| Content from Wikipedia under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license ⇔ Maps from OpenStreetMap under the ODbL license |
Santiago de Liniers
Santiago de Liniers 1st Count of Buenos Aires | |
|---|---|
 Santiago de Liniers (Naval Museum of Madrid). | |
| 10th Viceroy of the Río de la Plata | |
| In office February 10, 1807 – July 29, 1809 (2 years and 169 days) | |
| Appointed by | Real Audiencia of Buenos Aires |
| Monarch | Charles IV / Ferdinand VII / Joseph I of Spain |
| Preceded by | Rafael de Sobremonte |
| Succeeded by | Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros |
| 5th Governor of the Guaraní Missions (interim) | |
| In office November 5, 1802 – October 8, 1804 (1 year and 338 days) | |
| Appointed by | Joaquín del Pino |
| Monarch | Charles IV of Spain |
| Preceded by | Joaquín de Soria |
| Succeeded by | Bernardo de Velasco |
| Personal details | |
| Born | July 25, 1753 |
| Died | August 26, 1810 (aged 57) |
| Spouse(s) | Juana Úrsula de Menvielle María Martina de Sarratea y Altolaguirre |
| Children | Luis, Antonia, María del Carmen, Enriqueta, José Atanasio, Santiago Tomás, Mariano, María de los Dolores and Francisca Liniers |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Kingdom of France Kingdom of Spain |
| Branch/service | French Royal Army Spanish Army |
| Battles/wars | Napoleonic Wars English Invasions |
| Santiago de Liniers | |
|---|---|
 Coat of arms of Santiago de Liniers.[1] | |
| 1st Count of Buenos Aires | |
| Successor | Luis de Liniers y Membielle |
| Occupation | Military officer |
Santiago Antonio María de Liniers y Bremond (French: Jacques de Liniers, Niort, France, July 25, 1753 – Cabeza de Tigre, near Cruz Alta (Córdoba), United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, August 26, 1810) was a noble and military officer of French origin, Knight of the Order of Saint John and of Montesa, who served as an official of the Crown of Spain.
For his outstanding performance in the two failed English Invasions, Liniers was appointed Viceroy of the Río de la Plata between 1807 and 1809. In the latter year he was granted by Royal Decree the title of Count of Buenos Aires. Liniers was the penultimate Viceroy of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.
|
y de Liniers en Buenos Aires gloria (Of the Englishman's chastisement, a memory; and of Liniers in Buenos Aires, glory) Distich written at the foot of the British flags preserved in the convent of Santo Domingo in Buenos Aires |
Biography
Family origin
Santiago de Liniers was born on July 25, 1753, in the city of Niort, in the old province of Poitou, in the west-central part of the Kingdom of France. His father was Jacques Joseph Louis de Liniers (b. December 9, 1723).[2] His mother was Henriette Thérèse de Brémond d'Ars.[3]
His family therefore belonged to the old French nobility of Poitou, with a great Catholic and military tradition,[4] who remained on the margins of the Paris Enlightenment.[5]
On entering adolescence, Santiago José de Liniers benefited from the third Family Compact of 1761, which allowed the French to take part in Spain's military enterprises with the same rights and obligations as the Spanish.
He entered the military school of the Order of Saint John, from which he graduated after three years, in 1768, with the cross of a Knight of Malta. Later, in the following decades, he would become a ship captain (capitán de navío) of the Spanish Royal Navy, Commander General of Arms of Buenos Aires, Viceroy of the Río de la Plata and, by 1807, a Knight of the Order of Montesa.
Military career in France and Spain
In France he rose to cavalry sub-lieutenant in the Royal-Piémont regiment. He remained in the garrison for six years with no hope of promotion. Battered by the Seven Years' War, France was by then at peace, and the minister Turgot —appointed by the young King Louis XVI— cut the army's budget, leaving few opportunities for young officers like Liniers. For this reason he ended up requesting his discharge in 1774.
The following year he moved to Cádiz to join the Spanish navy, being posted as an officer in May 1775 to the port of Cartagena, where he joined the fleet of Pedro González Castejón, with forty-six ships, under the orders of the Irish general Alejandro O'Reilly, who assigned him to the ship San José as aide-de-camp to Prince Camille de Rohan.
The squadron sailed from Cartagena with the aim of launching an expedition against Algiers, which they attacked without success at the beginning of July. As soon as he returned to the peninsula, he entered the «Real Compañía de Caballeros Guardias Marinas» (Royal Company of Gentlemen Midshipmen), in November of that same year.
In March 1776, with the rank of frigate ensign (alférez de fragata), he took part in naval patrols in the Mediterranean.
First arrival in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
On November 3, 1776, the squadron under the command of Pedro de Ceballos sailed from Cádiz for the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. Liniers, a newly made frigate ensign, was appointed second captain of the 10-gun brig Hoope.
On February 23, 1777, he took part in the capture of the Portuguese island of Santa Catalina:
[...] without any trouble we made ourselves masters of an island that would have cost much blood [...] had the enemies put up even a little resistance.
— Letter from Liniers to his father.
and in the attack on Colonia del Sacramento on May 22 of the same year, a position that would be definitively kept under Spanish sovereignty.
Voyage to Spain, recovery of Menorca and return to the Viceroyalty
Between 1779 and 1781 he was an officer on the ship San Vicente, part of the Franco-Spanish squadron that fought against the English fleet. For his action at the siege of Mahón and in the conquest of Menorca, he was promoted to lieutenant (teniente de navío).
