Conquistadora (35 page)

Siña Damita claimed to have no idea who would’ve left the child on Ana’s doorstep. “I deliver most babies around here,” she said. “This one not mine.” She unswaddled Conciencia and examined her thoroughly. “Umbilical cord cut with teeth,” she said. “Tied tight. The mother birthed before.” She turned Conciencia over and traced the tiny bones of her spine. She kissed her index finger, then gently poked the tiny hump. She bent and straightened the infant’s limbs and found that her joints moved freely. As she tugged on Conciencia’s leg, the child let go a stream of urine into Damita’s hand. “Everything work.” Damita laughed. She set Conciencia down and wiped the baby’s urine over her face and neck. “Born on a night with no moon,” she explained. “Her piss bring luck.”

Later there was a commotion in front of Inés’s
bohío
because everyone wanted to touch Conciencia’s hump for good luck. Afraid that so much handling would further weaken her, Ana had her returned to the
casona
. Conciencia, who slept through most of the day, opened her eyes, black and hard as onyx. She stared at Ana as if she were trying to communicate wordlessly, the way Ramón and Inocente did with each other.

“You must live,” Ana said vehemently. “I’ll help you.” She stroked the baby’s forehead. “You’ll be my conscience, but also my lucky charm.”

On their way back from Guares that evening, Severo’s dogs raced into the woods. There, leaning under a tree as if she’d just sat to rest, was Marta, her ears, eyes, nose, and mouth humming with flies. Her skirt and apron were stiff with dried blood. It was obvious she’d bled to death after delivering a baby. The child technically belonged to Luis, as did Marta, but Severo saw no sign of the infant.

The next morning, Severo climbed the stairs of the
casona
two at a time, as if he had urgent news. “They tell me a child was left at your door,
señora
.”

“Yes, a girl.” Ana looked into the basket by her side, where Conciencia slept, wrapped in Miguel’s old swaddling clothes.

Severo peered inside. Don Luis would have told the midwife to
smother the infant after noticing her handicaps. Marta had walked through cane and orchards on a moonless night to save her baby. Ana had no idea that the child was Marta’s, fathered by Ramón, who continued to see her in the finca with Luis’s permission. In spite of his frail appearance, Ramón had enough energy to impregnate several women in the months before he died and had orphaned at least eight light-skinned mulattoes, cousins to the ones fathered by Inocente.

“I can take her away,
señora
.”

“No, don’t. Obviously her family doesn’t want her.”

“Do you mean to keep her?”

“She might not live long. I’ll make her as comfortable as possible until then.”

During the following week Conciencia clung to life as if her will and Ana’s were one. She slept most of the time and rarely cried, not even when Inés was late to nurse. Damita prepared herbal
guarapos
to strengthen her, and showed Ana how to dip her finger into the bowl and drop the tea into the infant’s mouth.

Besides her creamy skin, Conciencia’s only other beautiful feature was the luxurious black hair that covered her head and formed a fine down over the rest of her twisted body. As her birth bruises healed and her features settled, one thing was certain: Conciencia would not be beautiful, and might never be able to walk, but she was determined to live.

After the first precarious week, she thrived. Everyone noticed that as Conciencia grew stronger, Los Gemelos prospered. The hens, for example, laid more eggs than before Conciencia was left at Ana’s door. The sows had huge litters, every piglet healthy and promising plenty of ham. The work in the fields went smoother for those who had touched her hump, and their rows of cane germinated and grew faster.

The orchards, too, were more fruitful. Branches bent low with round, juicy lemons, oranges, and grapefruits. Mango trees blossomed and were soon studded with nipple-size fruit that grew faster than could be consumed. The humid hollow near the creek was overrun by tall palms with purple flowers that stretched into shoots that sprouted large bunches of bananas and plantains. Sweet potatoes under the ground, stately avocado trees, taro root beneath umbrella leaves—all seemed to respond to a silent command to propagate.

