José María Chacón

José María Chacón y Sánchez de Soto (born January 1, 1749 in Seville , † January 1, 1833 in Portugal ) was a Spanish rear admiral . From 1783 to 1797 he was the 39th and last Spanish governor of Trinidad .

Life

Chacón was born in 1749 to Francisco Chacón y Rodríguez de Ribera and Luisa Sánchez de Soto y Castro. His father was a captain and minister of the navy, which determined José María's future career. In 1769 he became a cadet of the Royal Navy, in 1770 he joined the Naval Academy and in 1780 made a name for himself as a naval captain during the siege of Fort Charlotte during the American Revolutionary War . He was a member of the Order of Calatrava . His brother was the Lieutenant General of the Spanish Armada, Salvador María Sánchez Chacón y de Soto. José María Chacón married the widow Dorotea Lindsay in 1783. The marriage remained childless, but in 1786 Chacón fathered the recognized daughter Maria Madelena with the slave Maria Teresa.

The flower Chaconia , scientific name Warszewiczia coccinea , was named after Chacón and is the national flower of Trinidad. In addition, a street in Port of Spain was named after him.

Governor of Trinidad

On March 24, 1783, Chacón, standing in the rank of rear admiral , was appointed governor of Trinidad as successor to Martín de Salaverría for an initial five years. He arrived there on August 30, 1784 and inherited a difficult inheritance. The then Spanish colony of Trinidad was largely left to its own devices and did not participate in the rising economic performance of the surrounding colonies of Venezuela, Cumana and Guiana. The executive power was largely in the hands of a Cabildo , whose power Chacón sought to restrict, among other things, by immediately relocating the official building from the former capital San José de Oruña (today: St. Joseph ) to Puerto de España (today: Port of Spain ) . During his term of office, the implementation of the Cedula de populacion , an edict of the Spanish Minister José de Gálvez y Gallardo , allowed the increased settlement of French citizens on Trinidad in 1783 and thus enabled a significant increase in population and a rapidly increasing economic output of the island. Chacón specifically recruited settlers from the French possessions of the Caribbean because they were familiar with the climate and soil. Within three years he succeeded in increasing the island's population from 6,500 to 11,500. He solved the resulting shortage of livestock with imports from Venezuela.

Population development of Trinidad under Chacón

In 1784 Chacón founded the city of San Fernando in the southwest of the island, and later also San Juan east of the capital. In Port of Spain he diverted the river bed of the St. Ann River from 1784 to 1787 and drained the swampy area of ​​the old river course in order to take into account the space requirements of the expanding capital. He financed this major project in part with his own resources. In 1785 he initiated the relocation of Fort San Andrés to its current location and the expansion of the fort. Also in 1785 a problem came to light that threatened to bring the population and economic growth of the colony to a standstill: New settlement and arable land became scarce because the Long-established Spanish families claimed immense areas for themselves based on oral tradition. By decree, Chacón gave uncultivated land to the Spanish crown to which no documented claim could be made. The administrative division of Trinidad into districts, which are now called “wards”, goes back to Chacón.

In the 1790s, trade in Trinidad was dominated by British ships, so the bustling island automatically became the focus of British politics. In addition, Trinidad began to get caught up in the turmoil of political events in Europe, which Chacón had to grapple with. From 1789 onwards the influx of French settlers increased sharply because of the French Revolution , initially refugees, but then increasingly republicans, as France kept an eye on all areas in which the hated English showed increased interest. Chacón was therefore the governor of a Spanish island whose foreign trade was dominated by the English and whose population was mostly French. An example is a conflict of May 1796, when British warships sank French privateers in the north-eastern Gulf of Paria and then entered Port of Spain, where a few days later there was a dispute with French Republicans, during which the French were for the purpose of arming stormed the Spanish arsenal without Chacón's troops having a chance to intervene.

Since Spain had changed sides through the second Treaty of San Ildefonso in the First Coalition War , it was at war with England from August 1796. On February 17, 1797, the British attacked Abercromby under Admiral Henry Harvey and Lieutenant General Ralph . Since the Spanish Rear Admiral Apodoca, in the face of the overwhelming British superiority, had the small Spanish fleet set on fire against Chacón's request, Harvey was able to land near today's St. James and then take Abercromby with his army during the day almost without a fight. Chacón had taken refuge in a fort in the hills of Laventille , but signed the deed of surrender on February 18, given the circumstances.

In view of this defeat, King Charles IV of Spain called a court martial, which, after examining the situation, recommended an acquittal. Charles IV, however, disregarded this recommendation, dismissed Chacón and Apodoca and pronounced the ban on Chacón. All that is known about his further fate is that he died in exile in Portugal.

literature

• Francisco Morales Padrón: Spanish Trinidad, Chapters 6 and 7. Ian Randle Publishers, 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Francisco Morales Padrón: Spanish Trinidad. Ian Randle Publishers, 2012, p. 247.
2. ↑ Docelinajes.org: José María Chacón y Sánchez de Soto. Almirante de la Armada Española. Retrieved April 22, 2018 (Spanish). 
3. ^ VS Naipaul: Farewell to Eldorado, p. 139. List Verlag 2003.
4. ↑ ApellidoChacon.es: Rama Descendientes de Don Francisco Chacón y Rodriguez de Rivera ( Memento from February 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Bridget Brereton: A History of Modern Trinidad 1783--1962 . 4th edition. Terra Verde Resource Center, Champs Fleurs 2009, ISBN 0-435-98116-1 , pp. 10 .
6. ^ Morales Padrón, p. 181.
7. ↑ Bridget Brereton: A History of Modern Trinidad 1783--1962 . 4th edition. Terra Verde Resource Center, Champs Fleurs 2009, ISBN 0-435-98116-1 , pp. 17 .
8. ↑ Bridget Brereton: A History of Modern Trinidad 1783--1962 . 4th edition. Terra Verde Resource Center, Champs Fleurs 2009, ISBN 0-435-98116-1 , pp. 16 .
9. ^ Entry in the Caribbean History Archives. Retrieved December 2, 2014 . 
10. ↑ Bridget Brereton: A History of Modern Trinidad 1783--1962 . 4th edition. Terra Verde Resource Center, Champs Fleurs 2009, ISBN 0-435-98116-1 , pp. 20 .
11. ^ Gérard A. Besson & Bridget Brereton: The Book of Trinidad . Paria Publishing, Port of Spain 2010, ISBN 978-976-8054-36-4 , pp. 67 .
12. ^ Gertrude Carmichael: The History of the West Indian Islands of Trinidad and Tobago . Alvin Redman, London 1961, p. 38 .
13. ^ Lionel Mordaunt Fraser: History of Trinidad. Volume 1. Ulan Press 2012 (reprint), p. 16 ff.
14. ^ Entry in the Caribbean History Archives. Retrieved December 2, 2014 . 
15. ^ Gertrude Carmichael: The History of the West Indian Islands of Trinidad and Tobago . Alvin Redman, London 1961, p. 41 .