# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Alejandro O'Reilly, 1st Count of O'Reilly, KOA ( Spanish pronunciation: [aleˈxandro oɾejˈʎi]; October 24, 1723 in Baltrasna, Co. Meath, Ireland - March 23, 1794 in Bonete, Spain), English: Alexander, Count of O'Reilly, Irish: Alastar Ó Raghallaigh, was an Irish-born military reformer and Inspector-General of Infantry for the Spanish Empire in the second half of the 18th century. O'Reilly served as the second Spanish governor of colonial Louisiana, and was the first Spanish official to exercise power in the Louisiana territory after France ceded it to Spain following defeat by Great Britain in the Seven Years' War. For his much-appreciated services to the Crown of Spain, O'Reilly was ennobled as a conde (count), and granted a coat of arms.

Alexander O'Reilly ( Irish: Ó Raghallaigh) was born in Baltrasna, Co. Meath, in the Kingdom of Ireland in 1723. His grandfather John Reyly was a colonel in the army of James II, whose regiment-O'Reilly's Dragoons-fought at the siege of Derry. The family was from Baltrasna, in County Meath. Like many so-called " Wild Geese" of his generation, O'Reilly left Ireland to serve in foreign, Catholic armies. He joined Spanish forces fighting in Italy against the Austrians. After campaigning in the Spanish invasion of Portugal, O'Reilly swore allegiance to Spain and rose to become a brigadier general.

O'Reilly stayed acting for the Conde de Ricla, twice a Grandee of Spain, in Havana, Cuba, as his adjutant and second-in-command. While in Havana, Ricla and O'Reilly received the city back from the British forces that had captured it during the Seven Years' War.

O'Reilly analyzed what had gone wrong with the defenses of Havana during the successful British siege. He recommended sweeping reforms to improve the fortifications, training, practices, and troop organizations, which were quickly approved by the Spanish Crown. With the help of a military engineer of the Royal Army, Silvestre de la Abarca, the works of the strategic fortress of La Cabaña was undertaken.

In 1765, King Carlos III sent O'Reilly to the island of Puerto Rico to assess the state of the defenses of that colony. O'Reilly, known today as the "father of the Puerto Rican militia," took a complete census of the island and recommended numerous reforms, including instilling strict military discipline in the local troops. He insisted that the men serving the defense of the realm receive their pay regularly and directly, rather than indirectly from their commanding officers, a long-standing practice that had led to abuses. Some of O'Reilly's recommendations resulted in a massive 20-year program of building up the Castle of Old San Juan, now a World Heritage Site.

Returning to Cuba, O'Reilly married into a prominent Cuban family. His wife, Doña Rosa de Las Casas, was the sister of Luis de Las Casas, who served as Governor of Cuba.

O'Reilly was an uncle of Juan MacKenna, a hero of the Chilean War of Independence. So too was he a cousin of Hugo Oconór or Hugh O'Conor. He was a member of the noble O'Conor Don family, is the founding father of the city of Tucson, Arizona, and was later the 23rd Governor of the Spanish Colony of Texas and then the Governor of Yucatán.

O'Reilly was appointed Governor and Captain-General of colonial Louisiana while in Spain in April 1769, with orders to immediately proceed to Havana, embark 3,000 troops there, put down the revolt in Louisiana, and re-establish order. Some French colonists, known as Creoles as they were born in the colony, had worked to expel the first Spanish governor after France ceded this territory.

Arriving in New Orleans in August 1769, O'Reilly took formal possession of Louisiana. O'Reilly held trials and severely punished those French Creoles who were responsible for the expulsion of Spain's first colonial Governor Antonio de Ulloa (1716 - 1795), from the colony. He is remembered in New Orleans as "Bloody O'Reilly" because he had six prominent rebel French colonists executed, in October 1769. In December 1769 he allowed the Acadians who had settled in present-day Arkansas on the Mississippi River opposite Natchez to resettle on the Amite River near Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain. Other French rebels were exiled, and some were sent for life imprisonment in the Morro Castle in Havana.

