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The Most Excellent
Juan Prim
The Most Excellent Juan Prim
	Portrait by Luis Madrazo
Prime Minister of Spain
	In office; 18 June 1869 – 27 December 1870
Monarchs	Vacant; (Francisco Serrano as Regent); Amadeo I; (Nov–Dec 1870);
Preceded by	Francisco Serrano
Succeeded by	Juan Bautista Topete
Minister of War of Spain
	In office; 8 October 1868 – 27 December 1870
Prime Minister	Francisco Serrano; Himself
Preceded by	José Gutiérrez de la Concha
Succeeded by	Juan Bautista Topete
Minister of the Navy of Spain
	Acting
	In office; 6 November 1869 – 9 January 1870
Prime Minister	Himself
Preceded by	Juan Bautista Topete
Succeeded by	Juan Bautista Topete
Governor of Puerto Rico
	In office; 15 October 1847 – 12 July 1848
Monarch	Isabella II
Preceded by	Rafael Arístegui
Succeeded by	Juan de la Pezuela
Personal details
Born	Anton Joan Pau Maria Prim; 6 December 1814; Reus, Spain
Died	30 December 1870 (aged 56); Madrid, Spain
Political party	Progressive
Profession	Politician
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	Army
Years of service	1834–1868
Rank	General
Battles/wars	First Carlist War; Crimean War; First Hispano-Moroccan War; Second French intervention in Mexico; Glorious Revolution
Awards	Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand (3); Order of the Medjidie

Juan Prim y Prats, 1st Count of Reus, 1st Marquis of los Castillejos, 1st Viscount of Bruch (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxwam ˈpɾin i ˈpɾats]; Catalan: Joan Prim i Prats [ʒuˈam ˈpɾim i ˈpɾats]; 6 December 1814 – 30 December 1870) was a Spanish general and statesman^[2] who was briefly Prime Minister of Spain until his assassination.

Biography

Born in Reus on 6 December 1814,^[3] Prim was the son of lieutenant colonel Pablo Prim.^{[n. 1]} He entered the free corps known as the tiradores de Isabel II and met his baptism of fire on 7 August 1834, during the First Carlist War, facing the Carlist party of Triaxet.^[5]

Over the course of the war, he rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and had two orders of knighthood conferred upon him. After the pacification of 1839, as a progressist opposed to the dictatorship of General Espartero, he was sent into exile. However, in 1843 he was elected deputy for Tarragona, and after defeating Espartero at Bruch he entered Madrid in triumph with General Serrano. The regent Maria Christina promoted him major-general, and made him conde de Reus (Count of Reus) and vizconde del Bruch (Viscount of Bruch).^[6]

General Narváez, the prime minister, failed to understand what constitutional freedom meant, and General Prim, on showing signs of opposition, was sentenced to six years imprisonment in the Philippine Islands. The sentence was not carried out, and Prim remained an exile in England and France until the amnesty of 1847. He then returned to Spain, and was first employed as captain-general of Puerto Rico (Governor of Puerto Rico) and afterwards as military representative with the sultan during the Crimean War. In 1854 he was elected to the Cortes, and gave his support to General O'Donnell, who promoted him lieutenant-general in 1856. In the war with Morocco he did such good service at Castillejos (Fnideq), Cabo Negro, Guad al Gelu and Campamento in 1860 that he was made marqués de los Castillejos (Marquess of los Castillejos) and Grande de España (Grandee of Spain).^[6]

Prim commanded the Spanish expeditionary army in Mexico in 1862, when Spain, Great Britain, and France sought forced payment from the liberal government of Benito Juárez for loans. Prim was a sympathizer with the Mexican liberal cause, thus he refused to consent to the ambitious schemes of French emperor Napoleon III, and withdrew Spanish forces following a meeting with Manuel Doblado.^[7] Prim was a staunch supporter of the Union in the American Civil War and on his trip to the United States, where he visited New York and Philadelphia, he met with Lincoln in Washington.^[8]

On Prim's return to Spain, he joined the opposition, heading pronunciamentos in Catalonia against generals Narváez and O'Donnell. All his attempts failed until the death of Narváez in April 1868, after which Queen Isabella became increasingly tyrannical until at last even Serrano was exiled. In September 1868 General Serrano and General Prim returned, and Brigadier Topete, commanding the fleet, raised the standard of revolt at Cádiz. In July 1869 General Serrano was elected regent,^[9] and Prim became president of the council and was made a marshal.

