Manuel de Trujillo y Torres (November 1762 – July15, 1822) was a publicist and diplomat from Gran Colombia. He is best known for being received as the first ambassador of Gran Colombia by U.S. President James Monroe on June19, 1822. This act represented the first U.S. recognition of a former Spanish colony's independence.
Born in Spain, he lived as a young adult in the colony of New Granada (present-day Colombia). After being implicated in a conspiracy against the monarchy he fled in 1794, arriving in the United States in 1796. From Philadelphia he spent the rest of his life advocating for independence of the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Working closely with newspaper editor William Duane he produced English- and Spanish-language articles, pamphlets and books.
During the Spanish American wars of independence he was a central figure in directing the work of revolutionary agents in North America, who frequently visited his home. In 1819 Torres was appointed a diplomat for Venezuela, which that year united with New Granada to form Gran Colombia. As chargé d'affaires he negotiated significant weapons purchases but failed to obtain public loans. Having laid the groundwork for the diplomatic recognition of Colombia, he died less than a month after achieving this goal. Though largely unknown today, he is remembered as an early proponent of Pan-Americanism.
Early life Manuel Torres was born in the Spanish region of Córdoba in early November 1762. His mother's family was from the city of Córdoba while his father's side was probably from nearby Baena. He was descended from the minor nobility on both sides of his family, a class with social stature but not necessarily wealth.
In the spring of 1776 the young Torres sailed to Cuba with his maternal uncle Antonio Caballero y Góngora, who was consecrated there as bishop of Mérida in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (modern Mexico). Torres would later attribute his republican ideals to his uncle, a man of the Enlightenment who was an extensive collector of books, art, and coins. After Caballero y Góngora was promoted to archbishop of Santa Fé de Bogotá the family arrived in New Granada (modern Colombia) on June 29, 1778.
At age 17 Torres began working for the secretariat of the Viceroyalty and for the royal treasury. In the following seven years he learned finance and was able to observe the political and social conflicts in New Grenada, including the Revolt of the Comuneros. This was also the time of the American Revolution, which Spain joined against Great Britain. Caballero y Góngora became viceroy in 1782 and ruled as a liberal modernizer.
Torres went to France in early 1785 to study at the , where he spent about a year and half learning military science and mathematics. As lieutenant of engineers () he probably aided Colonel Domingo Esquiaqui's survey and helped reorganize the colonial garrisons. On presentation by the archbishop-viceroy, Torres was gifted land near Santa Marta by CharlesIV and established a successful plantation, which he named San Carlos. Torres married and at San Carlos had a daughter.
He became involved with political liberals of Bogotá's class (i.e., native New Granadians of European descent), joining a secret club led by Antonio Nariño where radical ideas were discussed freely. When in 1794 Nariño and other club members were implicated in a conspiracy against the Crown, Torres fled New Granada without his family. He first went to Curaçao, and in 1796 to Philadelphia,1797 is given by ; but for 1796 see ; ; . then the capital of the United States.
Arrival in Philadelphia Spanish Americans heading north tended to go to Philadelphia, Baltimore or (French-controlled) New Orleans, centers of commercial relations with the colonies. Philadelphia in particular was a symbol of republican ideals, which may have attracted Torres. Its trade with the Spanish colonies was significant and the American Philosophical Society was the first learned society in the U.S. to nominate Spanish American members. At St.Mary's Church he joined a cosmopolitan community of Roman Catholics, including many from Spanish and French America.
Quick to make American contacts, Torres became close friends with William Duane, who became editor of the Philadelphia newspaper Aurora in 1798. The editor continually published Torres' views on Spanish American independence in the paper, whose contents would be copied by others. Torres translated Spanish pamphlets for Duane, and sometimes translated Duane's editorials to Spanish. In Spanish America the purpose of this literature was to praise the United States as an example of independent representative government to be emulated; in the United States it was to increase support for the independence movements.
Initially Torres was quite wealthy and received remittances from his wife, which helped him make important social connections. However, he had his money invested in risky merchant ventures; on one occasion he lost $40,000, on another $70,000—thus he was forced to live more modestly in later years.
Three years after Torres' arrival, a "Spaniard in Philadelphia" wrote the pamphlet (released in English as Observations on the Commerce of Spain with her Colonies, in Time of War). The author, probably Torres, criticizes Spanish colonialism. In particular, Spain monopolized trade with the colonies to their detriment: during wartime the mother country could not supply the colonies with essential goods, and in peacetime the prices were too high. The author's solution is to implement a system of free trade in the Americas. The pamphlet was reprinted in London by William Tatham.
Torres' residence increased the attraction of Philadelphia for Spanish American revolutionaries. Torres probably met Francisco de Miranda (also exiled after a failed conspiracy) in 1805, shortly before Miranda's failed expedition to the Captaincy General of Venezuela, and he met with Simón Bolívar in 1806. The Spanish minister to the United States, Carlos Martínez de Irujo, reported Torres' activity to his superiors.