Several women became pregnant, some past childbearing age. As
the vegetation, animals, and people multiplied, Conciencia flourished under Ana’s care, the newfound affection of Flora and Inés, and the respect her lucky hump brought from everyone else.

Despite Ana’s earliest fears, Conciencia did learn to crawl and walk, even as her hump became more pronounced. Soon everyone called her Conciencia la Jorobá, and for the rest of her life no one ever asked her last name.

A few weeks after the Argosos left, Ana received the terms she’d agreed to in order to stay at the hacienda. Eugenio was more generous than she’d expected. As
la patrona
, she’d receive the manager’s salary of one thousand pesos a year. In addition, he provided for an allowance of five hundred pesos per annum for her personal expenses. No loans or large purchases of land or inventory could be effected without prior arrangement. Financial dealings were to go through Mr. Vicente Worthy, Eugenio’s agent in San Juan.

Ana studied the ledgers for the last four harvests. Yields at Hacienda los Gemelos had increased at least 15 percent per annum, but sugar production had cost more than the income generated each year. Mr. Worthy’s reports indicated that sugar prices around the world had fallen over the 1840s as India, with a huge, inexpensive labor force, had become an important producer. In Europe, beets—better suited to the European soil and climate—were less expensive to process into sugar and to transport within the continent. Spanish government regulations, duties, taxes, and customs further undercut profits for Puerto Rican planters like her.

Ana couldn’t, however, stop cultivation. Cane required twelve to eighteen months to mature, and by the time it was ready for harvest, prices might be higher. In the meantime, she needed more cattle, equipment, and tools for clearing and tilling new fields. The scarcity of workers, however, was the biggest challenge facing her.

She was aware that forces beyond the borders of Los Gemelos were changing the way
hacendados
operated. A growing Creole professional and liberal elite in Puerto Rico was pressuring for greater autonomy from Spain and the abolition of slavery, both opposed by
sugar
hacendados
and conservative agriculturalists. Many of those were refugees who’d lost much during the wars for independence in South America and now depended on a stable, controllable labor force. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Peninsular authorities were also concerned about the
campesinos
—a growing, self-reliant, racially mixed, unsettled, underemployed population who managed to evade taxes, customs, and fees through the barter system and contraband.

Governor de la Pezuela, who’d repealed the Bando Negro in 1848, instituted a new law, ostensibly to eradicate vagrancy in Puerto Rico, but whose object was to create a labor source for the sugar industry and to control the movement of
campesinos
. The Reglamento de Jornaleros obliged every
hombre libre
, any white or black who’d never been a slave, and every
liberto
, or freed slave, to prove that they were gainfully employed. To monitor whether they complied, the Régimen de la Libreta was designed. Every free person aged sixteen to sixty must carry a workbook
—la libreta
—specifying when and where they worked. If they couldn’t prove they had a job, or that they were exempt from
la libreta
because they owned and cultivated at least four
cuerdas
of land, they could be reported to the authorities, fined, jailed, and/or forced to labor in the nearest plantations. If not needed there, they could be assigned to the government’s public works, sometimes far from their hometowns.

But even with these measures, the scarcity of workers was a constant headache for
hacendados
like Ana.
Jíbaros
, unwilling to work in sugar, fled to coffee estates in the mountains. Without enough workers, the slaves were forced to toil beyond exhaustion.

Hacendados
also struggled with the need for credit to keep their haciendas viable. Ana was in a better position than others. She had her grandfather’s legacy, kept from Ramón and, except for the payments to don Luis, unspent.

She wrote to her parents to notify them that she was now a widow, and that her father-in-law had made generous provision for her and for Miguel. She felt no need to give them more details and was certain they wanted none. Her mother’s infrequent letters were filled with the stock phrases of ladies’ correspondence and novelistic sentiments that Ana abhorred. And her father sent his regards through Jesusa’s messages. Ana was alone in the world and knew it. She took pride in never having asked for anything from her father,
mother, or anyone else. The challenges ahead energized her. She rose with the sun, just as ever, tied up her long, black hair, and was confident that no man could claim to be smarter, braver, or more hardworking than she was. She was, she was sure, on the brink of great things.

