Manuel del Castillo y Rada (Cartagena de Indias, 1781 – Cartagena de Indias, 24 February 1816) was a Neogranadine general, who fought for the independence of New Granada from Spain. He was executed during the Spanish Reconquista after the Siege of Cartagena (1815), by order of Pablo Morillo.
His father was Don Nicolás del Castillo, a native of Alicante, and his mother, Doña Manuela Rada, of aristocratic lineage. His elder brother was José María del Castillo y Rada. He was orphaned at the age of five. He married Isabel de Blasco on 6 August 1815. After obtaining the degree of Doctor of Law, he joined the militia with the rank of captain.
On 19 November 1810 he joined the National Battalion in Santa Fe de Bogotá. In January 1811, the government of Santa Fe entrusted him with incorporating the province of Mariquita into Cundinamarca. Castillo then returned to Santafé where Antonio Nariño had become president. In January 1812, Manuel del Castillo joined Commander Joaquín París Ricaurte to submit the province of El Socorro to Cundinamarca. Castillo was then appointed by Congress as commander of the Province of Pamplona and head of the army vanguard in order to protect the Union from the Royalist forces in Venezuela.
In December 1812, Colonel Castillo joined Bolívar's troops to attack the Royalist army from Tunja and Cartagena. Bolívar's forces were supported by hundreds of Castillo's men in the victorious Battle of Cúcuta on 28 February 1813. However, relations deteriorated due to Bolívar's plan to continue towards Caracas, and Castillo's refusal to follow him.
In January 1814 he was appointed military commander of Cartagena de Indias. On 25 September 1814, Bolívar returned to Cartagena after the destruction of the Second Republic of Venezuela. Castillo supported the legitimate government of Cartagena against a revolt, and with the help of Pedro Gual Escandón, he took control over Cartagena on 18 January 1815.
In March 1815, Simón Bolívar was advancing to take Santa Marta and requested extra men and supplies from Cartagena, but Manuel del Castillo refused to support him. As a reaction, Bolívar laid siege to Cartagena for a month and a half, without success. The siege was lifted on 8 May and a disillusioned Bolivar left New Granada for Jamaica.
In the meantime, a large Spanish fleet under command of Pablo Morillo had arrived on the Venezuelan coast in April. In August 1815, Pablo Morillo arrived in Santa Marta to restore the monarchy in New Granada. From there he advanced on Cartagena and besieged the city from 18 August.
Manuel del Castillo led the defense of Cartagena until October, when a conspiracy of José Francisco Bermúdez, Mariano Montilla and Louis-Michel Aury deposed him from military command and placed him under arrest. In December, the situation in the city had become so desperate that the revolutionary leaders decided to escape by the sea, the imminent occupation by Morillo's army. But Manuel Castillo was prohibited from accompanying them in their escape, under threat of death.
Left at the mercy of the Spanish, commander Manuel del Castillo y Rada was tried by a Permanent War Council established by the Spanish government and shot on 24 February 1816.
The Venezuelan War of Independence was one of the Spanish American wars of independence of the early nineteenth century, when independence movements in South America fought a civil war for secession and against unity of the Spanish Empire, emboldened by Spain's troubles in the Napoleonic Wars.
The Spanish reconquest of New Granada in 1815–1816 was part of the Spanish American wars of independence in South America and Colombian War of Independence. Shortly after the Napoleonic Wars ended, Ferdinand VII, recently restored to the throne in Spain, decided to send military forces to retake most of the northern South American colonies, which had established autonomous juntas and independent states. The Spanish expeditionary army under the command of Lieutenant General Pablo Morillo, with support from loyal colonial troops, completed the reconquest of New Granada by taking Bogotá on 6 May 1816.
Francisco José de Paula Santander y Omaña was a Neogranadine military and political leader who served as Vice-President of Gran Colombia between 1819 and 1826, and was later elected by Congress as the President of the Republic of New Granada between 1832 and 1837. Santander played a pivotal role in the Colombian War of Independence being one of the main leaders of the Patriot forces and helped lead the Patriot Army alongside Simon Bolivar to victory. He's often credited with creating the legal foundations for democracy in Colombia, as well as creating the country's first system of public education. For these reasons he is considered a National Hero in Colombia and has thus commonly been known as "The Man of the Laws" as well as the "Organizer of Victory".
Admiral José Prudencio Padilla López was a Neogranadine military leader who fought in the Spanish American wars of independence and a hero in the battles of independence for Gran Colombia .
He was the foremost naval hero of the campaign for independence led by Simón Bolívar, and the creator of the first Navy and Admiral of Great Colombia. He is best known for his victory in the Battle of Lake Maracaibo on 24 July 1823, in which a royalist Spanish fleet was defeated.
The First Republic of New Granada, known despectively as the Foolish Fatherland, is the period in the history of Colombia immediately following the declaration of independence from Spain in 1810 and until the Spanish reconquest in 1816. The period between 1810 and 1816 in the Viceroyalty of New Granada was marked by such intense conflicts over the nature of the new government or governments that it became known as la Patria Boba. Constant fighting between federalists and centralists gave rise to a prolonged period of instability that eventually favored Spanish reconquest. Similar developments can be seen at the same time in the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. Each province, and even some cities, set up its own autonomous junta, which declared themselves sovereign from each other.
