Baltasar Calvo facts for kids
Baltasar Calvo (c. 1768 – 3 July 1808) was a Spanish canon and rebel. He was executed by rebel authorities on 3 July 1808 for organizing a massacre of French civilians and leading an attempted insurrection in Valencia during the French occupation of Spain in the Napoleonic Wars.
Biography
Situation pre-massacre
The British Royal Military Chronicle wrote of Calvo that "he was ambitious, bold, subtle, and sanguinary. His person corresponded with his mind. His features, being ravaged by disease, were large, dark, and fierce; and his frame athletic and powerful."
Born in Jérica, Province of Castellón, Calvo was a canon from the Collegiate Church of San Isidro, Madrid, known for his conservative and anti-liberal views. Calvo was a noted critic of the French Revolution. After the Napoleonic invasion and conquest of Spain in 1808, French General Joachim Murat sent the clergyman to Valencia to quell the uprising there against French rule. After arriving in Valencia on 1 June, however, Calvo revealed his true goals: to seize control of the city and province for himself.
A large French minority lived in Valencia, largely dominant in the trade industries. Due to their foreign origins they were viewed with suspicion by other Valencians, and they took refuge in the city's citadel in fear of being attacked. Calvo denounced the French Valencians as a fifth column that were trying to help Murat take over the city. However, the French community had largely assimilated into Spanish society, and according to the Royal Military Chronicle, "were in every respect but the name Spaniards."
Massacre
An anti-French mob led by Calvo stormed the city's prison and freed a large number of convicts. Realizing that a massacre was at hand, Peter Carey Tupper, the British Consul in Valencia, sought and obtained authorisation from the Supreme Junta, the rebel authority that governed the city, to try to prevent it. He went to the citadel and offered to move the French to a group of six convents, but they refused, as they felt that their security was strong enough to protect them.
On 5 June Calvo's mob of rioters and convicts stormed the citadel at dusk, close to the modern-day Puerta del Mar Plaza, overpowering the guards. Every Frenchperson was taken to a room where they were forced to recite their confessions to a group of monks who had been forcefully escorted by Calvo to the citadel. The victims were walked out of the room and then killed by the mob. An estimated 170 people were killed in this fashion, according to the Royal Military Chronicle.
As night fell, the Supreme Junta sent friars from the convents to the citadel to try to stop the killing. Calvo ordered the clergymen to go back or else they too would be killed, and the monks retreated.
When Calvo and his men woke up the next morning, Calvo showed his followers a fabricated letter by a Frenchman confessing of a plot to take over the city. The mob was convinced and decided that they would finish off the rest of the French population in the city. After killing 150 French civilians caught hiding inside the citadel, the rioters went to the streets knocking on doors, forcing anybody they thought was French to confess their sins and then killing them.
The Supreme Junta recognised that Calvo was trying to lead a coup d'état against it. Calvo had already announced his intention to dismantle the Junta as well as seize control of Valencia, and reportedly planned to kill the archbishop. Franciscan friar Father Rico, a member of the Junta, proposed inviting Calvo to hold negotiations, an offer he accepted. At the end of the meeting, however, Father Rico stood up and denounced Calvo as a traitor. He was arrested and sent to Mallorca so he could not be freed by his Valencian supporters.
The massacre lasted from 5 to 6 June, and Calvo was captured on 7 June. In total some four hundred French men, women, and children were massacred by Calvo and his followers.
Imprisonment and execution
Baltasar Calvo was imprisoned in Palma de Mallorca. On 3 July 1808, he was declared guilty by the courts of murder and high treason against the Spanish state. He was executed inside the Valencia Prison at 12:00. He was about forty years old.
Hundreds of rioters who had taken part in his insurrection were also executed. Peter Carey Tupper was awarded the title of "Baron Socorro" for hiding French civilians from Calvo's followers and trying to stop the massacre.
See also
In Spanish: Baltasar Calvo para niños
