Jorge de Villalonga, segundo conde de la Cueva (born 1664) was a Spanish lawyer, general and the first official viceroy of New Granada, from November 25, 1719 to May 11, 1724.
Jorge de Villalonga, segundo conde de la Cueva (born 1664) was a Spanish lawyer, general and the first official viceroy of New Granada, from November 25, 1719 to May 11, 1724.
Villalonga was a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. In the army, he rose to the rank of lieutenant general. He was a member of the council of war and a solicitor in the Kingdom of Majorca. In Madrid, he married his niece Catalina María de Villalonga y de Velasco, daughter of his brother Francisco. In 1708 he was placed in charge of the port and presidio of Callao, Peru.
On December 15, 1718 while he was serving as head of the army in Peru, he received the news that he had been named the first official viceroy of the recently created Viceroyalty of New Granada. The new colony included the present-day countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. Until May 27, 1717, this territory had been part of the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Villalonga made a long overland trip to take up his new post, stopping on the way in Quito and Popayán. On December 17, 1718, he made a great impression on the inhabitants of Santa Fe de Bogotá by the great pomp of his formal entrance into the capital. His lifestyle thereafter continued to contrast greatly with the poverty of most of the inhabitants of the city.
The viceroy had specific orders to clean up the disorder and corruption rampant among the royal officials of the colony. In 1722 he brought charges against the accountant Domingo de Mena. Nevertheless, his administration was known for its arbitrariness and corruption. Villalonga's instructions also specified that he was to prevent the development of wine-making and textile industries in the colony, in order to protect the Spanish industries from the competition. In November 1720, Spanish forces attacked the long-time Dutch settlement in Tucacas, on the coast of what is now Venezuela. This was a center of the contraband trade. It was largely destroyed by the Spanish, including a synagogue that was located there.
In 1721, following orders from the cabinet in Madrid, Villalonga expelled all foreigners, both residents and temporary visitors, not excluding men married to women born in the colony. He took direct control of the treasury. He improved the civil registry and aided in the foundation of the Jesuit college in the city of Santa Fe de Antioquia.
Viceroy Villalonga sent repeated recommendations to the Crown to abolish the viceroyalty and reestablish the earlier government under Peru, for the sake of economy. He argued that the colony was too poor to support viceregal government, there being few Spaniards and many Indians within its borders. In September 1723, three years into Villalonga's administration, the King Philip V issued the order to do that. The reunification took effect on May 11, 1724. Villalonga left Bogotá on May 31 of that year. The two colonies remained reunited until 1740, when the Viceroyalty of New Granada was established once again, this time permanently.
The Viceroyalty of New Granada also called Viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada or Viceroyalty of Santafé was the name given on 27 May 1717, to the jurisdiction of the Spanish Empire in northern South America, corresponding to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. Created in 1717 by King Felipe V, as part of a new territorial control policy, it was suspended in 1723 for financial problems and was restored in 1739 until the independence movement suspended it again in 1810. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739, and the provinces of Venezuela were separated from the Viceroyalty and assigned to the Captaincy General of Venezuela in 1777. In addition to those core areas, the territory of the Viceroyalty of New Granada included Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, southwestern Suriname, parts of northwestern Brazil, and northern Peru.
The Viceroyalty of Peru officially known as the Kingdom of Peru was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed from the capital of Lima. Peru was one of the two Spanish Viceroyalties in the Americas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
A Real Audiencia, or simply an Audiencia, was an appellate court in Spain and its empire. The name of the institution literally translates as Royal Audience. The additional designation chancillería was applied to the appellate courts in early modern Spain. Each audiencia had oidores.
