Manso de Maldonado, Antonio (c. 1670–c. 1755)

Antonio Manso de Maldonado (b. ca. 1670; d. 5 November 1755?), military figure and president of the Audiencia of Santa Fe de Bogotá (1724–1731). Drawn from the officer corps of the Barcelona garrison, Manso went to America as audiencia president and governor and captain-general of the New Kingdom of Granada in order to conduct the residencia (end-of-tenure review) of the first viceroy of New Granada, Jorge de Villalonga (1719–1724), under whose leadership viceregal rule had failed to meet royal expectations, and to oversee the reestablishment of political order in the colony. Manso arrived in New Granada in February 1724 and immediately began to gather testimony on Villalonga. Although faced with voluminous contradictory reports, he largely absolved the former viceroy of wrongdoing. The difficulties of rule, the opposition to his authority, and his scandalous private life left the president bitter and anxious to return to a military post in Spain. Manso's administration is generally considered to have been ineffective or even inept. Returning to Spain in 1731, he served as governor of Cueta and then as inspector of Spanish and foreign infantry.

See alsoNew Granada, Viceroyalty of .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

An important and straightforward examination of Manso's role in the experiment with viceregal rule in New Granada is María Teresa Garrido Conde, La primera creación del virreinato de Nueva Granada (1717–1723) (1985). See also the discussion in Sergio Elías Ortiz, Nuevo Reino de Granada: El virreynato, 1719–1753, in Historia extensa de Colombia, vol. 4 (1970), pp. 61-95; and Manso's own report of his administration in Germán Colmenares, ed., Relaciones e informes de los gobernantes de la Nueva Granada, vol. 1 (1989).

Additional Bibliography

Kalmanovitz, Salomón. Economía y nación: Una breve historia de Colombia. Bogotá: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2003.

Restrepo Tirado, Ernesto. Gobernantes del nuevo reinado de Granada durante el siglo XVIII. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Imprenta de la Universidad, 1934.

Silva, Renán. La ilustración en el virreinato de Nueva Granada: Estudios de historia cultural. Medellín, Colombia: La Carreta Editores, 2005.

                                       Lance R. Grahn