Pablo Morillo

Pablo Morillo y Morillo, Count of Cartagena and Marquess of La Puerta, aka El Pacificador (The Pacifier) (Fuentesecas, Zamora, Spain, May 5, 1775 – Barèges, France, July 27, 1837) was a Spanish general.

In 1791 Morillo enlisted in the Real Cuerpo de Marina (Spanish Royal Marine Corps) and participated in the Battle of Trafalgar in which he was wounded and made prisoner by the English in 1805. He also fought against Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808 during the Peninsular War (part of Napoleonic Wars) to defend his mother country Spain against the French invasion. Once the war ended and the Spanish monarchy was restored, King Ferdinand VII of Spain appointed him Expedition Commander and General Captain of the Provinces of Venezuela on August 14, 1814. He set sail with a fleet of 18 warships and 42 cargo ships and disembarked in the Isla Margarita with the mission to pacify the revolts against the Spanish monarchy in the American colonies. He travelled to Caracas, Puerto Cabello and Cartagena de Indias (United Provinces of New Granada) in a military campaign to fight Simon Bolívar's revolutionary armies.

On August 22, 1815, Morillo surrounded the walled city of Cartagena and put it under siege, preventing any supplies from going in until December 6 of this same year when the Spanish Royal Army entered the city. With control over Cartagena, Morillo returned to Venezuela to continue the fight against revolutionaries. In June 1820 Morillo ordered under Royal mandate that everyone in the colonies obeyed the Cadiz Constitution and sent delegates to negotiate with Bolivar and his followers. Bolivar and Morillo later met in the Venezuelan town of Santa Ana and signed a truce first for six months and later a second one named "War Regularization".

Morillo returned to Spain, was named General Captain of New Castile, and supported the Liberal Constitution during the Liberal Triennium. He prevented a coup against the Constitution in 1822, and fought in 1823 the French invasion under Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angoulême in the north of Spain, where he was defeated.

When King Ferdinand VII restored the absolute regime in 1823 he went to France. A few years later, he returned to Spain and participated in some military operations during the Carlist Wars. He felt ill and went back to France where he died on July 27, 1837.

Quotes
When Morillo ordered the execution of the Colombian scientist Francisco José de Caldas (known as El Sabio Caldas, "Wise Caldas") and the people present at the place appealed for the life of the scientist, Morillo responded: "Spain does not need wise people." (Spanish:"España no necesita sabios"). This sentence became the slogan of Spain's wars for the re-conquest of the rebel colonies.