let's look in-depth at the individual families that contributed to this Caribbean Colombian saga...
1) The Martelo Family
Partial Martelo family tree. Click for larger view.
In January 2020, I contacted Francisco Sarabia Castillo, a historian and political scientist who is working on a book named Genealogía Mahatense, which will be over 400 pages on the genealogy of the families of Mahates and surrounding settlements like San Joaquín, Sarabia's hometown. He generously shared an overview of Martelo family history since the 1770s, which I will summarize here.
In the beginning, there was the hammer, or more precisely the "mallet," which has the same linguistic root as the surname "Martelo." The Proto-Indo-European word "melh-no" evolved into the Latin word "martulus," which then became the Late Latin diminutive "martellus." Many Western European languages developed derivative words: French "marteau," Catalan "martell," Italian "martello," Old Spanish "martiello," modern Spanish "martillo," and Galician and Portuguese "martelo." Given that "Martelo" is both Galician and Portuguese, I suspect that my Martelo ancestors came from western Iberia, but Sarabia believes the Martelo family originated in France and then settled in Spain.
I'm not sure when the Martelo family came to Mahates, but Mahates was a crucial location along the Canal del Dique, the artificial waterway allowing imported Spanish goods to go from Cartagena to the Magdalena River, and for Nueva Granada's exports to reach the coast. The town is named after the local Indians, the Majatex, and other nearby tribes included the Songo and Cipagua.
The earliest known Martelo ancestors are Don Pablo Martelo and his son Juan Bautista Martelo, who along with their close male relative Pablo Cerlein Martelo owned farms in Mahates in the 1770s. Don Pablo Martelo and José Bernabé Blanco represented the people of Mahates in a crucial 1770 lawsuit, where the secretary of Cartagena's Inquisition claimed but failed to prove that the settlers of Mahates were squatters on his land.
At the time, according to historian Aline Helg, roughly half the population of Caribbean Colombia lived in rochelas (unofficial small settlements), palenques (communities founded by cimarrones, or runaway slaves), and other areas without control by church or state. The 1777 census showed that about two-thirds of the people living outside the region's main cities and at least 90% of people in villages along the Magdalena River were libres de todos los colores (free people of color). My family tree has an unknown number of people who were libres de todos los colores, descended from Africans, cimarrones, indigenous people, and a number of other ethnicities. The range of skin tones in the Caribbean coast is evidence of this mixing of peoples. Our Afro-Colombian ancestors' heritage still lives on in the village of San Basilio de Palenque and the region's son de negro dance, one version of which depicts cimarrones wielding machetes.
Map of palenques on the Caribbean coast of Nueva Granada (source)
The sons of Juan Bautista Martelo then owned ranches on the savannahs of the Province of Cartagena, near Lórica and Montería in modern Córdoba Department, and Sincelejo and Corozal, now in Sucre Department. This Martelo family migration reflected a larger change in Caribbean Colombia, as Spanish officials tried to increase the number of towns in the region from the 1740s onward.
The Spanish military officer Antonio de la Torre y Miranda mercilessly imposed colonial order on this Caribbean frontier, overseeing between 1774 to 1778 the forced relocation of 43,000 people and the founding or resettlement of 43 towns. Lórica, Montería, Sincelejo, and Corozal were among the locations attracting a higher number of poor, land-hungry Spaniards and mestizos, and the Martelo family was probably among the recipients of land grants. The white and mestizo ranchers employed Black cowboys, who often used their wandering herds to trample other people's land and incorporate it into their bosses' properties.
The male settlers often took indigenous women from the nearby pueblos de indios as their common-law wives. These foremothers were probably Zenú Indians, descendants of a civilization that lasted from 200 BC to the 1500s. The complex Zenú canal system still irrigates the region, and their handmade woven hats, the sombreros vueltiao, have recently become a popular national symbol of Colombia.
Zenú gold filigree nose pendants displayed in Cartagena's Museo del Oro Zenú. Each one represents an ancestral life.
Francisco Sarabia Castillo's research found the first few generations of the Martelo family were:
1. Don Pablo Martelo (fl.1770)
2. Juan Bautista Martelo (fl.1770s) married Juana Granados.
3. Victoriano José Martelo y Granados married Ana Granados y Ciado on September 13, 1808 in Cartagena.
4. Manuel José Martelo Granados, who was born in Cartagena, married Juana Berrocal, who was born in Montería.
5. Manuel Marcelino Martelo Berrocal married Cipriana Alonso Cova, who were the grandparents of Benjamina Martelo Pimienta.
It's unclear to me whether Manuel José Martelo Granados and Manuel Marcelino Martelo were truly father and son. Both men had grandchildren born in the 1860s and 1870s, making me think they belonged to the same generation. Hopefully Sarabia's book will clarify this matter.
3. Victoriano José Martelo y Granados married Ana Granados y Ciado on September 13, 1808 in Cartagena.
4. Manuel José Martelo Granados, who was born in Cartagena, married Juana Berrocal, who was born in Montería.
5. Manuel Marcelino Martelo Berrocal married Cipriana Alonso Cova, who were the grandparents of Benjamina Martelo Pimienta.
It's unclear to me whether Manuel José Martelo Granados and Manuel Marcelino Martelo were truly father and son. Both men had grandchildren born in the 1860s and 1870s, making me think they belonged to the same generation. Hopefully Sarabia's book will clarify this matter.
Amid all this ancestral ambiguity is one definite fact: the Martelo family owned enslaved Afro-Colombians. A Cartagena notarial record from 1832 describes how Victorino Martelo, resident of Lórica, sold an enslaved man named José Martelo, who Victorino had inherited from his parents, Don Pablo Martelo and Doña Pascuala Cava. The priest of Mahates had previously verified that José Martelo was born to a slave named Manuela in Mahates on March 19, 1803.
As some point my Martelo ancestors went north to Mahates, possibly following Colombia's independence and the Colonialization Law of 1823, which allowed the region's elite and few European immigrants to expand their landholdings. The Martelo family continued with ranching and being involved in regional politics.
The earliest generations in Mahates
The digitized parish registrars of Mahates available on FamilySearch.org are incomplete and begin in the 1850s, but incredibly Colombia's Archivo General de la Nación has digitized the 1777 census of Mahates and surrounding towns. This census preserves a snapshot of the area during the resettlement efforts of the commander Torres y Miranda.
There is at least one Martelo listed in the 1777 census: Pablo Martelo Arraiz, age 26, living in Mahates. Other Mahates residents with ancestral surnames include:
~ Gaspar Pimienta, age 40; his wife Antonia Besserro [Becerro?], age 30; and their 15-year-old daughter Juana, 8-year-old son José, and 7-year-old son Francisco.
~ Juan Pimienta, age 47; his wife Joaquina Pérez, age 35; and their 10-year-old son Polinario, 6-year-old son Toribio, and 2-year-old son Juan.
~ Juan Pimienta Ibáñez, age 16, who lived with his mother.
~ Raymundo Simanca, age 50; his wife Cayetana, age 54; and their 24-year-old son Juan, 23-year-old son Josef, 22-year-old son Thomas, 20-year-old son Andrés, 18-year-old daughter María, and 8-year-old daughter Petrona Simanca.
~ Ambrocio Simancas, age 50; his wife Maria Rodríguez, age 50; and their 22-year-old son Antonio, and two children, 3-year-old Andrés and 5-year-old Eusenia, who may be grandchildren.
~ Cruz Simancas, age 20; his wife Petrona Sánchez, age 16; and their 1-year-old son Antonino.
There are also many Simanca/Simancas families listed in the nearby town of Arjona.
My 5th-great-grandparents
~ Francisco Pimienta, who may be the son of Gaspar Pimienta listed in the 1777 census, married Magdalena Martelo, a descendant or relative of Don Pablo Martelo. Magdalena owned a house in the central plaza of Mahates, near the church, and did not know how to write. They had at least a son, Francisco Pimienta Martelo.
~ Petrona Simancas, my father's direct matrilineal ancestor, had at least a daughter, Beatríz Simancas.
My 4th-great-grandparents
~ Manuel Marcelino Martelo, who married Cipriana Alonso Cova (died 1875), was a landowner elected to the Bolívar State assembly in the 1850s and 1860s. Francisco Sarabia Castillo says in 1859 Manuel signed a letter to the president of Bolívar State, Juan José Nieto, describing Mahates as being in a "state of abandonment," probably reflecting on the region's isolation and devastation amid civil war.
Manuel and Cipriana had at least 10 children (order unknown):
Ezequiel Martelo Alonso (died 1875), whose family continues below, and his siblings Carlota, Magdalena, Manuel María, Manuel Marcelino, Porfirio, Donaldo, Benjamina, Escolástica, and Aniceto Martelo Alonso.
~ Francisco Pimienta Martelo and Beatríz Simancas had several children:
1. Lucía Pimienta Simancas (born 1840s?; died 1909), whose family continues below.
2. Manuela Pimienta Simancas (born 1851).
~ Francisco Pimienta, who may be the son of Gaspar Pimienta listed in the 1777 census, married Magdalena Martelo, a descendant or relative of Don Pablo Martelo. Magdalena owned a house in the central plaza of Mahates, near the church, and did not know how to write. They had at least a son, Francisco Pimienta Martelo.