Having crushed the ringleaders who had led the Louisiana Rebellion of 1768 (the uprising against Ulloa and Spanish rule), O'Reilly sent most of his troops back to Cuba. He concentrated on organizing Louisiana's administration and on stabilizing the food supply. It had historically imported grains from northern French settlements along the Mississippi, as they could not be cultivated near New Orleans.

O'Reilly reformed many French bureaucratic practices which were in place before Spanish rule. Again, as in his 1765 mission to Puerto Rico, O'Reilly's proclamations and rulings affected many aspects of life in Spanish Louisiana. He allowed slaves to purchase their freedom and enabled slave owners to more easily manumit slaves. He banned the trade of Native American slaves and abolished Indian slavery. He regularized the weights and measurements used in marketplaces, regulated doctors and surgeons, and improved public safety by funding bridge and levee maintenance.

Having restored public order, O'Reilly assigned the post of Governor of Louisiana to the Colonel of the Havana Regiment in December 1769, retaining the post of Captain-General for himself. Louisiana was firmly placed as a dependency of the military and political establishment in Cuba.

Back in Spain after October 1770, O'Reilly was charged to organize six new regiments to be trained near Cádiz, ready for transportation to the Caribbean should a new war between Spain and Great Britain break out.

In 1775, O'Reilly was given command of a major Spanish expedition attacking Algiers. Although this North African campaign was a disaster, the high reputation of O'Reilly was not destroyed, and he continued to serve as captain-general in southern Spain.

He died in the city of Cádiz in 1794, aged 72, while on his way to take command of an army in the Eastern Pyrenees that had been ordered to oppose invading French revolutionary forces, just after the beheading of Louis XVI.

O'Reilly is buried in the parish church in Bonete in Castile-La Mancha, Spain. A street in Cádiz still bears his name, as does one, Calle O'Reilly/Sráid Ó Raghallaigh, in Old Havana, Cuba. It marks the spot where O'Reilly came ashore in 1763 while the English were embarking to leave.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alejandro O'Reilly, 1st Count of O'Reilly, KOA ( Spanish pronunciation: [aleˈxandro oɾejˈʎi]; October 24, 1723 in Baltrasna, Co. Meath, Ireland - March 23, 1794 in Bonete, Spain), English: Alexander, Count of O'Reilly, Irish: Alastar Ó Raghallaigh, was an Irish-born military reformer and Inspector-General of Infantry for the Spanish Empire in the second half of the 18th century.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This entry provides a biographical overview of Alejandro O'Reilly, the second Spanish governor of Louisiana.

by Catherine Mizell-Nelson

Courtesy of Louisiana State Museum

Alejandro O'Reilly served as the second Spanish governor of Louisiana from 1769 to 1770, consolidating control of the colony and reforming its government, laws, and economy. His most pressing duty on arrival was to punish the ringleaders of the Insurrection of 1768, who had resisted the colony's transfer to Spain. As a result of the executions that O'Reilly promptly carried out, he was known in Louisiana as "Bloody O'Reilly."
Early Career
He was born Alexander O'Reilly to an upper-class Irish family in 1722. Many Irishmen at the time left Protestant English domination in their homeland to serve as mercenaries (known as "Wild Geese") for Catholic rulers on the mainland, and O'Reilly, following his father's lead, joined the Spanish infantry at the age of ten. He fought for Spain in Italy, and during the Seven Years' War, he served as an officer in the Austrian, French, and Spanish armies. He successfully led the Spanish invasion of Portugal, England's ally in the war, which won him a promotion to major general from Spain's King Charles III. When England relinquished Cuba in the 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the war, Charles III sent O'Reilly to reoccupy Havana and to determine the necessary steps to restore Cuba's profitability. O'Reilly performed similar services in Puerto Rico, then returned to Cuba, where he married Rosa de Las Casas, whose brother would become Cuba's governor in the 1790s. Recalled to Spain in 1764, O'Reilly founded an officer training academy based on Prussian innovations in warfare. He further demonstrated his prowess in 1766 when, as military governor of Madrid, he defended the king's palace from citizens rioting over grain prices.
Spanish Governor of Louisiana
France had ceded Louisiana to Spain in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, but the French and Creole colonists did not willingly acquiesce to the new regime. In 1768, a crowd of New Orleanians dissatisfied with Spanish rule rebelled and ejected Governor Antonio de Ulloa. Charles III dispatched General O'Reilly to Havana to gather sufficient troops for restoring order, and in July of 1769, twenty ships carried an army of two thousand men under O'Reilly's command to reestablish Spanish sovereignty in Louisiana.

