Texidors of Puerto Rico

some excerpts from "Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-century Puerto Rico" by Luis A. Figueroa.

"Catalans and their descendants controlled most of the rest of Guayama's sugar plantations: the Gual, Masso, Pica, Sabater, Virella, and Vives families were Catalonians or first-generation Catalans born in Puerto Rico, while the Texidors were in their second creolized generation.

Next in importance were the French immigrants and their descendants...... [Boyrie, Clausell, Crouzet, Pillot, and Moret families .. and Gaudinau and Blondet-Gaudinau families]"

pg 57

"The Texidor family, of Catalan origin, was Guayama's largest sugar and slaveholding clan, controlling Hacienda Josefa, the second-most productive estate and the one with the district's largest concentration of bonded people (155 slaves) in 1871.  The Texidor brothers, Antonio and Jesus Maria, had founded a smaller estate, Hacienda Puerto, strategically located on Jobos Bay beside the port's village.  Don Jesus Maria Texidor y Vazquez owned still another plantation, Hacienda Gregoria, a midsize estate that was nevertheless Guayama's fifth-most productive in 1872."

pg 57-59

"Don Juan Vives de la Rosa, another Catalan, owned Hacienda Esperanza along with his wife, DonaIsabel Rivera y Texidor, who was half creole and half Catalan.  This hacienda was the fourth-most productive in 1872; significantly, it became known to Guayameses as Hacienda Vives after its owner at emancipation.  Today, visitors to an industrialized Guayama can look at the ruins of the hacienda's sugar mill as well as most of the base of its old windmill, installed early in the nineteenth century by its original owner, Don Jacinto Texidor I.  The government has long promised - but never delivered - funds to convert the hacienda's ruins into a historical museum remembering Guayama's sugar and slave heritage."

pg 59

[Note: "Hacienda Esperanza was the seems to have been the original plantation founded in the early nineteenth century by Don Jacinto Texidor I, a catalan who migrated to Guayama in the last decade of the eighteenth century, and given to Isabel and Juan as dowry ('una dote')." pg 223]  

Don Jacinto Texidor I - migrated in 1790s...

1855-56 - Cholera epidemic kills many slaves, and mostly men of working age.  "Together, free Afro-Puerto Ricans, and African and creole slaves accounted for 94% of Guayama's dead."

pg 74

1865-70 - first abolitionist laws from Spain - outlawed slavery - the main source of labour for haciendas...  along with the Cholera epidemic, led to the decline of production and economic and social crisis in the last years of the 19th Century.

pg 77

..." both contracts [by Francisco Bas Cancina (mulatto carpenter) and the Morets] were terminated on 1 May 1874, although the reasons behind the termination remain unknown.  Bas also contracted another liberto, sixteen-year-old Luis Texidor, a Puerto Rican-born mulatto freedman who had formerly been a slave of Don Jesus M. Texidor.  Luis Texidor's contract with Bas was unusual in that its first clause stated that Bas 'commits himself to pay the liberto one monthly peso as well as to teach him the trade of carpenter and to provide him with food.'"

pg 141

"Other contracts between libertos and artisans containing provisions for training or education have survived.  For example, Don Manuel Munro hired Ruperto Texidor, age nineteen, to work as a domestic servant and general assistant in exchange for food, clothing, medical attention, and training as a baker."

pg 142

Another case of pre-1873 liberto buying land in Guayam after 1870 is that of Adelaida Texidor. Armed with money inherited from Don Antonio Texidor y Vazquez shortly before the abolition of slavery, it appears that she first purchased her freedom and then bought a relatively large farm consisting of 175 cuerdas and a house in the piedmont of barrio Carmen (then known as Quebrada Yeguas), from Don Luis Rodriguez for 875 pesos.  In addition, she purchased from Don Bautista Rubio another 25 cuerdas that has previously belonged to that farm, paying 125 pesos. WhateverAdelaida's intentions in purchasing these properties, they did not remain in her hands for long.  In November 1873, Adelaida sold 40 cuerdas of land for 325 pesos to Jaime Cristian. In February 1876, she sold 12 additional cuerdas for 108 pesos to a peasant named Santos Morales y Figueroa who owned adjacent land.  On 16 March 1876, she sold the remaining portion of the farm to Cristian for 400 pesos, meaning that she lost 42 pesos overall on the transactions."

