Pedro Messia de la Cerda, marques de la Vega de Armijo (February 16, 1700, Cordoba, Spain—1783, Madrid) was a Spanish naval officer and colonial official. From 1761 to 1773 he was viceroy of New Granada (present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador).
Background and early career
Pedro Messia de la Cerda was a knight of the Gran Cruz de Justicia of the Order of San Juan, gentleman of the king's bedchamber, and knight commander of the Golden Key. He entered the navy, participating in the conquest of Sardinia and the reconquest of Sicily. In 1719 he took part in various battles with the English.
He made his first voyage to the Indies in 1720, and in 1721 he was involved in the suppression of smuggling in Cartagena and Portobelo. In 1726 he was promoted to lieutenant of a frigate, and in 1745 he was made captain.
In 1753 when he was in Cartagena de Indias in charge of a military force for the suppression of privateers and smugglers, he received and entertained the new viceroy, Jose Solis Folch de Cardona upon his arrival there. In 1755 he became lieutenant general of the navy, and two years later was named a member of the Supreme Council of War.
As viceroy of New Granada
In March 1760 Messia was named viceroy of New Granada. He arrived at Cartagena in October to take up his office. Arriving with him was the physician and botanist Jose Celestino Mutis, later head of the royal botanical expedition that investigated the flora and fauna of the colony. Messia traveled to Bogota at the end of February 1761, where he was received with due ceremony. He returned to Cartagena in September 1762, upon receiving news of the British blockade of Havana. Then he returned to the capital in 1763.
On instructions from the Crown, he imposed a tax on tobacco. He also took steps to stimulate the mineral production in the colony. During his administration a gunpowder factory was established in the capital, and a saltpeter factory in Tunja. He reorganized the treasury, reinforced the fortifications of Cartagena, and promoted public works, such as the road from Bogota to Caracas. He promoted higher education and established a postal monopoly. He also increased the tax on aguardiente. In May 1765 this led to a revolt in Quito.
He aided the governor of Darien in fighting back the invasions of the Cuna Indians. He also carried out campaigns against the Chimila and Guajiro (Wayuu) Indians, who had not yet been subjected by the Spanish. These campaigns were not very successful. He also faced an Indian attack on the town of Coyaima, where the rebels killed some people, burned some buildings and forced the corregidor to flee. He restored order in Neiva in 1767 after another rebellion.
Messia promoted the missions, also without major results. He began the construction of the cathedral of Santa Marta. The first stone was laid on December 8, 1766.
He carried out the order of King Charles II to expel the Jesuits from New Granada (and all the other Spanish dominions), and he established a mechanism to administer the property confiscated from the Order. Messia de la Cerda was a friend of the Jesuits, and tried to mitigate the harshness of the expulsion order. Nevertheless, it was enforced on July 31, 1767. At the time there were 114 Jesuit priests, 57 students and 56 brothers in the colony. Many of the individuals expelled took up residence in Urbino, Italy, where a number of them, through their writings, supplied European scholars with more information about the Americas.
The Guajira Rebellion
The Guajiro Indians (or Wayuu, as they are now known), had never been subjugated by the Spanish. The two groups were in a more or less permanent state of war. There had been rebellions in 1701 (when they destroyed a Capuchin mission), 1727 (when more than 2,000 Indians attacked the Spanish), 1741, 1757, 1761 and 1768. In 1718 Governor Soto de Herrera called them "barbarians, horse thieves, worthy of death, without God, without law and without a king." Of all the Indians in the territory of Colombia, they were unique in having learned the use of firearms and horses.
In 1769 the Spanish took 22 Guajiros captive, in order to put them to work building the fortifications of Cartagena. The reaction of the Indians was unexpected. On May 2, 1769 at El Rincon, near Rio de la Hacha, they set their village afire, burning the church and two Spaniards who had taken refuge in it. They also captured the priest.
The Spanish immediately dispatched an expedition from El Rincon to capture the Indians. At the head of this force was Jose Antonio de Sierra, a mestizo who had also headed the party that had taken the 22 Guajiro captives. The Guajiros recognized him and forced his party to take refuge in the house of the curate, which they then set afire. Sierra and eight of his men were killed.
This success was soon known in other Guajiro areas, and more men joined the revolt. According to Messia, at the peak there were 20,000 Indians under arms. Many had firearms acquired from English and Dutch smugglers, sometimes even from the Spanish. These enabled the rebels to take nearly all the settlements of the region, which they burned. According to the authorities, more than 100 Spaniards were killed and many others taken prisoner. Many cattle were also taken by the rebels.
The Spaniards who could took refuse in Rio de la Hacha and sent urgent messages to Maracaibo, Valle de Upar, Santa Marta and Cartagena. Cartagena send 100 troops. The rebels themselves were not unified. Sierra's relatives among the Indians took up arms against the rebels to avenge his death. A battle between the two groups of Indians was fought at La Soledad. That and the arrival of the Spanish reinforcements caused the rebellion to fade away, but not before the Guajiro had regained much territory.
Return to Spain
In 1771 the king approved his request to return to Spain, pending the arrival of his successor, Manuel de Guirior. On September 14, 1772 he left for Cartagena, and the following month turned over the office of viceroy to Guirior.
He lived ten years in Spain, dying there in 1783.
References
- Messia de la Cerda, Pedro, "Relacion del estado del Virreinato de Santafe. Ano de 1772". In German Colmenares (Ed.), Relaciones e informes de los gobernantes de la Nueva Granada, 3 Vols. Bogota: Biblioteca Banco Popular, 1989, vol. I, pp. 123-152.
- Restrepo, Jose Maria. Biografias de mandatarios y ministros de la Real Audiencia (1671 a 1819). Bogota: Academia Colombiana de Historia, 1952.
- "Messia de la Cerda, Pedro", in Gran Enciclopedia de Colombia
External links
- Encarta
- His article at La Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango
- The Guajiro Rebellion
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History-of-Colombia
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