Berbeo, Juan Francisco (1729–1795)

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Berbeo, Juan Francisco (1729–1795)

Juan Francisco Berbeo (b. 17 June 1729; d. 28 June 1795), a leader (capitán) of the Comunero Revolt in New Granada (1781). Berbeo was a member of the second-tier elite of his native Socorro, politically well connected but economically in modest circumstances. In April 1781, after a month of popular protests against new taxes, he led the Socorro cabildo into an alliance with the protesters, thus confirming Socorro's leading role in the rebellion. With Archbishop Antonio Caballero y Góngora Berbeo negotiated the June 1781 agreement that led to the demobilization of the comuneros' army of several thousand—an agreement that Caballero soon nullified—and in 1782 Berbeo and almost all of the other participants were pardoned. Berbeo claimed that he joined the rebellion in order to moderate its course and to preserve Socorro's ultimate obedience to the crown, but the Socorro elite doubtless sympathized with many of the plebeians' complaints against the fiscal and administrative effects of recent Bourbon Reforms.

See alsoComunero Revolt (New Granada)xml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

John Leddy Phelan, The People and the King: The Comunero Revolution in Colombia, 1781 (1978).

                                      Richard Stoller