VIZCARDÓ, JUAN PABLO

Jesuit precursor of Latin American independence; b. Pampacolca, Peru, June 26, 1748; d. London, February 1798. Vizcardó was a member of a wealthy and socially prominent family of the valley of Arequipa in southern Peru. Juan Pablo and an older brother, Anselmo, studied with the Jesuits in Cuzco. In about 1760, their father, Gaspar, died, and their mother, Manuela de Zea, wished them to return home. Instead, they joined the society in Cuzco on May 24, 1761, although they had not reached canonical age for the reception of vows.

The profession was invalid, and soon the two young men were requesting an official declaration to that effect. The edict for the expulsion of the Jesuits overtook them on Sept. 7, 1767, in Cuzco before this question had been cleared up. So on March 15, 1768, the two brothers were among the Peruvian Jesuits who were embarked in Lima for Cádiz. There they accepted the option offered by the Crown to leave the society in the hope that they would be permitted to return to Peru. In this they were disillusioned because the Crown continued to treat them in the same fashion as it did those who persevered in the society.

By 1771 Juan Pablo and Anselmo were in Massacarrara, Italy. Neither one was ever to be ordained. Both unremittingly petitioned the Spanish royal officials to be allowed to return to Peru or, at least, to be permitted to share in the inheritance of their father and uncle. In 1781, probably aroused by the news of the revolution of Tupac Amaru II in Peru and Bolivia, Juan Pablo contacted the English diplomatic agents in Leghorn and Genoa with a plan for an English fleet to land in South America to help the rebels against Spain. The English found his suggestions interesting and by the spring of 1782, Juan Pablo was in London living in Soho on an English agent's salary. However, by the time of his arrival, the English were on the verge of making peace with Spain, and so Juan Pablo's plans were filed.

Next the French Revolution seems to have inspired him with hope that this government would heed his suggestions. By late 1791 Juan Pablo was in France, where he composed his Lettre aux Espagnols-Américains, a call to his fellow Creoles to rebel against Spain. It is thought that this letter was not published at that time. In 1795 Vizcardó was back in London, again on the payroll of the British Foreign Office and there he died.

In life, Vizcardó had never met the outstanding Spanish American conspirator of the epoch, General Miranda. However, Rufus King, U.S. Minister in London, to whom Vizcardó willed his papers, called the attention of Miranda to the documents. It was Miranda who made use of the Lettre. In preparation for his own attack on Venezuela in 1806, Miranda had the French manuscript text translated into Spanish as Carta Dirijida a los Españoles Americanos and printed in London (1801). There are 42 pages in the Spanish text and 41 in the French text, printed in 1799 by an unknown printer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A careful reading of the Carta shows that it is full of errors and exaggerations and possesses little that would reflect on Vizcardó's nobility of purpose. Miranda, however, wanted to give his conspiracy ostensible Jesuit support, and thus gain an advantage among the simple believers of South America.

Bibliography: m. batllori, El abate Viscardo (Caracas 1953). p. de letÚria in Archiv Historicum Societatis Jesu 23 (1954) 181–184, bk. rev. of Batllori's vol. r. vargas ugarte, La carta a los españoles americanos de Don Juan Pablo Vizcardo y Guzmán (Lima 1954).

[a. s. tibesar]