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 the New Kingdom of Granada, also called Viceroyalty of New Granada or Viceroyalty of Santa Fe, 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. A strip along the Atlantic Ocean in Mosquito Coast was added by the Royal Decree of 20 November 1803, but the British battled for administrative control.
The Battle of Boyacá (1819), also known as the Battle of Boyacá Bridge was a decisive victory by a combined army of Venezuelan and New Granadan troops along with a British Legion led by General Simon Bolivar over the III Division of the Spanish Expeditionary Army of Costa Firme commanded by Spanish Colonel José Barreiro. This victory ensured the success of Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada. The battle of Boyaca is considered the beginning of the independence of the north of South America, and is considered important because it led to the victories of the battle of Carabobo in Venezuela, Pichincha in Ecuador, and Junín and Ayacucho in Peru. New Granada acquired its definitive independence from the Spanish Monarchy, although fighting with royalist forces would continue for years.
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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.
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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.
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Juan José Francisco de Sámano y Uribarri de Rebollar y Mazorra, was a Spanish military officer and the last viceroy of New Granada from March 9, 1818 to August 9, 1819, during the Colombian War of Independence.
Tucacas is a northern coastal town of Venezuela. It is located in the state of Falcón.
The Colombian War of Independence began 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 Colombia, which spanned present-day Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela, along with parts of northern Peru and northwestern Brazil.
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The Revolt of July 20, 1810 was a revolution initiated by the Creoles in the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada against the Spanish Empire that gave way to the Independence of what is known today as the Republic of Colombia.