On September 13, 1782, he took part in the attack on Gibraltar as second-in-command aboard the floating battery Talla Piedra, which sank after 17 hours under British fire. Liniers saved himself by throwing himself into the water. Later, in command of the brig Fincastle, he captured the English privateer Elisa, and for this action he was promoted, on December 21, 1782, to frigate captain (capitán de fragata).
On February 21, 1783, he married in Málaga Juana Úrsula de Menvielle (d. March 24, 1790), with whom he had a single son.
In 1788 he was sent once more to the Río de la Plata to organize a flotilla of gunboats, accompanied by his son Luis and his wife. But when his spouse died, on March 24, 1790, Liniers contracted a second marriage with María Martina de Sarratea y Altolaguirre, on August 3, 1791, in the city of Buenos Aires.
Years later, Liniers directed the fortification of Montevideo, and in 1796 he obtained the rank of ship captain as head of the Spanish flotilla.
Governor of the Guaraní Missions and his return to Buenos Aires
As a member of the Council of War of Graduated Officers, he was summoned to judge the infantry lieutenant Félix Gómez, who was accused of abandoning his frontier post during the war with Portugal, when he was commander of San Gabriel de Batoví —a town founded on November 2, 1800, on the site of the previous guard post, by the Spaniard Félix de Azara— because on June 29, 1801, the Portuguese troops under the command of Colonel Patrício Corrêia da Câmara, first viscount of Pelotas, destroyed the settlement and its inhabitants were moved 6 km to the east, to what they considered Brazilian territory. Liniers was to appear on January 18 but had to postpone his journey when he was summoned by the Viceroy on the 15th of that month.[6]
On October 1, 1802, Viceroy Joaquín del Pino y Rozas wrote to Liniers regarding the application the latter had submitted to fill the post of governor of the towns of the Missions, which had been left vacant by Colonel Joaquín de Soria when he preferred to take charge of the Montevideo Volunteer Cavalry regiment. In that communication the Viceroy advised Liniers that:
a) The vacant post had to be filled as soon as possible, so that, if he accepted, he was to present himself quickly in Buenos Aires, receive the title, take the oath before the Real Audiencia and go to Candelaria to assume the government;
b) That the nature of the post was "in commission", that is, an interim appointment;
c) That the salary would be equal to the one he had at that moment as a "disembarked ship captain", because that salary was higher than that of an "interim governor".
On October 8 Liniers replied from Montevideo saying that he accepted the post and that he would go to Buenos Aires to fulfill the corresponding legal requirements. On November 5, 1802, Liniers received the title of interim governor of the Missions of the Guaraníes and Tapes, countersigned by Manuel Gallego, secretary of the Viceroyalty. Many historians, not knowing the documents prior to his appointment, assumed that the Viceroy had appointed him on his own initiative. In the recitals of the appointment, the Viceroy made it quite clear that the appointment was made "for now and in commission". When Liniers was replaced by Velasco, he filed a claim for the payment of an additional hundred pesos a month, arguing that it was due to him for having performed the governorship of the Missions as a "special" function on top of his military post.González (1946), p. 23–25
After handing over command of the Missions to Colonel Bernardo de Velasco, who had been appointed governor by the King, Liniers arrived in Itapúa on October 13, 1804, and embarked with his wife and children on the smack Nuestra Señora del Pilar bound for Buenos Aires. His wife was about to give birth, which happened during the voyage. The mother died in childbirth. The newborn girl was given the name María de los Dolores de la Cruz Concepción. It is likely that the death was not a consequence of childbirth but of an infectious disease, because María del Pilar Sarratea, a "free black woman" who served as an attendant, died at the same time. Both were buried with a major and a minor burial respectively on April 29, 1805. A few days later his two-year-old daughter Francisca de Paula also died. All of them were buried in Las Conchas, as recorded in the registers of the parish of the Immaculate Conception, Book I, folios 142 and 143.[7]
In 1804 he was appointed by Viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte head of the naval station of Buenos Aires. He felt passed over by other Spanish officers, since he believed he had the merits for a better posting.
Liniers's elder brother, who shared his first name, Santiago Luis Enrique, and who held the French title of count of Liniers, took part in a conspiracy with the English to make the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata independent, which caused him problems until his death in 1809.
First English invasion
While Liniers was at the Ensenada de Barragán, the first English Invasion took place in 1806, commanded by Commodore Home Popham. Liniers saw the ships pass and alerted Viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte, but he did not receive orders to attack, but rather to return to Buenos Aires. Faced with the fait accompli of the capture of Buenos Aires by the British on June 27 and the Viceroy's flight to Córdoba, he obtained permission from the British governor to visit the capital.
There he got in touch with the groups that Martín de Álzaga was organizing in an attempt to expel the English, and then traveled to Montevideo, where its governor, Pascual Ruiz Huidobro, provided him with men, arms and ammunition, as well as a flotilla of boats.
In Montevideo, the news of the fall of Buenos Aires into English hands caused great concern, since it was foreseeable that the ultimate aim of the English was to seize the entire rich region of the Plata.
Pascual Ruiz Huidobro was not in favor of sending an expedition to reconquer Buenos Aires, given that at that time he had a military force of only about five hundred men. However, the inhabitants of Montevideo and of the countryside and towns placed at the disposal of the Cabildo and the Governor their offer to contribute men and resources to raise an army to dislodge the English from Buenos Aires before reinforcements reached them.
