Torre, Miguel de la (?–1838)
Torre, Miguel de la (?–1838)
Miguel de la Torre (d. 1838), Spanish general. Torre led Spanish troops against Simón Bolívar and revolutionary armies in the wars for Venezuelan and Colombian independence. Following a six-month armistice between General Pablo Morillo y Morillo and Bolívar, the Spanish crown gave Torre command of royalist troops. The two sides fought at the Battle of Carabobo, in Venezuela on 24 June 1821. The deaths of between 1,000 and 1,500 Spanish soldiers assured Venezuelan and Colombian independence; historians called it the "Colombian Waterloo." Torre fled to Puerto Cabello where he surrendered two years later. He was appointed civil and military governor of Puerto Rico in 1823 and named count of Torrepando.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
José Dominique Díaz and Miguel De La Torre, Mémoires du Général Morillo (1826).
Irene Nicholson, The Liberators: A Study of Independence Movements in Spanish America (1969), pp. 190-193.
Donna Keyse Rudolph, Historical Dictionary of Venezuela (1971), p. 111.
Additional Bibliography
Altagracia, Carlos D. "La utopía del territorio perfecta-mente gobernado: Miedo y poder en la época de Miguel de La Torre, 1823–1837." M.A. thesis, University of Puerto Rico, 1997.
Pérez Tenreiro, Tomás. Don Miguel de la Torre y Pando. Valencia: Edición publicada por el Ejecutivo del Estado Carabobo en el Sesquicentenario de la Batalla, 1971.
Christopher T. Bowen