~ Petrona Simancas, my father's direct matrilineal ancestor, had at least a daughter, Beatríz Simancas.
My 4th-great-grandparents
~ Manuel Marcelino Martelo, who married Cipriana Alonso Cova (died 1875), was a landowner elected to the Bolívar State assembly in the 1850s and 1860s. Francisco Sarabia Castillo says in 1859 Manuel signed a letter to the president of Bolívar State, Juan José Nieto, describing Mahates as being in a "state of abandonment," probably reflecting on the region's isolation and devastation amid civil war.
Manuel and Cipriana had at least 10 children (order unknown):
Ezequiel Martelo Alonso (died 1875), whose family continues below, and his siblings Carlota, Magdalena, Manuel María, Manuel Marcelino, Porfirio, Donaldo, Benjamina, Escolástica, and Aniceto Martelo Alonso.
~ Francisco Pimienta Martelo and Beatríz Simancas had several children:
1. Lucía Pimienta Simancas (born 1840s?; died 1909), whose family continues below.
2. Manuela Pimienta Simancas (born 1851).
3. Magdalena Simancas (born 1853), daughter of Beatríz, whose father was not listed on her baptismal record.
Francisco Pimienta Martelo signs for his illiterate mother, Magdalena Martelo (1846)
My 3rd-great-grandparents
~ Ezequiel Martelo Alonso (died 1875) married Lucía Pimienta Simancas (died 1909).
Ezequiel is mentioned in 1852 as a founding member of the Nueva Sociedad Democrática (New Democratic Society) of Mahates, which backed the radical Liberal government of President José Hilario López (1849-1853). The society's secretary, Manuel Marcelino Martelo, was probably Ezequiel's brother or father. Ezequiel Martelo and Manuel M. Martelo are among the signers of an 1859 document pledging Mahates's support of the 1858 Constitución para la Confederación Granadina, which made Colombia extremely federal, allowing the new Estado de Bolívar to have its own separate president and legislature. This arrangement lasted until, as mentioned above, President Rafael Núñez crushed the Liberal rebellion in 1885 and passed the centralist Constitution of 1886.
The children of Ezequiel and Lucía included:
1. Ezequiel Martelo Pimienta (born c.1863 in Mahates; died 1947 in Mahates), whose family continues below.
2. Benjamina Martelo Pimienta (born c.1864 in Mahates; died May 2, 1896 in Mahates), who was married first to Captain Wolvert Ecker and then to Dr. Saturnino Lara, and whose families continue below.
3. Marcelino Martelo Pimienta, who married Lucía Ospino Pimentel and had five children, and also had two children with Manuela Gallardo.
Rafael Martelo Pimienta. Photo courtesy of Francisco Sarabia Castillo.
4. Rafael Martelo Pimienta (died 1931 in Mahates), who had seven children with Benedicta Álvarez, and then after her death married Nélida Bossa Cortina in 1914 and had a son.
Manuela Martelo Pimienta and Vicente Díaz (aka Ayu Set). Photo from "Mahates: 475 años de historia" by Francisco Sarabia Castillo.
5. Manuela de Jesús Martelo Pimienta (died 1952 in Mahates), who married Vicente Díaz, a Chinese-born farmer originally named "Ayu Set," whose nickname was, as reflective of those times, "El Chino Díaz." Manuela and Vicente had one daughter, Ana Carmen Díaz Martelo (born 1907), who married in 1925 Luis Carlos Anderson (1892-1964), an engineer born in Michigan, USA.
Left: Carmela Díaz de Anderson and her daughter. Right: Charles Anderson. Photos from "Mahates: 475 años de historia" by Francisco Sarabia Castillo.
1. Marcelino Martelo (born 1853)
2. Virgilio Martelo (born 1858)
3. Ana Joaquina Martelo (born 1873)
San Joaquín, the land of Martelo
Ezequiel Martelo Pimienta. Photo courtesy of Francisco Sarabia Castillo.
Ezequiel Martelo Pimienta (c.1863-1947) gained local notoriety for founding San Joaquín, a small village outside of Mahates, on his land in the 1880s. Today there is a school in that settlement, the Institución Educativa Tecnica Agropecuaría Ezequiel Martelo Pimienta, which bears his name.
~ Ezequiel Martelo Pimienta married Celestina Llerena Nieto (born c.1865) in 1908 in Mahates. They had seven children prior to their marriage:
1. Eladio Martelo Llerena (born c.1881)
2. Horacio Martelo Llerena
3. Rosario Martelo Llerena
4. Francisco Martelo Llerena
5. Lizardo Martelo Llerena (1891-1964)
6. Santander Martelo Llerena (1892-1978)
7. Benjamina Martelo Llerena (born 1895).
~ After the death of Celestina, Ezequiel had six more children with Tomasa Payares Ospino:
~ After the death of Celestina, Ezequiel had six more children with Tomasa Payares Ospino:
1. Manuel Martelo Payares (born 1923)
2. Simeón Martelo Payares (born 1925)
3. Ramona Martelo Payares (born 1927)
4. Ramón Antonio Martelo Payares (born 1929)
5. Tomás Martelo Payares (born 1932)
6. Carmen Martelo Payares (born 1934)
7. Josefita Martelo Payares (born 1938), Ezequiel's last surviving child.
The brothers Ezequiel and Rafael Martelo Pimienta had children who intermarried and stayed in San Joaquín, and to this day the village is known as "la tierra de los Martelo." Among Ezequiel's most notable san joaquinero descendants are the brothers Alejandro Martelo Escobar (1952-2007), Efraín Martelo Escobar, and Alfredo Martelo Escobar, grandsons of Lizardo Martelo Llerena and regionally famous poets renowned for their décimas, a folksy genre of spoken word poetry. Décimas are often improvised, can have musical accompaniment, and range from declarations of love to railings about current affairs to boastful and playful verse. Here is an interview with Alejandro Martelo and another interview with Alfredo Martelo.
Finally, here's part of a décima by Alfredo Martelo Escobar about San Joaquín (source):
The brothers Ezequiel and Rafael Martelo Pimienta had children who intermarried and stayed in San Joaquín, and to this day the village is known as "la tierra de los Martelo." Among Ezequiel's most notable san joaquinero descendants are the brothers Alejandro Martelo Escobar (1952-2007), Efraín Martelo Escobar, and Alfredo Martelo Escobar, grandsons of Lizardo Martelo Llerena and regionally famous poets renowned for their décimas, a folksy genre of spoken word poetry. Décimas are often improvised, can have musical accompaniment, and range from declarations of love to railings about current affairs to boastful and playful verse. Here is an interview with Alejandro Martelo and another interview with Alfredo Martelo.
Finally, here's part of a décima by Alfredo Martelo Escobar about San Joaquín (source):
"San Joaquín tiene el talento/ de los grandes decimeros/ que apuntan a ser pioneros/ de nuestro departamento/ al pie de una serranía/ queda la tierra que quiero/ la cuna de unos Martelo/ que saben hacer poesía/ ellos allí cada día/ expresan sus sentimientos/ también reciben contentos/ al que llega a visitar/ por eso para cantar/ San Joaquín tiene el talento."
Photo by María Teresa Valdelamar Martelo
2) The Colombian Ecker Family
The First Mrs. Ecker
Captain Wolvert L. Ecker (born 1847 in Darien, Georgia; died May 7, 1885 during the Liberals’ siege of Cartagena) was first married in the United States to Rose G. Ellis, and they had one daughter before divorcing in 1879 in Brooklyn, NY:
1. Harriet Evangeline Ecker (born 1876 in Barranquilla), who in 1895 married Frank Robinson Parsons (1867-1901), a dentist, in St. Peter's Episcopal Church in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, NY. By the 1900 Census, Frank had divorced Harriet and was listed as single and living with his father, "capitalist" William R. Parsons, in Springfield, MA. Frank accidentally died the following year in Peru, Indiana but it's unclear what became of Harriet Ecker.
Ecker Espinosa
Wolvert Ecker than had a relationship with Lorenza Espinosa. They had at least one son:
1. Guillermo Ecker Espinosa (born July 30, 1879; baptized December 21, 1880 in Cartagena). In the baptism record, Wolvert was listed as "Guillermo Ecker" and his parents were listed as "Guillermo B. Ecker" and "Margarita Ecker." Guillermo Ecker married Manuela de León, and their children included:
1a. Guillermo Ecker de León (born in Santa Lucía, Atlántico, Colombia) who on March 22, 1936 in Mahates married his second cousin Guillermina López Ecker, seen below.
1b. Eduardo Antonio Ecker de León (born 1909 in Calamar, Bolívar, Colombia)
Ecker Martelo
Captain Wolvert Ecker then married Benjamina Martelo on December 15, 1882 in Mahates, and had two daughters:
1. Margarita "Maggie" Ecker Martelo (born 1884) first had an illegitimate son with Cristóbal Bossa, named Alfredo Bossa Ecker (born 1902, baptized 1903 in Mahates).
