- Pablo Morillo
Pablo Morillo y Morillo, Count of Cartagena and Marquess of La Puerta, aka "El Pacificador" (The Pacifier) (born in
Fuentesecas , Zamora,Spain onMay 5 ,1775 - died inBarèges ,France , onJuly 27 ,1837 ) was a Spanish soldier and general.In
1791 Morillo enlisted in the Real Cuerpo de Marina (Spanish Royal Marine Corps) and participated in theBattle of Trafalgar in which he was wounded and made prisoner by the English in1805 . He also fought againstNapoleon Bonaparte in1808 during thePeninsular War (part ofNapoleonic Wars ) to defend his mother countrySpain against the French invasion. Once the war ended and theSpanish monarchy was restored, KingFerdinand VII of Spain appointed him Expedition Commander and General Captain of the Provinces of Venezuela onAugust 14 ,1814 . He set sail with a fleet of 18 warships and 42 cargo ships and disembarked in theIsla Margarita with the mission to pacify the revolts against the Spanish monarchy in the American colonies. He travelled toCaracas ,Puerto Cabello andCartagena de Indias (United Provinces of New Granada ) in a military campaign to fight Simon Bolívar's revolutionary armies.On
August 22 ,1815 , Morillo surrounded the walled city of Cartagena and put it under siege, preventing any supplies from going in untilDecember 6 of this same year when the Spanish Royal Army entered the city. With control over Cartagena, Morillo returned to Venezuela to continue the fight against revolutionaries. In June1820 Morillo ordered under Royal mandate that everyone in the colonies obeyed the Cadiz Constitution and sent delegates to negotiate with Bolivar and his followers. Bolivar and Morillo later met in the Venezuelan town of Santa Ana and signed a truce first for six months and later a second one named "War Regularization".Morillo returned to Spain and was named General Captain of
New Castile , but when King Ferdinand the VII restored the absolute regime in1823 he went to France. A few years later, he returned to Spain and participated in some military operations during theCarlist Wars . He felt ill and went back to France where he would die onJuly 27 ,1837 .Quotes
When Morillo ordered the execution of the Colombian scientist
Francisco José de Caldas (known as "El Sabio Caldas", "Learned Caldas") and the people present at the place appealed for the life of the scientist, Morillo responded: "Spain does not need wise people." ("Spanish:"España no necesita sabios") [Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, [http://www.udistrital.edu.co/colombia/proceres/caldas.php Francisco José de Caldas (1771 - 1816)] , retrieved on May 1, 2007] . This sentence became the slogan of Spain's wars for the re-conquest of the rebel colonies.ee also
*
Spanish reconquest of New Granada
*Reconquista (Spanish America)
*Royalist (Spanish American Revolutions) References
Bibliography
* Costeloe, Michael P. "Response to Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810-1840". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. ISBN 0521320836
* Earle, Rebecca. "Spain and the Independence of Colombia, 1810-1825". Exter: University of Exter Press, 2000. ISBN 0859896129
* Stoan, Stephen K. "Pablo Morillo and Venezuela, 1815-1820". Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1959.External links
*es icon [http://www.museonacional.gov.co/pablo_morillo.html National Museum of Colombia - Pablo Morillo]
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