Melchor de Navarra y Rocafull

Melchor de Navarra, Duke of la Palata (illustration from the 19th century)

Melchor de Navarra y Rocafull , Duke of la Palata , by his marriage ( Iure uxoris ) Prince of Massa and Margrave ( Spanish: marqués ) of Tolva (* 1626 in Torrelacárcel , Province of Aragón , Spain ; † April 13, 1691 in Portobelo , today Panama ) was a Spanish colonial administrator who served as Viceroy of Peru .

Origin and youth

Melchor de Navarra came from a family of the Spanish nobility; his family was related to the kings of Aragon and Navarre . He studied in Oviedo and at the University of Salamanca .

Career in Spain

His political career began as an assessor in the provincial administration of Aragon; soon afterwards he was given a seat in the State Council of Naples , which at that time was under Spanish rule. Navarre was a member of the Order of Alcantara . He served as Vice Chancellor of the Crown of Aragón and was a member of the Spanish War Council and President of the Royal Council - and as such a member of the government that administered Spain on behalf of Queen Maria Anna of Austria while King Charles II was still a minor.

Navarre married Francisca de Tovalto y Aragon, who brought the titles of Prince of Massa and Marqués of Tolva into the marriage.

Term of office as Viceroy of Peru

Navarra was sent to Peru as captain general and viceroy at the beginning of 1681 and embarked with his family from Cádiz in January 1681 for the New World. He reached South America in March and initially stayed in Cartagena and Portobelo , where he supervised the construction of the fortifications.

On November 20, 1681, he made his solemn entry into Lima and took over the official business from the interim ruling Archbishop Melchor Liñán y Cisneros .

While his predecessor had dealt intensively with questions of the clergy, Navarre was primarily devoted to secular problems. In 1682 he had the mint rebuilt in Lima, which had been in Potosí since the order of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in 1572 . He was careful to increase the yield from the silver mines.

In order to better protect the cities against the continuing pirate attacks, he had reinforced city walls built around Lima and Trujillo .

With his predecessor, who remained his counterpart in the office of Archbishop of Lima, he regularly argued over the powers of priests and chaplains - in doing so, he limited the taxes that the indigenous population had to pay to the church, much to the displeasure of the archbishop.

On October 20, 1687, a severe earthquake occurred in Lima, in which over a thousand people died and numerous houses and church buildings were completely destroyed.

At the beginning of 1689 the viceroy received the news of the end of his term of office. On August 15, 1689, he handed over the official business to his successor Melchor Portocarrero Lasso de Vega , the Count of Monclova. Navarra had to stay in Lima for another year to await the revision of his term of office and his formal discharge ( juicio de residencia ). Then traveled to Callao to make his way back to Europe. On 1691 he died of yellow fever while traveling in Portobelo in what is now Panama .

literature

• Manuel de Mendiburu (1805-1885): Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Perú . 6th volume. Imprenta J. Francisco Solis, Lima 1885, p. 3–46 ( Cervantes Virtual [accessed February 10, 2015]).

Web links

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

predecessor	Office	successor
Melchor Liñán y Cisneros	Viceroy of Peru 1681–1689	Melchor Portocarrero Lasso de la Vega