Simón de Anda y Salazar

Also known as: Don Simón de Anda y Salazar — the honorific styling of the Spanish record · Lieutenant Governor of the Philippines — the Audiencia's wartime designation · Governor and Captain-General — the title he assumed on October 8, 1762 under the Council of the Indies' devolution rules · Dictator of the Spanish Provisional Government of the Philippines — the Bacolor government's styling in the succession record · Anda — the short form carried by the municipalities and monuments named for him

Society

Definition

Simón de Anda y Salazar (October 28, 1709, Subijana, Basque Country, Spain — October 30, 1776, Hospital de San Felipe, Cavite) was a Spanish colonial magistrate and official — oidor of the Real Audiencia of Manila — who, when the British stormed Intramuros on October 6, 1762, escaped the falling city with a substantial part of the treasury and the official records, established the provisional Spanish government first at Bulacan and then at Bacolor, Pampanga, and for eighteen months led the resistance that kept the British occupiers confined to Manila and Cavite until the Treaty of Paris was executed in 1764. (Wikipedia — Anda, Wikipedia — British occupation) Named “Lieutenant Governor of the city by the Governor-General of the Philippines and the Audiencia itself” in the invasion’s councils of war — a commission the standard dissertation calls “simply a matter of protocol,” the junior oidor being sent out because he was “the most expendable” — Anda informed the captive Archbishop-Governor Manuel Rojo on October 8, 1762 that he had assumed the position of Governor and Captain-General under the Council of the Indies’ statutes allowing devolution of authority to the Audiencia in cases of riot or invasion, being the senior Audiencia member beyond British control. (Wikipedia — Anda, Wikipedia — British occupation, Escoto — Administration of Anda)

His resistance made his career. Anda raised an army that amounted to over ten thousand combatants — most of them Filipino volunteers — strangled Manila’s food supply from the provinces, returned unopened every British letter not addressed to him as Governor-General, and refused Rojo’s capitulations as signed under duress, entering the restored capital in triumph in 1764. (Wikipedia — British occupation, Escoto — Administration of Anda) Rewarded by Charles III with the Council of Castile and the Order of Charles III, he returned as Governor-General of the Philippines in July 1770 and governed until his death in office on October 30, 1776 — a tenure consumed by the prosecution of his predecessor and by the war with the regular clergy over the secularization of parishes. (Wikipedia — Anda, Escoto — Administration of Anda) Pampanga keeps his memory — Bacolor was honored “Villa de Bacolor” by the King of Spain in gratitude for its role, and the town unveiled a replica obelisk of his monument in 2012 — and two municipalities, Anda in Bohol and Anda in Pangasinan, bear his name. (Wikipedia — Anda, Inquirer — Why PH did not become a UK colony)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Simón de Anda y Salazar
Wikidata	Simón de Anda y Salazar (Q3544444) — “Governor-General of the Philippines” (verified this session)
DBpedia	Simón_de_Anda_y_Salazar — resource verified on the data endpoint this session
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	Anda — English/Spanish surname of Basque origin; Cebuano and Tagalog entries give the Bohol municipality named for him (the place name, not the man)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	Anda y Salazar, Simón de, 1709-1776 — name authority no96026256 (verified this session via id.loc.gov)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Simón de Anda y Salazar oidor British occupation Manila 1762 1764 Bacolor Pampanga provisional government resistance Rojo Drake governor-general 1770 1776 secularization
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Don Simón de Anda y Salazar — the honorific styling of the Spanish record
Lieutenant Governor of the Philippines — the Audiencia’s wartime designation
Governor and Captain-General — the title he assumed on October 8, 1762 under the Council of the Indies’ devolution rules
Dictator of the Spanish Provisional Government of the Philippines — the Bacolor government’s styling in the succession record
Anda — the short form carried by the municipalities and monuments named for him

