The Bad ...

Every family has its black sheep, and this one is no exception.  Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y del Castillo, el padre de patria [the father of the country], earned that name by starting the process that eventually led to Cuban liberation from the Spanish, but it might equally as well have been earned by his apparent attempt to single handedly populate the island by fathering at least three illegitimate children with two different lovers, as well as six legitimate children by his two wives.

No family genealogy can go back 1000 years without including the occasional illegitimate child.  There are several in this family but one is of special importance.  Jaime, the son of Alfonso IV, king of Aragon and Valencia, was 15 years old when he had a daughter by a doncella [maiden] whose name the history books forgot.  They also forgot to record the name of the daughter but she’s important to the history of the Figueredo family because she was the thirteenth great grandmother of Perucho Figueredo and the only know link to the royal family of Aragon.

Two other stories are included here.  The first concerns the brother of Alfonso IV, who immediately following his marriage to the 12 year old Eleanor, Princess of Castile, jumped on his horse and rode off into the sunset, abandoning his bride and his claim to the throne of Aragon.  As if this weren’t enough, nearly ten years later, Alfonso IV, himself, married the now 21 year old Eleanor, making her queen of Aragon.  They say that Eleanor was a bitter and unhappy queen, but that’s just talk.  Click on: the prince who didn't want to marry the princess to read the whole story.

It’s well documented that the first Figueredo came to the New World and settled in Jamaica.  It’s also well known that a few generations later the family lived in Cuba.  What isn’t well known is the reason for the move.  If you read the story I’m about to tell, you’ll learn how the first Figueredo to step onto Cuban soil may have arrived under lock and chain, deported from Jamaica on a charge of murder !  Read about it at: who killed the governor?

Then there was the story that Jaime, mentioned above, was killed, poisoned, by his brother and we read about a certain prince who, following the death of his father, arrested and tortured his step-mother because “his attacks of ill-health were due to the practise of witchcraft on her part”.  But these are for another web page……