José de Gálvez y Gallardo

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

José de Gálvez

José Bernardo de Gálvez y Gallardo, Marqués de Sonora (born January 2, 1720 in Macharaviaya , today province of Málaga , † June 17, 1787 in Aranjuez ), was a Spanish nobleman , civil servant and minister.

Origin and family

He was the second son of Antonio Gálvez y Carbajal and Antonia Gallardo Jurado. The family belonged to the landed gentry, but were impoverished. With the death of the father, the family's economic situation worsened and the children had to tend goats and sheep to earn money. Despite the difficult conditions, several members of the family made great careers. In addition to José, there is his brother Matías , who became Governor of the Canary Islands and Viceroy of New Spain . Miguel de Gálvez y Gallardo was Spain's ambassador to Russia and Prussia . Another brother, Antonio , embarked on a military career and made it to the command of the Bay of Cadiz .

education

With the help of the Bishop of Málaga , Diego González Toro y Villalobos , José received a scholarship and began training in the Málaga Seminary in 1733 . The next bishop, Gaspar de Molina y Oviedo, also protected Gálvez. However, he soon switched to studying law at the University of Alcalá .

He then settled as a lawyer in Madrid, in which office he was very successful. He first married María Magdalena Grimaldo , who soon died and in 1750 a second time, Luisa Lucía Romet y Richelin , who was of French origin and who gave him access to court circles. He benefited from the fact that Bishop Molina had now taken over the chairmanship of the Council of State. In 1753 his second wife also died.

Career in Spain

In 1751 Gálvez was appointed governor of Zamboanga in the Philippines , but never held this office, although it earned him a handsome salary. In 1762 he was appointed court attorney to the Prince of Asturias. Eventually José de Gálvez became secretary to the Spanish ambassador to the court of Louis XIV , Jerónimo Grimaldi . He was a key figure in Spanish foreign policy, as he negotiated and represented Spain's entry into the Seven Years' War on France's side (1761) and its conclusion with the Peace of Paris in 1763 . In his role at the embassy in Paris, Gálvez also had close contact with the top officials of the colonies, including the Viceroy of New Spain, Agustín Ahumada y Villalón .

In 1764 he was appointed judge (Alcalde de Casa y Corte) and in 1765, after the unexpected demise of the designated general visitor for the viceroyalty of New Spain , the Spanish possessions in North and Central America, he was temporarily appointed as his successor. Gálvez had dealt intensively with the conditions in the Spanish colonies and in 1760 wrote a memorandum entitled Discurso y reflexiones de un vasallo sobre la decadencia de nuestras Indias Españolas and sent it to King Charles III. given.

General visitor for New Spain

The situation in New Spain was economically unsatisfactory; the administration was seen as inefficient and corrupt. At the same time, the Spaniards were shocked by the slight military success of the British, who in 1762 managed to take the strategically important port of Havana without major problems .

Gálvez traveled to Mexico in the spring of 1765, equipped with numerous instructions and extensive powers. He quickly came into conflict with the viceroy Joaquín de Montserrat . Gálvez initiated a large-scale reform program and reorganized the tax system and introduced state monopolies on tobacco and mining products, always with the aim of increasing the crown's income.

With Montserrat's successor, Carlos Francisco de Croix , the collaboration went smoothly. During his tenure, the Spanish crown made the decision to expel the Jesuit order from the Spanish colonies and to confiscate its buildings and properties. Gálvez and Croix carried out the expulsion consistently and with military severity; Gálvez led a punitive expedition inland, where the population supported the Jesuits; Since the Jesuit order was practically the only carrier for educational institutions for the colony and also bundled considerable economic power, the expulsion was a major setback for Mexico, both economically and in terms of infrastructure. The expedition resulted in 85 death sentences and over eight hundred other punishments such as banishment and forced labor.

On a second expedition to the northwest, Gálvez succeeded in persuading rebellious Indians to peace on the way via Guadalajara and Nayarit to Sonora and California . On his return in 1768 he submitted a proposal to form an independent administrative unit out of the areas in the north, Plan para la erección del gobierno y Comandancia General que comprende la península de California y provincias de Sinaloa, Sonora y Nueva Vizcaya . The implementation of this plan would not take place until Gálvez was back in Europe.

First, however, a second expedition was dispatched, which, under the leadership of captains Juan Pérez and Miguel del Pino on the sea side and Gaspar de Portolà and Junípero Serra on the land side , was supposed to counter the Russian expansion in California. On his return, Gálvez fell seriously ill and at times suffered from delusions. When he had recovered, Viceroy Croix gave him the greatest possible powers in all administrative, religious and military matters.

In Spain, Gálvez's energetic reform enthusiasm met with approval. By order of January 1768, the court appointed him Minister of the Council of India . After his return to the capital and his recovery, he received permission to return to Europe in 1771 and embarked in Veracruz for Spain at the end of November 1771 .

Term as Colonial Minister

In Madrid he started work in the Council of India. In 1774 he was appointed by a member of the Junta General de Comercio, Moneda y Minas (the committee for trade, money and mining) and a little later as chairman of the royal monopoly administration.

In February 1775, José de Gálvez married a third time. His third wife was called María de la Concepción Valenzuela , she was 25 years old and orphan of the Count of Puebla de los Valles (and thus a descendant of Melchor Liñán y Cisneros ). The two had a daughter, María Josefa de Gálvez y Valenzuela , who died childless. With this marriage he achieved the rank of real nobleman and wealth.

After the death of the Minister for India, Julián de Arriaga , the Ministry for India and Maritime Affairs was split in two. While Pedro González de Castejón was responsible for matters relating to Spanish seafaring , Gálvez received the portfolio for the colonial areas in Hispanic America and the Philippines.

As Colonial Secretary, he immediately ordered far-reaching administrative reforms in America. He founded the Comandancia de las Provincias Internas de la Nueva España , which was set up in 1776 largely independently of the viceroyalty of New Spain.

In South America he had the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata established. With more manageable administrative sizes, he tried to get a grip on the problem of the centrality of decisions on long and arduous journeys and thus to improve administrative efficiency. So he divided the viceroyalty into intendencias , and decentralized so many decisions. He had José Antonio de Areche , who he noticed at the Real Audiencia of Mexico as a committed and capable reformer, appointed general visitor for the Viceroyalty of Peru . When the latter had the uprising of Tupac Amaru II put down with excessive brutality in 1781 , he replaced him with Jorge Escobedo .

In 1778 he passed the Reglamento y Aranceles para el Comercio Libre de España a Indias by liberalizing trade relations between the mother country and the colonies. Further ports in Spain and overseas were opened for transatlantic trade and for the first time trade between colonies was permitted.

Numerous scientific research expeditions went to America and the South Seas, including the botanical trip by Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez to South America and the exploration of New Spain by the botanists Martín Sessé y Lacasta and José Mariano Mociño .

In 1785 he founded the Archivo General de Indias , a central archive for documents about the Spanish possessions in America. His king, Charles III. , he was considered extraordinarily capable. In gratitude for this he received the title of Marqués de Sonora , a prosperous colony he founded in what was then northern Mexico, now in the US state of Texas . José de Gálvez died in office and dignity in June 1787.

Web links

• Biography (spanish)
• Short biography (Spanish)
• Sketch of his life's achievements (Spanish)