Aguayo, Marqués de (c. 1677–1734)

Marqués de Aguayo (marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo y Santa Olalla; b. ca. 1677; d. 9 March 1734), rancher, military governor of Coa-huila and Texas. Born in Spain to a landed family of Aragon, Aguayo married Ignacia Xaviera Echeverz Subiza y Valdés, heiress to the marquisate of San Miguel de Aguayo, through whom he acquired his title. In 1712 the couple moved to Coahuila, where Aguayo took over the administration of the family estates, increasing holdings by over 3 million acres by the time of his death.

Aguayo served as governor of Coahuila and Texas from 1719 to 1722. In 1716 he had provided livestock to the Domingo Ramón expedition, which established the permanent occupation of Texas. Three years later, in response to a French attack on the Spanish in east Texas, Aguayo offered to mount an expedition to drive the French out. Receiving a viceregal commission to raise five hundred men, he proceeded in 1720 to San Antonio and then to Los Adaes (present-day Robeline, Louisiana), where he restored the abandoned presidio and missions. He also founded Presidio de los Texas, near present-day Nacogdoches, and Presidio Bahía del Espíritu Santo (now Goliad, Texas). Soon after his return to Coahuila, Aguayo resigned the governorship, citing poor health. Philip V rewarded Aguayo for his services in Texas by naming him field marshal in 1724.

See alsoTexas .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Eleanor Claire Buckley, "The Aguayo Expedition into Texas and Louisiana, 1719–1722," in The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 15, no. 1 (July 1911): 1-65.

Vito Alessio Robles, Coahuila y Texas en la época colonial, 2d ed. (1978).

Charles H. Harris III, A Mexican Family Empire: The Latifundio of the Sánchez Navarros, 1765–1867 (1975).

Additional Bibliography

Santos, Richard G. Aguayo Expedition into Texas, 1721: An Annotated Translation of the Five Versions of the Diary Kept by Br. Juan Antonio de la Peña. Austin: Jenkins Pub. Co., 1981.

                                   JesÚs F. de la Teja