In a session held in the Cabildo of Montevideo on July 18, 1806, it was resolved to declare that Viceroy Sobremonte's abandonment of his post and the oath of submission to the English by the Cabildo of Buenos Aires placed the Governor of Montevideo as the highest delegated authority of the King of Spain in this part of the continent, and that, consequently, he had the obligation and the duty to use that authority to dislodge the invaders from Buenos Aires and thus protect the city of Montevideo.
Thus an army of 1,600 men was recruited in a few days, organized in the military units regularly based in the city. Meanwhile, it happened that the ships of the English squadron appeared off Montevideo, creating a significant threat to its security. So the governor decided to remain at the head of the defenses, and entrusted the command of the expeditionary force that would head for Buenos Aires to Liniers. He crossed to Montevideo and from there moved toward Colonia with that force.
In Colonia del Sacramento he was awaited by a flotilla assembled by frigate captain Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha, which left the eastern shore on August 3.
Since Popham was watching the coasts and the Río de la Plata, the reconquest forces led by Liniers waited for a certain storm known in the region as a sudestada to break: a storm that lasts for days and produces heavy swells. While the sudestada was raging, they crossed the river unseen, a few meters from the English ships, and reached the Port of Las Conchas, today Tigre, on August 4.
On landing, he met with the unpleasant surprise that the English had managed to break up a contingent of loyal forces that were supposed to join him.
On August 12, 1806, he began the Reconquest of Buenos Aires. He attacked the city, defeated the English and forced their governor, William Carr Beresford, to surrender.[8] The men of the Río de la Plata seized 26 cannons and the flags of the 71st Regiment. These British insignia were displayed in the church of Santo Domingo in Buenos Aires with the inscription:
Del escarmiento del inglés, memoria, y de Liniers en Buenos Aires, gloria. (Of the Englishman's chastisement, a memory; and of Liniers in Buenos Aires, glory.)
For his part, the King of Spain granted the city of Montevideo the merit of the action accomplished, and issued a Royal Decree granting it the title of "Very Faithful and Reconquering" and allowing the flags of the vanquished, together with other allusive ornaments, to be incorporated into the city's coat of arms.
Interim Viceroy of the Río de la Plata
After the reconquest of Buenos Aires, Liniers was regarded as a hero by the population of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. An open Cabildo replaced Sobremonte with Liniers as military governor, and he in fact also began to administer civil affairs. The Viceroy, who had not been deposed, went over to the Banda Oriental.
Sobremonte attempted to take refuge in Montevideo, intending to assume command of its defense against the persistent threat of the English war fleet anchored off the city; but the Cabildo of Montevideo also refused to accept his authority, commissioning a delegation to get him to leave the city.
Liniers sent the prisoners to the interior, but he was moved by Beresford's laments and signed an honorable capitulation with the defeated commander, backdated to August 12, a decision that met with general rejection but that led Beresford to demand his release. Liniers additionally committed the imprudence of leaving the Englishman in Luján, from where two traitors went to rescue him and took him to Popham's fleet.
Liniers's government devoted itself almost exclusively to organizing troops to resist the inevitable English counterattack, since Beresford had asked for reinforcements. About ten regiments were organized, grouped by place of origin, among which stood out the one made up of natives of Buenos Aires, known as the Patricios, and the one made up of natives of the northwestern provinces, known as the Arribeños. In all, an army of almost 8,000 men was formed.
Second English invasion
On January 16, 1807, the English forces landed near Montevideo. Sobremonte was defeated on January 20 at Buceo, and his forces scattered toward the interior of the Banda Oriental or took refuge in the city. Liniers, who was sent to his aid with some 1,500 soldiers, could not move from the area of Colonia for lack of logistical support, and on later learning that Montevideo had fallen he returned to Buenos Aires. On February 10, a council of war ordered the removal of the Viceroy and his detention in custody. It placed Liniers in charge of the military forces, and the Real Audiencia took charge of the civil government. Later, on June 30, the Real Audiencia, in compliance with a royal order, invested Liniers as interim Viceroy as the highest-ranking officer.
In July more than 10,000 English soldiers landed at Quilmes and advanced on Buenos Aires. Liniers set up a defense on the Riachuelo, in a very poor position, but the English believed it was a trap and bypassed it. The Viceroy moved with part of his forces to the Corrales de Miserere, where he was easily defeated by the vanguard of the English general John Whitelocke on July 2 at the Battle of Miserere. Liniers offered to capitulate, but the city, led by Martín de Álzaga, refused and decided to resist. Unexpectedly, Whitelocke gave him three days of respite and the resistance could be organized. Liniers managed to enter the capital and supported Álzaga.
The English attack of July 5 was uncoordinated, in separate columns and with orders not to fire before reaching the central square. Under those conditions they had no chance and were cut down in a few hours.
Liniers demanded the surrender of the English, and Álzaga forced him to add the obligation to hand back Montevideo as well. All objectives were successfully achieved.
On February 24, 1807, the King promoted Liniers from ship captain to Brigadier of the Royal Navy, a rank that no longer exists, but which would be equivalent to a rank between ship captain and rear admiral.
In February 1809, the Junta of Seville called him "field marshal". In the army, this was the rank immediately above brigadier of the Royal Armies. The equivalent in the navy of the time was Squadron Commander (jefe de escuadra), today rear admiral. Some texts call Liniers by that title, Squadron Commander, in his last years. The painting in the Naval Museum of Madrid portrays him with a gold braid on the cuff, the insignia of both the squadron commander and the field marshal.
