José Manuel de Guirior (1708 – 1788) XXXII Viceroy of Peru , knight of the order of San Juan and gentleman of the chamber of the king of Spain. He was born in Aoiz (Navarra) on March 21, 1708. Son of José Carlos de Guirior Erdozaín and María Josefa Portal de Huarte. In 1733 he was admitted as a ship's lieutenant in the Royal Navy, which gave him the opportunity to participate in various voyages through the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. He was assigned in 1740 to the commissioned squadron to repress the depredations of the English corsair George Anson, and thus he was on the coast of the Río de la Plata, Chile and Peru. Back in the metropolis, he was successively promoted to frigate captain (1746), naval captain (1754), major general (1764), and chief of the navy (1769). By virtue of his qualified experience in overseas matters, he was appointed to exercise the viceroyalty and government of New Granada, a position that he officially assumed in Bogotá on April 22, 1773 ; In that territory he upheld liberal principles for the good and promotion of commerce, agriculture, livestock, mining and industry, had several parishes erected, created a seminary for priestly vocations and founded the first public library in Bogotá. He was elevated to the rank of lieutenant general (1774) and promoted to the office of viceroy of Peru and president of the audience of Lima, by dispatches of August 24, 1775 .
José Manuel de Guirior as Viceroy of Peru
He embarked in Cartagena de Indias, crossed the Isthmus of Panama and continued to the port of Paita, from where -as was traditional- he continued his journey by land to Lima. He succeeded Viceroy Amat in command and was solemnly received in a ceremony held on December 3, 1776. He had to comply with the royal decree that ordered the dismemberment of the Peruvian territory to create the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires. He erected the tax accountant's office and began the construction of the Santa Catalina barracks. He supported the scientific expedition led by naturalists Hipólito Ruiz, José Pavón and Joseph Dombey, who dedicated themselves to the study of American flora. The soft, affable and kind manners of Guirior failed to produce the expected fruit in Peru, because at this time the Council of the Indies decided to send in 1777 a general visitor of the finance and justice officials, who was the irascible and megalomaniac Don Jose Antonio de Areche. Immediately a conflict of powers was raised, since Areche absorbed practically all government functions, coercing the initiatives of the viceroy and later moving on to slander and insult. It is a fact that the visitor general exceeded the limits of his attributions, obscured Guirior's authority to the point of turning him into a “wooden viceroy”, and promoted numerous disturbances in his eagerness to increase fiscal pressure. In this environment, by the way, the great Andean rebellion of chief José Gabriel Condorcanqui, Túpac Amaru II, was brewing.
The aforementioned struggle ended with the unjust displacement of Guirior, who had to cede command to the viceroy Agustín de Jáuregui on July 21, 1780. He immediately undertook a trip to Spain, in order to vindicate the accusations recklessly formulated by Areche, finally achieving a full repair. King Carlos III awarded his services in 1786 with the viscountcy of Villanueva de Lóngida and with the marquisate of Guirior. He died at the court of Madrid on November 25, 1788, at the age of 80 years .