Juan de Acuña

Juan de Acuña

Juan de Acuña y Bejarano , Margrave (Spanish: marqués) of Casa Fuerte , (born March 9, 1658 in Lima , Peru , † March 17, 1734 in Mexico City ) was a Spanish officer and colonial administrator who served as Viceroy of New Spain .

Life

Origin and family

Juan de Acuña came from a family of Spanish nobility. His father, Juan Vázquez de Acuña, worked as a corregidor in the Spanish colonial empire - first on the Río de la Plata , later in San Luis Potosí , where he met his wife Margarita Bejarano de Marquina. With her he moved to Peru, where Juan was born. This made Juan de Acuña a Criollo , born abroad and in the strict hierarchy of the Spanish court far below the rank of a peninsular - that is, a native of Spain.

Careers in Europe

With the death of his father, the family returned to Europe. Iñigo de Acuña, Juan's older brother, introduced him to the court of King Charles II as a page. There Juan de Acuña experienced a rapid rise. In 1679 he was inducted into the Order of Santiago , and he quickly made a career in the Royal Spanish Army.

In the War of the Spanish Succession he supported the Bourbon party . The victorious King Philip V appointed him Governor of Messina in Sicily and in 1708 created the title of Marquis of Casa Fuerte for him .

He rose to become captain general of the Spanish army and served as military commander of Aragón and Mallorca . In April 1722 the king appointed him viceroy of New Spain. This appointment marks a new policy in Spanish colonial history: when appointing the viceroys, no longer relying exclusively on the nobles, but also giving a chance to capable men who came from less illustrious families.

Tenure as Viceroy of New Spain

At the end of August 1722, Acuña reached the port of Veracruz . With the viceroyalty coffers empty, funding for the inauguration ceremony was in question. On October 15, he made his ceremonial entry into Mexico City .

His political goal was to cut spending, to clean up the budget and to curb corruption and abuse of office. The fact that he also took local criollos into account when filling the vacancy earned him the sympathy of the population.

Indian revolts continued to smolder in the north of the colony. As soon as he arrived, an expedition under the Margrave of Aguayo returned to Mexico, which reported a re-awakened resistance from the Comanche and Apaches . In addition to exploring the military threat, their mission was to find a safe harbor north of Acapulco for ships to and from the Philippines to call at.

In 1724 Philip V abdicated in favor of his son Ludwig , who however died after a few weeks in office, so that Philip again led the kingdom.

The Spanish fleet, which came to Mexico from Spain at the end of 1725, had lost parts of its cargo due to storms, including all of the official correspondence for the Viceroyalty. New ships had to be built for the return journey - the departure was also delayed by the threat from British corsairs. In the end, however, the fleet made it safely to Cádiz and was able to deliver its cargo - 18 million pesos in coins and precious metals - to the Spanish crown. In gratitude, King Philip extended Acuña's mandate for a further six years in 1727.

In 1726, Acuña dispatched the governor of Yucatán , Brigadier General Pedro de Rivera , to the north to make a complete survey of the settlements and fortifications there. After three years, Rivera returned with proposals to settle the country far more intensively in order to counter the expansion pressure of the French from Louisiana (colony) . Acuña then sent another expedition under Captain Berroterán to the north, who had the order to found further fortifications. Families from the Canary Islands were proposed as settlers .

Domestically, the Viceroy Acuña restricted the Inquisition's freedom of action . He obtained the establishment of a collegiate church in Villa de Guadalupe with the Pope, which in 1730 was equipped with a magnificent choir ornament, which was made in Macau and brought to Mexico by ship.

In 1728 Acuña decreed that the Gazeta de México , the first newspaper of the viceroyalty, was allowed to appear again; In 1722, under Viceroy Zúñiga, soon after the first edition was banned. Despite his austerity efforts, he arranged for some new buildings in the capital, including the customs office ( Aduana ) and the mint ( Casa de la Moneda ). In Orizaba he had the first cannon foundry in New Spain built.

In 1733 a Spanish expedition succeeded in driving away British settlers in what is now Belize , who - similar to the previous years in the Laguna de Términos - felled wood that they sold in the British-administered Jamaica .

Juan de Acuña died after a long illness on the morning of March 17, 1734 in Mexico City. He was buried there too; The funeral was held by Archbishop Juan Antonio de Vizarrón y Eguiarreta , who was to succeed him in office.

literature

• Juana Vázquez Gómez: Dictionary of Mexican Rulers, 1325–1997 . Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, USA 1997, ISBN 0-313-30049-6 , pp. 38 ( books.google.de ).
• Fernando Orozco: Gobernantes de México . 3. Edition. Panorama Editorial, Mexico City 2004, ISBN 968-38-0260-5 , p. 127–128 ( books.google.de ).

Web links

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

predecessor	Office	successor
Baltasar de Zúñiga y Guzmán	Viceroy of New Spain 1722–1734	Juan Antonio de Vizarron y Eguiarreta