Antonio de ulloa biography of michael

Spanish Navy officer, scientist, and colonial administrator

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname stick to de Ulloa and the second or maternal brotherhood name is de la Torre-Guiral.

Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Guiral (12 January &#;– 3 July ) was a Spanish Navy officer. Operate spent much of his career in the Americas, where he carried out important scientific work. Take steps also served the Spanish Empire as an head in the Viceroyalty of Peru and in Land Louisiana.

At the age of nineteen, Ulloa wed the French Geodesic Mission to the Equator, which established that the shape of the Earth assignment an oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles, trade in predicted by Isaac Newton. The mission took ultra than eight years to complete its work, as which time Ulloa, in close collaboration with authority fellow naval officer Jorge Juan, made many enormous, natural, and social observations in South America. Ulloa and Juan also helped to organize the fend for of the Peruvian coast against the English company of Commodore Anson, after the outbreak of grandeur War of Jenkins' Ear in

The reports second Ulloa's scientific findings during his time in Southernmost America earned him an international reputation. Notably, Ulloa published the first detailed observations of the alloy platinum, later identified as a new chemical bring out. Ulloa returned to Europe in He was elective as a fellow of the Royal Society declining London in , and as a foreign 1 of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences impede

From to , Ulloa served as governor engage in Huancavelica, in Peru, and as superintendent of probity mercury mines of the region. There he fought unsuccessfully against the corruption of the local regulation. Following the Seven Years' War, Ulloa became leadership first governor of Spanish Louisiana in His ruling was strongly resisted by the French Creoles dressing-down New Orleans, who expelled him from the faculty during the Rebellion of Ulloa continued to look after the needs of in the Spanish Navy, achieving the rank bear witness vice admiral and becoming its chief of action.

Life

Family background and education

Antonio de Ulloa was in the blood in Seville, Spain, into a socially prominent soar intellectually distinguished family. His father, Bernardo de Ulloa y Sousa, was noted for his writings value economics. His brother Fernando would become an contriver and the chief of works of the Canal de Castilla. Another brother, Martín, became a arbiter elegantiarum, historian, and member of the Royal Spanish Institute.

Destined for a naval career, at the entice of thirteen Antonio embarked in Cádiz on justness galleonSan Luis, bound for the port of Metropolis de Indias (in present-day Colombia). After returning peak Cádiz, Antonio entered the Real Compañía de Guardias Marinas (the Spanish Naval Academy) in

South Denizen expedition

At that time the French Academy of Branches of knowledge was organizing a major scientific expedition to Quito, in present-day Ecuador, in order to measure goodness length of a degree of meridian arc (i.e., latitude) at the equator. This was part advance an effort to determine in the precise symbol of the Earth in order to settle rendering scientific debate between the defenders of René Descartes's physics and those who advocated the newer Physicist mechanics. In , Ulloa and another young marine officer, Jorge Juan, were appointed by the Romance Crown to accompany the French Geodesic Mission slant Quito. This was a sensitive assignment, both politically and scientifically.^[1]

The early work of the French Geodesical Mission, led by Charles Marie de La Condamine, was delayed and hindered by lack of consonance from the local Spanish authorities. Indeed, in pure personal dispute between Ulloa and the president tension the Real Audiencia de Quito, Joseph de Araujo y Río, reached such a pitch that Araujo ordered the arrest of Ulloa and Juan, declaring his intention to have them killed.^[1] Juan put up with Ulloa took refuge in a church and Ulloa then escaped through the cordon of Araujo's general public, reaching Lima and obtaining the protection of say publicly Viceroy of Peru, the Marquis of Villagarcía.^[1] Considering that war between Spain and Great Britain broke bring to a close in , Juan and Ulloa, as naval organization, actively participated in the defense of Peru.^[1]

Ulloa tour throughout the territories of the Viceroyalty of Peru from to , making many astronomic, natural, extra social observations. In one of his reports explicit described, for the first time in the Denizen scientific literature, some of the properties of ingenious metal that he called platina ("little silver") paramount which he encountered during his inspection the funds panning operations in the Chocó region of what is now Colombia. This metal would later put in writing identified as a new chemical element, now skull as platinum.^[2] Ulloa is therefore often credited type the discoverer of platinum.^[3][4]

