THE
MALDONADO
Is there anyone else here? No? Ah, that is good. Are you a genealogist? No? A definite pity, believe you me. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Blessed elpadre and I was sent here to pay for my justifiable reactions to some of my many, more mundane experiences and for supposedly usurping some people into my family tree that do no belong there.... Why Blessed? I think it is because I did something that helped a few of my Muertitos get top billing, and now they have sent me here but, I assure you, only for a little while, you see, they need me elsewhere and besides, the Boss knows I hate this type of experience in nowhere lands, so I won't be here for too long.
Why don't I like it? Cause I hate the dark, it's the pits and besides I am in training to be the next bonafide, authentic patron saint of genealogists, because of the insurmountable obstacles that I have been graced to overcome. How do I know I am the next.........? Well! What a way to show your ignorance, friend. I, me, myself, was the discoverer of MUERTITO HEAVEN, OK? and... GASP, you haven't read about me and Muertito Heaven? This is terrible, you'd better click here and read for a while before we go into the rest of my story, otherwise this isn't gonna make much sense:
You're back already, huh? Well, now you know. Why am I here if the Boss is going to make me the patron saint? I told you, I had some justifiable reasons for letting off some steam. Let me explain, it all began when I tried to find out who the Maldonado were and...What is it now? My, you do ask a lot of questions, you're sure you are not a genealogist? Yes, I will try to be succint, but it'll be pretty difficult, since you are a novice about all of this.
There I was minding my own business and trying to find my great grand father, Natalio, when I realized I knew absolutely nothing about his family. So, just by luck some character wrote a book and... Hey would you be quiet for a second and stop asking so many questions, you're worse than the neófita. If you want to become wiser you gotta pay attention, how are you going to learn, eh? If you don't shut up, you'll never make it to Muertito Heaven, they'll leave you here for ages and ages, believe you me.
Anyway, some guy named Leonardo SANTANA RABELL wrote a book about the "Historia de Vega Alta de Espinosa", so I ordered the book and, the day it came in, I proceeded to read it after my long workday. I read all evening and all night stopping only to go eat and other necessities of life that none can help me with, finding a Maldonado family mentioned various times. I thought I'd flip and, I must say, I yelled for joy for, you see, one of my Papi Che's grandfathers had a certain reputation as a "don juan" for he had children from at least three different wives at last count. Natalio OQUENDO MALDONADO, originally from the town of Morovis, was the son of criollo parents, Juan Bautista OQUENDO DE LOS SANTOS (origin unknown) and his wife, María Isabel MALDONADO RIVERA. She was supposedly native to the town of Vega Alta situated east of Corozal, in the northern coastal part of PR west of the Metropolitan area, right next to Vega Baja, my home town. There was a lot of info on the family, one of the wealthier ones at one particular moment, present after the foundation in the 1790's so I was happier than a pig in a pigsty about reading the book, know what I mean?
Anyway, the author says a lot about the Maldonados and especially on pages 198-199, talks about a certain Benito MALDONADO DE JESUS and his wife María RIVERA and their children. I became ecstatic when I read this, for those were exactly the combination of surnames that I was seeking, MALDONADO RIVERA. On p. 198, both of the parents of Benito are mentioned, José MALDONADO and Antonia DE JESUS, and then the children: Juan Angel, María del Carmen, María Higinia, Mara Aquilina, Juana Bautista, Francisco y Rafael. I couldn't help my self then, so I went to Vega Alta's parish, Nuestra Señora de la Inmaculada Concepción, and I got permission to see the books myself and boy was I in for a biiiiiiiiiiig surprise.
And THAT'S when I ran into trouble and the reason I am here. It's the pits, I tell you, the pits. What do you mean "Go on with the story"? Can't you see I am disturbed? Ok, ok, but it was the DEEP pits, man. I went back to the Parish about six times before I met a guy named Benjamín Negrón, one of the town's historians and an excellent one at that. If it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't have understood my Muertitos at all....