By 1906 Maggie was in a relationship with Luis Carlos Lambis and had at least two sons.
Maggie then married Luis Felipe Molina on October 8, 1914 in Cartagena. Among their children was a son who became a ship captain.
Partial Ecker family tree. Click for larger view.
Captain Wolvert L. Ecker (born 1847 in Darien, Georgia; died May 7, 1885 during the Liberals’ siege of Cartagena) was first married in the United States to Rose G. Ellis, and they had one daughter before divorcing in 1879 in Brooklyn, NY:
1. Harriet Evangeline Ecker (born 1876 in Barranquilla), who in 1895 married Frank Robinson Parsons (1867-1901), a dentist, in St. Peter's Episcopal Church in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, NY. By the 1900 Census, Frank had divorced Harriet and was listed as single and living with his father, "capitalist" William R. Parsons, in Springfield, MA. Frank accidentally died the following year in Peru, Indiana but it's unclear what became of Harriet Ecker.
Ecker Espinosa
Wolvert Ecker than had a relationship with Lorenza Espinosa. They had at least one son:
1. Guillermo Ecker Espinosa (born July 30, 1879; baptized December 21, 1880 in Cartagena). In the baptism record, Wolvert was listed as "Guillermo Ecker" and his parents were listed as "Guillermo B. Ecker" and "Margarita Ecker." Guillermo Ecker married Manuela de León, and their children included:
1a. Guillermo Ecker de León (born in Santa Lucía, Atlántico, Colombia) who on March 22, 1936 in Mahates married his second cousin Guillermina López Ecker, seen below.
1b. Eduardo Antonio Ecker de León (born 1909 in Calamar, Bolívar, Colombia)
Ecker Martelo
Captain Wolvert Ecker then married Benjamina Martelo on December 15, 1882 in Mahates, and had two daughters:
1. Margarita "Maggie" Ecker Martelo (born 1884) first had an illegitimate son with Cristóbal Bossa, named Alfredo Bossa Ecker (born 1902, baptized 1903 in Mahates).
By 1906 Maggie was in a relationship with Luis Carlos Lambis and had at least two sons.
Maggie then married Luis Felipe Molina on October 8, 1914 in Cartagena. Among their children was a son who became a ship captain.
Maggie later had a daughter with Vicente Vargas Buitrago, Elvia Isabel Vargas Ecker (born 1928 in Cartagena).
Jessie Ecker, husband Darío López, daughter Josefa López Ecker, c.1910. Photo courtesy of Francisco Sarabia Castillo.
2. Jessie Isabel Ecker Martelo (born 1885; died 1975), who lived in Mahates, married Darío Alberto López Díaz (c.1882-1959), and their children included:
2a. Sócrates López Ecker (born 1904)
2b. Josefa María López Ecker (born 1908)
2c. Darío López Ecker (1911-1979), who had a son, Wolbert López López (1942-2020), who carried on the old family name. Another grandson and namesake, Darío López Ecker (born 1969), is a composer of vallenatos.
2d. Benjamina López Ecker (baptized 1913 in Cartagena)
2e. Eduardo López Ecker
2f. Guillermina López Ecker, who in 1936 in Mahates married her second cousin Guillermo Ecker de León, seen above. Their daughter is the mother of the composer Darío López Ecker (born 1969), seen above.
2g. Isabel Segunda López Ecker (born 1917; baptized 1918 in Mahates)
2h. Euclides López Ecker (born 1921, baptized 1923 in Mahates)
In December 1889, Benjamina Martelo appeared before the court in Mahates to officially name her brother Marcelino Martelo the guardian of her two daughters, 5.5-year-old Margaret Ecker and 4-year-old Isabel Ecker. Benjamina wanted to marry Saturnino Lara, as seen below, and she wanted to make sure her daughters received their father's inheritance. The court learned that the late Wolvert Ecker paid Porifirio Martelo (probably Benjamina's uncle) 80 pesos to buy a caballería [470 hectares], 8 fanegas, and 4 almudes of land in the local area named "Songó arriba," which was named after the ancient Songó Indians. Ecker also paid José Luis Bossa 40 pesos for 19 fanegas and 5 1/3 almudes of land in "Songó arriba." The two girls received 80 pesos, half of the value of their father's land. It's unclear what became of Ecker's land, but early death and separation of family would continue to haunt Benjamina and her children.
3) The Lara Family
The families of Pedro A. Lara
Family tradition says Marcelino Lara and his wife Rudecinda de la Rosa lived in Ocaña, Norte de Santander in the early 1800s. The "Lara" and "de la Rosa" surnames appear in Ocaña parish records dating back to the 1600s but it is unclear how our family is related. There were also a number of Lara and de la Rosa family members in Santa Marta and Remolino, such as "Ruidesinda de la Rosa" who died and was buried in Santa Marta in 1789. Ocaña, Santa Marta, and Remolino all belonged to the larger Provincia de Santa Marta, which explains the possible Lara family migration down the Magdalena River towards the Caribbean coast.
3) The Lara Family
Partial Lara family tree. Click for larger view.
Family tradition says Marcelino Lara and his wife Rudecinda de la Rosa lived in Ocaña, Norte de Santander in the early 1800s. The "Lara" and "de la Rosa" surnames appear in Ocaña parish records dating back to the 1600s but it is unclear how our family is related. There were also a number of Lara and de la Rosa family members in Santa Marta and Remolino, such as "Ruidesinda de la Rosa" who died and was buried in Santa Marta in 1789. Ocaña, Santa Marta, and Remolino all belonged to the larger Provincia de Santa Marta, which explains the possible Lara family migration down the Magdalena River towards the Caribbean coast.
Lara and de la Rosa family members, including some from Remolino, appear in Barranquilla notarial records taking part in slave sales, mortgages, and other business transactions. For example, in 1842 Andrés de la Rosa sold an enslaved woman named Juana Bautista de Lara who was originally purchased in Remolino. This is one example of the larger Lara and de la Rosa family history of enslaving people and earning wealth from exploitation.
Marcelino Lara, a resident of Remolino, arranged a loan in Barranquilla in 1846, and a man from Remolino named Marcelino Lara died and was buried in Santa Marta in 1850. It's possible this samario Marcelino is my 4th-great-grandfather. The children of Marcelino Lara and Rudecinda de la Rosa included:
1. Pedro Antonio Lara de la Rosa (born c.1829 in possibly Remolino or Ocaña; died 1908 in Remolino, Magdalena), whose family continues below.
2. Marcelino Lara de la Rosa (possibly the same man born c.1835 in Remolino; died 1907 in Barranquilla), who married Elvira Villa Mora in 1878 in El Piñon, Magdalena and lived many years in Calamar, Bolívar. They had at least nine children, who went by the last names Lara Villa or Lara Mora:
2a. Zoa Elvira Lara Villa (born 1879 in Remolino), who married Victor Ballestas.
2b. Ana María Lara Villa (born 1882 in Calamar)
2c. Marcelino Antonio Lara Villa (born 1886 in Calamar)
2d. Isabel Segunda Lara Villa (born 1888 in Calamar), who married Eduardo Calixto Zúñiga in 1907 in Barranquilla.
2e. Carolina Mercedes Lara Villa (born 1890 in Calamar), who married Pedro Pastor Consuegra in 1940 in Barranquilla.
2f. Zoila Luz Lara Villa (born 1893 in Calamar; died 1975 in Calamar), who married Mortimer Juliao Visbal.
2g. Carlos Manuel Lara Villa (born 1895 in Calamar)
2h. Regina Modesta Lara Villa (born 1898 in Calamar), who married Gabriel H. Juliao.
2i. Marco Tulio Lara Villa (born 1904 in Calamar; died 1961 in Barranquilla)
Pedro's first son
When Pedro was a young man, he had a son, probably out of wedlock:
1. Saturnino Lara (born c.1852, probably in Remolino, Magdalena; died August 3, 1920 in Barranquilla), whose families are listed in the next section.
Saturnino's son, Gerónimo Lara Charris, wrote his father's name on his U.S. Social Security application as "Saturnino Lara Pacheco," which implies the last name of Saturnino's mother. "Pacheco" is an extremely common Spanish last name, but there was a family with that last name in Remolino vital records from the late 1800s.
As noted above, Pedro A. Lara ended up in Honda, Tolima during the 1854 civil war, and then fled down the Magdalena River for good.
Lara Surmay
Pedro A. Lara married Isabel Surmay Bustos on November 20, 1861 in Mompox, and their children included:
1. Emilia Isabel Lara Surmay (died 1890 in Remolino), who married Julio A. Salofre in 1885 in Remolino.
2. Teresa Lara Surmay (baptized 1866 in Barranquilla)
3. Ignacio Lara Surmay (born 1870, baptized 1871 in Remolino)
4. María Lara Surmay (born 1872 in Barranquilla; died 1965 in Barranquilla), who married Miguel Pérez Rosa in 1892 in Remolino.
