We recently visited Saint Augustine, a beautiful place with a lot of history that was founded on September 8, 1565 by the Spanish Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Pedro Menendez de Aviles was a relative of my ancestor and 10th great grandfather, Diego Menendez de Valdes. Diego made his first trip to the Spanish colonies in 1564 with the troops sent by Philip II, under the command of Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Thanks to the Puerto Rican historian and my relative, Luis Burset, I have learned a lot about my ancestor Francisco Delgado de Poley. Francisco Delgado Poley was born in Écija, Seville, Spain in 1544. Son of Marcos Delgado Valderrama and Leonor de Poley Bermudo.-1560 and 1565 he served in the San Pablo galley of Captain Juan de Valdivia as an arquebusier. (a galley was an ancient sailing-rowed warship and an arquebusier was a soldier armed with an arquebus or a portable rifle-like firearm)
-November 1565, he recruited with the company of Captain Juan de Zurita in Arcos de la Frontera, Cádiz.
- In Sanlúcar de Barrameda he took part in "el socorro" that took place in Medina-Sidonia, there they made him a squad corporal.
-Then he went to La Florida where he worked in the construction of Fort San AgustÃn as a foreman. (a foreman is a head of a group of corporals)
-He was one of 100 soldiers that Captain Juan de Zurita brought to Puerto Rico at the request of Governor Francisco Bahamón de Lugo.
-He participated in the defense against the English invasion of the Earl of Cumberland in 1598.
-1567, he fought against the fearsome Carib Indians in the port of Guayama.
-He was appointed captain of the Fortaleza and fuerza del Morro by MartÃn de Vozmediano Rivadeneyra in 1581, the year in which boats of French corsairs entered the port of San Juan.
- 1582, Juan de Melgarejo, interim governor of the island, appointed him sergeant major of all the soldiers on the island.
-He was appointed major worker of the fortification works of El Morro, la caleta del cabrón (The la caleta del cabrón today is the Escambrón) and the Aguilar bridge, and supplier of it. "He was ordered by the governor to collect brick, stone, lime and rough materials to make the strength of the nose, ordering "that all the grifos, Indians, mulattoes, blacks, horros, and mestizos go to this witness so that he can send them to them." go to work at the said fortress of the Morro..." until the said fortress of the Morro was finished." (Juan de Melgarejo, Governor of Puerto Rico: work carried out in San Juan. 1582. AGI, Patronato, 175, R.37, f 764. )
- 1589, is ordinary mayor of the city of San Juan de Puerto Rico.
-April 1600 he is a lieutenant of the governor (the lieutenant of the governor was the "second" of the governor on the island)
-In information presented by Delgado in 1566, his physical description is included:
"...he is a man of medium height and fat, white-faced, blond, pale-eyed and has a sign of a pierced wound on the [corner of his head] and on the left side of the brain a sign of a wound that makes a round hole that looks like a stone and a little above the said forehead another sign of a pierced wound and on the lower lip of the mouth there is another sign of a long-term wound..." (Source: Information from Francisco Delgado. 1569 , 1583. AGI, Santo Domingo, 169, f 88v.)
Luis Burset tells us "the round wound on the left side of the brain must have been from an indigenous baton, and not from a stone. In 1566 he had faced Carib Indians in Guayama, and they had left him for dead due to the number of injuries he suffered in the encounter."
-1568 he married Doña Juana Manso de Espinosa, legitimate daughter of Alonso DÃaz Manso and Isabel de Espinosa. During their marriage they had many children and lived in a stone house in the city of San Juan.
From now on when we visit Castillo del Morro and Escambrón in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Castillo de San Marcos in Saint Augustine, Florida let's remember our ancestor Francisco Delgado de Poley who was the main worker of the fortification works of El Morro, the Escambrón and the Aguilar bridge and worked in the construction of Fort San AgustÃn as a foreman.
Francisco Delgado de Poley is my 10th great grandfather.