Royal confirmation as Viceroy
The following year, the King confirmed Liniers's appointment as Viceroy. But he was later accused of nepotism, bribery and embezzlement, and the upper class was scandalized by his romance with a Mauritian woman, also of French origin, surnamed Perichon and nicknamed La Perichona.
Don Santiago Liniers y Bremond, Knight of the Order of Saint John, Brigadier of the Royal Navy, Interim Governor and Captain General of its provinces, President of the Real Audiencia Pretorial, Commander General of the Naval Station, and Lieutenant of the Most Serene Lord Prince Generalissimo Admiral, etc.
— Heading of a proclamation by Liniers of February 13, 1808.
In August 1808 he received a visit from an envoy of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Marquis of Sassenay, who sought to have the Viceroyalty recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain. Although Liniers received him in public and rejected all his requests, days later he received him again in private, which fueled rumors of treason against him. He then issued a proclamation urging the Viceroyalty to remain neutral during the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain, which had just begun.
General Francisco Javier de Elío, Governor of Montevideo, took advantage of this series of political errors to stir Montevideo to revolt; on September 7, 1808, the city convened an open cabildo, and on the 20th it created a Governing Junta which, although it did not proclaim independence, asserted the right of each city to govern itself. Liniers did not dare to crush that rebellion. In that city the population shouted phrases such as:
Let there be a Cabildo! Death to Liniers! Down with the traitor! Long live Elío!
In Buenos Aires many people were against his government, among them the Cabildo and Martín de Álzaga, who came out in favor of creating a junta similar to that of Spain. The Napoleonic Invasion of Spain made him suspected of sympathizing with Spain's enemies, because he was French: "Down with the Frenchman Liniers!" was the main slogan of the juntistas.
Liniers counted only on the support of the militia regiments of Buenos Aires, so he gave top priority to paying their wages punctually. On January 1, 1809, the so-called Mutiny of Álzaga broke out: the mayor Martín de Álzaga and the members of the Cabildo sought to depose Liniers, who agreed to submit his resignation, believing that the movement had popular support. But the intervention of Cornelio Saavedra —commander of the Patricios— made him change his mind: several of the Spanish regiments that had supported the uprising were disbanded, and Álzaga was exiled to Carmen de Patagones.
Liniers, Count of Buenos Aires
While these events were unfolding in the viceregal capital, on February 11, 1809,[nota 1] a Royal Decree created a title of nobility in favor of Santiago de Liniers for his successful defense of these lands of the King of Spain against the two thwarted attempts carried out in the two English Invasions of the Río de la Plata.
The Supreme Governing Junta of the Kingdom, wishing to reward duly the outstanding merits earned by Field Marshal Don Santiago Liniers while he has been in Buenos Aires as Viceroy and Captain General, has been pleased to grant him, in the name of the King our lord Don Ferdinand VII, the grace of a title of Castile, free of lanzas for his children, heirs and successors.
The noble title of Count of Buenos Aires was chosen by the Frenchman Liniers in honor of his adopted homeland. The Cabildo of Buenos Aires objected, declaring that such a title offended the privileges of the city.
The Supreme Governing Junta of Spain and the Indies, in the name of the King our Lord Don Ferdinand VII, as an effect of his sovereign clemency, has deigned to confer upon me the grace of a title of Castile free of lanzas and medias anatas for myself, my children, heirs and successors, and one hundred thousand reales de vellón of annual pension on the Royal Treasury of this capital, until lands are assigned to me in these countries that produce an equal income.
And this being the most flattering reward I could expect from a just and paternal Government, my gratitude cannot fail to communicate it to Your Lordship, with the notice that by decree of this day I have taken the title of Count of Buenos Aires, as long as His Majesty does not deign to resolve otherwise.
God keep you many years.—Buenos Aires, May 15, 1809.
Santiago Liniers. Sir...
— Circular of the Viceroy, announcing the title that has been granted to him, and the one he has taken.
However, its denomination lasted a very short time, since the County of Buenos Aires was replaced by the County of La Lealtad. This was due, in part, to the protest made by the Cabildo of Buenos Aires itself.[11][nota 2]
The revolution and the execution of Liniers
But events in the Iberian Peninsula changed the situation. With King Ferdinand VII a prisoner, suspicions about Liniers grew, so the government of Spain, represented by the Supreme Central Junta, appointed Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros to replace Liniers. When the latter arrived in the Río de la Plata, in July 1809, some hotheaded porteños asked Liniers to refuse to hand over command, which he declined to do.
On August 14, 1809, Viceroy Cisneros ordered his transfer to Mendoza until he could make the journey he was planning to Spain. But Liniers bought and settled on a former estancia of the Jesuits in Alta Gracia, Intendancy of Córdoba del Tucumán.
In 1810, when he was already prepared to return to Spain, news of the May Revolution reached Córdoba.
Urged on by his friend, the governor of the Intendancy of Córdoba del Tucumán, Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha, Liniers joined the group that sought to oppose the Primera Junta that had emerged from the May Revolution. On May 15, at a meeting among the governor, Bishop Rodrigo de Orellana and Colonel Santiago Allende, among others, Liniers was informed of the events in Buenos Aires, to which he remarked:
... it will be necessary to regard as rebels those who have caused so much unrest. As a military man I am ready to fulfill my duty. And I offer myself from now on to organize the necessary forces.
and added:
"... the conduct of those of Buenos Aires toward the Mother Country, in the state in which the atrocious usurper Bonaparte has placed her, is the same as that of a son who, seeing his father ill, but with an illness from which he would probably recover, murders him in his bed in order to inherit from him."
