Baltasar de Cisneros

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Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros

Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros y la Torre (* 1755 or 1756 or 1758 in Cartagena , Murcia region , Spain; † June 9, 1829 ibid) was a Spanish admiral and viceroy of the Río de la Plata .

Careers in Europe

Baltasar de Cisneros was born the son of a Spanish naval officer. He also embarked on a military career. In 1775 he took part in the Algerian campaign of the Spaniards and fought on the side of the Spaniards against the British in the sea ​​battle at Cape St. Vincent (1797) .

On October 21, 1805, at the Battle of Trafalgar , he commanded the ship Santísima Trinidad , which sank in the course of the battle. He was badly wounded during the battle and captured by the English. After a brief detention in Gibraltar , he was released again, was promoted to lieutenant general for his services, and returned to his hometown of Cartagena to recover from his injuries.

Tenure as viceroy of the Río de la Plata

From 1807 to 1809 he took part in the Spanish resistance against the French occupiers during the War of Independence .

On February 23, 1809 , the Junta Suprema Central appointed him Viceroy of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata . He was supposed to replace Santiago de Liniers , who was assumed to have sympathy for the Napoleonic cause because of his French origins. To be on the safe side, Cisneros first traveled to Montevideo in order to take power in Buenos Aires from there in July 1809. He found the city to be peaceful, and his predecessor passed the official business over without resistance.

Cisneros endeavored to pacify the colony and to reconcile the conflicting interests. His authority was repeatedly called into question - after all, he was the first viceroy not to be appointed by the monarch, but only by the government junta. The growing independence movement resulted in various uprisings, for example in Sucre and La Paz in mid-1809, to which Cisneros sent soldiers to today's Bolivia to defeat them .

In April 1810, news reached the colony that Seville had fallen into the hands of the French and the junta had disbanded. This seriously called into question the legitimacy of the viceroy. A series of heated town meetings ( cabildo abierto ) finally resulted in the May Revolution . Cisnero announced his resignation, but was initially appointed president of a new government junta. On May 25, 1810 , Cisneros was finally deposed by the insurgents led by Cornelio Saavedra , whose goal was independence from Spain.

While Buenos Aires was firmly in the hands of the independence movement, in Montevideo the royalists loyal to Spain retained the majority. The governor there, Francisco Javier de Elío , declared himself the successor in the office of viceroy.

Cisneros initially stayed in the viceroyal palace in Buenos Aires. But since the insurgents saw the danger of a counter-revolution, they expelled him, together with officials from the Real Audiencia of Buenos Aires . On June 22nd, 1810, he sailed on board an English ship towards Europe and reached the Canary Islands on September 4th. In July 1811 he came to Cádiz, where he made himself available to the government of the Cortes of Cádiz .

Late years in Spain

In November 1812, the royalist government junta appointed him general commander of the Cadiz region. After the end of Napoleonic rule, he gained high posts in the Spanish Navy.

During the revolution in Spain in 1820, the liberal insurgents captured Cisneros (along with other high-ranking officers) in order to force the absolutist ruling King Ferdinand VII to take an oath on the constitution of Cadiz . After three years of liberal government, the king restored his absolutist claim. Cisneros was appointed captain general of Cartagena in November 1823. He died in this office in 1829.

literature

(chronologically)

  • José Mediavilla: Don Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, último virrey de las provincias del Río de la Plata . Casa Garnero, Cartagena 1930.
  • Francisco Henares: Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, virrey. A cartagenero en the Río de la Plata . Troquel, Cartagena 1996.
  • Luis Martínez Urrutia: El Virrey Cisneros en la Revolución Argentina de 1810 . Editorial Dunken, Buenos Aires 2003. ISBN 987-02-0386-8 .
  • Julio M. Luqui Lagleyze: La Revolución de Mayo según el relato del Virrey del Río de la Plata Almirante Don Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros . In: Temas de historia argentina y americana , Volume 17 (2010), pp. 239-256.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. In the literature three years of birth are mentioned:
    • Enrique Udaondo: Diccionario Biográfico Colonial Argentino . Institución Miter / Editorial Huarpes, Buenos Aires 1945, p. 442, names July 12th 1755 as the birthday.
    • Carlos Ibarguren: Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros . In: Genealogía Hombres de Mayo , Buenos Aires 1961, pp. 182–186, names January 5, 1756 as the birthday.
    • Michael Riekenberg : Small History of Argentina . CH Beck, Munich 2009, p. 45, names 1758 as the year of birth.
predecessor Office successor
Santiago de Liniers Viceroy of the Río de la Plata
1809–1810
Francisco Javier de Elío