Two months before the 1850 harvest, Ana projected that Hacienda los Gemelos would show another loss. In preparation for the
zafra
, she met with Severo in early December 1849.

“If all our workers stay healthy,” she said, “we will be short twenty
macheteros
for the three hundred
cuerdas
ready to be harvested,
¿no es así?
”

“
Sí, señora
, that’s my estimate, too.”

“Do you think we can find twenty more men before the
zafra
?”

“Difficult,” he said, “not impossible. I’ll do my best.”

“It might be better to pay them by the job, rather than by the day. They won’t get paid until they finish.”

Severo thought a moment. “Well, yes, I suppose that makes sense.”

“And they can bring as many others to help them as they want.”

“It’s a good idea. The more they cut, the more they earn.”

“We’ll offer them five cents more than the going rate, four pesos per
cuerda.
”

“
Sí
. And another peso for every three full cartloads?”

“Minus the cost of their meals.”

“That’s right.”

“And the facilities?”

“The
trapiche
, as you know, is in bad shape. A steam engine would be more efficient to operate the grinders, and press more liquid than we’re able with wind and animal power.”

“You’ve suggested this for years,” Ana said. Severo nodded. “It’s probably too late to get the machinery here before the
zafra
, but please look into what it will cost.”

“I will, but this might interest you,
señora
. Ingenio Diana, on our eastern boundary, might be for sale.”

“Please, Severo, I don’t need more land. What I need is a higher yield with what we have. Most of our lands aren’t cultivated for lack of workers.”

“Yes, I know,
señora
, but the Diana has a steam engine. It’s not the
latest model, but far more efficient than our configuration. Fewer but more-skilled workers running the machinery means I can redirect others to the fields.”

“I haven’t seen smoke coming from that chimney.”

“Don Rodrigo bought much land from the owners of the Diana,” Severo explained. “They kept the fields closest to their
ingenio
, about thirty
cuerdas
, probably hoping they’d recover the land someday. But after the owner died, his sons moved away. If the land were planted as cane, a
cuerda
would fetch about three hundred pesos each, but most of it has reverted to brush. You can probably get it for about fifty to seventy-five pesos per
cuerda
. It should also be taxed at a lower rate.”

“How far is the
ingenio
from our fields?”

“Manageable,” Severo said. “The hacienda borders San Bernabé to the south, along the road to Guares.”

“Don Luis isn’t interested?”

“He will be, if he hears about it.”

“And you have no interest?”

“I prefer lands along the littoral.”

“I see. What will it take to have the
ingenio
operational?”

“Hard to tell. It has wooden pressers, and there are better ones now, made from iron. An engineer should evaluate it, fix whatever is broken.”

“So it won’t be ready for our harvest?”

“I can’t say until it’s checked.”

“But maybe?”

“I’ll do my best,
señora.
”

Severo kept his meetings with Ana brief because he wanted her so much that he sometimes avoided the
casona
, afraid he’d forget himself and take her right there on the porch, where they conducted their business because it was improper for him to be inside where there was no husband.

Dressed in mourning black, Ana stood out against the lush greenery and colorful flowers that surrounded her as she worked in the gardens or walked to and from the coops and dovecotes, clutching two baskets, a small one for the eggs she collected, a larger one with
the humpbacked infant inside. As the child grew, Ana carried Conciencia in a sling that Flora showed her how to wear like the ones African women used to carry their children. Ana hadn’t been that maternal with her son, and ignored the hacienda children until they were old enough to work. Severo wondered why she’d attached herself so thoroughly to this peculiar child and why she didn’t question where she came from. Would she treat her differently if she knew that Conciencia was Ramón’s daughter?