5. Isabel Lara Surmay (born and baptized 1874 in Remolino; died 1938 in Barranquilla), who died unmarried.
6. Colombia de la Concepción Lara Surmay (born and baptized 1876 in Remolino), who received her patriotic name while the country was at civil war.
Lara Collante
Pedro A. Lara then married Manuela Collante Navarro on June 26, 1884 in Remolino and their children included:
1. Buenaventura Lara Collante (born 1887 in Remolino; died 1943 in Barranquilla), who married Emilia Briceño in 1920 in Remolino.
2. Helena Zoraida Lara Collante (born 1892 in Remolino; died 1939 in Barranquilla), who married her mother's cousin, the widower Pedro Juan Navarro Collante (born 1846), in 1918 in Remolino. Pedro J. Navarro was a Liberal publisher and politician who founded the newspaper "El Faro" [The Lighthouse] in Sitionuevo, Magdalena in 1899. The publication opposed the rule of the Santa Marta elite and led to the inclusion of Magdalena River towns in a short-lived Department of Barranquilla (1908-1910).
The families of Saturnino Lara
Dr. Saturnino Lara (born c.1852 in Remolino, Magdalena; died August 3, 1920 in Barranquilla) may have had the full name "Saturnino Lara Pacheco" or "Saturnino Lara de la Rosa." He was a doctor in law who graduated from the prestigious Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, according to his descendants. His actual student record paints a different picture. Saturnino Lara, age 28, matriculated at the Colegio del Rosario on February 14, 1880, choosing ungraded courses in Civil Law Procedures of Cundinamarca (Colombia) and Judicial Evidence. On September 20, 1880, Saturnino chose a different law course, on Spanish Civil Law. Then on October 28, 1880, Saturnino canceled both his courses in Civil Law and Judicial Evidence.
Saturnino Lara remained in the Universidad del Rosario as a syndic (official in charge of business transactions) from October 1880 until his resignation in April 1882. Interestingly, most of Saturnino's time at the Universidad del Rosario overlapped with the rectorship of Manuel Ezequiel Corrales, an accomplished "Cartagena mulato" intellectual who attracted the ire of bogotanos when he headed the esteemed Andean institution.
Whatever social advantages Saturnino had as the son of a governor evaporated in Colombia's divisive political climate. Saturnino was costeño, Liberal, and a Freemason in a country increasingly under centralized control of a Conservative, Andean, Catholic elite.
Lara Martelo
Saturnino Lara became the second husband of Benjamina Martelo, the widow of Captain Wolvert Ecker, on December 19, 1892 in Mahates. They had four children:
1. Pedro Antonio Lara Martelo (born September 21, 1890; baptized April 13, 1891 in Calamar, Bolívar, Colombia) married Inés Campillo Vásquez (born c.1899) on April 8, 1934 in the Iglesia de la Santísima Trinidad in Cartagena. Their children included:
1a. Leticia Lara Campillo de Campillo, who married a sailor on the Flota Mercante Grancolombiana (a Colombian ocean freight fleet).
2. Sócrates Marcelino Lara Martelo (born Decemeber 19, 1891; baptized June 19, 1892 in Mahates; died November 6, 1969 in Barranquilla), a lawyer, who married Remisia Pérez Amador (c.1889-1974).
2. Sócrates Marcelino Lara Martelo (born Decemeber 19, 1891; baptized June 19, 1892 in Mahates; died November 6, 1969 in Barranquilla), a lawyer, who married Remisia Pérez Amador (c.1889-1974).
3. Ana Lara Martelo (born August 24, 1893 in Mahates; baptized February 26, 1894 in Mahates; died January 26, 1980 in Cartagena), whose family continues below.
4. Saturnino Lara Martelo (born January 19, 1895; baptized Oct. 7, 1895 in Calamar), who lived in El Retén, Magdalena, Colombia, the town right next to Aracataca, the birthplace of Gabriel García Márquez. The children of Saturnino and his spouse, Candelaria Arrieta, included:
4a. Saturnino Lara Arrieta
4b. Arturo Lara Arrieta
4c. Manuela Lara Arrieta
4d. Calixto Lara Arrieta
4e. Julio Lara Arrieta
4f. Jorge Lara Arrieta (born 1922, baptized 1923 in Arjona)
Lara Charris
After the tragic death of Benjamina, Dr. Saturnino Lara married Nicolasa Charris (born c.1876 in Remolino; died Feb. 26, 1973 in Barranquilla), the daughter of Daniel Charris and his wife Vicenta V., on July 15, 1897 in Remolino. Among their children were:
1. América Nicolasa Lara Charris (born on, yes, July 4, 1898 in Remolino)
2. Rafael Arcangel Lara Charris (born 1900 in Remolino)
3. Colombia Lara Charris (born 1906 in Soplaviento; baptized 1907 in San Estanislao, Bolívar, Colombia; died 1986 in Barranquilla), who married Gonzalo Moros.
4. Esteban Lara Charris (born 1907; baptized 1911 in San Estanislao, Bolívar, Colombia), who also lived in Tierralta, married Josefa Arjona and their children were Pedro Antonio Lara Arjona, César Esteban Lara Arjona (the mayor of Tierralta from 1987-1988), Iris Lara Arjona and the infamously corrupt Representative Jaime Lara Arjona, who was married to the corrupt Senator Flora Sierra.
5. Gerónimo Pastor Lara Charris (born 1909; baptized 1910 in San Estanislao; died 1988 in Los Angeles, CA), who married América Licona Llinás (1917-1976) in 1945 in Barranquilla. Gerónimo immigrated to the United States in 1978.
6. Carlos Arturo Lara Charris (born 1912; baptized 1913 in Cartagena), the mayor of Tierralta, Colombia from 1976-1977.
7. Olivia del Tránsito Lara Charris (born 1913; baptized 1914 in Arjona, Bolívar, Colombia), who married Rogelio Salomón Silva in 1946 in Remolino.
8. Cristóbal Lara Charris (born 1914; baptized 1915 in Arjona; died 1948 in Puerto Colombia), who accidentally drowned.
Lara Echenique
Saturnino also had a long-term relationship with a woman named Edelmira Echenique in Montería, Colombia. They had two sons:
1. Marcelino Lara Echenique (baptized 1903 in Mahates), an old Liberal politician, who married Elvira Solano in 1933 in Montería and had two daughters.
2. Manuel Esteban Echenique, a pharmacist who moved to Cuba, had a daughter who supposedly married a son of the Cuban dictator Fulgenico Batista (1901-1973).
By 1906, Saturnino Lara was listed as a resident of the settlement at Soplaviento, Bolívar and had sold his property in Mahates. Soplaviento became recognized as a town in 1908 and its first mayor was a médico tegua (unlicensed doctor) from Magdalena named Dr. Saturnino Lara — probably my great-great-grandfather.
The families of Ana Lara Martelo
Vásquez Lara
Ana Lara Martelo (born 1893 in Mahates; died 1980 in Cartagena) first married in c.1914 José Arcadio Vásquez Cohen (1883-1924), who worked as a doctor in poor communities. They met in Mahates, then briefly lived in the tiny town of Pajonal, Sucre Department before moving to San Bernardo del Viento, Sucre Department. Their children included:
1. Eugenia del Carmen Vásquez Lara (born 1916 in Barranquilla or San Bernardo del Viento; died 1998 in Miami), a ladies' garments worker who married Dr. Rito Antonio Rueda Rueda, JD (1922-1997) and had two sons. One son was a Vietnam War veteran and the other was a Persian Gulf War veteran and a psychiatrist.
2. José Arcadio Vásquez Lara (born 1917 in Barranquilla; died 1995 in Miami), a mechanic.
3. Ovidio Vásquez Lara (Arcadio's identical twin, born 1917 in Barranquilla) died in childhood.
4. Sixta Tulia Vásquez Lara (born 1918 in Barranquilla; died 2001 in Barranquilla), who married the Italian-born jeweler Miguel Savignano Briganti (1912-1980) and had four daughters and one son.
5. Virgilio Vásquez Lara (born 1921; died 1928 in Cartagena)
6. Israel Vásquez Lara (baptized 1923 in Barranquilla, Colombia), who died in childhood.
7. Mercedes Vásquez Lara (baptized 1924 in Barranquilla, Colombia), who died in childhood.
Lara Charris
After the tragic death of Benjamina, Dr. Saturnino Lara married Nicolasa Charris (born c.1876 in Remolino; died Feb. 26, 1973 in Barranquilla), the daughter of Daniel Charris and his wife Vicenta V., on July 15, 1897 in Remolino. Among their children were:
1. América Nicolasa Lara Charris (born on, yes, July 4, 1898 in Remolino)
2. Rafael Arcangel Lara Charris (born 1900 in Remolino)
3. Colombia Lara Charris (born 1906 in Soplaviento; baptized 1907 in San Estanislao, Bolívar, Colombia; died 1986 in Barranquilla), who married Gonzalo Moros.
