Don Miguel de Gijón y León

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Don Miguel de Gijón y León, conde de Casa Gijón in a different spelling also Don Miguel de Jijón y León (born September 28, 1717 in Cayambe ( Pichincha , Ecuador ), † September 11, 1794 in Jamaica ) was a Hispanic American businessman, nobleman , and confidante of Pablo de Olavide .

Live and act

He was the son of the grail. Cristóbal de Jijón y Oronoz (1682 – ca. 1733), Corregidor de Otavalo y Alcalde de Quito in 1724 and Doña Manuela de León y Chiriboga (1687–1741). The parents were married on February 22nd, 1706 in Riobamba , ( Chimborazo in Ecuador). The couple had a total of seven sons and one daughter. Miguel de Gijón was the second son. Not far from Otavalo , the parents owned a hacienda called San José de Peguche , along with other estates . The family also owned a cloth factory.

His early schooling he received by preceptors , preceptores . After the death of the father he took over the management of the family property for a time and after the death of the mother finally. During the period of administration by his mother, however, the land and production facilities were in poor condition. With money borrowed from his relative Clemente Sánchez de Orellana (1707–1782), he was able to resume production and continue it successfully from 1741 onwards.

In Bogotá , Don Miguel de Gijón bought emeralds , which he later sold in Cartagena , not without incurring the hardship and wrath of the gemstone dealers there. He reinvested the profit from the sale in his projects in Quito. In Bogotá, he made friends with the incumbent viceroy Sebastián de Eslava y Lazaga (1684–1759).

He was one of the first founding members and was subsequently the first chairman of the famous Escuela de la Concordia and worked as the secretary of Eugenio Espejo . A doctor and lawyer by training, Espejo was a pioneer of independence during the Spanish colonial rule in later Ecuador.

In 1751 he decided to travel to the motherland Spain via a southern route around Cape Horn in order to visit Lima on this occasion . He stayed there for a year not only because of a very serious illness, but also for various commercial intentions. During this time, Don Miguel de Gijón made with his future friend Pablo de Olavide. In 1752 he changed his mind about the itinerary and decided to sail via Paita on a northern route.

The journey turned out to be difficult, the arduous land and sea route, first a robust path via Panama to Cartagena and finally to Havana were just some of the obstacles. Finally he reached Cadiz in the motherland. But when he got there, his financial fortune had shrunk considerably. In Madrid in 1754 he met again with Pablo de Olavide. In 1756 he lived in the center of Madrid on Carrera de San Jerónimo . He dealt intensively with the ideas of the French Enlightenment. But he was also friends with Pedro Pablo de Aranda . Also a Knight of the Order of Santiago , Caballero de la Orden de Santiago was beaten in the 1756th

In 1771 he bought a piece of land in the municipality of Málaga, he named it La Carolina Malagueña and began to urbanize it , the population called the barrio "Nuevo Mundo" for short, out of recognition and because of the origin of its founder. In this city of Málaga he organized, in honor of the Spanish King Charles III. from Spain , the construction of the new district known today as La Carolina Malagueña. The king rewarded him for his services. By royal decree of June 3, 1784, Don Miguel de Gijón was awarded the non-inheritable title of Conde de Casa Jijón y Vizconde de la Carolina Malagueña .

In the spring of 1767, the Minister of Finance, Secretario de Estado de Hacienda Miguel de Múzquiz y Goyeneche (1719–1785) appointed him insolvency administrator over the assets of the Colegio Imperial de Madrid , which had been taken over by the Jesuits. In June of the same year he stayed in the Nuevas Poblaciones de Sierra Morena y Andalucía . After he had to leave Spain in 1776 and found refuge in France. During his stay he came into contact with the ideas of the French Enlightenment , he was friends with Denis Diderot and also knew John Adams . John Adams was first in France and Paris on February 15, 1778 to June 17, 1779. In January 1780, Don Miguel de Gijón met Diderot in such a way that Diderot learned of the effects of the Spanish Inquisition before his first meeting with the escaped de Olavadie in Paris in 1781 . This caused great consternation among Enlightenment thinkers. Diderot wrote a biography about de Olavide in the Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique .

From 1754 he lived in Madrid , where he was considered a close friend of Pablo de Olavide. In 1776 he became a member of the Sociedades económicas de amigos del país in Madrid. In April 1777 he gave a lecture on The Use of the Thermometer for Sericulture , El uso del termómetro para la cría de los gusanos de seda .

In 1790 Don Miguel de Gijón was to be tried in a court in Lima, he had to appear for this within the next four months or he would risk arrest. Suspecting that he would lose the Lima trial, he decided to flee. Together with his brother Manuel and his nephew Tomás Gijón y Chiriboga, who accompanied him, the now seventy-three-year-old Don Miguel de Gijón went over the Marañón to the village of Ega, which was on Portuguese territory in Brazil.

He died unmarried of a tragic accident on the west Indian island of Jamaica while fleeing the viceroyalty of New Granada in the direction of Spain .

Works (selection)

  • El uso del termómetro para la cría de los gusanos de seda. 1777.
  • Noticia circunstanciada del cultivo del algarrobo que en ella se hace.
  • Informe para las reglas de la elaboración de un Monte de Piedad para socorrer a los labradores.

literature

  • Ovidio García Regueiro: El quiteño don Miguel de Jijón y León: contribución al estudio de la figura de un 'ilustrado' criollo. In: Cuadernos hispanoamericanos. 400, Oct. 1983, pp. 91-118.
  • José Antonio Escudero López (coord.): Intolerancia e Inquisición: [Actas del Congreso Internacional de Intolerancia e Inquisición celebrado en Madrid… y Segovia… en February 2004]. Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, 2006, ISBN 84-96411-06-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Jump up ↑ Jorge Núñez Sánchez: Miguel de Gijón y León, un adelantado del libre comercio internacional Miguel de Gijón y León, an advance of free trade. Department of Historia Universidad de Santiago de Chile. Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales Palimpsesto Nº 2, Vol. 1, 2004: pp ISSN  0717-5248 (PDF; 86.8 kB)
  2. ↑ Biographical data on Don Miguel de Gijón y León
  3. ↑ MCN Biography. Jijón y León, Miguel de (1717-1794).
  4. ↑ Family genealogy
  5. ^ Gijón - Escudo Heráldico Oct 3, 2009 by Eduardo J Farias Ramos
  6. ↑ Miguel de Jijon y León. diccionariobiograficoecuador.com. Detailed biography in Spanish
  7. ↑ Miguel de Jijon y León. diccionariobiograficoecuador.com. Detailed biography in Spanish
  8. ^ Segundo E. Moreno Yánez: Noticias de Ecuador. Un quiteño indexado. ( Memento from November 26, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Diario HOY. October 23, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Gijón y León, Don Miguel de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jijón y León, Don Miguel de; Gijón, Don Miguel de Gijón y León, conde de Casa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hispanic businessman, nobleman, and confidante of Pablo de Olavide
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1717
PLACE OF BIRTH Cayambe ( Pichincha , Ecuador )
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1794
Place of death Jamaica