Melchor Portocarrero Lasso de la Vega

Melchor de Portocarrero, Count of Monclova

Melchor de Portocarrero y Lasso de la Vega , Count (Spanish: conde ) of Monclova (born June 4, 1636 in Madrid , Spain , † September 22, 1705 in Lima , today Peru ) was a Spanish colonial administrator who served as viceroy of New Spain and later officiated from Peru .

Life

Origin and youth

Melchor de Portocarrero came from the Spanish nobility. His father Antonio was the queen's court master and first holder of the title of count, which Melchor inherited after the death of his older brother Gaspar. Melchor began his career as a noble boy at the Spanish court. He later embarked on a military career, initially in the Spanish Navy from 1653.

He married Antonia Jimenez de Urrea Clavere y Sessé.

Careers in Europe

Under the command of Juan José de Austria , he fought in the Spanish army and was involved in the 1654 siege of Arras , later of Condé and Saint Guillaume. In 1655 he took part in the battle of Villaviciosa. He lost his right arm in the battle of the dunes near Dunkirk in June 1658. Portocarrero had a prosthesis made of silver and has since been called Brazo de Plata (Spanish for "silver arm") by his soldiers .

As a result, he rose to cavalry captain and field master ( Maestre de Campo ). Eventually he reached the rank of Colonel General ( Teniente General ) of the cavalry and General Commissioner of the infantry and cavalry in Spain. In 1680 he was appointed to the Council of War and the Council of India and was accepted into the Order of Alcantara .

Tenure as Viceroy of New Spain

In 1685 King Charles II appointed him Viceroy of New Spain. He traveled to Mexico and took over his office in November 1686. He immediately dispatched an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico with the task of discovering and, if necessary, combating possible French settlements and forts along the coast (up to what is now Texas ). In this context he founded the village of Monclova for 150 settler families .

He also had another aqueduct built from Chapultepec to supply Mexico City with water and paid for it out of his own pocket.

Term of office as Viceroy of Peru

At the end of 1688 he was appointed Viceroy of Peru. He sailed from Acapulco to South America in May 1689 . On August 15, 1689, he formally took over the office in Lima.

After the devastating earthquake of 1687, the infrastructure in and around Lima had to be rebuilt; production in the silver mines had also decreased dramatically. The construction dragged on over several years until the palace, cathedral and the building of the Real Audiencia were back. The redesigned Plaza de Armas was completed in 1693; the new pier of Callao only in 1696.

In 1696 Cartagena fell into the hands of French corsairs. The Spaniards under General Juan Díaz Pimienta managed to recapture.

During Portocarrero's tenure, another major earthquake fell in what is now Ecuador , which shook the area around Quito in 1698, killing around three thousand people.

The Viceroy died in his office in Lima of an unknown disease on September 22nd, 1705. His eldest son Antonio José later commanded the militias of Peru as general on land and sea.

literature

• Manuel de Mendiburu (1805-1885): Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Perú . 6th volume. Imprenta J. Francisco Solis, Lima 1885, p. 539-548 ( Cervantes Virtual [accessed February 10, 2015]).
• Juana Vázquez Gómez: Dictionary of Mexican Rulers, 1325–1997 . Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport CT 1997, ISBN 0-313-30049-6 , pp. 33-34 ( Google Books ).

Web links

• Short biography (Spanish)
• Biography at MCN Biografias (Spanish)
• Short biography (Spanish)

predecessor	Office	successor
Tomás Antonio de la Cerda y Aragon	Viceroy of New Spain 1686–1688	Gaspar de la Cerda Sandoval Silva y Mendoza
Melchor de Navarra y Rocafull	Viceroy of Peru 1689–1705	Juan de Peñaloza