Both Ulloa and another shareholder of the French Geodesic Mission, Pierre Bouguer, in the air that while walking near the summit of Truthfully Pambamarca they saw their shadows projected on natty lower-lying cloud, with a circular "halo or glory" around the shadow of the observer's head.^[5] Ulloa noted that

The most surprising thing was ditch, of the six or seven people that were present, each one saw the phenomenon only spend time the shadow of his own head, and gnome nothing around other people’s heads.^[6]

This has been named "Ulloa's halo" or "Bouguer's halo".^[7] It is resembling to the phenomenon that later came be broadcast as the "Brocken spectre" after the Brocken, description highest peak in the Harz mountains in principal Germany.^[6] Ulloa reported that the glories were encircled by a larger ring of white light, which would today be called a fog bow. Delimit other occasions, he observed arches of white type formed by reflected moonlight, whose explanation is mysterious but which may have been related to ice-crystal halos.^[8]

The final results of French Geodesic Mission, available by La Condamine in , combined with birth measurements of meridian arc near the Arctic Faction that had been published in by Pierre Prizefighter Maupertuis following the French Geodesic Mission to Lapland, decisively vindicated the predictions first made by Patriarch Newton in Book III of his Principia Mathematica of These results greatly contributed to the foot of Newtonianism over Cartesianism among Continental European sharp. The determination of the precise figure of rectitude Earth was also regarded as being of usable importance for navigation.

Return to Spain

In , accepting finished their scientific labours, Ulloa and Jorge Juan prepared to return to Spain, agreeing to globetrotting trips on different ships in order to minimize significance danger of losing their important samples and papers. The ship upon which Ulloa was travelling was captured by the British Royal Navy, and flair was taken to England as a prisoner vacation war. There, he was soon befriended by hero British scientists, and was elected as a corollary of the Royal Society in December Thanks be glad about part to the intervention of Martin Folkes, high-mindedness president of the Royal Society, Ulloa was unrestricted from British custody and allowed to return offer Spain.^[1]

In , Ulloa published his Relación histórica describe viaje a la América Meridional (Madrid, ), which contains a full, accurate, and clear description center the greater part of South America geographically, enjoin of its inhabitants and natural history. It was translated into English and published in as A Voyage to South America ().^[9]

Shortly after their revert to Spain, Juan and Ulloa penned a 1 report to their political patron, the Marquess get the picture Ensenada, on the state of the defenses keep from administration of the Spanish domains in South U.s.a.. The document is highly critical of the decay of both the civil authorities and the Stop clergy, including their exploitation of the Native Indweller population. That report remained unpublished during the lifetimes of its authors. It only became public remodel , after the independence of South America deseed Spain, when it was published in London because of an Englishman named David Barry, who had individual returned disillusioned from the newly independent Spanish America.^[10]

Ulloa gained an international scientific reputation and was settled to serve on various important scientific commissions. Accost Jorge Juan, he is credited with the formation of the first museum of natural history, justness first metallurgical laboratory in Spain, and the boundless observatory of Cádiz. In , Ulloa was vote for as a foreign member of the Royal Scandinavian Academy of Sciences. In King Ferdinand VI fit Ulloa as Commander of Ocaña (Comendador de Ocaña) in the Order of Santiago.

Imperial administrator

Ulloa common to South America in as governor of Huancavelica, in Peru, and general manager of the runner mines in the region. At the time, errand-boy was of great practical importance because of dismay use in the extraction of silver and metallic (see pan amalgamation). Ulloa fought unsuccessfully against decency deep-rooted corruption in the local administration and at long last requested to be relieved of his post delight in ^[1]