4. Esteban Lara Charris (born 1907; baptized 1911 in San Estanislao, Bolívar, Colombia), who also lived in Tierralta, married Josefa Arjona and their children were Pedro Antonio Lara Arjona, César Esteban Lara Arjona (the mayor of Tierralta from 1987-1988), Iris Lara Arjona and the infamously corrupt Representative Jaime Lara Arjona, who was married to the corrupt Senator Flora Sierra.
5. Gerónimo Pastor Lara Charris (born 1909; baptized 1910 in San Estanislao; died 1988 in Los Angeles, CA), who married América Licona Llinás (1917-1976) in 1945 in Barranquilla. Gerónimo immigrated to the United States in 1978.
6. Carlos Arturo Lara Charris (born 1912; baptized 1913 in Cartagena), the mayor of Tierralta, Colombia from 1976-1977.
7. Olivia del Tránsito Lara Charris (born 1913; baptized 1914 in Arjona, Bolívar, Colombia), who married Rogelio Salomón Silva in 1946 in Remolino.
8. Cristóbal Lara Charris (born 1914; baptized 1915 in Arjona; died 1948 in Puerto Colombia), who accidentally drowned.
Lara Echenique
Saturnino also had a long-term relationship with a woman named Edelmira Echenique in Montería, Colombia. They had two sons:
1. Marcelino Lara Echenique (baptized 1903 in Mahates), an old Liberal politician, who married Elvira Solano in 1933 in Montería and had two daughters.
2. Manuel Esteban Echenique, a pharmacist who moved to Cuba, had a daughter who supposedly married a son of the Cuban dictator Fulgenico Batista (1901-1973).
By 1906, Saturnino Lara was listed as a resident of the settlement at Soplaviento, Bolívar and had sold his property in Mahates. Soplaviento became recognized as a town in 1908 and its first mayor was a médico tegua (unlicensed doctor) from Magdalena named Dr. Saturnino Lara — probably my great-great-grandfather.
The families of Ana Lara Martelo
Vásquez Lara
Ana Lara Martelo (born 1893 in Mahates; died 1980 in Cartagena) first married in c.1914 José Arcadio Vásquez Cohen (1883-1924), who worked as a doctor in poor communities. They met in Mahates, then briefly lived in the tiny town of Pajonal, Sucre Department before moving to San Bernardo del Viento, Sucre Department. Their children included:
1. Eugenia del Carmen Vásquez Lara (born 1916 in Barranquilla or San Bernardo del Viento; died 1998 in Miami), a ladies' garments worker who married Dr. Rito Antonio Rueda Rueda, JD (1922-1997) and had two sons. One son was a Vietnam War veteran and the other was a Persian Gulf War veteran and a psychiatrist.
2. José Arcadio Vásquez Lara (born 1917 in Barranquilla; died 1995 in Miami), a mechanic.
3. Ovidio Vásquez Lara (Arcadio's identical twin, born 1917 in Barranquilla) died in childhood.
4. Sixta Tulia Vásquez Lara (born 1918 in Barranquilla; died 2001 in Barranquilla), who married the Italian-born jeweler Miguel Savignano Briganti (1912-1980) and had four daughters and one son.
5. Virgilio Vásquez Lara (born 1921; died 1928 in Cartagena)
6. Israel Vásquez Lara (baptized 1923 in Barranquilla, Colombia), who died in childhood.
7. Mercedes Vásquez Lara (baptized 1924 in Barranquilla, Colombia), who died in childhood.
It's possible that there were other Vásquez Lara siblings who also died young.
Noguera Lara
Ana Lara Martelo married a second time in the late 1920s to Calixto Domingo Noguera Díaz (1875-1961), a town magistrate with a strong Liberal pedigree.
Calixto's great-great-grandfather, Bernabé Noguera, was a lower-ranking officer in Cartagena's fixed batallion, the Fijo. Bernabé became a footnote to history when he and a fellow officer revealed plans for a royalist coup in Cartagena on February 4, 1811. The coup leaders were arrested and instead 3,000 men, including the so-called Pardos Patriotas, responded by patrolling the streets and demonstrating for a week for independence.
Calixto's great-grandfather, Calixto Dolores Noguera (1796-1833), was a pardo and a supporter of Santander. He was a Mason and a member of the Sociedad de Veteranos Defensores de la Libertad, a pro-Santander, proto-Liberal society founded in Cartagena in 1831. When obsequies were held for Admiral José Prudencio Padilla in the Cathedral of Cartagena in October 1831, the elder Calixto Noguera sat with his fellow society members, as Helg writes, "in a single block, attired in mourning clothes but with red ribbons on their left breasts, in an imposing display of the new Liberal power."
Calixto's grandfather, Benjamín Noguera Varela (1823-1889), was prefect of Lórica in 1859 during Juan José Nieto's civil war and governor of the old federal Bolívar State in Colombia from 1878-1881. Benjamín Noguera and a Chinese woman with the last name Wong had a son, Mariano Noguera, who married Rebeca Díaz in Lórica, and they were the parents of Calixto Noguera Díaz.
Ana Lara and Calixto Noguera Díaz lived in San Bernardo del Viento and had three children:
1. Teresa de Jesús Noguera Lara, who married Daniel Osorio and had one son and two daughters.
2. Adalberto Noguera Lara, who married Lelly Maya and settled in Venezuela.
3. Dr. Calixto Domingo Noguera Lara, a radiologist, married Zoila Núñez Farah and had two sons, who are also doctors.
4) From Africa to Mompós: The Bustos Navarro Family
The 1809 marriage record of José Joaquín Busto and María de la O. Navarro Fernández, which notes that they were "de color Pardo."
My family's history traces in part back to Africa, with brave individuals who endured the genocide of Transatlantic slavery, left their homes by force, and survived the horrific Middle Passage that killed about 15% of slaves.
My various DNA ancestry tests indicate that I have markers inherited from West Africa an unknown number of generations ago, probably between 1525 and 1800. It's scientifically impossible to determine from DNA where my African ancestors lived, and genetic testing companies are often criticized for how they assign geographic regions, but different tests have found genetic similarities between me and with people of various African regions, including:
1. Nigeria, called the "Bight of Biafra" by European slavers.
2. Sierra Leone / Liberia, named the "Pepper Coast" or "Grain Coast" by European slavers after its main product of melegueta pepper.
3. Benin / Togo, called the "Slave Coast" and the "Bight of Benin" by European slavers.
4. Cameroon / Congo
Three bronze heads from Ife, Nigeria, c.1200s-1300s
Most slaves entered Colombia through the port of Cartagena de Indias. From the early 1500s to 1570s, the majority of the approximately 3,000 Africans who arrived came from the Wolof-speaking nations in what is now Senegambia and from Sierra Leone. It's possible that my West African ancestors arrived at Colombia during this early period. Enslaved people from these region were called by the cartageneros "gente de los Ríos de Guinea" or "negros de ley." The Jesuit priest Alonso de Sandoval wrote in 1627 that the Africans called "Guineos" included peoples known as "iolofos, berbesíes, mandingas y fulos; otros fulupos, otros banunes, o fulupos que llaman bootes, otros casangas y banunes puros, otros branes, balantas, báfaras y biojos, otros nalus, otros zapes, cocolíes y zozoes." It's interesting to note that costeños still call bananas "guineos," since they were also brought from West Africa.
Stone figurine carved by the Sapi people of Sierra Leone, c.1500s
After 1640, the Dutch gained control of the slave trade, and then French and English traders dominated in the 18th century. The majority of captives from this later period were from central-west Africa, including the Ewe people (from modern Ghana, Togo, and Benin), Akan people (from modern Ghana and Ivory Coast), and Igbo people (from modern Nigeria). Simón Bolívar enacted a law in 1821 that freed children born to slaves, and slavery was finally abolished in Colombia in 1851.
At an unknown point in time, my ancestors became free, joining the libres de todos los colores (free people of color) who made up the majority of the population of 18th-century Caribbean Colombia. Africans and their Black and mixed-race descendants took many paths to freedom. While some slaves bought their own freedom and some owners practiced manumission, many other slaves escaped bondage and often settled in lands beyond the reach of the cities. Cimarrones (runaway slaves) formed informal settlements called rochelas or walled villages called palenques, where they could speak African-derived dialects and defend themselves from colonial soldiers. A genetic study of the inhabitants of Palenque de San Basilio, the only palenque that is still extant, suggests that the residents' genetic origins are in Congo or Angola, and the local Palenquero dialect has words that probably stem from Yombe, a Kikongo language spoken in Congo.
Yombe mother and child from Congo or Angola (Met Museum)
The family history of Isabel Surmay, first wife of my ancestor Pedro A. Lara, begins with her great-grandmother, Patricia Busto (or Bustos), who was born in the mid-1700s in Mompox (Bolívar Department), a town founded in 1537 along the Magdalena River. This town (also spelled Mompós) was named after Mompoj, a chief of the local Malibú-speaking Kimbay tribe. Its residents, known as momposinos, were renowned for metalwork and providing the bogas (boats) and rowers for trade between the walled coastal city of Cartagena and the Andean interior. Mompox's population doubled from around 7,000 people in 1777 to around 14,000 people in 1801, as Spain relaxed and then tightened its trade regulations, resulting in increased smuggling. (For more on Mompox's history, culture, and tourist attractions, visit this amazing blog by Luis Alfredo Domínguez Hazbun. Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770-1835 by Aline Helg provides further historical background.)
