Manuel de Camara

Manuel de la Cámara
In a 1898 cartoon by Joaquín Xaudaró
Born	(1835-05-07)May 7, 1835 Málaga, Spain
Died	1920 (aged 84–85) Málaga, Spain
Allegiance	Spain
Service/branch	Spanish Navy
Rank	Vice Admiral
Battles/wars	Spanish–American War

Manuel de la Cámara y Libermoore (or Livermoore) (7 May 1835 – 1920) was a vice admiral of the Spanish Navy. He is most notable for commanding a squadron that made an abortive attempt to relieve Spanish forces in the Philippine Islands during the Spanish–American War.

Cámara was born at Málaga, Spain, on 7 May 1835.

After joining the Spanish Navy, Cámara served as an officer in the Caribbean and in the Philippine Islands. He later was chief of the Spanish naval commission in Washington, D.C., and of the Spanish naval commission in London.

By the time the Spanish–American War broke out in April 1898, Cámara was a rear admiral. Shortly after the war began, the Spanish Navy ordered major units of its fleet to concentrate at Cadiz to form the 2nd Squadron, under Cámara's command. Two of Spain's most powerful warships, the battleship Pelayo and the brand-new armored cruiser Emperador Carlos V were not available when the war began, the former undergoing reconstruction in a French shipyard and the latter not yet delivered from her builders. However, both were rushed into service and assigned to Cámara's squadron. One mission of the squadron, in the absence of any other direction, was to guard the Spanish coast against raids by the United States Navy.

During a meeting of senior Spanish naval officers in Madrid on 23 April 1898, Cámara voted with the majority to send the squadron of Vice Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete to the Caribbean. Cervera's squadron duly arrived in Cuba, where it was blockaded in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba by the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic Squadron and Flying Squadron beginning on 27 May 1898. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy's Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewey had destroyed the Spanish Navy's squadron in the Philippine Islands under Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron in the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May 1898.