were
standing. The cathedral and the monastery had been destroyed, though the
hospital and a church had received little damage. There was, he
believed, nothing left to serve as the nucleus of a rebuilt town.

Much discussion followed his report. Some were resolute for rebuilding
the place, which they regarded rightly as the birthplace of the Spanish
settlement of Cuba. Others were equally bent on abandoning it altogether
and migrating to Havana or elsewhere. Opinions were so evenly divided
that it was finally agreed to suspend decision until one other leading
citizen, who was absent from the meeting, could be heard from, with the
understanding that his vote should be decisive.

Then it was that Gomez de Rojas rose to the height of the occasion. He
ascertained secretly that this missing citizen was in favor of
abandoning Santiago and would so declare himself. Determined to
forestall and to prevent such a decision and thus to save the town,
Rojas immediately ordered the clergy to celebrate mass next morning. He
ordered the town authorities to put all the remaining buildings in order
for occupancy and to repair those which had been damaged. He ordered
every man in town to appear at the church that morning, ready for any
action which might be needed. He ordered the Town Council to meet as
usual the next day. He ordered the market to be opened at once, and
artisans to get to work and the Indians to burn the bodies of the
Frenchmen who had been killed in battle, and in brief he ordered
everybody in Santiago to get to work to rehabilitate the town. The sheer
energy of this one strong man carried the day, and Santiago arose from
its ruins larger and more important than ever before, though it was
never again to be the capital of all Cuba. Havana had already for
several years been practically, though without full authority, the
capital of the Island. The formal and authoritative change was made a
few years later, in 1589.

During the administration of Governor Luzan there was some renewed
interest in copper mining in Cuba, although the wealth of the island in
that metal was not yet appreciated. In 1580 what was supposed to be an
immensely rich mine was discovered, but it proved to be a mere "pocket"
of limited extent. That disappointment, together with the cost of
transportation from the neighborhood of Santiago to Havana for shipment,
discouraged further efforts for a time. But in May, 1587, after
inspection of the Cobre mine