Patricia Busto was unmarried (soltera) and had at least two illegitimate children. During her lifetime, women of color far outnumbered men in Colombia's Caribbean cities, as they served as the majority of domestic help, and largely ran the outdoor marketplaces and many small businesses. The record of Patricia's death in 1817, in Mompox's separate registry for pardos (mulattoes), notes that she had a first-class funeral (con cruz alta) with a singing officiate, vigil, and Mass (oficio cantado, vigilia, y misa). Patricia earned this dignified burial by being an hermana de las Nieves, a member of a religious society known as the Cofradía de las Nieves (Cofraternity of [Our Lady of] the Snow). While the Cofradía de las Nieves seems to no longer exist, Mompox still has a number of cofradías that hold elaborate processions and ceremonies during Holy Week (Semana Santa).
The children of Patricia Bustos included:
1. Alexandra Bustos, who married José Anacleto Rodríguez in 1797 in Mompox.
2. José Joaquín Busto, whose family continues below.
Another Afro-Colombian ancestor, Antonio Navarro, was born in Cartagena while its famed walls were being completed. He married Ignacia Fernández, an Afro-Colombian from the town of Soledad, and was a widower by 1809. They had at least two daughters:
1. María de la O. Navarro Fernández, who married José Joaquín Busto and whose family continues below.
2. Martina Navarro Fernández, who married Eusebio Longaray in 1810 in Mompox.
In 1810, Antonio Navarro married Juana Crisostoma Bustos Blanco (a possible relation of his son-in-law) in Mompox. Their children included:
1. Pantaleona Josefa Navarro Bustos (born 1811 in Mompox)
2. Domingo José Navarro Bustos (born 1814 in Mompox)
3. Valentina de la Concepción Navarro Bustos (born 1815 in Mompox)
4. Basilio Anastasio Navarro Bustos (born 1822 in Mompox)
María de la O. Navarro married José Joaquín Busto on June 27, 1809 in Mompox. The marriage record noted that the bride and groom and their parents were "todos de color Pardo," all brown-skinned. The children of Joaquín Busto and María de la O. Navarro included:
1. José Calixto del Rosario Bustos Navarro (born 1810 in Mompox)
2. José María de Jesús Bustos Navarro (born 1812 in Mompox)
3. José María de la Natividad Bustos Navarro (born 1813 in Mompox)
4. María Josefa del Carmen Bustos Navarro (born 1816 in Mompox), whose family continues below.
During this time, Mompox led the fight for freedom from Spain. The town vicar who conducted the marriage ceremony of José Joaquín Bustos and María de la O. Navarro, Juan Fernández de Sotomayor (1777-1849), led a group of momposino elite that pushed for independence. He even wrote a book, Catecismo o Instrucción Popular (1814), which tried to explain the revolution to a broader audience, like Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Among the Bustos children's godparents were other local patriots like Captain Juan José de León Vigil and his wife Inés Fernández Silguero, and Fray José Antonio Solórzano.
In June 1810, Mompox residents held protests and ousted their Spanish military commander. On August 6, 1810, the day after another wave of demonstrations, the town council signed a declaration of independence from Spain. On August 7, Fernández de Sotomayor held a Te Deum mass to mark the town's "redemption." The liberator Simón Bolívar recruited 400 men from Mompox to fight alongside him, and he famously said, "Si Caracas me dió la vida, Mompox me dió la gloria." ("If Caracas gave me life, Mompox gave me glory.")
I am not sure whether Joaquín Bustos fought in the military, but given his connections to the pro-independence elite he was probably sympathetic to their cause. Mompox had a militia since the 1770s that mostly consisted of free men of color, and it's possible that Joaquín belonged to this force. After Mompox declared its independence from the province of Cartagena in October 1810, Cartagena's royalist troops marched on the town, crushed and disbanded the momposino militia in January 1811, jailed rebel leaders, and confiscated property.
Even after Cartagena declared independence on November 11, 1811, the independistas were still weakened by their own in-fighting. The political rivalries soured to the point that in April 1815 Simón Bolívar led a failed attack on Cartagena, called the Battle of Pie de la Popa, with an army that included momposinos like Juan José de León Vigil. The same month, the Spanish army reclaimed Mompox and Bolívar and León Vigil were among the patriots who then fled to Jamaica.
Mompox faced a new wave of imprisonments and executions under Spanish rule, and only in 1820 did Bolívar's army finally liberate the town. An 1820 enumeration of Mompox buildings that belonged to Spaniards noted that Joaquín Bustos lived in a building in the plazoleta (small square) behind the church and paid 5 pesos a month for rent. Joaquín promised that he would deliver his rent to the new Colombian authorities.
The long war took its toll on the new nation of Gran Colombia, especially in the Caribbean coast. Mompox's population declined from 14,000 people in 1801 to around 8,000 people in 1835. The town still remained a major center for travel on the Magdalena River until the mid-1800s, when it was overshadowed by first steamboat travel, and then the growth of coffee exports and the rise of the port city of Barranquilla.
5) The Surmay Bustos Family
Francisca González had an illegitimate son in the early 1800s, Emigdio Surmay, who became a court clerk (escribano). In 1833 in Mompox, Emigdio married María del Carmen Bustos Navarro. Emigdio may be descended from the creole Surmay family, or slaves owned by the family. Originally spelled "Zurmay," this surname is a combination of the Basque words zur (wood) and mai (table), according to the Enciclopedia general ilustrada del País Vasco by Bernardo Estornés Lasa.
The first Surmay to live in Mompox was Captain Juan de Surmay (died 1649), who was born in Sevilla, Spain to Joan de Zurmay and Isabel del Villar. It's unclear how Juan first came to Colombia, but in 1612 he was granted a real cédula (royal order) to return to the "province of Cartagena" with his mother, his sister Adriana de Zurmay, and two slaves that he had brought from Colombia, Francisco (who was described as mulato) and Beatríz Magdalena.
Juan de Surmay married Isabel de Vivero y Montalvo, the daughter of an encomendero from Tamalameque, Cesar, Colombia. Their son, Captain Nicolás de Surmay Salvador, married Catalina de Valverde Suárez de Amaya (died c.1705 in Mompox), a descendant of Captain Francisco de Valverde, a conquistador who earned enough to retire to his hometown of Malagón, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain in 1609. The Genealogías de Santa Fé de Bogotá says Nicolás de Surmay (or as the book erroneously calls him, "Nicolás Guzmán") and Catalina de Valverde ran an asylum for criminals, complete with chains, out of their house in Mompox. After Nicolás's death, Catalina married Manuel de Amuscótegui, an encomendero in Valledupar, Cesar, Colombia.
A granddaughter of Nicolás de Surmay married into high Bogotá society, and her great-granddaughter married in 1778 the Bogotá-born Marquis of San Jorge. Her stepson, Jorge Tadeo Lozano (1771-1816), served in 1811 as the first president of the "State of Cundinamarca," Bogotá's short-lived attempt to remain independent of the viceroy but loyal to the king of Spain.
Another Surmay descendant married a Spaniard living in Popayán, Cauca, Colombia, and her great-grandson, Francisco de Valencia y Sáenz del Pontón, served as treasurer of the Casa de la Moneda in Popayán and in 1789 was made the 1st Count of Casa Valencia by King Carlos IV of Spain. Francisco's son, Pedro Felipe Valencia y Codallos, was the 2nd Count of Casa Valencia, but he renounced his title and became a supporter of Colombian independence, for which the Spanish ordered his execution in 1816. Pedro Felipe's descendants moved to Spain, where the 8th Count of Casa Valencia still lives today. The famous Colombian poet Guillermo Valencia and his son, President Guillermo León Valencia, were descended from the 1st Count's younger brother.
As for Emigdio Surmay, he married Carmen Bustos and their children included:
1. Isabel María de los Dolores Surmay Bustos (born 1839 in Mompox), who married Pedro A. Lara in 1861 in Mompox, as seen above.
2. José Ignacio Prisco Emigdio Surmay Bustos (born 1842 in Mompox), whose godfather Ramón Benedetti was a Minister of the Court in the District of Cartagena and a member of the "Ministerial" Party of the 1840s that became the Conservative Party.
María de la O. Navarro married José Joaquín Busto on June 27, 1809 in Mompox. The marriage record noted that the bride and groom and their parents were "todos de color Pardo," all brown-skinned. The children of Joaquín Busto and María de la O. Navarro included:
1. José Calixto del Rosario Bustos Navarro (born 1810 in Mompox)
2. José María de Jesús Bustos Navarro (born 1812 in Mompox)
3. José María de la Natividad Bustos Navarro (born 1813 in Mompox)
4. María Josefa del Carmen Bustos Navarro (born 1816 in Mompox), whose family continues below.
During this time, Mompox led the fight for freedom from Spain. The town vicar who conducted the marriage ceremony of José Joaquín Bustos and María de la O. Navarro, Juan Fernández de Sotomayor (1777-1849), led a group of momposino elite that pushed for independence. He even wrote a book, Catecismo o Instrucción Popular (1814), which tried to explain the revolution to a broader audience, like Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Among the Bustos children's godparents were other local patriots like Captain Juan José de León Vigil and his wife Inés Fernández Silguero, and Fray José Antonio Solórzano.
