Salvador José de Muro y Salazar, 2nd Marquis of Someruelos, in Spanish: Marqués de Someruelos, (Madrid, 6 October 1755 – 12 December 1813), was a Spanish military officer who served as a lieutenant general of infantry and a field marshal in the Spanish Army, as captain general of Cuba and governor of Havana, and as president of the Real Audiencia of Puerto Príncipe.
Someruelos worked to continue the progressive policies of the former captain general of Cuba, Luis de Las Casas. He supported the introduction in 1803 of a smallpox vaccination program, and promoted public works such as the building of a theatre to encourage the arts, and of the Espada cemetery to improve sanitation. He encouraged social and cultural improvements in the country, and in 1800 and 1804 he was visited by the scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland.
Governor Someruelos, mindful of his duty to defend the Spanish colonies in the region of the Gulf of Mexico, rejected overtures by an expansionist United States to begin diplomatic negotiations when, during the height of the economic crisis in Cuba caused by the embargo of 1807, Thomas Jefferson sent Gen. James Wilkinson as an envoy to the Spanish authorities. Someruelos refused to meet him when he finally reached Havana in March 1809.
Although he was appointed to his office by the Spanish Crown, Someruelos took the side of the criollo planters in Cuban politics, whose interests were often opposed to those of the administrative authorities in Metropolitan Spain. He brutally suppressed revolts by enslaved blacks on the island, and in 1812 ordered the hanging of the political activist José Antonio Aponte and fellow conspirators, as well as the public display of their severed heads.
Early life
Someruelos was born in Madrid on 6 October 1755, the son of Pedro Salvador de Muro y Alonso, from an old hidalgo family in La Rioja, and Teresa de Salazar y Morales, a native of Medinaceli. Although the thirdborn of eight brothers, he inherited the title of Marquis of Someruelos in 1777 (his father died in 1774) because the two eldest sons had consecrated themselves to the Church. His parents had previously determined that he should inherit the family patrimony, and to prepare for him a career suited to his position, they made generous contributions to the leadership of the Toro regiment's provincial militias.
The young Someruelos was educated by the Jesuits at the Seminary of Nobles of Madrid (Seminario de Nobles de Madrid) and the cadet school of Avila (Colegio Militar de Avila). On 30 December 1769, at age fifteen, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Córdoba infantry regiment.
Military career
Someruelos had attained the rank of captain of infantry when he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the Provincial Militia Regiment of Toro on 23 September 1783. He became a full colonel of militias on 22 September 1788. He married María de la Concepción de Vidaurreta y Llano, a native of Logroño, on 18 August 1791, and the couple moved into the Casa de los Chapiteles, a palace belonging to her family.
During the War of the Pyrenees (1793–1795), which was effectively the Pyrenean front of the First Coalition's war against the First French Republic, Someruelos was sent to the front lines at Guipúzcoa as commander of arms in the first battalion. On 10 October, he was promoted to colonel of infantry. Leading over 1,000 grenadiers, he was one of the officers in charge of reconnaissance during the Spanish campaign of 1794, in which he commanded two divisions of advance troops, often under enemy fire. He was made a brevet brigadier by April 1795.
After the Peace of Basel, signed on 22 July 1795, ended the War of the Pyrenees, Someruelos was promoted from colonel of militias to field marshal and assigned to the general staff of the Spanish Army at Navarre, enabling him to reside at his home in Logroño. His son Joaquín José, who became the 3rd Marquis of Someruelos, was born on 27 October 1797. In 1798, Someruelos was one of the officers in charge of organizing the campos volantes (flying camps) of Galicia, a mobile force ready to march against the British at any time.
Captain General of Cuba and Governor of Havana
Gen. Someruelos arrived in La Coruña on 3 December 1798 and went to Ferrol, where, although he had just taken the command of the campos volantes, he received orders to sail immediately for Cuba to assume office as captain general of Cuba. On his passage to Cuba, the mail ship carrying him, the brigantine Pájaro, was pursued by corsairs, so that he had to disembark in Trinidad to escape and continue to Cuba from there. Traveling overland, he was detained at Nicolás Calvo's La Holanda sugar mill in Güines by a tropical storm, and reached the capital on 1 May.
His commission included administration of the governments of Santiago de Cuba and Havana, as well as those of Spanish Louisiana and the Floridas. He was chosen to replace the Count of Santa Clara because of his reputation as a capable military leader who could defend the island against any foe. His term lasted 13 years, from 1799 to 1812, making him the longest-serving captain general in Cuba's colonial history. During his tenure, there occurred a series of memorable events, including: the slave revolts in Saint-Domingue which led to the withdrawal of France from the island of Hispaniola and the declaration of independence of Haiti in 1804; the War of the Third Coalition with its Battle of Trafalgar in 1805; the Peninsular War against the French invasion of 1808; the beginning of the Spanish-American independence movement the same year; and the enactment of the first Spanish constitution in 1812, his last year as captain general of Cuba.