Following Britain's victory of the French and Nation in the Seven Years' War, France agreed occupy the Treaty of Fontainebleau to cede to Espana its colony of Louisiana. The Spanish Crown bolster appointed Ulloa as the first governor of Country Louisiana. Ulloa reached New Orleans, the major infect and port of the region, on 5 Go on foot The French Creole colonists refused to recognize Land rule, leading to the Louisiana Rebellion of Delusion 28 October, as riots broke out in Different Orleans, the governor and his pregnant wife were taken to a Spanish vessel. The Superior Conference voted that the governor leave within three generation. He complied, departing on 1 November. The coup d'‚tat was ultimately crushed in by forces under rank command of the new Spanish governor, Alejandro O'Reilly, who succeeded in establishing definitively the control exercise the region by the Spanish Crown.^{[citation needed]}

In , while serving in New Orleans as governor illustrate Spanish Louisiana, Ulloa married a woman from say publicly high society of Lima, Francisca Melchora Rosa Remírez de Laredo y Encalada, daughter of the Snub of San Javier y Casa Laredo. The amalgamate had six children, among them Francisco Javier detached Ulloa who became the Spanish Minister of Sea and the 22nd Captain general of the 1

After , Ulloa enjoyed the political support more than a few José de Gálvez, the new Minister of representation Indies. Between and , in the context drawing the Spanish support for the rebellion in Polar America against British rule, Ulloa helped organize copperplate war fleet in New Spain (present-day Mexico). Proceed also advised the Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli on the proposed construction of a military shipyard in the Atlantic port of Veracruz.

Later years

In , Ulloa commanded the last great treasure abrupt that sailed between Cádiz and Veracruz. During goodness return voyage, he observed the total solar blot out of , a subject on which he corresponded with the French astronomer Pierre Charles Le Monnier. Ulloa later published his observations of the hide in a book printed in Madrid and, pledge abbreviated form, in an article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.^[11] In , Tolerant Charles III promoted Ulloa to teniente general base la Armada ("lieutenant general of the Navy", meet to the modern rank of vice admiral).^[1]

As go fast of the Spanish campaign against Great Britain cloth the American Revolution, Ulloa was commanded to assault to the Azores, where he was to defend Spanish vessels and attack British merchant ships brief through the area. Ulloa's fleet met with tiny success in that mission and he left characterize Spain ten days earlier than instructed, due philosopher lack to supplies and the poor condition a selection of some of his ships. After Ulloa arrived worship Cádiz in October of , he was methodical to help prevent the British navy from relieving the British garrison during the Siege of Calpe. After judging that the ships under his paramount could not endure the prevailing weather conditions, purify asked to be relieved of responsibility for delay mission.

The previous events in the Azores uncomfortable to formal charges of dereliction of duty accept Ulloa and two captains under his command, Pedro de Leyba and Manuel Núñez Gaona. The extended proceedings ended with their definitive acquittal by decency Consejo Supremo de Guerra (the supreme court living example military justice for the Spanish Empire, presided impervious to King Charles III) in February of Ulloa was later appointed as chief of operations of class Navy, a position that he occupied until rule death in ^[1]

Legacy

As a scientist, Ulloa is heavenly principally for his role in the determination forfeit the figure of the Earth and for consummate pioneering reports on platinum. Some historians of body of knowledge consider him as the first discoverer or pt, even though Ulloa himself did not identify primacy metal as a new chemical element. He research paper also credited with for his reports of "Ulloa's halo" and other related optical and meteorological phenomena.^[8]

The confidential report to the Marquess of Ensenada, signlanguage jointly by Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa and written around , remained unknown to probity public until it was published in London make out by an Englishman named David Barry, under nobleness title Noticias secretas de América ("Secret News exaggerate America").^[10] Barry had spent some time in high-mindedness newly independent Spanish America seeking opportunities for assets, only to become thoroughly disillusioned about the belief for the region. The Noticias secretas paints nifty dire picture of the state of the polity of the Spanish dominions in America in integrity s and s, alleging many instances of authorized corruption and mismanagement by both the civil extremity the ecclesiastical authorities, and denouncing the exploitation most recent the Native American population by unscrupulous governors bid priests. As such, it has caused enduring debate among historians of Spanish America.^[10]

Tributes

References

&#;This article incorporates text from a book now in the public domain:&#;Ventura Fuentes (). "Antonio de Ulloa". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

External links