Gabriel de Avilés y del Fierro was the third Marquis of Avilés and XXXVII Viceroy of Peru . He was born in Vich in 1735. Son of Brigadier José de Avilés Iturbide, Marquis of Avilés, and Doña Isabel del Fierro y González. Following the example of his father, who was mayor of Aragon and Valencia and a member of the Supreme War Council, he enrolled in a military career, within the cavalry arm. With the rank of captain, he was sent in 1768 to Chile to fight against the Araucanian rebels. He then went to Peru with the task of organizing and disciplining his army corps; and he had to intervene in the suffocation of the great rebellion of Tupac Amaru II, first fighting in the victorious battle of Sangarara (November 1780) and later succeeding General Del Valle in the pacification of the rebellious foci that Diego Cristóbal Tupac Amaru encouraged ( 1782-1783).
For his lucid actions he deserved promotion to lieutenant colonel and brigadier . In 1787 he was appointed deputy inspector general of the troops of the viceroyalty and governor of Plaza del Callao. Four years later he inherited from his older brother, who died without succession, the title of Marquesal de Avilés, and was promoted to the class of field marshal. Due to his remarkable experience in Indian affairs, he received in 1796 the appointment of Governor and Captain General of Chile, replacing Don Ambrosio O'Higgins. He exercised this office in Santiago for two and a half years, until he left in January 1799 to occupy the position of viceroy of the Río de la Plata and president of the Buenos Aires audience, where he fought for the abolition of the encomiendas in the missions of the Paraguay, also combating the slave trade and smuggling.
Gabriel de Avilés y del Fierro as Viceroy of Peru
On July 14, 1800, the dispatches that invested him as viceroy of Peru and president of the audience of Lima were signed, granting him in addition the rank of lieutenant general of the royal armies. Avilés traveled by land and arrived in Lima to take official possession of the command on November 6, 1801. During his administration, the general command of Maynas was reincorporated into the territory of the viceroyalty (1802) and the province of Guayaquil was annexed to Peru ( 1803). This viceroy basically continued the policy of his predecessors, ensuring cleanliness and cleanliness of the city of Lima and that the sewage system was in perfect condition. And although he made an effort to meet the needs of the monarchy by sending money, he did not succeed enough due to the critical state of mining and the breakdown of trade. During the period of his government, the arrival of the wise German baron Alexander de Humboldt (1802), accompanied by the French naturalist Aimé Bonpland; the serenazgo service is created (1804); the application of the smallpox vaccine begins, a disease that seriously decimated the Indians (1805); and the conspiracy undertaken in Cuzco by Gabriel Aguilar and Manuel Ubalde, both leaders who ended up executed by hanging in December 1805, was annihilated. For the rest, he managed to redeem pending obligations and balance public finances.
He exercised the viceregal function until July 26, 1806, the date on which he was succeeded by Don José Fernando de Abascal . A widower, he retired to live in the town of Magdalena, near the capital, and later in the city of Arequipa (1807). Being on a return trip to the peninsula, he died during the stopover that his ship made in the port of Valparaíso, on September 19, 1810 . The Marquis was by then an exhausted 75-year-old ruler and military man.