José Travassos Valdez, 1st Count of Bonfim
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José Lúcio Travassos Valdez (February 23, 1787-July 10, 1862), 1st and sole Baron and 1st Count do Bonfim (pronounced [bõˈfĩ]), was a Portuguese soldier and statesman.
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[edit] Early life
He was born in Elvas on 23 February 1787 and originally intended for a career in the Catholic Church, but following the invasion of Portugal by Napoleon's armies under General Junot, he became active in the resistance to the occupation. When Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) landed in Portugal to eject the French, Travassos Valdez served Wellesley as a Portuguese aide-de-camp at the Battle of Roliça and the Battle of Vimeiro, his first major victory. During the Peninsular War he was among the first Portuguese officers to attach himself to the command of Marshal Beresford and was so close to him that he was popularly known in the Portuguese battalions as 'o discípulo de Beresford' (Beresford's disciple).[1] He rose to become a Major Assistant in the General Staff of the Portuguese army under Beresford, and is said to have fought in nine major battles. He was decorated for his services at the Battle of Albuera, 16 May 1811 (when Beresford, operating independently from Wellington, was the allied commander); the Battle of Salamanca, 22 July 1812; the Battle of Orthez, 27 February 1814; and the Battle of Toulouse, 5 April 1814.
[edit] Civil strife
After the revolution of 1820, in the civil war between Constitutionalist Liberals (the new parliamentary constitution was supported by King João VI) and Absolutists (supporting his younger son the Infante Miguel of Portugal, a sworn enemy of any form of democracy), Travassos Valdez was strongly on the Constitutionalist side and was engaged in putting down revolts by the Absolutists.
When Miguel became titular head of the army he had Travassos Valdez removed from his post and sent into exile in Setúbal, where the 'Parc Bonfim' now commemorates his time there; but after the prince overreached himself in April 1825 with an attempted coup (known as the Abrilada) and was sent into exile, Travassos Valdez was reinstated. When, after the death of King João VI, a Spanish force invaded Portugal to restore Absolutist rule, Travassos Valdez opposed their army of 6,000 with only 900 men at Braganza, delaying their advance until the government was able to raise sufficient force to oppose them. He was made a prisoner of war and sent into Spain, but escaped and returned to Portugal. The Regent Dona Isabel Maria offered him the governorship of Angola, which he declined and was made instead Governor (Captain General) of Madeira and Porto Santo in 1827.[2] When Dom Miguel seized power from the rightful heir, his niece Maria II, and proclaimed himself 'Absolute King', Travassos Valdez held out in Madeira until his defence of the island was overwhelmed by an expeditionary force despatched from Portugal. As Miguel had proclaimed that Valdez was to be hanged if captured, he was forced to flee to England with his wife, brother and six children, under the protection of the British Royal Navy (September 1828). He joined the many refugees from Dom Miguel's tyranny and in 1832 made his way to the Azores to join the expedition of Dom Pedro I of Brazil, ex-Emperor of Brazil and father of Maria II, to restore his daughter to her throne and constitutional rule to Portugal.
Pedro's expeditionary force landed in Portugal in 1832 and was besieged for a year in the city of Porto. After the Battle of Ponte Ferreira, when Dom Pedro instituted changes in his high command, Travassos Valdez exercised the functions of Adjutant-General and chief of the General Staff of the Army of Liberation. During the major Miguelite assault on the city on 29 September, Travassos Valdez was severely wounded at the defence of a redoubt at the Bonfim Church, from which he later took his title of nobility. A year later (5 September 1833) he was again wounded at the siege of Lisbon, which the Constitutionalists had wrested from Dom Miguel, who was finally defeated in 1834 and sent into exile, this time permanently.
