Alejandro O'Reilly
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Alejandro O'Reilly (1722-1794) (originally: Alexander O'Reilly), was a highly respected military reformer and Inspector-General of Infantry for the Spanish Empire in the second half of the 18th century. O'Reilly served as the second Spanish governor of colonial Louisiana, being the first Spanish official to actually exercise power in the Louisiana territory after France ceded it to Spain. For his much appreciated services to the Crown of Spain, he was ennobled as a conde (count), and granted a coat of arms.
Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1722, like many tens of thousands of other "Wild Geese" (Irish expatriates in the 17th-18th centuries) O'Reilly left Ireland to serve in foreign, Catholic armies. O'Reilly became a colonel in the Austrian army. After campaigning in the Spanish invasion of Portugal (1762), he swore allegiance to Spain and rose to become a brigadier general. In the 18th century there were six full-strength Irish infantry regiments serving in Spain and throughout its world-wide empire: Irlanda (est. 1702), Hibernia (1705), Limerick (1718), Ultonia (1718), Conancia (1715), and Waterford (1718).
In 1763 O'Reilly accompanied the new Spanish governor, the Count of Ricla, to Havana, Cuba as his adjutant and second-in-command. Ricla and O'Reilly received that key city back from the British forces that had besieged and occupied it at the end of the Seven Years War (French & Indian War). Today there is a street in Habana la Vieja still named for O'Reilly, marking the location where this officer came ashore while the English were embarking to leave. O'Reilly analyzed what had gone wrong with the defenses of Havana during the successful British siege in 1762, and recommended sweeping reforms to improve the fortifications, training, practices, and troop organizations, which were quickly approved by the Spanish Crown.
In 1765, Carlos III sent Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly to Puerto Rico, to assess the state of the defenses of that colony. O'Reilly, known today as the "father of the Puerto Rican militia," took a very complete census of the Island, and again recommended numerous reforms, including the instilling of strict military discipline in the local troops. He insisted that the men serving the defense of the Realm receive their pay regularly and directly, rather than indirectly from their commanding officers, a long-standing practice that had led to abuses. Some of O'Reilly's recommendations resulted in a massive 20-year program of building up the fortresses of Old San Juan, now a World Heritage Site. The training which he instituted was to bring fame and glory to the Puerto Rican militias 30 years later during the English invasion of Puerto Rico in 1797. O'Reilly's civilian militias had become known as the "Disciplined Militia."
Returning to Cuba, O'Reilly married into a prominent Cuban family. His wife Doña Rosa de Las Casas, was the sister of Luis de Las Casas, who served as Governor of Cuba (1790–1796). The descendants of this O'Reilly-Las Casas family are still to be found in Cuba and Spain today. One source says that O'Reilly was influential in saving the life of the king Carlos III in late 1765, and he became a favorite at court.
O'Reilly was appointed govenor and captain-general of colonial Louisiana while in Spain in April 1769, with orders to immediately proceed to Havana, embark 2,000 troops there, put down the revolt in Louisiana, and re-establish order. Arriving in New Orleans in August 1769, O'Reilly took formal possession of Louisiana. O'Reilly then held trials and severely punished those French Creoles responsible for the expulsion of Spain's first Governor Antonio de Ulloa from the colony. A significant portion of the troops O'Reilly brought to New Orleans from Cuba were black free men of color. He is still remembered in New Orleans as "'Bloody' O'Reilly" because he had six prominent rebel Frenchmen executed in October 1769. Other French rebels were exiled, and some sent for life imprisonment in the Morro castle in Havana. Having crushed the ringleaders who had led the Rebellion of 1768, the French uprising against Governor Antonio de Ulloa and Spanish rule, O'Reilly sent most of his troops back to Cuba, and focused his attention on administratively getting Louisiana back on its feet, and stabilizing the food supply.
O'Reilly went on to reform many French bureaucratic practices in place before Spanish rule. Again, as in his 1765 mission to Puerto Rico, O'Reilly's proclamations and rulings affected many aspects of life in Spanish Louisiana, including the ability of slaves to buy their freedom, and the ability for masters to more easily manumit slaves. O'Reilly strictly forbade the enslavement of Indians in Louisiana. He regularized the weights and measurements used in marketplaces, regulated doctors and surgeons, and improved public safety by funding bridge and levee maintenance.
The insult to the dignity of the Spanish Crown having been swiftly dealt with, and good public order restored, O'Reilly assigned the post of governor of Louisiana to the colonel of the Havana Regiment in December 1769, retaining the post of captain-general for himself. Louisiana was firmly placed as a dependency of the military and political establishment in Cuba.
Back in Spain after October 1770, the conde de O'Reilly was charged to organize six new regiments to be trained near Cádiz, ready for transportation to the Caribbean should a new war between Spain and Great Britain break out.
In 1775, Conde de O'Reilly was given command of a major Spanish expedition attacking Algiers. Although this North African campaign failed, the high reputation of O'Reilly was not destroyed, and he continued to serve as captain-general in southern Spain.
The count died in the city of Cádiz in 1794, while on his way to take command of an army in the Eastern Pyrenees that had been ordered to oppose invading French revolutionary forces, just after the beheading of Louis XVI. Field Marshall O'Reilly is buried in the parish church in Bonete, Spain. A street in Cádiz still honors his name.
| Preceded by Antonio de Ulloa |
Spanish Governor of Louisiana 1769 |
Succeeded by Luis de Unzaga |