You see, the Muertitos tried, right from the beginning, to get the idea over to me about where I should look but I was so excited I was not listening. For some reason, Book I of Marriage Books was not available so I picked up the other Book I which contained Coloured Marriage records (records were segregated at that time). The very first entry (VA1P.1.1) was of another Benito whose surnames were MALDONADO ARROYO, son of Agustín and María, who married, on the 7th of January 1815, a certain Agueda CRESPO FERRER, daughter of Casimiro and Juana, the latter family from Vega Baja. When, on the reverse side of page two (2v.4), I found his brother's April 5th, 1815 marriage to a certain María de la Assumpción CRESPO FERRER, this daunted me.
These couldn't be MY Maldonado family, these were poor mixed descendants of whites fooling around with their slave girls. And although I had no problem being a descendant of slaves, these weren't the Maldonado from the book. So, I went to lunch and missed meeting the historian, Benjamín Negrón, by about a minute. When I got back, Book No. I was there....and it was much nicer since I began to find the marriage records of the children of the Josef MALDONADO and Antonia DE JESUS I thought had to be my ancestors. But here, I ran into some confusion since there were Maldonados the book didn't even mention: VA1.8v.13 had a widower, Juan Antonio MALDONADO, son of Josef and Antonia, marrying a widow, Juliana LOPEZ; a María de los Angeles MALDONADO, daughter of Josef and Antonia, marrying (VA1.16v.27) a Jose Antonio AVILES, etc etc. My gut feeling was that something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. So, I decided to look into the baptismal records.
I found Maldonados galore including several of the children and then the grandchildren of Josef Maldonado and Antonia de Jesús Colón (found out her 2nd last name on the record of a baptism (VA2.200). There were more children to Benito and Antonia than the book pointed out and that made my gut level feeling into full flung suspición that these Maldonados were further back in my tree than I had initially believed and there was only one way to find out. I began to search for the children and the grandchildren of the OTHER Maldonado, trying to see if he had a son that could be Natalio's father and the pay off link to all these Maldonado. Starting in 1843, I found marriage certificates of his children by Agueda CRESPO FERRER, who as I stated above, was from Vega Baja, and since I was staying over at the parish in Vega Baja, I decided to try and find them. I did, several of them. Then, the next thing I knew I was calling up the historian I had heard about and boldly explaining and then getting his offer: he would look for me, free of charge, since he was working on the books, anyway. And he suggested that I continue looking in the archives of the Parish of Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Vega Baja para ver si aparecían más hijos CRESPO FERRER.
I went back to Vega Alta early the next morning and picked up where I had left off and got no where by nine so I went to Corozal and the priest, who was one of my companions of my seminary days covering the pastor's two month vacation, allowed me to look, but the only thing I found was Natalio's older brother's baptismal certificates from 1867 and 1868. And I became discouraged. I was about to give up the whole thing. Maldonados all over the place even that great-grand uncle from Corozal, but no Natalio. It was the pits: names, dates, different Benito's. I even began to think that one Benito was the son of the other. It was the pits, but maybe Morovis could help me. So, I began to do the rounds, boy I ran all over the place. I went to Morovis, I went to the General Archives, I went back to Vega Alta, I went to the Archdiocesan Archives were Else helped me greatly, I went to Manatí where I got no help from the pastor, I even went back to Vega Baja.....
