Manuel Perez (1735 - November 1819) was the

Lieutenant Governor of Illinois The lieutenant governor of Illinois is the second highest executive of the State of Illinois. In Illinois, the lieutenant governor and governor run on a joint ticket and are directly elected by popular vote. Gubernatorial candidates select their ...

between November 1787 and 1792.

Biography

Pérez was born in Zamora, in the

Autonomous Community The autonomous communities () are the first-level administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy to the nationalities and regions that make up Sp ...

Castile and León Castile and León is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwestern Spain. Castile and León is the largest autonomous community in Spain by area, covering 94,222 km2. It is, however, sparsely populated, with a pop ...

, Spain. When he was only eighteen, he enrolled the army of his country. During his military career, he took part in the campaigns of both Spain and

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. In 1769, Pérez emigrated to

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, where he took up permanent residence. In 1779, Perez's army was sent to the British side of North America to help the rebels in their fight against the British in the

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. Perez's troops fought in Mobile and

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. His military achievements allowed him to get the title of captain in 1780. Later, in 1787, he was appointed Lieutenant-governor of

Upper Louisiana The Illinois Country ( ; ; ), also referred to as Upper Louisiana ( ; ), was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s that later fell under Spanish and British control before becoming what is now part of the Midwestern United States. Whi ...

, and assumed the charge in Saint Louis, the capital of Upper Louisiana, in modern-day

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. The highlight of his administration seems to have been his work on the

fortifications A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...

of Upper Louisiana, which were quite deteriorated. He pushed for the reconstruction of a fort located in the north of Saint Louis, work for which he commissioned Rodríguez Miró, governor of Louisiana. He used stone for its reconstruction, but could not incorporate further improvements in it, because he did not get the necessary funding for that. In addition, Perez had to face Osage tribes, who were attacking the European settlements of the province. To confront these, he asked for the construction of a fort between the French-Spanish settlements and the main Osage settlements. The fort would be built on the banks of the

Osage River The Osage River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 31, 2011 tributary of the Missouri River in central Missouri in the United States. The eighth-largest river in ...

, but the New Orleans government opposed the proposal. Perez also helped trader

Louis Lorimier Pierre-Louis de Lorimier, usually anglicized to Peter Loramie (March 1748June26, 1812), was a colonial French-Canadian fur trader, British Indian agent, and Shawnee agitator. In later years, he founded what became Cape Girardeau and Bollinger Co ...

promote the migration of members of the

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

and

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tribes, natives of eastern Mississippi, to Ste. Genevieve, in modern-day Missouri, to ignite good relations between the settlers and the Osages. He also asked the New Orleans government to establish several fortifications at the mouths of the

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and

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Rivers in order to keep the British away from the Amerindians, whom they were influencing, but the government rejected the proposal because, according to him, the forts would be too far from Saint Louis, and instead would be near areas with little or no French-Spanish presence. Perez, along with the Spanish authorities, encouraged U.S. migration to Upper Louisiana so that the new immigrants would populate areas of the province (which was largely uninhabited) and become subjects of the

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. Thus, the population loyal to the Spanish Crown would be introduced into more areas of the province. The area chosen was called New Madrid by the European Americans, and was founded in what is now Missouri. However, although Perez himself welcomed them when they reached St. Louis in 1789, and provided them with various goods (provisions and horses) and guides, the American settlers were only living there for a while, as they then returned to their country. Perez ended his rule in 1792. After this, he returned to New Orleans, where he held some low-level political positions and spent the last years of his life. He died there in November 1819.

Personal life

In 1776, Perez married Jeanne Catherine Dubois and they had five children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perez, Manuel Commandants and Lieutenants of the Illinois Country 1735 births 1819 deaths People from Zamora, Spain Spanish emigrants to the United States Politicians from New Orleans