Someruelos oversaw the cession of the remaining Spanish part of the island of Hispaniola to France, one of the conditions of the Peace of Basel agreed in 1795. This transfer made necessary the relocation of the Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo to Puerto Príncipe, Cuba, ordered by the royal decree of 17 March 1799. The new Audiencia was established the following year and had jurisdiction over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Louisiana and Florida. In early February 1802, he granted a request for supplies and money to relieve the French expedition led by Napoleon's brother-in-law, Gen. Charles Leclerc, against the black and mulatto slave insurgents in Saint-Domingue.
Administrative accomplishments As captain general of Cuba, Someruelos had determined early on in his administration to correct the deficiencies of the rule of his predecessor, the Count of Santa Clara, and to restore the progressive regime that had flourished under Luis de Las Casas. He encouraged social and cultural improvements in the country, and used the information provided by the expedition of the Royal Guantánamo Commission (Real Comision de Guantanamo) of 1796–1802 to promote the island of Cuba; in 1800 and 1804 he was visited by the scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland. As president of the Patriotic Society (Sociedad Económica de los Amigos del País de la Habana), in 1804 Someruelos invited Humboldt to investigate the hills near Havana for any significant deposits of gold or silver. Humboldt reported finding no indication of their presence in the presentation of his results before the Society.
When Havana was devastated in 1802 by fire and over 11,000 of the poorer inhabitants were made destitute, Someruelos became personally involved in efforts to aid them. He was interested in the improvement of architecture on the island, and promoted two important public works in Havana. The first, a public theatre, was built with the object of giving an impetus to the arts. The second, the Espada public cemetery, showed his interest in improving public sanitation. Executed by the Bishop of Havana, Juan José Díaz de Espada, the cemetery was located in the Villa de San Cristóbal neighborhood, and was inaugurated on 2 February 1806. Covering about , the cemetery was built so that the dead might be interred in one place, rather than being buried in small plots on estates, in churches, or in the yards of residences. The walls, gateway and chapel of the burying-ground were good examples of the late neoclassical Cuban architecture of the period; the mortuary chapel contained a well-executed fresco depicting the Resurrection.
Someruelos supported the introduction in 1803 of a smallpox vaccination program designed and overseen by the Cuban Criollo (Creole) doctor, Tomás Romay, and put all the island's governmental institutions and communications at the service of his mission, which coincided with the arrival in Cuba of the Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna (Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition), directed by Francisco Javier de Balmis, a Spanish physician who led the expedition to Spanish America to vaccinate the populations against smallpox.
Cuban planters, represented by lawyer, politician, and planter Francisco de Arango as their spokesperson, petitioned the government to exempt coffee, cotton and sugar from all taxes, including duties, sales taxes (alcabalas), and church tithes. This was finally achieved in 1804. Exemptions were also granted for the importation of enslaved Africans and machinery for the sugarcane industry.
Wartime and economic crisis With the resumption of the Anglo-Spanish War in 1804, and the consequent breakdown of regular communications with peninsular Spain, Someruelos was often left to his own devices in executing his office. When news of the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by Napoleon's armies reached Cuba, he approved a petition for the formation of a Cuban junta subordinate to the Junta Suprema Central in Spain, and asked Tomás de la Cruz Muñóz on 26 July 1808 to discuss the proposed "Junta Superior de Gobierno" with Ayuntamiento members and solicit their opinion, but the proposal was met with little enthusiasm. Thereafter Someruelos acted to ensure that the territories under his command remained in Spanish control.
Because the war with Great Britain, and then with France, had disrupted the Cuban economy, the Ministry of the Indies (Ministerio de Indias) and the King had approved Someruelos's authorization of the trade with neutral parties, most of which was with ports in the United States, but only as a necessity imposed by the war. The same ship that brought from Spain the official notice of peace also bore the royal order to suspend the foreign commerce. Contrary to the policy of the Metropolitan authorities, Someruelos continued to support the illicit traffic and consequently clashed with the successive intendants (intendentes), who supervised the treasury and the collection of taxes. Appointed directly by the Crown, they had fiscal powers that gave them a say in almost all administrative, ecclesiastical and military matters. Intendant Luis de Viguri (1798–1803), a protege of Manuel Godoy, had many bitter disputes with Someruelos and with members of his own staff before he was recalled. Someruelos's relationship with the intendendants was complicated by the fact that they had official control of the captaincy's finances, but also unofficially represented the commercial interests of the merchants in Spain and their special trading privileges. Besides these concerns, he had to manage as well the economic crisis on the island that began when the United States declared an embargo in 1807.
Political intrigues in Cuba