While some of his pro-independence acquaintances in Buenos Aires urged him to join the movement, Cisneros himself urged him to oppose the revolutionary Junta. Preparations for the royalist counter-revolution in Córdoba became quite advanced, managing to assemble 1,500 men. When on July 21 the First Auxiliary Expedition to Upper Peru of the revolutionary Francisco Ortiz de Ocampo reached the jurisdiction of Córdoba, the royalist leaders began a retreat to the north, which caused most of their soldiers to desert, joining the pro-independence side. The royalist leaders continued their retreat northward but were overtaken by the advance guards of the revolutionary army commanded by Antonio González Balcarce. Liniers was captured by aide-de-camp José María Urien at the estancia of Piedritas, near Chañar, on August 6. On the 7th Orellana was captured by Ensign Rojas, eight leagues from where Liniers had been found; both were mistreated by the soldiers.
As early as July 28 the Junta had decided on the execution of the royalists; only Manuel Alberti, being a priest, abstained from signing the order.
The sacred rights of the King and of the Homeland have armed the arm of justice, and this Junta has pronounced sentence against the conspirators of Córdoba, accused by the notoriety of their crimes and condemned by the general vote of all good men. The Junta orders that Don Santiago Liniers, Don Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha, the bishop of Córdoba, Don Victorino Rodríguez, Colonel Allende and the Royal officer Don Joaquín Moreno be shot by arquebus. At the moment when all or each of them are caught, whatever the circumstances may be, this resolution shall be carried out, without allowing minutes that might give rise to pleas and connections capable of compromising the fulfillment of this Order and the honor of Your Lordship.
However, Ocampo did not carry out the execution order, since he had been Liniers's comrade-in-arms during the English Invasions. The Cabildo of Córdoba, now in the hands of the revolutionaries, then decided to send the prisoners to Buenos Aires. The members of the Junta were surprised, since this meant bringing him back to the city that regarded him as a hero, which could pose a great danger. Juan José Castelli went out to meet them with peremptory orders to shoot them quickly:
Go —Mariano Moreno told Castelli— and I hope you will not fall into the same weakness as our general (Ocampo)... or I will go myself if necessary..."
On August 26, at the Monte de los Papagayos, near the relay station of Cabeza de Tigre, close to present-day Los Surgentes in southeastern Córdoba, Liniers was shot together with the other commanders loyal to the King: Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha, brigadier of the Navy; Victorino Rodríguez, legal adviser; Santiago Allende, militia colonel; and Joaquín Moreno, royal officer. Only Bishop Orellana's life was spared, owing to his priestly status. The squad that executed the royalists was directed by Colonel Domingo French.
On December 15 of the same year, in Potosí, Castelli would order the execution, together with Colonel Vicente Nieto, of frigate captain José de Córdoba y Rojas and of Francisco de Paula Sanz, governor of Potosí.
As a result of this execution, Luis, Liniers's son, repudiated the title of Count of Buenos Aires, which was exchanged —with the consent of the Spanish monarchy— for that of "Count of La Lealtad".
Marriages and Euro-American descendants
On February 21, 1783, he married in Málaga Juana Úrsula de Menvielle (d. March 24, 1790).
From that marriage he had a single son: Luis de Liniers y Menvielle (Málaga, 1783 – San Fernando, February 21, 1816).[12]
Liniers married for the second time on August 3, 1791, in the city of Buenos Aires, María Martina de Sarratea y Altolaguirre (Buenos Aires, February 20, 1772 – Paraná Delta, April 27, 1805). From her father, Martín Simón de Sarratea e Idígoras, she received the usufruct of the family mansion in the neighborhood of the Bajada de los Dominicos, built in 1788.[13]
From this second union he had eight children: María del Carmen, José Atanasio, Santiago Tomás, Mariano Tomás, Juan de Dios, Martín Inocencio, Francisca Paula and María de los Dolores.[14][15][16]
Fate of his body
After having Santiago de Liniers and his counter-revolutionary companions shot, Castelli ordered the corpses to be buried in a ditch beside the nearby church of Cruz Alta.
In 1861, the president of the Argentine Confederation, Santiago Derqui, who was a relative of one of the executed men, appointed a commission to locate the remains of those who had been shot.
The military commander of Cruz Alta, Reyes Araya, stated that Pascual Almirón, his 72-year-old father-in-law, had witnessed the burial of the remains, having been a stagecoach driver between Cabeza de Tigre and Cruz Alta, and that he had gone on a roan colt to the burial of the maturrangos. The corpses, which were half-naked and with their eyes pecked out by caranchos, were carried one on top of another in a cinch cart. Although he did not remember exactly the place where they had been buried, but only approximately, he did remember that, since the grave could not hold all five corpses on its surface but only three, two of them were placed crosswise, though he did not know any of them.
With these precise details provided by Almirón, excavations were begun in various directions until the remains were found exactly as he had described. In the grave there were ten soles from boots and shoes and two buttons, on one of which a royal crown stood out conspicuously in relief. The ashes were placed in a mahogany urn and taken to the Mother Church of Rosario.
The ashes were then sent to the city of Paraná. On April 17 of the same year they arrived mixed together in an urn, and funeral rites were held for them. Liniers's two youngest children, who lived in Spain, expressed their gratitude for "so distinguished an act of justice, magnanimity and sound policy".
