Juan Fermín Rafael de San Martín y Matorras (

Governorate of the Río de la Plata The Governorate of the Río de la Plata (1549−1776) (, ) was one of the governorates of the Spanish Empire. It was created in 1549 by Spain in the area around the Río de la Plata. It was at first simply a renaming of the New Andalusia Gove ...

, Viceroyalty of Peru - February 5, 1774 - Manila, Philippines, July 17, 1822) was a Spanish soldier, and a brother of

José de San Martín José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras (; 25 February 177817 August 1850), nicknamed "the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru", was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and central parts of South America's succe ...

who was the leader of the

Argentine War of Independence The Argentine War of Independence () was a secessionist civil war (until 1816) fought from 1810 to 1818 by Argentine patriotic forces under Manuel Belgrano, Juan José Castelli, Martín Miguel de Güemes, Martin Miguel de Guemes and José de ...

, who served and lived much of his life in the Philippines.

Biography

Juan Fermín was the third child of the marriage between Juan de San Martín and Gregoria Matorras. Like his older siblings (María Elena and Manuel Tadeo) he was born on the Calera de las Vacas ranch, located in the jurisdiction of the Las Víboras parish, of the then Río de la Plata Governorate (On what is now Argentina and Uruguay). His younger brothers, José Francisco and Justo Rufino, were born in the Reduction of Yapeyú. On September 23, 1788, he entered the Soria Infantry Regiment of the Spanish army as a cadet, and served in it for fourteen years. He then spent three years in the Prince Fernando Veteran Battalion.''Sus padres y hermanos - Por José A. Torre Revell (1893-1964)''
Instituto Nacional Sanmartiniano He took part in the war against France from July 1793 and in May 1794 he was in the withdrawal from the Roussillon War. He fought on land and then joined the Royal Navy, where he embarked in January 1797. On February 14 of that year he participated in the Battle of Cape San Vicente, where the Spanish squadron faced the English fleet. Spain was allied to France, and the

Second Treaty of San Ildefonso The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of ...

committed them to confront England in the framework of the French Revolutionary Wars. He remained in Brest until 1801. Upon returning to Spain, he was assigned to the Hussar Squadron in

Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...

in the

Captaincy General of the Philippines The Captaincy General of the Philippines was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire in Southeast Asia governed by a governor-general as a dependency of the Viceroyalty of New Spain based in Mexico City until Mexican independence when i ...

. He was appointed sergeant of this regiment and years later colonel, until 1815, when he reached the rank of Commander of Hussars of the Luzon Regiment. In 1821 he was posted to

Mindanao Mindanao ( ) is the List of islands of the Philippines, second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and List of islands by population, seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the ...

, where he was in charge of Fort Zamboanga for a year. There he was in charge of an artillery company and four infantry, and had to put down an insurrection of Muslim sectors in conflict with the indigenous population and the Spanish authorities. He died in Manila on July 17, 1822 at the age of 48. In 1950, the year of the centenary of the death of José de San Martín, the government of

Juan Domingo Perón ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of '' John''. The name is of Hebrew origin and has the meaning "God has been gracious." It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking countries around the world and in the Philip ...

sent a bust of the Liberator to Manila, as a tribute, upon learning that a brother of his had lived and died there.

Marriage and offspring

In 1813 he married Josefa Manuela Español de Alburu, the daughter of a Spanish soldier and an indigenous mother, with whom he had three children. He was the only one of his brothers who had male children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fermín, Juan 1774 births 1822 deaths 18th-century Spanish military personnel Spanish people in the colonial Philippines