You know what I found? From Morovis, some baptismal certificates of some of my great-grandfather Natalio's other brothers and sisters and his parents' marriage certificate from 1877, which taught me that they they were common law spouses for at least ten years; some marriage certificates of Benito's children by Agueda; at the General Archives I found letters signed by the other Benito who functioned as Mayor and in slave bills; at the Archdiocesan Records I found dispensations so that two of Benito's grandchildren could marry in the Church. Alot of information, but I was still stumped on Natalio's origins. That night, the historian called me and told me the cold facts. Those people from the book were not my Maldonados and yes, there seemed to be great confusion as to the number and names of the children of the book's wealthy Benito MALDONADO DE JESUS and his wife, Maria DEL ROSARIO RIVERA. Benito MALDONADO ARROYO became a widower and on December 1, 1843 married María José RIVERA MELENDEZ (VA2P.172), legitimate daughter of Juan Segundo RIVERA AYALA and his first cousin, Lucia MELÉNDEZ AYALA. Since he married for the first time in January of 1815 and then again almost 29 years later, he must have been over thirty years older than María José, who then proceeded to have only one child as far as the records are concerned.
However, the interesting thing about the whole thing is that even if they were Pardo, that is coloured, the town's who's who of most important individuals are all written up as sponsers of the wedding. WHY? The document literally enumerates under "witnesses" the following: "Juan García, Faustino Molina, Juan Vélez, Don Juan de la Lara, Eduarda Jacinta Canales, Doña María de los Dolores de Santiago, Don José Cancel, Don Tomás de Caceres y varios otros". This is highly unusual for several reasons: first, most entries have one or two sponsers stated, at the most three; two, why are there so many whites witnessing this marriage? (the Don and Doña point that out); and three, none of the witnesses belong to the family of the other Benito.
In the following weeks, I found some other certificates of the children of Juan Bautista OQUENDO DE LOS SANTOS and María Isabel RIVERA MELÉNDEZ, 13 to date, daughter of Benito and María José, but no Natalio. So now, I know of the Maldonado except for what relationship exists between the two Benito's if any since the surnamed MALDONADO DE JESUS is stated as being from Arecibo while the MALDONADO ARROYO are supposed to be from Toa Alta. And it is just my luck that both parishes have those particular books missing: the book from Toa Alta was borrowed by a well known historian who hasn't returned it and the one from Manatí was given over to the Archivo General since it was in such bad condition. I ranted and raged and made a scene both at Toa Alta and San Juan and told someone off at the General Archives because they insisted that since the pastor gave the book for safe keeping not even the Bishop's letter to search the parish records freely, gave me the right to see the book.
Oh, and about Natalio OQUENDO MALDONADO, one day I called the parish in Morovis and there was a new secretary, she finally found his baptism certificate by searching page by page (MOR11.268.865). The document stated he was born on the thirtieth of November, 1869. Later, she found the marriage certificate (MOR5.153.160) of the 14 of January, 1889, recording his marriage to a Juana Petrona DE LA CRUZ NATAL from Naranjito (NAR5.111.250). Now, if only I could find my Natalio and Juana Petrona's son Luis, who is my grandfather. He died at the age of 33, in 1928, records say of a hernía and his sisters claim of drinking a concoction given to him by a woman who was in love with him. Now, where could he have been born?.....
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Well, that's the story. I ranted and raged for about a week and then I was sent to write this up as a punishment and leave it engraved on this wall for posterity's sake and, hey, did you hear that? Oh, oh, someone else is coming... Oh my God, did you see that? Yes, I am FREE, that is a MUERTITO coming for me. Man, it's my business to know, besides I got the Boss's number. I guess it must be time to discover another Muertito someplace, and since I'm better than the Ghost Busters they are finally realizing my usefulness. YES, I'M COMING, BOSS. Good bye, now . A pleasure to meet you, may the Muertitos, the dear dead ones of your family, help you find your way out of here. Well, if you will excuse me, I gotta get going, here's my cloud..............
Pulse el Ángel:
si desea leer el cuento de Los Maldonado en español.
Part IV: El Patrón
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©1998 por la Dra. Ana Cristina y el Padre José Antonio Oquendo Pabón (para esta página. Todos los Derechos Reservados.)
©1997 por la Dra. Ana Cristina y el Padre José Antonio Oquendo Pabón (por "Nuestros Muertitos" y "Muertito Heaven". Todos los Derechos Reservados).
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