In June 1810, Mompox residents held protests and ousted their Spanish military commander. On August 6, 1810, the day after another wave of demonstrations, the town council signed a declaration of independence from Spain. On August 7, Fernández de Sotomayor held a Te Deum mass to mark the town's "redemption." The liberator Simón Bolívar recruited 400 men from Mompox to fight alongside him, and he famously said, "Si Caracas me dió la vida, Mompox me dió la gloria." ("If Caracas gave me life, Mompox gave me glory.")
I am not sure whether Joaquín Bustos fought in the military, but given his connections to the pro-independence elite he was probably sympathetic to their cause. Mompox had a militia since the 1770s that mostly consisted of free men of color, and it's possible that Joaquín belonged to this force. After Mompox declared its independence from the province of Cartagena in October 1810, Cartagena's royalist troops marched on the town, crushed and disbanded the momposino militia in January 1811, jailed rebel leaders, and confiscated property.
Even after Cartagena declared independence on November 11, 1811, the independistas were still weakened by their own in-fighting. The political rivalries soured to the point that in April 1815 Simón Bolívar led a failed attack on Cartagena, called the Battle of Pie de la Popa, with an army that included momposinos like Juan José de León Vigil. The same month, the Spanish army reclaimed Mompox and Bolívar and León Vigil were among the patriots who then fled to Jamaica.
Mompox faced a new wave of imprisonments and executions under Spanish rule, and only in 1820 did Bolívar's army finally liberate the town. An 1820 enumeration of Mompox buildings that belonged to Spaniards noted that Joaquín Bustos lived in a building in the plazoleta (small square) behind the church and paid 5 pesos a month for rent. Joaquín promised that he would deliver his rent to the new Colombian authorities.
The long war took its toll on the new nation of Gran Colombia, especially in the Caribbean coast. Mompox's population declined from 14,000 people in 1801 to around 8,000 people in 1835. The town still remained a major center for travel on the Magdalena River until the mid-1800s, when it was overshadowed by first steamboat travel, and then the growth of coffee exports and the rise of the port city of Barranquilla.
5) The Surmay Bustos Family
Francisca González had an illegitimate son in the early 1800s, Emigdio Surmay, who became a court clerk (escribano). In 1833 in Mompox, Emigdio married María del Carmen Bustos Navarro. Emigdio may be descended from the creole Surmay family, or slaves owned by the family. Originally spelled "Zurmay," this surname is a combination of the Basque words zur (wood) and mai (table), according to the Enciclopedia general ilustrada del País Vasco by Bernardo Estornés Lasa.
The first Surmay to live in Mompox was Captain Juan de Surmay (died 1649), who was born in Sevilla, Spain to Joan de Zurmay and Isabel del Villar. It's unclear how Juan first came to Colombia, but in 1612 he was granted a real cédula (royal order) to return to the "province of Cartagena" with his mother, his sister Adriana de Zurmay, and two slaves that he had brought from Colombia, Francisco (who was described as mulato) and Beatríz Magdalena.
Juan de Surmay married Isabel de Vivero y Montalvo, the daughter of an encomendero from Tamalameque, Cesar, Colombia. Their son, Captain Nicolás de Surmay Salvador, married Catalina de Valverde Suárez de Amaya (died c.1705 in Mompox), a descendant of Captain Francisco de Valverde, a conquistador who earned enough to retire to his hometown of Malagón, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain in 1609. The Genealogías de Santa Fé de Bogotá says Nicolás de Surmay (or as the book erroneously calls him, "Nicolás Guzmán") and Catalina de Valverde ran an asylum for criminals, complete with chains, out of their house in Mompox. After Nicolás's death, Catalina married Manuel de Amuscótegui, an encomendero in Valledupar, Cesar, Colombia.
A granddaughter of Nicolás de Surmay married into high Bogotá society, and her great-granddaughter married in 1778 the Bogotá-born Marquis of San Jorge. Her stepson, Jorge Tadeo Lozano (1771-1816), served in 1811 as the first president of the "State of Cundinamarca," Bogotá's short-lived attempt to remain independent of the viceroy but loyal to the king of Spain.
Another Surmay descendant married a Spaniard living in Popayán, Cauca, Colombia, and her great-grandson, Francisco de Valencia y Sáenz del Pontón, served as treasurer of the Casa de la Moneda in Popayán and in 1789 was made the 1st Count of Casa Valencia by King Carlos IV of Spain. Francisco's son, Pedro Felipe Valencia y Codallos, was the 2nd Count of Casa Valencia, but he renounced his title and became a supporter of Colombian independence, for which the Spanish ordered his execution in 1816. Pedro Felipe's descendants moved to Spain, where the 8th Count of Casa Valencia still lives today. The famous Colombian poet Guillermo Valencia and his son, President Guillermo León Valencia, were descended from the 1st Count's younger brother.
As for Emigdio Surmay, he married Carmen Bustos and their children included:
1. Isabel María de los Dolores Surmay Bustos (born 1839 in Mompox), who married Pedro A. Lara in 1861 in Mompox, as seen above.
2. José Ignacio Prisco Emigdio Surmay Bustos (born 1842 in Mompox), whose godfather Ramón Benedetti was a Minister of the Court in the District of Cartagena and a member of the "Ministerial" Party of the 1840s that became the Conservative Party.
Signature of Emigdio Surmay, notary of Mompox, 1846
6) A Partial Genealogy of Captain Wolvert Ecker
The family tree of Wolvert L. Ecker can be easily found online (and can stretch back more than 20 generations if you accept dubious ancestors), so I won't reproduce it here.
~ Wolvert's mother, Margaret C. Miller (1825-1884), was born to Robert Miller (died 1835), a lawyer born in London, England, and Margaret Baird (1782-1852), who was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. The elder Margaret was first married to Captain James Baird (c.1762-1815), a Scottish-born Revolutionary War soldier who served in Georgia's navy, and then was a commercial ship captain after the war.
~ The California gold rush drew part of Wolvert's family. His aunt, Harriet Ecker, left Ithaca, NY, went down to Panama, then sailed up to San Francisco aboard the steamer Oregon in May 1850. A San Francisco land surveyor, William Matthewson Eddy, married Harriet aboard the boat before it docked, with the ship captain officiating the ceremony. Wolvert's uncle, George O. Ecker, also came to San Francisco and worked as a goldsmith. Today, San Francisco has two roads named Eddy Street and Ecker Street.
~ The son of Wolvert's first cousin, from the Mead family of St. Louis, MO, was the acclaimed cowboy-turned-artist Charles M. Russell (1864-1926), whose paintings embody the visual myth of the American West. Another Mead relative, author Shepherd Mead, was Wolvert's first cousin twice removed.
~ A paternal great-grandfather and namesake, Wolvert Ecker (1732-1799), was a leading Hudson Valley patriot in the Revolutionary War who was descended from Dutch, German and French colonists of New Amsterdam.
Relations through the elder Wolvert include TV journalist Walter Cronkite (Wolvert L. Ecker's sixth cousin twice removed), and "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" heroine Catriena Ecker Van Tassel (Wolvert L. Ecker's first cousin four times removed).
~ A paternal great-grandmother, Sarah Pugsley (1752-1821), was a pureblood WASP and the second wife of the elder Wolvert Ecker. One of her great-great-great-grandfathers was Daniel Whitehead (c.1603-1668), who came from England and by 1644 lived on Long Island. In 1653, Daniel and several other English colonists arranged a "Great Purchase" to acquire the future sites of the towns of Oyster Bay and Huntington from Rasokan of the Matinecock tribe, because Englishmen were already illegally squatting on those sites.
Daniel Whitehead's descendants include:
-Railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843-1899), a sixth cousin of Wolvert L. Ecker
-William Kissam Vanderbilt II (1878-1944), Cornelius's nephew and the founder of Long Island's Vanderbilt Museum
-Socialite and fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt (1924-2019) and her son, anchorman Anderson Cooper
-The 10th Duke of Marlborough, whose mother was a Vanderbilt, and the 11th and 12th Dukes of Marlborough
-John T. Hoffman, an associate of Boss Tweed, mayor of New York City, and governor of New York
-actress Meryl Streep
-Adam von Trott zu Solz (1909-1944), a leader in the failed plot to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944, whose maternal grandmother was related to Wolvert
~ Another of Sarah Pugsley's great-great-great-grandfathers was the Englishman John Hicks (c.1609-1672), a settler of Newport, RI and an abusive husband who left for New Amsterdam when his marriage to Herodias Long dissolved. His descendants include:
-Quaker preacher Elias Hicks (1748-1829) who was probably a host on the Underground Railroad
-Valentine Hicks (1782-1850) who helped found the Long Island Rail Road and Hicksville, NY
-Folk painter and Quaker preacher Edward Hicks (1780-1849)
-Willis Haviland Carrier (1876-1950), the inventor of air conditioning
-Astronaut Dr. Laurel Clark (1961-2003) who died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster
-The Hicks family of Hicksville, NY who have run Hicks Nurseries since 1853.
