Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva

Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, Duke of Linares

Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva , 1st Duke (Spanish: duque) of Linares , Margrave (Spanish: marqués) of Valdefuentes , Spanish grandee (born April 15, 1662 in Madrid , † June 3, 1717 in Mexico City , today Mexico ) was a Spanish officer and colonial administrator who served as Viceroy of New Spain.

Life

Origin and family

Fernando de Alencastre came from a family of the Spanish nobility. His father was the second Duke of Abrantes. The name Alencastre is a Portuguese version of the English Lancaster ; the first ancestors settled in the time of the English King Edward III. settled in Portugal.

Career at the Spanish court

Fernando de Alencastre was one of the confidants of the Spanish King Philip V , he was his chamberlain and held high offices in Sardinia administered by Spain . Alencastre was Lieutenant General in the Army and an officer in the Order of Santiago . Philip V made him Duke of Linares. In 1685 Alencastre Noroña y Silva married his cousin Leonor de Silva, who bore him two sons who, however, died early.

Tenure as Viceroy of New Spain

Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, Viceroy of New Spain, portrait by Juan Rodríguez Juárez, ca.1717.

With a document dated May 16, 1710 King Philip V appointed him Viceroy of New Spain. He embarked for America and reached Veracruz in mid-October 1710. After the usual receptions for dignitaries at the gates of the city in Villa de Guadalupe and Chapultepec , he made his solemn entry into Mexico City on November 13, 1710.

His term of office is marked by the severe earthquake that occurred on August 16, 1711. It destroyed numerous houses in the capital and claimed many lives. The reconstruction dragged on for a long time; the viceroy is said to have helped the poor with support from his own pocket. In the course of the reconstruction, he had an aqueduct (Arcos de Belén) built from Chapultepec to the capital. The drainage of the swampy high valley of Mexico was also continued. An unusually cold winter led to crop failures and famine. The colonial administration under Alencastre Noroña y Silva then lowered the prices for imported seeds. He founded the first public library in New Spain and set up a zoo and a botanical garden in Mexico City.

The north of the colony in what is now New Mexico and Texas was not under Spanish control again after the Pueblo uprising in 1690. The region found itself in the sights of the French, who under Louis de Saint-Denis tried to expand their sphere of influence from Louisiana to the southwest. They used the appeals of the Franciscan Francisco Hidalgo, who wanted to advance the proselytizing of Texas with the French. With the establishment of settlements on the Rio Grande and the construction of a coastal road, the Spaniards marked their claims to the area. In addition, Alencastre sent an expedition under Captain Domingo Ramón, together with a group of Franciscans under Antonio Margil , to secure Spanish supremacy. In 1712 the Spaniards founded a settlement in Nuevo León , which they named after the viceroy: Linares .

After the Peace of Utrecht , England and Spain resumed trade. The consequence of this was that English slave traders in Veracruz replaced the French and were given the monopoly for the import of African slaves into Spanish America. In spite of the prohibition, the English also brought other goods into the country with the slave ships, and smuggling flourished. Alencastre forbade the distilling of liquor ( aguardiente ) from sugar cane, as alcoholism particularly raged among the local population, and he kept the clergy in check.

The Armada de Barlovento , which was supposed to protect the coasts from pirates in the Gulf of Mexico , was expanded by four ships during his tenure. In 1716, a Spanish fleet under Alonso de Andrade drove English timber merchants who cut timber in Yucatán and sold it to Jamaica without permission . In July 1716 he received his successor in office, Baltasar de Zúñiga y Guzmán . Since he had come to America widowed and childless, he stayed in Mexico City after his handover, where he died in June 1717 after a long illness.

literature

• Juana Vázquez Gómez: Dictionary of Mexican Rulers, 1325–1997 . Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, USA 1997, p. 37 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Fernando Orozco: Gobernantes de México . 3. Edition. Panorama Editorial, Mexico City 2004, p. 123–124 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

• Biography (spanish)
• History of his tenure (Spanish)
• History of his tenure (Spanish)

Commons : Fernando de Alencastre  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Francisco Fernández de la Cueva Enríquez	Viceroy of New Spain 1702–1710	Baltasar de Zúñiga y Guzmán