Examples and Analogies

A government carried out in the night: Anda’s provisional state left Manila the way it survived — through the Fort Santiago postern of Our Lady of Solitude to a boat on the Pasig, treasury and records aboard, setting up in Bulacan with an initial budget the dissertation puts at five hundred pesos. (Wikipedia — British occupation, Escoto — Administration of Anda)
Legitimacy by statute, not by sword: the resistance’s founding act was a legal argument — the Council of the Indies’ devolution rules made the highest free Audiencia minister the acting governor — and Anda enforced it down to the mail, returning unopened any letter not addressed to him as Governor-General until the British, after Rojo’s death on January 30, 1764, recognized him as the legitimate governor. (Wikipedia — British occupation)
The expendable man who became indispensable: the councils of war chose the junior oidor for the provincial mission because no one wanted to leave the city; eighteen months later the same man rode at the head of ten thousand into the restored capital — the occupation’s inversion in one biography. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — British occupation)
Three governors for one colony: Rojo captive in Intramuros, Anda in Bacolor, Dawsonne Drake in the British government — “the only time that the Philippines had three governor-generals at the same time,” in the dissertation’s line. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — Anda)
Verified biographical data:
Born: October 28, 1709, Subijana, Basque Country, Spain (Wikipedia — Anda)
Oidor: appointed by royal cedula of October 10, 1755; arrived at Cavite July 14, 1761, inducted in Manila a week later (Escoto — Administration of Anda)
Escape: night of October 5, 1762, through the Fort Santiago postern of Our Lady of Solitude (Wikipedia — British occupation)
Provisional government: Bulacan, then Bacolor, Pampanga; claim to Governor and Captain-General notified October 8, 1762 (Wikipedia — British occupation)
Army: over 10,000 combatants, mostly Filipino volunteers; by early 1764 about 10,000 men including more than 200 French deserters from the British, Malabar guards, and 600 Spanish regulars (Wikipedia — British occupation, Escoto — Administration of Anda)
Rewards: Charles III approved his acts, paid salary arrears and compensations totaling some ₱78,000 with a perpetual pension, and made him a Knight of the Distinguished Order of Charles III (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — British occupation)
Council of Castile: royal cedula of June 1766; left Manila February 1, 1767; inducted November 6, 1767 (Escoto — Administration of Anda)
Governor-General: by royal decree, July 1770 — sailed from Cádiz January 14, 1770 on the frigate Astrea, disembarked at Cavite July 15, 1770; died in office October 30, 1776 (Wikipedia — Anda, Escoto — Administration of Anda)
Successor: Pedro de Sarrio (Wikipedia — Anda)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying Why the Occupation Failed

Anda is the explanation the occupation’s historiography returns to: an army of over ten thousand — “Some 10,000 troops from Anda encircled Manila and Cavite,” in the Kapampangan historian’s rendering — cut the capital from its provincial subsistence and held the British inside roughly twenty-five square miles, so that the fiscal Francisco Leandro Viana could tell Charles III in 1765 that “the English conquest of the Philippines was just an imagined one, as the English never owned any land beyond the range of the cannons in Manila.” (Inquirer — Why PH did not become a UK colony, Wikipedia — British occupation, Escoto — Administration of Anda)

2. Tracing Emergency Authority in the Colonial State

The Bacolor government is the type case of the empire’s devolution rules working in practice — authority passing by statute from a captive governor to the Audiencia, sustained by the treasury and records evacuated with the escaping minister, and vindicated when the occupiers finally negotiated with the acting governor as legitimate. (Wikipedia — British occupation, Escoto — Administration of Anda)

3. Reading Pampanga’s Commemoration

Bacolor remembers Anda every October 8 — the date of his 1762 assumption of the government — with the obelisk it unveiled in 2012 before the town hall, a replica of the monument on Manila’s Bonifacio Drive built in 1876, which itself took its form from a Bacolor obelisk of 1853; the town’s “Villa de Bacolor” honorific from the King of Spain dates from the same gratitude. (Inquirer — Why PH did not become a UK colony)

4. Studying Church–State Conflict in the 1770s

Anda’s governorship is the central case of the secularization crisis: allied with Archbishop Basilio Sancho against the regular orders, he ordered the Augustinians out of Bacolor and thirteen Pampanga parishes in October 1771; then, in his letter of January 3, 1776, told the king the secular clergy was unready — whereupon the royal decree of December 11, 1776 suspended the secularization and returned the parishes to the regulars, shortly after Anda’s death. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — Anda)

5. Researching the Audiencia and Its Ministers

Biographical work on the Real Audiencia of Manila uses Anda as its best-documented eighteenth-century oidor — appointment, transit, induction, wartime service, elevation — the arc the dissertation record carries in full. (Escoto — Administration of Anda)

Strategies

Claim the law before fighting: Anda’s first acts were juridical — the October 8 notification to Rojo, the demand for the royal seal, the refusal of duress-signed capitulations — converting a military collapse into a contest of legitimacy he could not lose. (Wikipedia — British occupation)
Strangle rather than storm: with too few muskets for a siege, his army intercepted the flow of staple food into a capital that “had always depended on the provinces for its subsistence.” (Escoto — Administration of Anda)
Recruit from the provinces, deserters included: the army’s core was Filipino volunteers — Pampangans above all — stiffened by 600 Spanish regulars, French deserters from the British, and Malabar guards; manpower, not firepower, was the resistance’s resource. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — British occupation)
Answer terror with a price: when the British declared him a traitor and offered ₱5,000 for his capture, Anda counter-offered ₱10,000 for each of them, dead or alive — the escalation of a legitimacy war into a bounty war. (Escoto — Administration of Anda)
Move the capital to the loyal country: the shift from Bulacan to Bacolor put the government among “the King of Spain’s most loyal and brave subjects” and beyond the reach of the sorties that took Malolos in January 1763. (Inquirer — Why PH did not become a UK colony, Wikipedia — British occupation)