In June 1862, the Spanish consul in Rosario expressed in a note to the person in charge of the National Executive Power, Brigadier General Bartolomé Mitre, the King's satisfaction at "the homage paid to the valor and loyalty of those who sealed with their blood the oaths they had sworn to the throne and to the homeland", and further requested that "the said mortal remains be placed at the disposal of the consulate of Rosario in order to transfer them to the Peninsula".
The Argentine government granted the request in the month of July. Liniers's eldest daughter complained to Mitre and demanded that the remains stay in the country and be interred in the vault the family had in the Recoleta Cemetery. But she failed to convince him, and the remains of both Liniers and Gutiérrez de la Concha were taken to Spain, where they were received with military honors and buried in San Fernando (Cádiz), in the Pantheon of Illustrious Sailors. The mausoleum was built in Italy and arrived in Cádiz in April 1864, with the works to adapt the Pantheon being completed in 1867.
The Argentine Republic donated a bronze plaque, placed in the mausoleum, which bears the final sentence of the book Santiago de Liniers, Conde de Buenos Aires, by Paul Groussac:
The last heroes of the old Homeland were the first victims of the new Homeland. Tribute from the Argentine Navy. August 1960.
Liniers in fiction
Liniers's life was portrayed in novelized form in the book El último virrey (The Last Viceroy), written by Horacio Salduna in 1987. The title of the book is due to the fact that, although Liniers was not in fact the last Viceroy in the Spanish dominions of America, he was the last appointed by a Spanish King and not by one of the Juntas that arose in Spain after the Napoleonic invasion.
The 2001 Argentine film Cabeza de Tigre deals with the last stage of Liniers's life.
Tributes to his memory
In honor of Santiago de Liniers, a neighborhood of the city of Buenos Aires and a town in Misiones Province bear his name.
In the 1808 nomenclature of the streets of Buenos Aires, in which they were given the names of the heroes of the days of the English Invasions, the present-day Reconquista and Defensa streets were named Liniers, a name that lasted until 1822.[17] Today a street running through the neighborhoods of Almagro and Boedo bears his name. There are also streets dedicated to Liniers in other towns, for example in Tigre, the avenue that runs along the Reconquista River (formerly Las Conchas) where Liniers landed in 1806. On that Avenida Liniers, at the corner of Padre Castañeda (Tigre), stands the Museo de La Reconquista, which at the time of the landing was the store and sailors' boarding house of Martín José de Goyechea. In front of this house Liniers landed in 1806, regrouped his troops, enlarged by volunteers from the town of Las Conchas (today Tigre), rested and then set out for Buenos Aires.
In the city of Alta Gracia, Córdoba Province, the "Santiago de Liniers" school, founded in 1937, bears his name; it is located on Avenida de Mayo and Esmeralda, in the Liniers neighborhood.
In Montevideo there is the short Calle Santiago de Liniers, between Plaza Independencia and Calle Ciudadela. It skirts the Torre Ejecutiva, seat of the Presidency of Uruguay, on the west.
Ancestors
Ancestors of Santiago de Liniers
- 1. Santiago de Liniers
- 2. Father: Jacques Joseph de Liniers, count of Liniers
- 4. Paternal grandfather: Joseph de Liniers, lord of Saint-Pompain
- 5. Paternal grandmother: Marie Avice
- 10. Nicolas Avice
- 20. Jérome Avice, lord of La Motte
- 21. Suzanne de Cougnac
- 11. Louise Marsault de Parsay
- 10. Nicolas Avice
- 3. Mother: Henriette Thérèse de Brémond
- 6. Maternal grandfather: Jacques de Brémond, lord of Lusseray
- 12. Jacques de Brémond, lord of Vernoux
- 24. François de Brémond, lord of Cère
- 25. Jacquette de La Gourgue
- 13. Marie-Heneriette de Hautefoye
- 26. Henri de Hautefoye
- 27. Marie Louveau
- 12. Jacques de Brémond, lord of Vernoux
- 7. Maternal grandmother: Suzanne Marguerite Aymer
- 14. René II Aymer
- 28. René I Aymer
- 29. Julie de Angliers
- 15. Marguerite de Saint-Quintin
- 30. Daniel de Saint-Quintin, count of Blet
- 31. Marguerite Payen
- 14. René II Aymer
- 6. Maternal grandfather: Jacques de Brémond, lord of Lusseray
- 2. Father: Jacques Joseph de Liniers, count of Liniers
Notes
- ↑ According to other sources, the Royal Decree is dated February 13.
- ↑ The title of Count of Buenos Aires was inherited, after the execution of Santiago de Liniers by arquebus fire, by his son Luis. It was he who got the Cortes of Cádiz to change its denomination to that of Count of La Lealtad, by Royal Decree of March 21, 1816, an order received one month after his death on the Isla de León, while serving as a lieutenant. Luis had a single, posthumous son, who died at a young age, so the title passed to other descendants of Liniers. The fifth Count, Jacques Alexandre de Liniers y Jarno, rehabilitated the title of Count of Buenos Aires, which was granted to him by Royal Letter of October 31, 1862.
References
- ↑ Demaría, Gonzalo; Molina de Castro, Diego (2001). Historia Genealógica de los Virreyes del Río de la Plata (in español). Buenos Aires: Junta Sabatina de Especialidades Históricas. pp. 322–325. ISBN 987-1042-01-9.