~ Sarah Pugsley's ancestor Herodias Long (c.1623-c.1705) became a Quaker after she divorced John Hicks and married two more times, to George Gardner and John Porter. She was whipped for her faith when she visited Puritan Massachusetts.
Among the descendants of Herodias and George are Stephen A. Douglas, the famed opponent of Lincoln, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
~ A great-great-grandfather of Sarah Pugsley, Robert Field (c.1636-1701), also came from England to New York. His ancestors supposedly stretch back to the 13th-century Del Feld family of Sowerby, England.
Robert Field's descendants include Meryl Streep, Adam von Trott zu Solz, Native American studies scholar Joseph Epes Brown, "Vogue" editor Anna Wintour, and RMS Titanic victim William Crothers Dulles (Wolvert L. Ecker's sixth cousin), a first class passenger who sunk with his dog.
7) The Ecker Family's Slaves
This connection with celebrity and the early days of the United States comes with a high price, as the Ecker family owned slaves. The elder Wolvert Ecker fought for freedom during the American Revolution, but is listed in the 1790 census as owning five slaves.
His son, William Ecker, was not a slaveowner in 1800 but in the 1810 census owned 3 slaves. William's second son, W.B. Ecker, grew up in a slave-owning household, which by 1820 owned two male slaves aged between 14-25, two male slaves older than 45, one female slave under the age of 14, and one female slave aged between 14-25. One free colored man older than age 45 also lived in the Ecker household in 1820.
W.B. Ecker saw New Yorkers, including his own father, emancipate their slaves in 1827, but by 1840 he lived in Georgia and owned six human beings: one male youth between the ages of 10-23, three men and one woman aged between 24-35, and one man between the ages of 36-55.
The Savannah Slave Manifests show that W.B. Ecker shipped at least two of the people he owned in 1843.
One record shows a slave named Joe, age 25 and 5'6" tall, was shipped by Ecker from Savannah to Darien on the steamer J. Stone, perhaps after being purchased. Another record shows a slave named Joe, age 22 and 5'3" tall, was shipped from Savannah to Florida on the steamer Richmond on May 31, 1843, perhaps after being sold. These are presumably two different men, but it's hard to say for certain. What is certain is that Ecker unashamedly profited from the buying and selling of humans.
Ecker then married a slave-owning Georgia woman, the widow Margaret C. Haslam, who came from a slave-owning family, who history is detailed in Camden County court records digitized on FamilySearch.org. As mentioned above, Margaret's Scottish mother, Margaret Miller, was first married to Captain James Baird, a Revolutionary War veteran who was listed as selling slaves as early as 1804. By 1816, when the widow Margaret Baird married the lawyer Robert Miller, she was listed as owning 17 slaves: Charles, Billy, Clarisa "and her child Maggy," Sampson, Polly, Morant, Jacob, Tom, Sandy, Chloe, Sally, Charlotte, Philly, Venus, Emma, and Mary.
In 1823, Robert Miller, Margaret Ecker's British father, was listed in court records as bringing eight slaves from "East Florida" to St. Marys, Georgia: 19-year-old George, 25-year-old Jenny and her 2-year-old daughter Mariah, 14-year-old Fanny, 14-year-old Bob, 15-year-old Peter, 28-year-old Quashy, and 23-year-old Jim. Miller noted "all of them are field hands," including the children.
The widow Margaret Miller sold slaves throughout the 1830s and 1840s. Among her slaves were a boy named London (age 11 in 1840) and a man named Edinborough (age 24 in 1847). It's a unique kind of horror to think that the Millers probably named slave children after their birthplaces.
The younger Margaret C. Miller had a short-lived marriage in 1840 to a short-lived man, John S. Haslam. An 1843 court document noted that the widow Margaret C. Haslam, ahead of her marriage to W.B. Ecker, owned seven enslaved people: Peter, Maria, Clarissa, Louisa, Sarah, Fanny, and Robert. It's possible that Clarissa was the same woman mentioned in 1816 and Peter, Maria, and Fanny were the same people mentioned in 1823.
Also in 1843,
W.B. Ecker owned 19 people by 1850, but the census only listed these slaves' ages and "colour" (only using "black" and "mulatto"). The census lists them in order as:
1. A 32-year-old Black man (possibly Joe?)
2. A 26-year-old Black man
3. A 24-year-old Black man
4. A 10-year-old mulatto boy
5. A 9-year-old Black boy
6. A 7-year-old mulatto boy
7. A 1-year-old mulatto boy
8. A 9-year-old mulatto boy
9. A 34-year-old mulatto man
10. A 40-year-old Black woman (perhaps Fanny?)
11. A 26-year-old Black woman (perhaps Maria?)
12. A 24-year-old Black woman
13. A 21-year-old Black woman
14. A 14-year-old mulatto girl
15. A 10-year-old mulatto girl
16. A 3-year-old Black girl
17. A 5-year-old mulatto girl
18. A 24-year-old Black woman
19. A 3-year-old mulatto girl.
This list raises sickening questions. At least half the slaves Ecker owned in 1840 were not present in 1850 — were they dead or resold? Only one of Ecker's adult slaves in 1850 is listed as a "mulatto," but eight of the 10 slave children are "mulattoes." Did W.B. Ecker own his own children, or the children of overseers?
W.B. Ecker died in 1854, and his widow Margaret is an even stranger case. In the 1860 census she is listed as a New York State resident, but also as the owner of 21 slaves housed in 7 "slave houses" in Darien, Georgia. It's possible that Margaret lived a double life at the time, and that her "free state" neighbors might not have know about her owning humans in the South.
Within weeks of the 1860 census, on June 27, 1860, Margaret Ecker was listed in court records as selling 20 slaves to Colonel J.M. Harris of Darien, Georgia. These enslaved people were listed as:
- Fanny and her two children: 16-year-old Robert and an unnamed 5-year-old son.
- Louisa and her five children: 10-year-old Susan, 7-year-old Rachel, 5-year-old Hannah, an unnamed child and an unnamed infant.
- Sarah and her two children, 7-year-old Fanny and 5-year-old Richard.
- Nellie and her three sons: 16-year-old George, 9-year-old Hamilton, and 5-year-old Mack.
- Ned, a 35-year-old man not listed with any family.
- Easter and her 3-year-old unnamed child.
- Betsey, a 10-year-old girl not listed with any family.
So Margaret Ecker appeared to have stopped owning people less than 10 months before the start of the Civil War. The 20 people named in the 1860 slave sale receipt can be compared with the 21 anonymous people listed in Margaret Ecker's entry in the 1860 slave census, and some clear identifications can be made!
The 21 people in bondage under Mrs. Ecker in 1860 were, in the order they were listed:
1. A 45-year-old Black woman (Fanny [the same woman mentioned in 1843?] or Nellie)
2. A 40-year-old Black man (Ned)
3. A 30-year-old Black woman
4. Another 30-year-old Black woman
5. A 28-year-old Black woman (these three women were either Fanny, Louise, Sarah, or Nellie)
6. A 22-year-old mulatto woman (Easter)
7. A 17-year-old Black boy
8. A 17-year-old mulatto boy (these two were, order unknown, Fanny’s son Robert and Nellie’s son George)
9. A 12-year-old Black girl
10. An 11-year-old Black girl
11. A 10-year-old Black boy (Nellie’s son Hamilton)
12. An 8-year-old Black girl
13. Another 8-year-old Black girl
14. A 6-year-old Black boy
15. A 6-year-old Black girl
16. Another 6-year-old Black girl
17. A 4-year-old Black girl
18. Another 4-year-old Black girl
19. A 5-month-old Black boy (Louisa's baby)
20. A 1-year-old Black boy
21. A 2-year-old Black girl
No more than nine of these 21 enslaved people could have belonged to the Ecker family in 1850, so it's obvious that the Ecker family broke up families on the auction block.
As for the dozens of people who were owned by the Eckers — like Joe, Fanny, Robert, Louisa, Susan, Rachel, Hannah, Sarah, Fanny, Richard, Nellie, George, Hamilton, Mack, Ned, Easter, and Betsey — I can only hope they lived to see their freedom in 1865.
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut [at] gmail.com.
Hola Eduardo, necesito hablar contigo, también tengo prueba de ADN y provengo de la familia Lara de Remolino, saludos! Es urgente que nos podamos comunicar!
ReplyDeleteHow do I cite you as a source? I am writing about the 1885 war in Colombia. Both Ambrose Light and Wolvert Ecker appear in my work. Previous to this, I knew nothing at all about Ecker.
ReplyDelete