Gabriel de Avilés

Gabriel de Avilés

Gabriel de Avilés Itúrbide y del Fierro, Second Marquis of Avilés (* 1735 in Barcelona , † September 19, 1810 in Valparaíso , Chile ) was a Spanish officer and colonial administrator in South America .

Life

Avilés joined the Spanish army at a young age and was sent to Chile in 1768 to train cavalry recruits. After spending two years in Arauco , he was called to Peru to work as a sub-inspector of the army. There he married Mercedes del Risco y Ciudad, which enjoyed a very good reputation in Peru.

In 1780, José Gabriel Condorcanqui led a rebellion that could soon have shaken the entire viceroyalty. After the initial success of the insurgents, Avilés, now with the rank of colonel, was sent to Cusco to defend the city. Avilés arrived in Cusco the day before the siege began. The situation in the city turned out to be extremely difficult for the Spaniards: 60,000 men faced them outside the city walls, and they had to fear that the Indians might also take up arms inside the city walls.

Coat of arms of Gabriel de Avilés, VII viceroy of the Río de la Plata .

But Avilés' plan turned out to be good from the Spanish point of view: José Gabriel Condorcanqui was forced to lift the siege and withdraw, and Viceroy Agustín de Jáuregui had him pursued by an army of 22,000 men.

As a thank you for his successful actions in the rebellion, Alivés was honored with the office of governor of Callao in 1785.

In 1795 he returned to Chile and helped Ambrosio O'Higgins back to his office in Peru. He was appointed governor of Chile himself in September 1795 and began to modernize the capital Santiago. He built bridges, had streets paved, and the city received public lighting. He toured the country and started building churches and public institutions there in many cities.

But in October 1796 he became governor of Río de la Plata in Buenos Aires. In 1799 he became viceroy of the Río de la Plata .

In 1801 he was appointed Viceroy of Peru . His term of office there ended in 1806. He stayed in Lima and wanted to return to Spain in 1810. On the way back he died in Valparaíso.

literature

• Gonzalo Demaría / Diego Molina de Castro: Historia Genealógica de los Virreyes del Río de la Plata . Junta Sabatina de Especialidades Históricas, Buenos Aires 2001, ISBN 987-1042-01-9 .

Web links

Commons : Gabriel de Avilés y del Fierro  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Brief biography of Avilés (Spanish)
• Some biographical details (Spanish) ( Memento from October 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Demaría / Molina de Castro: Historia Genealógica de los Virreyes del Río de la Plata. 2001, p. 231.

predecessor	Office	successor
Antonio de Olaguer y Feliú	Viceroy of the Río de la Plata 1799–1801	Joaquín del Pino Sánchez de Rojas
Manuel Arredondo y Pelegrín	Viceroy of Peru 1801–1806	José Fernando Abascal y Sousa