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Diego de los Reyes Balmaseda


Diego de los Reyes y Balmaseda (fl. 1690–1733) was the Governor of Paraguay from February 5, 1717 to August 20, 1721. His governorship was deeply unpopular with the inhabitants of Asunción, and an investigation by judge José de Antequera y Castro of the Real Audiencia of Charcas concluded that Reyes had abused his office, and he was deposed. Antequera took the governorship of Paraguay upon himself afterward, the beginning of the Revolt of the Comuneros. Reyes never recovered his governorship, and was eventually exiled from the province after a year-long imprisonment.

Diego de los Reyes y Balmaseda was born in El Puerto de Santa María, Spain, but moved when he was very young to Asunción in the Governorate of Paraguay, where he resided for the majority of his life. Reyes became a wealthy merchant who exported yerba mate from Paraguay and imported manufactured goods back to Paraguay. He married Francisca Benitez, another inhabitant of Asunción. In 1717, he purchased the vacant governorship; purchase of office was a practice that had spread throughout the Spanish Empire at the time, although Reyes was considered qualified regardless.

However, Reyes proved an unpopular governor. He acquired a reputation for enriching himself using the powers of his office to control trade. He also was seen as too friendly to the Jesuits, who were quite unpopular themselves in Paraguay. Two of his wife's uncles were members of the Jesuit order, and several of his most important advisers were Jesuits. Reyes' Jesuit advisors instigated him to order an attack on the Payaguá Indians of the Chaco despite a tenuous truce established three years earlier in 1717; all of the captured Payaguás were remitted to the Jesuits for conversion to Christianity and mission life. The settlers received no captives to be enslaved in the encomienda system, although it had been the settler militia that risked their lives fighting the Payaguás and colonial trade and outlying farms would now be threatened by retaliatory Payaguá raids. Reyes also acquired a reputation for enriching himself using the powers of his office to control trade. Reyes also taxed important members of the Paraguayan elite to fund the construction of defensive fortifications.


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