- ↑ Hispanicized as Santiago José Luis de Liniers— knight of Saint Louis, count of Liniers and lord of Grand-Breuil, La Vallée, Cran and Chaban de la Poussardière, and from 1758, sub-brigadier of the navy of France, himself the son of the lord of Saint-Pompain, Joseph de Liniers, and of Marie Avice.
- ↑ Hispanicized as Enriqueta Teresa de Bremond, and daughter of the lord of Vernoux, Jacques de Brémond d'Ars and of Suzanne Marguerite Aymer. She was the sister of the Marquis of Bremond. "Nobiliario del Antiguo Virreynato del Rio de la Plata" (by Carlos Calvo, Buenos Aires, 1924).
- ↑ "Fos Medina, Juan Bautista, Santiago de Liniers, un caballero cristiano, revista Cruz del Sur, 2017, año VII, num. 26, ISSN 2250-4478" (PDF) (in español).
- ↑ His parents had eight children, three of whom bore his own name, Jacques or Santiago, as their first name, according to the Boletín de la Real Academia de Historia" (Vol. CLXXVII, No. III, 1980):
- Santiago Luis Enrique de Liniers Bremond, or in French Jacques Louis Henri de Liniers Brémond (Niort, April 28, 1749 – Buenos Aires, June 9, 1809), was a poet who submitted proof of nobility in November 1783 in order to become a knight of Saint Louis. He inherited from his father the French titles of count of Liniers and lord of Grand-Breuil, La Vallée, Cran and Chaban. He also joined the French navy, reaching the rank of infantry colonel. During the government of Viceroy Arredondo he traveled to Buenos Aires and went into partnership with his brother Santiago José to found «La Real Fábrica de Pastillas» (the Royal Lozenge Factory), leaving him in charge of it shortly afterward because he had to return to France, coming back to the viceregal capital in 1807. He married Marie Madeleine Jacqueline Ignace Cadoret de Beaupreau, having three children, two daughters and his heir Charles Henri de Liniers (1785–1812).
- Louis Augustin André de Liniers (ib., October 16, 1750 – Santo Domingo on the French part of the island of Hispaniola, March 30, 1796).
- Marie Henriette Térèse Begnigne Mélanie de Liniers (ib., April 2, 1752 – ib., 1811).
- Santiago de Liniers y Bremond, or in French Jacques de Liniers Brémond —that is, the viceroy of the Río de la Plata treated here— with European and American descendants.
- Jacques Antoine Marie de Liniers (ib., February 6, 1756 – 1827) was a knight of Saint Louis.
- Angélique Marguerite Louise de Liniers (ib., January 27, 1757 – 1836).
- Amable Joseph de Liniers (ib., April 24, 1761 – 1789).
- Marie Eleonore de Liniers (1765 – 1824).
- ↑ Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación in "Humanidades. Publicación de la [...] " (Vol. 28, p. 628, Ed. La Facultad, 1940).
- ↑ Upon the death of Martina de Sarratea, the usufruct of the Casona de Sarratea passed, by her father's testamentary disposition, to her sister Juana de Sarratea y Altolaguirre (b. 1782), although Liniers lived in it until 1809. In 1811 the inheritance became effective upon her father's death. She married in 1813 Ángel Augusto de Monasterio, future artillery colonel, "the Archimedes of the May Revolution". See De Estrada, Marcos; in "Manuel de Sarratea: prócer de la Revolución y de la Independencia" (p. 17, Ed. BPR Publishers, 425 pp., 1985).
- ↑ The painting by Charles Fouqueray, the Reconquista de Buenos Aires, painted in 1909, illustrates the moment when Beresford handed his sword to Liniers and occupies an important place in Argentine national iconography.
- ↑ Trofeos de la Reconquista de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires en el Año 1806 (in español). Publicación oficial. Buenos Aires: Litografía, Imprenta y Encuadernación de Guillermo Kraft. 1882.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) - ↑ Las Banderas Británicas tomadas en Buenos Aires el 5 de julio de 1807. Por Guillermo Palombo. (in Spanish)
- ↑ olandodeynigo.blogspot.com.ar/2011/04/conde-de-buenos-aires.html
- ↑ In 1809 he inherited the title of count of Liniers from his uncle residing in Buenos Aires, and in 1810 the title of count of Buenos Aires from his father, which, with Spain's consent, he transformed into count of La Lealtad. On March 2, 1815, he married Rita Martínez de Junquera y Vélez de Guevara, with whom he had a son, who survived him but died shortly afterward, named Santiago de Liniers y Martínez Junquera, the 3rd count of La Lealtad.
- ↑ Her father was a Spanish Basque. Yaben, Jacinto R.; "Biografías argentinas y sudamericanas" (p. 413, Ed. Petrópolis, 1938), erroneously states that he was born in Ciga in the Baztán Valley of the Kingdom of Navarre, which was part of the Crown of Spain, and also mistakenly gives his second surname as "Idigorzal" instead of Idígoras. He was born in Oñate in Guipúzcoa in 1743 and died in Buenos Aires in 1811, according to De Estrada, Marcos; in "Manuel de Sarratea: prócer de la Revolución y de la Independencia" (pp. 11–17, Ed. BPR Publishers, 425 pp., 1985). He was married from February 11, 1767, to Tomasa Altolaguirre Pando (b. December 20, 1749); they were also the parents of Juana and Manuel de Sarratea, among others.