Coordinating revolutionaries During the instability caused by Napoleon Bonaparte's conquest of Spain—the Peninsular War—the people of the colonies followed the model of Peninsular Spanish provinces by organizing juntas to govern in the absence of central rule. Advocates of independence, who called themselves Patriots, argued that sovereignty reverted to the people when there was no monarch. They clashed with the Royalists, who supported the authority of the Crown. Starting in 1810 the Patriot juntas successively declared independence, and Torres was their natural point of contact in the United States.
Brokered weapons shipments Although President James Madison's administration officially recognized no governments on either side, Patriot agents were permitted to seek weapons in the U.S., and American ports became bases for privateering. Torres acted as an intermediary between the newly arrived agents and influential Americans, such as introducing (Simón's brother) to wealthy banker Stephen Girard. Juan Vicente successfully purchased weapons for Venezuela, but was lost at sea on his return journey in 1811.
Together with Telésforo de Orea from Venezuela, and Diego de Saavedra and Juan Pedro de Aguirre from Buenos Aires, Torres brokered a plan to purchase 20,000 muskets and bayonets from the U.S. government. Girard agreed to finance the plan on the joint credit of Buenos Aires and Venezuela, but Secretary of State James Monroe blocked it by refusing to reply. Saavedra and Aguirre managed to ship only 1,000 muskets to Buenos Aires, but by the end of 1811 Torres had helped Orea supply Venezuela with about 24,000 weapons. New purchasers continued to arrive, and the supplies were an important contribution while the revolutionaries were suffering many defeats.
The new Spanish minister, Luís de Onís, covertly attempted to disrupt the weapons shipments. He became aware of the plan to purchase from the U.S. arsenal due to being informed by a postman. Onís reported on these subversive activities and his agents harassed suspected revolutionaries like Torres. Francisco Sarmiento and Miguel Cabral de Noroña, two associates of Onís, attempted to assassinate Torres in 1814—apparently on the minister's orders. Due to his aid for the revolution, Torres' estate in Royalist-controlled New Granada was confiscated after his wife and daughter died.
Public writing Running out of money during this period, Torres sustained himself in part by teaching. With Louis Hargous he wrote an adaptation for both English- and Spanish-teaching of Nicolas Gouïn Dufief's Nature Displayed in Her Mode of Teaching Language to Man. The lengthy book's title page styles Torres and Hargous as "professors of general grammar"; in the introduction they argue the importance to Americans of studying Spanish literature. Influential revised editions by Mariano Velázquez de la Cadena were published in New York (1825) and London (1826).
Soon after Nature Displayed followed the 1812 pamphlet ("A Republican's Manual for the Use of a Free People"), which Torres probably wrote. Structured as a dialog, the anonymous pamphlet offers a defense of the U.S. system of government based on the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and argues it should be a model for Spanish America. The contents suggest the author is "a conservative partisan of Jeffersonian democracy". writes Torres' authorship "is possible"; writes he "probably" wrote it and infers Torres' Jeffersonianism.
Besides Duane's Aurora, Torres sent news and opinion to Baptis Irvine's Baltimore Whig and New York Columbian, Jonathan Elliot's City of Washington Gazette, and Hezekiah Niles' Baltimore Weekly Register. He acquainted himself with notables such as Congressman Henry Clay, lawyer Henry Marie Brackenridge, Baltimore Postmaster John Stuart Skinner, Judge Theodorick Bland and Patent Office head William Thornton. Especially the support of Clay, who became a champion of Spanish American independence in Congress, permitted him to lobby many influential officials.
Economic proposals
Torres' lobbying included domestic affairs; in February1815, near the end of War of 1812 that had preoccupied the American public, he wrote two letters to President Madison describing a proposal for fiscal and financial reform.Torres to Madison, February11, 1815, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, James Madison Papers, ; Torres to Madison, February25, 1815, James Madison Papers, . This included an equal and direct tax on all property, which Torres considered more just; ultimately he calculated a $1million budget surplus under his scheme and suggested gradual elimination of the national debt. In his December5 message to Congress, Madison did propose two ideas that Torres had favored: the establishment of a second Bank of the United States and utilizing it to create a uniform national currency.
The same year, Torres authored An Exposition of the Commerce of Spanish America; with some Observations upon its Importance to the United States., refers to this book as two separate works. This work, published in 1816, was the first inter-American handbook. Torres plays on Anglo-American rivalry by arguing for the importance of establishing American over British commercial interests in this critical region, just as revolutionary agents in Britain suggested the opposite. Applying political economy, he observes that a country with a negative balance of trade—like the United States—needs a source of gold and silver specie—like South America—to stabilize its currency and economy. The political commentary is interwoven with practical advice to merchants, followed by conversion tables between currencies and units of measure.