In the struggle for the independence of Spanish America, the Reconquista refers to the period of Colombian and Chilean history, following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, during which royalist armies were able to gain the upper hand in the Spanish American wars of independence. The term used in the past century by some Colombian and Chilean historians makes an analogy to the medieval Reconquista, in which Christian forces retook the Iberian Peninsula from the Caliphate.
The United Provinces of New Granada was a country in South America from 1810 to 1816, a period known in Colombian history as la Patria Boba. It was formed from areas of the New Kingdom of Granada, roughly corresponding to the territory of modern-day Colombia. The government was a federation with a parliamentary system, consisting of a weak executive and strong congress. The country was reconquered by Spain in 1816.
Pablo Morillo y Morillo, Count of Cartagena and Marquess of La Puerta, a.k.a. El Pacificador was a Spanish military officer who fought in the Napoleonic Wars and in the Spanish American Independence Wars. He fought against French forces in the Peninsular War, where he gained fame and rose to the rank of Field Marshall for his valiant actions. After the restoration of the Spanish Monarchy, Morillo then regarded as one of the Spanish Army's most prestigious officers, was named by King Ferdinand VIII as commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Army of Costa Firme with the goal to restore absolutism in Spain's possessions in the Americas.
José Luis Álvaro Alvino Fernández Madrid was a Neogranadine statesman, physician, scientist and writer, who was President of the interim triumvirate of the United Provinces of New Granada in 1814, and President of the United Provinces of the New Granada in 1816. After the Spanish retook New Granada, he was barred from the country and was exiled in Havana, where he continued his scientific studies and worked as a doctor. He was later pardoned and allowed to come back to Colombia, and was appointed ambassador to France and to the United Kingdom where he died in 1830.
Manuel Rodríguez Torices was a Neogranadine statesman, lawyer, journalist, and Precursor of the Independence of Colombia. He was part of the Triumvirate of the United Provinces of New Granada in 1815, and served as Vice President of the United Provinces after the triumvirate. He was executed during the Reign of Terror of Pablo Morillo in 1816.
Miguel de la Torre y Pando, conde de Torrepando was a Spanish General, Governor and Captain General, who served in Spain, Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico during the Spanish American wars of independence and afterwards.
Joaquín París y Ricaurte was a Colombian military officer and politician who fought in the Colombian War of Independence and various civil wars that took place in Colombia during the 19th century. París was later also commander-in-chief of the army and Secretary of War on various occasions.
Mariano Montilla was a major general of the Army of Venezuela in the Venezuelan War of Independence.
Henri Louis La Fayette Villaume Ducoudray Holstein was a soldier in France and Venezuela, and an author in the United States.
Cartagena Province, also called Gobierno de Cartagena during the Spanish imperial era, was an administrative and territorial division of New Granada in the Viceroyalty of Peru. It was originally organized on February 16, 1533 as a captaincy general from the central portion of the Province of Tierra Firme. In 1717, King Philip V of Spain issued a royal decree creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, by which the province was added to the latter.
The Magdalena campaign was a military operation from late 1812 to early 1813, led by the independentists Simón Bolívar and Pierre Labatut against royalists and the crown of Spain in New Granada. The campaign resulted in the revolutionary United Provinces of New Grenada taking control of the Magdalena River, which connects the port city of Cartagena with the interior of Colombia.
The Battle of Cachirí took place on February 21-22, 1816, during the Spanish Reconquest of New Granada as part of the Colombian War of Independence. The battle is named after the Paramo de Cachirí, which located in the Santander Department in present-day Colombia. It was fought between the Army of the North of the United Provinces of New Granada and the V Division of Spanish Expeditionary Army. The battle came about as an attempt by brigadier general Custodio Garcia Rovira to defend the Socorro Province as well as the interior of the country from the invasion force led by Spanish colonel Sebastian de la Calzada, who was part of general Pablo Morillo’s campaign to reconquer New Granada. Garcia Rovira went on the offensive on February 8, forcing Calzada to retreat from Pamplona to Ocaña. Whilst there, 300 men from Colonel Miguel de la Torre’s column were incorporated into his division. With these reinforcements, he swiftly countermarched south and met the republicans at the Paramo Cachiri. Between February 21 and 22, 1816, fierce fighting occurred. On the first day, the Republicans managed to dominate the situation and occupy a favorable ground for the defense. The next day the fight resumed with greater fury, and the Spanish were able to break the republican line and to cause havoc amongst their ranks, which finally resulted in the defeat of the republican forces.
The Siege of Cartagena (1815) was a successful 105-day Spanish siege by combined naval and ground forces under command of General Pablo Morillo, of the Colombian city and fortress of Cartagena de Indias, defended by Republican forces under the leadership of Manuel del Castillo y Rada and José Francisco Bermúdez, between August and December 1815.
The Siege of Cartagena (1820–1821) was a military confrontation fought in the context of the Colombian War of Independence between Patriots and Royalists, with the victory of the former. It was the longest siege experienced by the city in its history.
José María Barreiro Manjón was a Spanish military officer who fought in the Peninsular War and in the Colombian War of Independence. In 1819 at the rank of colonel, he was commander of the III Division of Expeditionary Army of Costa Firme in New Granada during Simon Bolivar's campaign to liberate New Granada. He commanded his army against the Patriot Army at the Battle of Vargas Swamp, where he would be defeated, and at the Battle of Boyacá, where he would be captured along with remnants of the III Division and the end of Spanish control over New Granada.