Within days of assuming charge in New Orleans, O'Reilly ordered thirteen of the rebels detained; one died resisting arrest, and a French official was eventually sent home. O'Reilly issued a general pardon for the rest of the populace who had taken part in the uprising, provided that they agreed to swear devotion to Charles III. After two months of legal proceedings, the insurrection's leaders were convicted of sedition and treason. Six of the men were sentenced to prison in Havana, and the other five were executed by firing squad the following day. Nearly forty years later, a street was built at the site where the rebels were shot; named "rue des Françaises" in their honor, it is still called Frenchmen Street today.

O'Reilly instituted many worthwhile reforms in Louisiana during his six-month governorship. By the time the general returned to Havana in March 1770, he had established a cabildo, the Spanish model for colonial governments, and issued the "Code O'Reilly," aligning Louisiana's legal system with that of Spain. Among his reforms was limiting the number of drinking establishments in New Orleans, which had gained a reputation for its high number of rowdy taverns. By proclamation of October 8, 1769, O'Reilly allowed twelve taverns, six billiard halls, and one limonadier (lemonade vendor) to serve alcoholic beverages. The regulation prohibited criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes from frequenting these establishments, and it forbade the use of swear words and blasphemy.

O'Reilly worked to improve relations with Native American tribes and reorganized the colony's defenses. He is also credited with stabilizing finances, establishing price controls on food staples, raising standards for medical care, and restricting trade to Spanish ships and Spanish ports. Because the colony frequently experienced food shortages, however, the Irish merchant Oliver Pollock secured the privilege to trade by supplying flour at far below the market price. A decade later, during the American Revolution, Pollock would use his resources to help the Spanish provide much-needed supplies to the Continental Army through the port of New Orleans.
Later Career
As a reward for O'Reilly's many services, Charles III bestowed upon him the title of Conde (count) in 1772 and an annual pension. In 1775, O'Reilly led an unsuccessful invasion of the African port city of Algiers, but nevertheless achieved the governorship of Cadiz, Spain, in 1780. He resigned the post eight years later, retired to Valencia, and died in 1794.
Adapted from J. Preston Moore's entry for the Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, a publication of the Louisiana Historical Association in cooperation with the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

Author
Catherine Mizell-Nelson
Suggested Reading

Brasseaux, Carl A. Denis-Nicolas Foucault and the New Orleans Rebellion of 1768. Ruston, LA: Louisiana Tech University, 1987.

Powell, Lawrence N. The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.

Texada, David Ker. Alejandro O'Reilly and the Louisiana Rebels. Lafayette, LA: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1970.

Additional Data

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This entry provides a biographical overview of Alejandro O'Reilly, the second Spanish governor of Louisiana. by Catherine Mizell-Nelson Alejandro O'Reilly served as the second Spanish governor of Louisiana from 1769 to 1770, consolidating control of the colony and reforming its government, laws, and economy.

# data[].attributes.body
-Left Ireland to Spain to escape anti-catholic penal laws

-Joined the Spanish army as a cadet

-Second Spanish governor of LA

-Went to New Orleans in 1769

-Nicknamed, “Bloody O’Reilly

-Established the Cabildo

# data[].attributes.body
O'Reilly was the Second Spanish Governor of LA. After he moved from Ireland and joined the army he was in office for 1 year and in 'reign' for 6 years.

# data[].attributes.headline
Can you assess the value or importance of Alejandro O’Reilly?

# data[].attributes.subject
Can you assess the value or importance of Alejandro O’Reilly?

# data[].attributes.body
-The importance of O’Reilly was the things he did for Louisiana. He joined and fought in the army as a cadet. He established the Cabildo. He reduced political corruption, stabilized the food supply, and improved public safety. For the many years that he has served in war and in office, I think he should be well remembered.

# data[].attributes.body
-Born: October 24, 1723,

-Died: March 23, 1794

-Was in “reign” from 1780 to 1786

-Spanish Governor from 1769 to 1770