Antonio de Benavides (1678-1762): the Atlantic life-trajectory of an itinerant provincial governor, from self-representation to myth

Abstract

Throughout his career as provincial governor of Florida (1717-1732), Veracruz (1732-1743) and the Yucatán (1743-1751), Antonio de Benavides built an image of himself that stressed his poverty, honesty, and charity. After his death, this image served as the basis upon which several late-eighteenth-century authors reimagined him as a Canarian hero, creating in the process a series of myths that, to this day, remain attached to his biography. By situating his experience within the context of Early Bourbon Reformism, this paper highlights the importance which itinerancy or staggered mobility, which marked Benavides' life from the beginning, played in the construction of his image. It suggests, moreover, that Benavides' life, spent in multiple territories of the Spanish Monarchy, on both sides of the ocean, reflects many of the tensions and ambiguities that characterized the Spanish Atlantic world of the time.