The 17th century is a time of transition for Puerto Rico. In 1600 - a long time before the Mayflower set sail for Plymouth Rock - the settlers are in the midst of their colonization effort. By 1700, a creole society is slowly evolving as a different entity from European-born Spaniards. The century is also a century of many trials and tribulations.
In 1625, the Dutch sack the capital and when the islanders try to get back on their feet after a successful defense, the pest strikes some years later. With the population decimated, the Spanish military has to get reinforcements into Puerto Rico from other colonies. And that's how it happened that Sergeant Marcos Zapata y Cobarrubias, who was born in Mexico City as the son of Cristóbal Zapata and María Cobarrubias, marries Ana de Avila on November 9, 1660, at the cathedral of Puerto Rico, the capital of the island of San Juan as it was named then. Ana de Avila - or Dávila in its modern spelling was the legitimate daughter of Juan Pabón and Francisca de Avila. It is only during the 18th century that all the children of a legal marriage begin to accept the father's surname. Until then, the first-born son generally used the father's surname while other children often adopted the name of the mother or even of one of the grandparents.
Marcos Zapata establishes himself in San Juan and has several children. However, it appears that only one son, another Marcos Zapata, stays in San Juan and marries there. By the time of this marriage on August 14, 1700, the old sergeant has been promoted in rank to alférez. The second Marcos married at the cathedral of the capital one of the many immigrants from Tenerife, María Flora Bello Rodríguez, a daughter of Francisco Bello and Luisa Rodríguez.
Again there are probably several children, but it is one son, Martín, born on February 12, 1714, who becomes the ancestor of most, and possibly all, of the Zapatas who now live in Puerto Rico. Martín left San Juan and worked on corsairs. He seems to have had some knowledge of medicine such as it was in those times. We do not know much else about his early years except that at some point he lived in San Carlos, now a suburb of the capital of the Dominican Republic. He married a María González of that town and had a daughter, Bernardina.
After the death of his wife, he decided to move to Puerto Rico. Apparently he left Bernardina in San Juan, possibly with relatives, while he bought land in barrio Sabana Eneas of San Germán, the second most important town of the island that dominated the western part of Puerto Rico. When he marries Baltazara, a daughter of Captain Juan López de Victoria (d. Jan 2, 1799) and Margarita Ramírez de Arellano (d. Jan 29, 1799), he joins one of the most prominent families of the area.
Martín and Baltazara have 11 known children: Lorenzo (m. 1794 to Paula Pérez), Antonio (m. to Antonia Tenorio), Gregorio (m. to María Monserrate Lugo), Teodora (m. to Diego Ramírez de Arellano), Petronila (m. 1799 to Félix Ortiz de Peña), Juan (m. 1798 to Lucía Mayén Cancel), Juana Paula (m. to Antonio Pérez de Bonilla), María del Rosario (m. to José Pérez de la Cruz), Eugenia Antonia (m. to Tomás Antonio Irizarry; the couple lived probably in Mayagüez), María Merced (m. to Santiago Montalvo) and, my favorite, Pablo Zapata, married four times and father of 19 children.
The family spreads out from Sabana Eneas where old Martín Zapata Bello died in 1797, to various sectors of the San Germán and Cabo Rojo/Lajas barrios with many living in Las Tuna and Llanos Costa, but some moving as far away as the mountains of Maricao and Mayagüez as mentioned above.
At least two of Martín Zapata's sons have some medical knowledge and are mentioned in a document from Cabo Rojo as prácticos en medicina. It is interesting to note that the majority of Martín's children and Martín himself reach old age at a time when mortality in younger persons was very high. It is impossible in this context to write about all the descendents of this family, but I would like to talk a bit about my favorite, Pablo.
Pablo Zapata married for the first time on October 20, 1788, in Mayagüez. His wife María Monserrate was the daughter of Vicente Feliciano and Clemencia Rodríguez, possibly of the well-known Rodríguez de la Seda family. María Monserrate died before 1831 after having given birth to a total of 16 children. As we know all but two birthdates, I can confirm that 14 of them were born between 1791 and 1811; often she had a baby each year. María Monserrate was pregnant almost all the time from the time she married until she was probably in her forties. Under the circumstances it is surprising - and maybe evidence of the medical knowledge of her husband - that 14 of these children grew up to marry and one who did not marry lived to the age of 60. Only one died a child of eight.
After the death of his first wife, Pablo married again in 1831. He has two more children with María del Rosario Padilla in 1831 and 1834. After he is widowed a second time, he almost immediately marries in 1834 Isabel Pagán. It is obvious that Pablo, by now at least in his sixties and with two babies to care for, needs another wife. Another little boy is born in 1838 and after the mother's death, Pablo marries a fourth time in 1845. This time he has no more children and dies probably in 1848. The burial book for those years is lost, but when his fourth wife dies soon after, she is already widowed.
Pablo Zapata is the ancestor of my husband in one line and of one of my daughters-in-law in three lines. Certainly my grandchildren Christopher and Monika Acosta Zapata have more Zapata blood in their veins than Acosta's.
The Zapatas were a very endogamic family, that is they frequently intermarried with cousins and a relatively small number of families of the area, at least until this century when exogamous marriages become more and more common. Some of the names that appear frequently with the Zapatas are Ramírez de Arellano, López de Victoria, Ferrer, Martínez, Ortiz de Peña and some others. It was common until the late 19th century and even the beginning of this century that many persons not only married partners from the same town or barrio, but within a closely defined range of families. The reasons were partly economic and partly racial. If you married within the family, the land did not go to other families and you knew the racial mixture (or rather non-mixture) of the spouse.
It is interesting to note that although some of the Zapatas had slaves, they do not appear to have had a large number of them. It seems that there were no large land holdings, but rather smaller farms, possibly because land had previously been divided to a certain extent among many children. On smaller farms, the number of slaves was not very high.
The Zapatas also did not take part in the municipal government of Cabo Rojo and the other towns. As far as I know, only one, Pablo's brother Gregorio, was a barrio commissioner. Today the Zapatas still form often closely-knit middle-class families. Many of them have moved away from the area, many are professionals, but most probably know their roots are in Cabo Rojo, Lajas and San Germán.