Benito Pérez Brito
Benito Pérez Brito de Valdelomar (* 1747 in Barcelona , Spain , † 1813 in Panama City , today Panama ) was a Spanish officer and colonial administrator who served as Viceroy of New Granada.
Life
Military career
Pérez Brito worked as an engineer in the Royal Spanish Army. He first served in the Spanish campaign in Algeria and in the war in Portugal. Under the orders of Bernardo de Gálvez , he took part in the Battle of Pensacola (1781) and in the capture of Mobile (Alabama) .
In 1783 he traveled to Mexico with José de Ezpeleta . There he worked as a cartographer and created topographic maps of the areas between Acapulco and Guatemala .
In 1797 he was deployed as a colonel in Puerto Rico , where he supervised the fortification work in order to repel the attack by the English.
In 1799 he was appointed captain general of the Yucatán and served there in Mérida until 1810.
Tenure as Viceroy of New Granada
In August 1810, the government council in Cádiz appointed Pérez Brito viceroy of New Granada to replace Francisco Javier Venegas , who was originally intended to succeed Antonio Amar y Borbón , but was appointed viceroy of New Spain for a short time .
The viceroyalty was already in the process of dissolution: large parts of the colony were in the hands of the independence movement, including the capital Bogotá .
Pérez Brito first traveled to Havana to get military reinforcements to fight the rebels. After Mexico and the other parts of the Spanish colonies in South America were also in turmoil, this effort was unsuccessful.
First he built the Real Audiencia for the Viceroyalty in Portobelo in 1812 . He later organized a provisional government for the Spanish-controlled parts of New Granada in Panamá .
He tried to support the royalist forces in Santa Marta , but he lacked the means for effective military action against the rebels. In June 1813 he resigned from office and died soon after in Panama.
Web links
- Biography (spanish)
- Short biography (Spanish)
- Short biography (Spanish)
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
|
Francisco Javier Venegas appointed |
Viceroy of New Granada 1810–1813 |
Francisco Montalvo y Ambulodi |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pérez Brito, Benito |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pérez Brito de Valdelomar, Benito (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish officer and colonial administrator, Viceroy of New Granada |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1747 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Barcelona , Spain |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1813 |
| Place of death | Panama City , now Panama |