pg 154

... "Perhaps not by coincidence, the purchase of the largest tract of land by a liberto after the abolition of slavery was done by the surviving son of Adelaida Texidor, Pedro Texidor, an endowed ex-slave who appears to have obtained his freedom at an early age. Pedro bought 110 cuerdas in the non-sugar-plantation section of Pena Hendida of barrio Pozo Hondo for 1100 pesos in 1874, right after receiving his inheritance from the estate of Don Antonio Texidor. Unfortunately, like his mother, Pedro failed to hold onto his property for long..."

pg 155

".. The Pozo Hondo property was not, however, the only land Pedro owned: in July 1894, his four sons sold 29 cuerdas of land in barrio Palmas.  Pedro seems to have obtained this land before 1870, but no notarized transaction has been found."

pg 155

"Another liberto couple who sought to obtain land in Guayama's non-sugar peasant barrios was Angelina Vinas and Juan de la Cruz Texidor, formerly slaves of Haciendas Carlota and Josefa (see 2nd paragraph above)." ... " land located in Guamani." -... Angelina and Juan married. 

pg 157

"..plots bought by siblings Nicasia Texidor and Ignacio Gual in May 1873 and by Felipe Texidor in 1880.  Nicasia and Ignacio purchased a small plot of land in the section of barrios Jobos known as La Puente, including a house located on the plot, for 100 pesos.  Felipe Texidor paid 250 pesos in Sept 1880 for a well-built house and its lot located in the port of Jobos, right in front of Hacienda Puerto, one of the plantations of the Texidor family for whom he had toiled as a slave."

pg 162

Here are a few Texidor families from Puerto Rico and America....  Feel free to request information... use the comment box below... or Contact Me

TEXIDOR VAZQUEZ m. RIVERA SANJURJO
    RIVERA TEXIDOR
        RIVERA VAZQUEZ  (VAZQUEZ AGUILAR)
        VIVES RIVERA (VIVES ROSA)
    TEXIDOR ORTIZ

TEXIDOR CHIA m. MARTELO DELGADO
    TEXIDOR MARTELO
        TEXIDOR SOLER
            RODRIGUEZ TEXIDOR
        GIGI TEXIDOR
        TEXIDOR LOPEZ
            TEXIDOR RODRIGUEZ
                TEXIDOR SCHULTE
        CABASSA TEXIDOR
            GAUDIER CABASSA
            CABASSA LLOREDA
        GAUDIER TEXIDOR

            GAUDIER ESTEVE

            GAUDIER LLERA

            GAUDIER GANDILLA

            GAUDIER CABASSA
        GALIANO TEXIDOR
        CARTEGENA TEXIDOR
        TEXIDOR DALMAU
        TEXIDOR PULIDA
            PULIDA GAUDIER

TEXIDOR BRACERO
    RIVERA TEXIDOR
        RIVERA RIVERA

SANTOS TEXIDOR
    FERNANDEZ SANTOS

TEXIDOR CARABALLO

TEXIDOR NEGRON
    TEXIDOR BONILLA

TEXIDOR RODRIGUEZ
    TEXIDOR VEGA

TEXIDOR PIZARRO
    TEXIDOR NAZARIO

TEXIDOR RAMOS
    TEXIDOR SILVA
        TEXIDOR MATOS
        TEXIDOR BERMUDEZ
        MELENDEZ TEXIDOR
        VEGA TEXIDOR

TEXIDOR BERNIER
    TEXIDOR JUST
    BELAVAL TEXIDOR
        ENTRIAGO BELAVAL