- ↑
- María del Carmen de Liniers Sarratea (b. Buenos Aires, c. 1792), married in Buenos Aires on December 26, 1809, to Juan Bautista Perichón de Vandeuil, a 28-year-old Mauritian and brother of Ana Perichon. They had two children in Buenos Aires: the younger, Juan Bautista (1845–1881), and María Rosario Perichón de Vandeuil y Liniers Sarratea (b. c. 1815), married on July 29, 1840, to the deputy of the Buenos Aires legislature José Manuel de Estrada (1814–1888), continuing an Argentine line with the firstborn Ángel de Estrada y Perichón Liniers, married to his third aunt Tomasa de Biedma y Monasterio Sarratea, a granddaughter of the engineer colonel Ángel Augusto de Monasterio and maternal heir of the Casona de Sarratea, as well as the politician José Manuel de Estrada-Liniers y Perichón and the youngest, Santiago de Estrada. De Estrada, Marcos (op. cit., p. 18).
- José Atanasio de Liniers Sarratea (Montevideo, May 2, 1798 – castle of Plessis-Cherchemont in the Autize valley, April 22, 1882), who inherited the French title of «count of Liniers» from his brother and young nephew, and the Spanish title of 4th «count of La Lealtad». He joined the Spanish diplomatic service in 1820, becoming Secretary of Legation and Chargé d'Affaires to the Kingdom of Sardinia. On June 10, 1823, he married María Olimpia de Jarno (January 8, 1803 – Plessis-Cherchemont, October 26, 1880) —daughter of the baron of Pont-Jarno— for which reason he moved to France, having six children, Jacques Alexandre de Liniers (b. 1833) being the next count of Buenos Aires —a title rehabilitated in 1862— and 5th count of La Lealtad from 1882. "LA FAMILLE DE LINIERS EN NIORTAIS" (Yves de La Martinière, 10 septembre 2008) (in French)
- Santiago Tomás de Liniers Sarratea (ib., November 6, 1799 – August 24, 1826).
- Mariano Tomás de Liniers Sarratea (ib., December 20, 1801 – Burgos in Old Castile, September 3, 1881), married on September 7, 1841, to Caritina Gallo-Alcántara. They had two children, the elder being Santiago de Liniers y Gallo de Acántara (b. June 23, 1842), who received the new Spanish title of 1st count of Liniers, in addition to having been a senator for life for the province of Burgos.
- Juan de Dios de Liniers Sarratea (ib., 1797 – Córdoba of the Río de la Plata, November 11, 1811).
- Martín Inocencio de Liniers Sarratea (b. Montevideo, 1800).
- Francisca de Paula de Liniers Sarratea (Corrientes, 1803 – Las Conchas, 1805), who died at the age of two, shortly after landing at Las Conchas (today Tigre).
- María de los Dolores de la Cruz de Liniers Sarratea (Paraná Delta of the Province of Buenos Aires, April 27, 1805 – Spain, ?), married from August 17, 1825, to Pedro de la Hoz (Villa de Espejo in Andalusia, 1800–1865), who was director of the Gaceta de Madrid, conservator judge of the offices of the Royal Printing House and Prosecutor General of the Post Office, with whom she had four children. Being legitimists in the Carlist Wars, they had to migrate to France around 1840, living with their relatives at the castle of Plessis-Cherchemont. Yaben, Jacinto R. (op. cit., same as above).
- ↑ "Nuevo Diccionario Biográfico Argentino" (by Vicente O. Cutolo, Ed. Elche, Buenos Aires, 1968).
- ↑ Bicentenario de la muerte de Santiago de Liniers y Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha, sendos jefes de escuadra y otros compañeros de infortunio. José C. Fernández Fernández. Marcos Fernández Martínez. Juan A. Vijande Fernández. Jesús Jaen Serrano. http://milan2.es/AsDeGuia/AsDeGuia_Liniers.html Archived 2018-09-27 at the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ Cutolo, V. O. (1994). Buenos Aires: Historia de las calles y sus nombres (in español). Buenos Aires: Elche. ISBN 950-99212-0-3.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Bibliography
- Barros Pintado, Feliciano (2018). Santiago de Liniers y Bremond. Madrid: Biblioteca Digital de la Real Academia de la Historia.
- Guillén, Julio F. La independencia del Plata en los papeles del Archivo de Marina. Ed. Instituto Histórico de Marina. Offprint from the Revista General de Marina (May–June 1960).
- Groussac, Paul (1998). Santiago de Liniers, Conde de Buenos Aires (in español). Buenos Aires: El Elefante Blanco.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - De Roure, Louis (2012). Santiago de Liniers, virrey del Río de la Plata, a través de su correspondencia familiar (in español). Liniers, Javier (trans.). Buenos Aires.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Lozier Almazán, Bernardo (1989). Liniers y su tiempo (in español). Buenos Aires: Emecé.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - Ortega, Exequiel César (1944). Liniers, una vida frente a la gloria y a la adversidad (in español). Claridad.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - Crónica Histórica Argentina, Tomo I (in español). Codex. 1968.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - Demaría, Gonzalo; Molina de Castro, Diego (2001). Historia Genealógica de los Virreyes del Río de la Plata (in español). Buenos Aires: Junta Sabatina de Especialidades Históricas. ISBN 987-1042-01-9.
- Vázquez-Rial, Horacio (2012). Santiago de Liniers (in español). Madrid: Ediciones Encuentro. ISBN 978-84-9920-128-3.
External links
