Francisco Gil de Taboada
Encyclopedia
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
—1809, Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
) was a Spanish naval officer and colonial administrator in America. He was briefly viceroy of New Granada
Viceroyalty of New Granada
The Viceroyalty of New Granada was the name given on 27 May 1717, to a Spanish colonial jurisdiction in northern South America, corresponding mainly to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739...
in 1789, and from March 25, 1790 to June 6, 1796 he was viceroy of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
.http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Peru.htm After his viceregal service he returned to Spain, where he became a member of the governing junta after King Ferdinand VII was forced to abdicate by Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
. He was director general of the Spanish Royal Navy.
Background
Francisco Gil de Taboada y Lemos was born in 1736 (some sources say 1733 or 1737) in Galicia, Spain.He became a knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem at age 16. He entered the navy as a cadet at Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
on October 27, 1752. He was promoted to lieutenant de navio September 3, 1767. During this period he sailed the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Pacific.
He was promoted to commander in 1770 and to captain in 1776. From January 5, 1774 to February 1, 1777 he was Spanish governor of the Malvinas Islands
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
(Falklands).http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Falklands.html On February 17, 1779 he was named captain of the recently created Company of Naval Cadets of the Department of Ferrol. He remained in this position until he was appointed viceroy and captain general of New Granada and president of the Audiencia of Santa Fe de Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
by Valdez, minister of the Indies (1788). By this time he was commander of a squadron.
As viceroy of New Granada
He took up his new position in January 1789, and served there only until July, when he was named viceroy of Peru and president of the Audiencia of Lima. On March 4, 1789 he was promoted to lieutenant general.As viceroy of Peru
In Peru he introduced administrative reforms, encouraged literature and the arts, and sent out exploring expeditions.In addition to being a career naval officer who had fought in Algeria, Normandy, Gibraltar and Sicily, Gil de Taboada was also a man of letters. In Peru, he was distinguished by his support for the arts, as well as science and exploration. He supported the foundation of the newspaper El Mercurio Peruano in 1791 and founded the Academy of Fine Arts. He founded an anatomy center and a hospital, supported the navigation school and ordered the first census of the population. He reincorporated the region of Puna
Altiplano
The Altiplano , in west-central South America, where the Andes are at their widest, is the most extensive area of high plateau on Earth outside of Tibet...
into the Viceroyalty of Peru.
At the end of his term as viceroy in 1796 he returned to Spain. There he was subject to a juicio de residencia
Juicio de residencia
A juicio de residencia was a judicial procedure of Castilian law and the Laws of the Indies. It consisted of this: at the termination of a public functionary's term, his performance in office was subject to review, and those with grievances against him were entitled to a hearing...
(grievance tribunal) to investigate the state of the colonial finances during his administration. (This was very common at the end of viceregal administrations in the Spanish overseas colonies.) The verdict was in his favor.
Back in Spain
In 1799 he was named director general of the navy, a position he occupied simultaneously with other high positions until 1807.On February 6, 1805, upon the appointment of General Domingo Grandallana as commander of the squadron at el Ferrol, Gil de Taboada was named interim secretary of state and of the navy. In November of that year he was promoted to captain general in the navy. On April 22, 1806 he was named minister of the navy (no longer on an interim basis).
These high positions were held under the authority of King Charles IV
Charles IV of Spain
Charles IV was King of Spain from 14 December 1788 until his abdication on 19 March 1808.-Early life:...
. On March 17, 1808 the Mutiny of Aranjuez
Mutiny of Aranjuez
The Mutiny of Aranjuez, or Motín de Aranjuez as it is known in Spain, was an early nineteenth century popular uprising against King Charles IV, which managed to overthrow him and place his son, Ferdinand VII, on the throne...
forced Charles to abdicate and turn over the government to his son, Ferdinand VII. The rioters at Aranjuez also attacked the hated Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy
Manuel de Godoy
Don Manuel Francisco Domingo de Godoy y Álvarez de Faria, de los Ríos y Sánchez-Zarzosa, also Manuel de Godoy y Álvarez de Faria de los Ríos Sánchez Zarzosa , was Prime Minister of Spain from 1792 to 1797 and from 1801 to 1808...
. This and the events that followed directly on it changed everything in Spanish politics, and had enormous repercussions in the Spanish colonies in America.
As a member of the governing junta
The governing ministers, including Gil de Taboada, were confirmed in their positions by Ferdinand.On the invitation of Napoleon, both Charles and Ferdinand left Spain for France, crossing the border on April 21, 1808. They arrived in Bayonne
Bayonne
Bayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...
, where Napoleon forced them to abdicate and claimed the Spanish crown, which he gave to his brother Joseph I of Naples
Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte was the elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made him King of Naples and Sicily , and later King of Spain...
. It was the beginning of a seven-year exile for the Spanish kings.
Before leaving for Bayonne, Ferdinand VII had formed a ruling junta (Junta Suprema de Gobierno) composed of his ministers and presided by Infante Antonio, uncle of Fernando VII. Gil de Taboada was still minister of the navy. When Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
demanded that Godoy (held in the Castle of Villaviciosa since his deposition) be turned over to the French, Gil strongly opposed the suggestion.
Fearing the French encroachment, Gil proposed moving the junta of ministers away from Madrid. Infante Antonio, the day after the popular explosion of the Second of May
Dos de Mayo Uprising
On the second of May , 1808, the people of Madrid rebelled against the occupation of the city by French troops, provoking a brutal repression by the French Imperial forces and triggering the Peninsular War.-Background:...
, was forced to join Charles and Ferdinand in Bayonne. Antonio wrote to Gil that the junta should continue as it had been, but Murat demanded to preside over it. Most of the members accepted this on May 4, but Gil did not. He turned in his resignation a few days later.
After the Battle of Bailén
Battle of Bailén
The Battle of Bailén was contested in 1808 between the Spanish Army of Andalusia, led by Generals Francisco Castaños and Theodor von Reding, and the Imperial French Army's II corps d'observation de la Gironde under General Pierre Dupont de l'Étang...
(July 18–22, 1808), in which the French were defeated and forced to withdraw from Madrid, Gil de Taboada was again sworn in as a member of a governing junta, this time the Junta Suprema Central
Junta (Peninsular War)
In the Napoleonic era, junta was the name chosen by several local administrations formed in Spain during the Peninsular War as a patriotic alternative to the official administration toppled by the French invaders...
. This occurred on September 29, 1808 in Aranjuez. When the French reoccupied the capital, they required an oath of allegiance to Joseph Bonaparte, as King Joseph I of Spain. Gil, now an octogenarian, refused. There were calls that he be prosecuted for his refusal, but Joseph rejected that, saying that such a valiant old man should not be molested.
When Gil de Taboada died the following year, the French garrison of Madrid accorded him the funeral honors of a man of high dignity.