Tomás Antonio de la Cerda y Aragon

Tomás Antonio de la Cerda

Tomás Antonio de la Cerda y Aragón , Count (Spanish: conde) of Paredes de Nava , Margrave (Spanish: marqués) of la Laguna de Camero-Viejo , Spanish grandee , (born December 24, 1638 in Cogolludo , Guadalajara Province , Spain ; † April 22, 1692 in Madrid , Spain) was a Spanish officer and colonial administrator who served as Viceroy of New Spain.

Life

Origin and career

Tomás de la Cerda came from a family of the Spanish nobility. He was born the second son of Juan Luis de la Cerda, Duke of Medinaceli. His mother was María Luisa Enríquez de Ribera.

He embarked on a military career that took him to the rank of field marshal. He was inducted into the Order of Alcantara . He married María Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga, lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother and daughter of the Viceroy of Valencia. As admiral, he commanded the coastal fleet of Andalusia and in 1679 took over the office of Viceroy of Galicia .

Tenure as Viceroy of New Spain

In May 1680 he was appointed Viceroy of New Spain. He and his wife reached the port of Veracruz in October 1680 . On October 27, 1680 he took over the official duties in Otumba from his predecessor, Bishop Payo Enríquez de Rivera . He took the oath of office on November 7th. He made his formal entry into Mexico City on November 30, 1680; he passed a triumphal arch that was decorated with an allegorical poem by Juana Inés de la Cruz .

He soon learned of the outbreak of the Pueblo uprising in New Mexico , in which revolting Indians had wrested the Spanish colonial rulers Santa Fe (New Mexico) and drove the Spaniards to Paso del Norte . Viceroy Cerda sent cavalry units to the north, which gradually succeeded in retaking New Mexico.

In 1681, the locals in Oaxaca rose to protest against the levying of taxes by the Spanish. In the same year, an expedition to California began under the direction of Isidro Otondo with the Jesuit priest Eusebio Francisco Kino , who was supposed to take care of the needs of the locals.

From the outside, the colony was particularly affected by the continued attacks by corsairs who made the shipping routes in the Gulf of Mexico unsafe and repeatedly attacked port cities such as Veracruz and Campeche . In May 1683, the Dutch privateer Laurens de Graaf , known as Lorencillo , succeeded in bringing Veracruz into their power with a force of 800 men. Large sums of money had to be used for the release of hostages.

At the same time Antonio Benavides, Margrave of San Vicente, went ashore in Veracruz, who announced that he had been sent by the Spanish court as Inspector General and Governor. Known as El Tapado , he was presumably an impostor , but the authorities arrested him on suspicion of doing things with the pirates. He was later executed in Mexico City.

The Pacific coast, however, feared William Dampier's attacks on ships from the Philippines ; there were rumors of an imminent attack on Acapulco , but this did not materialize.

In November 1686 he handed over the office of viceroy to his successor, Melchor Portocarrero Lasso de la Vega , and returned to Spain with his wife.

Late years in Spain

Cerda was appointed to the Council of India and made Spanish grandee. He officiated as chamberlain to the king's mother Maria Anna . He died in 1692.

literature

• Juana Vázquez Gómez: Dictionary of Mexican Rulers, 1325–1997 . Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, USA 1997, ISBN 0-313-30049-6 , pp. 33 ( books.google.de ).

Web links

• Biography (PDF) (Spanish)
• Biography (spanish)
• Biography (spanish)
• Short biography (Spanish)

predecessor	Office	successor
Payo Enríquez de Rivera	Viceroy of New Spain 1680–1686	Melchor Portocarrero Lasso de la Vega