The Captaincy General of Venezuela, also known as the Kingdom of Venezuela, was an administrative district of colonial Spain, created on September 8, 1777, through the Royal Decree of Graces of 1777, to provide more autonomy for the provinces of Venezuela, previously under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo and then the Viceroyalty of New Granada. It established a unified government in political (governorship), military, fiscal (intendancy), ecclesiastical (archdiocese) and judicial (audiencia) affairs. Its creation was part of the Bourbon Reforms and laid the groundwork for the future nation of Venezuela, in particular by orienting the province of Maracaibo towards the province of Caracas.
Carmine Nicolao Caracciolo, 5th Prince of Santo Buono, Grandee of Spain was Spanish Viceroy of Peru from October 5, 1716 to January 26, 1720.
José Antonio de Mendoza Caamaño y Sotomayor, 3rd Marquis of Villagarcía de Arousa was a Spanish colonial administrator in the Americas. From 4 February 1736 to 15 December 1745 he was Viceroy of Peru.
Antonio de la Pedrosa y Guerrero was an attorney in Spain and in Santa Fe de Bogotá, a member of the Council of the Indies, and the first (provisional) viceroy of New Granada, from June 13, 1718, to November 25, 1719.
Sebastián de Eslava y Lazaga was a Spanish general and colonial official. From April 24, 1740 to November 6, 1749 he was viceroy of the newly reestablished Viceroyalty of New Granada. He was governing the viceregal at the time of the defeat of British Admiral Edward Vernon at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias. After his death he was named marqués de la Real Defensa de Cartagena de Indias.
José Solís y Folch de Cardona, grande de España and knight of the Order of Santiago was a Spanish colonial administrator and viceroy of New Granada from November 24, 1753 to February 25, 1761.
Antonio Caballero y Góngora was a Spanish Roman Catholic prelate in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada, and from 1782 to 1789 the viceroy of New Granada.
Pedro Mendinueta y Múzquiz was a Spanish lieutenant general and colonial official. From January 2, 1797, to 1803 he was viceroy of New Granada. He was a knight of the Order of Santiago, and he was awarded the Gran Cruz of Carlos III.
The New Kingdom of Granada, or Kingdom of the New Granada, was the name given to a group of 16th-century Spanish colonial provinces in northern South America governed by the president of the Royal Audience of Santafé, an area corresponding mainly to modern-day Colombia. The conquistadors originally organized it as a province with a Royal Audience within the Viceroyalty of Peru despite certain independence from it. The audiencia was established by the crown in 1549. Ultimately the kingdom became the Viceroyalty of New Granada first in 1717 and permanently in 1739. After several attempts to set up independent states in the 1810s, the kingdom and the viceroyalty ceased to exist altogether in 1819 with the establishment of the United Provinces of New Granada.
Benito Pérez Brito de los Ríos y Fernández Valdelomar was a Spanish military officer and colonial official. From March 21, 1812 to November 1812, he was viceroy of New Granada.
Tucacas is a northern coastal town of Venezuela. It is located in the state of Falcón.
The Colombian Declaration of Independence occurred on July 20, 1810 when the Junta de Santa Fe was formed in Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital of the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada, to govern the territory autonomously from Spain. The event inspired similar independence movements across Latin America, and triggered an almost decade-long rebellion culminating in the founding of the Republic of Gran Colombia, which spanned present-day Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela, along with parts of northern Peru and northwestern Brazil.
The Royal Audience and Chancery of Panama in Tierra Firme was a governing body and superior court in the New World empire of Spain. The Audiencia of Panama was the third American audiencia after the ones of Santo Domingo and Mexico. It existed three times under various guises since it first creation in 1538 until its ultimate abolition in 1751.
The Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada took place between 1783 and 1816 in the territories of New Granada, covering present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Peru and northern Brazil and western Guyana.
A Spanish Colombian is a Colombian of Spanish descent. Since the vast majority of Colombians are of at least partial Spanish descent and their culture is predominantly derived from Spain, it is a rarely used term and Spanish-Colombians identify as such.
Colombian-Spain relations are the bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Colombia, formally established in 1881, several decades after Colombia's independence from the Spanish Empire. Both nations are members of the Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.