[edit] Insurrections and political office
Dom Pedro died immediately after his victory and a long period of political unrest between competing factions began under the young queen Maria II. Governments came and went, mostly lasting only a few months. On 17 September 1835 Travassos Valdez was elevated to the peerage as Baron Bonfim. From October 1836 he commanded forces in the Alentejo against the Spanish Carlist general, Gómez, who was threatening the frontier. In 1837 he was elected deputy for the constituents of the district of Leiria to the parliament. He was invested with the command of the forces ordered against the Chartist Marshals who had rebelled, and on 28 August of that year he defeated them at the Battle of Chão de Feira. On 9 September 1837 he was appointed Minister of War and interim Foreign Minister and Minister of Marine in the second government of Sá de Bandeira. Among his acts in this office was disarming the National Guard, which had been converted into a permanent force for insurrection. On 13 March 1838 he used troops to put down a revolt by rebels who had occupied the Lisbon Arsenal, a decisive act that probably prevented the fall of the liberal government. By a Decree of D. Maria II of 4 April 1838 he was elevated to the Nobility, as Conde do Bonfim. (The family tended to use the older spelling 'Bomfim'.) He was a senator in the legislature of 1839-40.and deputy for the constituents of the district of Leiria. On 26 September 1839 he assumed the leadership of the government as Prime Minister, and provided the first period of relative stability by presiding over the eleventh government, a coalition which succeeded in remaining in office for nearly two years, until 1841. He retained the office of Foreign Minister until 28 December. Bonfim’s administration, in which he combined the posts of Prime Minister and Minister of War, lasted to 9 July 1841. Among those taking office in his ministry were Costa Cabral, Rodrigo da Fonseca and others. It was during the period of his government that various European powers (among them, the Holy See) resumed diplomatic relations with Portugal, having broken them off after the arrival of the constitutional regime. He especially cultivated friendly relations with Spain after the tensions of the Carlist War. He was responsible for the foundation of the fortress of Moçâmedes in southern Angola (now Namibe) and he promoted internal pacification in Portugal. On 26 December 1840, Portugal and the United States of America signed a Mutual Treaty of Commerce and Navigation. Bonfim resigned the premiership when he encountered resistance to his plans to reform the National Guard, and was succeeded in office by Joaquim António de Aguiar, who had been his deputy.
[edit] Later years and progeny
In 1844 he raised the standard of rebellion against the dictatorial policies of the Costa Cabral government but his associates were imprisoned or forced to flee the country and he himself left Portugal[3] until the rebellion of Maria da Fonte in 1846. When the anti-Cabralist government of the Duke of Palmela took office Bonfim returned to Portugal, but in October the palace coup known as the Emboscada brought a new government of Cabralist sympathies to power, headed by the Duke of Saldanha. In the ensuing 'Little Civil War' or Patuleia, Travassos Valdez supported the revolutionary Junta of Porto against the more conservative forces around the Queen and took command of the 'Progressista' army.[4] Support from the Conde das Antas, the President of the Junta, was not forthcoming in time, and Bonfim and his army were besieged by Saldanha in the fortress of Torres Vedras and defeated, 22-23 December 1846. In violation of their safe-conduct, Bonfim, his two eldest sons and various political associates were exiled to Moçâmedes in southern Angola. He escaped with his sons in a skiff, intending to sail to Saint Helena, but was recaptured; the safe return of the exiles by the British Royal Navy and their honourable reinstatement was a condition of the Peace negotiated by the Four Powers at the Convention of Gramido, 1847. Bonfim and his associates were repatriated to Portugal in the British frigate HMS Terrible, returning to Lisbon on 9 October, and his rank and honours were restored. After 1851 he was appointed head of the Supreme Council of Military Justice, and on his death in Lisbon in 1862 was accorded a state funeral.
He had married (21 February 1813) D. Jerónima Emília Godinho Valdez, daughter of José Ricardo Godinho Valdez, 14th lord Quinta de Flandres, Pombal, and administrator of N. Sr.ª das Neves and Marco, and his wife D. Maria Joana Travassos da Silveira. (Travassos Valdez's wife was his first cousin twice over, being the daughter of his father's sister and his mother's brother.) Among the most notable of his children, the eldest son José Bento Travassos Valdez (1814-1881) was Colonial Secretary of Angola in 1841-45, shared his father's exile in 1846-47 and became 2nd Count of Bonfim; the second son Luís Travassos Valdez (1816-1900) attained the rank of General and was a distinguished writer on military affairs; the third son António Travassos Valdez (1818-1855) entered the diplomatic service, edited the first annual report of the conduct of affairs published by the Foreign Ministry and died as Portuguese ambassador to Denmark; and the fourth son was the noted travel writer and anti-slavery campaigner Francisco Travassos Valdez (1825-1892). A sixth son, Pedro de Alcântara Travassos Valdez (1827-1887), settled in the English village of Dalwood in Devon and is buried in the graveyard of St Peter's Church there, with an elaborate headstone summarizing his father's career.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Francisco Travassos Valdez (1861), p.8.
- ^ Francisco Travassos Valdez (1861), pp. 7-8.
- ^ Francisco Travassos Valdez (1861), p. 10
- ^ Francisco Travassos Valdez (1861), pp. 10-11
[edit] References
- Anuário da Nobreza de Portugal, Cascais, Instituto Português de Heráldica, 1964, pp.424-426.
- Francisco Travassos Valdez, Six Years of a Traveller's Life in Western Africa (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1861; reprint by Elibron Classics, 2005, ISBN 1-4021-9460-9). Pages 6-12 contain a summary of his father's career.
- http://www.arqnet.pt/dicionario/bonfim1c.html
| Preceded by Rodrigo de Aleida Carvalhais, Baron of Robeira de Sabroso |
Prime Minister of Portugal (President of the Council of Ministers) 1839–1841 |
Succeeded by Joaquim António de Aguiar |
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