Francisco López de Zúñiga y Meneses
Francisco López de Zúñiga y Meneses (Pedrosa del Rey, Valladolid, August 27, 1599 - Cádiz, September 19, 1656) was a Spanish nobleman of the House of Zúñiga, IV Marquis of Baides, VIII Count of Pedrosa del Rey, Lord of Tovar, Knight of the Order of Santiago, Captain of Horses, Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Chile, and President of the Audiencia of Chile.
Affiliation
Second-born son of Francisco López de Zúñiga y la Cerda, II Marquis of Baides, VI Count of Pedrosa del Rey, Lord of the towns of Tovar, Knight of the Order of Santiago, and his first wife María de Meneses Padilla. Francisco married in Lima in 1636 with María de Salazar Coca y Santander, daughter of Alonso Pérez de Salazar, oidor in the Audiencia de Charcas. During their marriage they had seven children, four boys and three girls. His eldest son Francisco, born in 1640 in Santiago, was his heir, married to Francisca Dávila y Córdova, II Marquise of Archicollar. Upon the death of his older brother Diego in 1636, Francisco came to inherit it, receiving the titles and estates of IV Marquis of Baides, VIII Count of Pedrosa del Rey, Lord of Tovar.
Captain of Horses in Flanders
Francisco was knighted in the Order of Santiago in May 1626. He served 16 years with great gallantry in the Flanders and German wars, being captain of horses.
Governor and Captain General of Santa Cruz de la Sierra
He was appointed Governor and Captain General of the province of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in the Viceroyalty of Peru by royal decree of April 9, 1634, and obtained a license to take three servants. He embarked on April 23, 1634 in the Navy of General Antonio de Oquendo, who left Spain bound for the mainland. In response to the reports he received in Lima, he resigned from that position on May 15, 1635.
Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Chile
The Marquis de Baides was named Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Chile in October 1638. To reinforce the fight against the Araucanian rebels, he raised two companies of soldiers in Lima, amounting to 150 men. He arrived at Concepción on April 25, 1639, and entered his government possession the next day. On September 26 of the same year, he assumed the position of captain general and president of the Audiencia of Chile.
In January 1640 he went out with his small army, cut down the fields and burned the houses of the Araucanian rebels of the Antegueno cacique. Military action that, with the help of the extinct Society of Jesus, achieved the pacification of other rebel Araucanian caciques (Quillin Parliament with some Mapuche chiefs such as Butapichún and Lientur) and the rescue of the Spanish captives, thus ensuring peace during their government. In 1641 he sent 200 well-armed and equipped soldiers to Buenos Aires to give aid to that province, fearing an invasion of Portuguese from Brazil.
In May 1643, a Dutch pirate squadron made up of five ships commanded by Hendrik Brouwer entered Chiloé and occupied Valdivia, with the order of the Prince of Orange to enter Valdivia, fortify the port, confederate with the rebel Araucanian Indians, arm them and attack the Spanish in Chile. The Marquis of Baides, upon learning of the capture of Valdivia by the Dutch, asked for help from the Viceroy of Peru, Pedro de Toledo y Leiva, Marquis of Mancera, by letters of November 16 and December 3, 1643. The Marquis Viceroy de Mancera sent the Squad of the South Sea, under the command of his son Antonio de Toledo, with a strong expedition that left Callao on December 31, 1644 and arrived in Valdivia in February 1645, where it did not find the enemies, who they had withdrawn in advance. The Marquis de Baides had the port of Valdivia fortified and secured with a garrison of 700 men under the command of Field Master Alonso de Villanueva, as Governor of Valdivia.
The Marquis de Baides left the government of Chile upon the arrival of his successor in Santiago on May 8, 1646. In a letter from the Franciscans of Santiago de Chile dated December 12, 1649, it is stated that in his residence not only was no charge found against him, but many demonstrations were found throughout the kingdom of his departure. in much of his estate. Feared by enemies and loved by the people.
The marquis and his family went to Lima, where they stayed for a while. The Marquis de Baides and Antonio de Toledo, son of the outgoing Viceroy of Peru Pedro de Toledo y Leiva, Marquis of Mancera, receive in Lima Álvaro Sarmiento de Sotomayor, brother of the new Viceroy of Peru, García Sarmiento de Sotomayor, Count of Salvatierra, upon his arrival in Lima on August 24, 1648. The marquis sponsored the habit of the Order of Santiago to the lawyer Pedro de Espinosa, who received it from the viceroy Count of Salvatierra, in a ceremony held in the chapel of the palace of the viceroy on October 16, 1650. The Marquis de Baides ordered the justice and council of Lima to confiscate the swords of the lackeys, without making any exceptions, according to the proclamation given by the viceroy Count of Salvatierra on September 5, 1650. 1653, that no mulatto, black or zambo could carry a sword, dagger, knife or any weapon day and night accompanying his master, under penalty of one hundred lashes and four years in the galley and five patacones for his master, without exception of an ecclesiastical or secular person.
He returned to Spain, the English pirates gave him a tragic death
The Marquis de Baides and his family left Callao on October 18, 1654 in the Admiralty of the Navy of the South Sea, under the command of General Francisco de Sosa, leading the royal treasury and that of private persons in the direction of Panama. On April 27, 1655, he left Cartagena de Indias in the direction of Havana to embark on the squadron that was taking gold for the Crown to Spain. They left Havana on July 24, 1656 for Cádiz, where on September 17, 1656 their ship and the other three that accompanied it were attacked, in the vicinity of Cádiz, by seven English pirate ships.
Despite the heroic fight of the defenders, which lasted all day, the ships were destroyed and set on fire, and the Marquis de Baides perished in the fight with the pirates, as well as his wife and two of his children, Diego and Juana, on September 19, 1656. His other 5 children were taken prisoner, but 3 of them, Josefa, Catalina and Miguel, were released in the port of Lagos in Portugal. His eldest son, Francisco, and José were taken hostage to England and later restored to Spain. José, born in Santiago de Chile in 1645, entered Madrid as a novice in the Society of Jesus, with the zeal of being a missionary in Chili. He returned to Chile and lived among the Indians for a few years, was rector of several schools, provincial of his order in 1700 and settled in Concepción, where he died in 1727.
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