Security and Safety Measures

Evacuate the instruments of state: the councils of war’s September–October 1762 resolutions moved the government fund — some ₱200,000 — inland, and Anda’s night exit carried treasury and records through the postern; the incoming galleon Filipino, which narrowly escaped capture, brought the resistance nearly three million pesos more. (Escoto — Administration of Anda)
The blockade as national defense: confining the British to Manila and Cavite — an occupation zone of roughly twenty-five square miles — kept the archipelago’s administration, revenues, and food supply in Spanish hands for the occupation’s whole course. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Inquirer — Why PH did not become a UK colony)
The armistice conditional on withdrawal: after Rojo’s death and the treaty’s arrival, Anda agreed to an armistice only on the condition of British withdrawal by March 1764, and rode into the capital to receive the city’s official return rather than accept a negotiated coexistence. (Wikipedia — British occupation, Escoto — Administration of Anda)
The estado de defensa as legal shield: his refusal of Rojo’s capitulation orders — agreements signed by a captive under duress are void — protected the colony’s sovereign claims, the argument Spain sustained in the ransom disputes that followed in Europe. (Wikipedia — British occupation)
For researchers: the dating is treacherous — the escape is dated October 4 or 5 and the fall October 5 or 6 by different accounts, and the standard reference article’s claim that Anda “returned to the Philippines” on April 12, 1768 conflicts with the dissertation’s record that April 12, 1769 was his notification of the new post, his sailing from Cádiz falling on January 14, 1770 and his arrival on July 15, 1770; state the source for each date. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — Anda)

Historical Context

Anda reached Manila as the Seven Years’ War came for Spain’s Pacific colony. Appointed oidor by the royal cedula of October 10, 1755, he landed at Cavite on July 14, 1761; within a year the Family Compact had brought Spain into the war, and a Madras expedition under Draper and Cornish had entered Manila Bay. On the councils’ orders he left the doomed city on the night of October 5, 1762 through the Fort Santiago postern; Manila fell the next day and was sacked; Rojo capitulated for the Philippines on October 30; and from Bulacan, then Bacolor, Anda’s government fought the occupation’s whole course — the Pasig dispersal of November 26, 1762, the Bulacan attack of January 19, 1763 that followed his execution of Chinese auxiliaries who had aided the British, the failed British advance on Pampanga, the Batangas incursion of spring 1763, and the tightening blockade after peace was signed in Europe. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — British occupation)

The peace made him. Charles III approved his acts and rewarded him; the Council of Castile and the Order of Charles III followed; and in July 1770 he returned as Governor-General — prosecuting his predecessor José Antonio Raón, reforming the army, building public works, and fighting the regulars over parishes until his letter of January 3, 1776 and the crown’s answer of December 11, 1776 closed the secularization episode weeks after his death in Cavite on October 30 — the Extraordinary Council of 1775 having already condemned him to pay the costs of his own prosecutions. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — Anda)

Challenges and Controversies

The Dates of the Escape and the Return

The occupation’s own record wobbles at both ends of Anda’s story: the escape is placed on the night of October 4 or October 5, 1762, against a fall of Manila dated October 5 or 6; and his return from Spain is given as April 12, 1768 in the standard reference article against the dissertation’s documentation of a notification of April 12, 1769, sailing January 14, 1770, arrival July 15, 1770. Both variances matter — the first for the fall’s chronology, the second for the length of his Council of Castile service — and this entry carries the dissertation’s dates with the reference article’s where they agree. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — Anda)

Defender of the King, Enemy of the Friars

Anda’s 1764 letter to the king complaining of “certain disorders in the Philippines” included “a number against the friars,” and his governorship made the quarrel institutional: with Archbishop Sancho he evicted Augustinians from Pampanga’s parishes, imposed Spanish-language teaching against the native-language decrees of the archbishop, and then — in the 1776 letter — undercut his own secularist allies. The reference article compresses this into his “opposing the king’s order of 9 November 1774, to secularize the curacies held by regulars”; the dissertation record shows a man who first drove the secularization and then halted it, a far stranger story. (Escoto — Administration of Anda, Wikipedia — Anda)

The Execution of the Chinese Auxiliaries

In January 1763 Anda ordered the execution of Chinese in the provinces who had aided the British — and some four hundred Chinese civilians thereupon reinforced the attackers of Bulacan. The episode is recorded plainly in the occupation’s account and left unweighed: a counterinsurgency measure that both expressed and intensified the war’s cruelty. (Wikipedia — British occupation)

A Hero Prosecuted, and Prosecuting

The governorship’s centerpiece — the pesquisa of Raón and his circle, with 70,999 pesos found in the predecessor’s storeroom — ended with the Extraordinary Council’s verdict of July 13, 1775 ordering Anda himself to pay costs, and Raón died of palsy before he could be shipped to Spain for judgment. The resistance hero’s own decade in office is thus a study in how little vindication law gives even its victors. (Escoto — Administration of Anda)

Memory Divided Between Manila and Pampanga

The capital’s Anda Monument rose on Bonifacio Drive in 1876, modeled on Bacolor’s obelisk of 1853 — but Bacolor’s own memorial was destroyed when Spanish forces burned the town in 1899, and its 2012 replica is a reconstruction of a lost object. The two municipalities named Anda and the Fort Santiago marker at the postern complete a commemoration that is real but repeatedly interrupted, the pattern Pampanga’s commemorators themselves narrate. (Inquirer — Why PH did not become a UK colony, Wikipedia — Anda, Wikipedia — British occupation)