On 6 November 1870 Amadeo, Duke of Aosta, was elected king of Spain, but General Prim, on leaving the chamber of the Cortes on 28 December, was shot by unknown assassins and died two days later.^[10] The Cortes took his children as wards of the country; three days afterwards King Amadeo I swore in the presence of the corpse to observe the new Spanish constitution.^[6] This is due to the fact that Prim had searched all the European courts of the time trying to find a monarch who was not opposed to being democratically elected. He is quoted for saying that "looking for a democratic monarch in Europe is like trying to find an atheist in heaven".^{[citation needed]} After France had rejected the almost-elected Leopold of Hohenzollern because of their fear that Prussia might thereby become more powerful, Amadeo of Savoy was the most fitting who consented.^{[citation needed]}

The workshop of metalworker Plácido Zuloaga was commissioned to make a monumental sarcophagus for Prim. Completed in 1875 in Eibar, this now resides in the cemetery at Reus.^[11]

Gallery

Monument to Prim sculpted by Josep Llimona in Reus
Assassination of Juan Prim (drawing by Pierre Méjanel)
"Amadeo I in front of the coffin of General Prim (1870)" by Antonio Gisbert
Commemorative plaque

References

Informational notes

^ According to W.O. Cavenagh (1898), writing for The Genealogical Magazine, Juan Prim was a descendant of John Prim, of Johnswell, county Kilkenny (d. 1755), an Irish descendant of a family of Dutch settlers originally surnamed Prime, established in England during the reign of Elizabeth I and a branch of which relocated to Ireland during the reign of Charles I. A descendant of Mark (d. 1782)—eldest son of John and his first wife Miss Rodgers—would have migrated to Spain, made a fortune and founded the Spanish branch.^[4]

Citations

^ ^a ^b Baptism inscription
^ "Juan Prim | Spanish statesman". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
^ Rubio 1869, p. 226–227.
^ Cavenagh, W.O (July 1898). "The Prims of Johnswell: An Episode of the Irish Wars". The Genealogical Magazine: 91–94.
^ Rubio 1869, pp. 227–228.
^ ^a ^b ^c Chisholm 1911.
^ Brian Hamnett, Juárez, New York: Longmans 1994, pp. 169, 278.
^ Fradera 2000, p. 259.
^ John Da Graça (13 February 2017). Heads of State and Government. Springer. p. 815. ISBN 978-1-349-65771-1.
^ Baynes, Thomas Spencer (1891). The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. M. Sommerville.
^ Lavin, James D. (1997). The art and tradition of the Zuloagas: Spanish damascene from the Khalili Collection. Oxford: Khalili Family Trust in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum. p. 58. ISBN 1-874780-10-2. OCLC 37560664.

Bibliography

Rubio, Carlos (1869). Historia Filosófica de la Revolución Española de 1868 (PDF). Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de M. Guijarro.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Prim, Juan". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 323.
Fradera, Josep M. (2000). "Juan Prim y Prats (1814-1870). Prim conspirador o la pedagogía del sable". In Isabel Burdiel; Manuel Pérez Ledesma (eds.). Liberales, agitadores y conspiradores. Biografías heterodoxas del siglo XIX. Madrid: Espasa Calpe. ISBN 84-239-6048-X.

Further reading

Blairet, Louis (1867). Le Général Prim et la situation actuelle de l'Espagne. Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Guillaumot (1870). Juan Prim et l'Espagne. Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Guited, Gimenez y (1860). Guited, Historia militar y política del General Don Juan Prim. Barcelona.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Léonardon, Henri (1901). Prim. Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) (in French, contains a useful bibliography).
Schurz, Carl (1907). "VI. Spain". Reminiscences . Vol. II. New York: McClure Publ. Co. pp. 293–300. Schurz was the United States' ambassador to Spain in 1860. In his Reminiscences, he gives a short biography of Prim as well as his recollections of his own talks with Prim and the Spanish court.

External links

Map (1866) of the approximate route of Prim from Ocaña to Portugal.

Preceded by Rafael De Aristegui y Velez	Governor of Puerto Rico 1847-1848	Succeeded by Juan De La Pezuela y Cevallos
Preceded by Francisco Serrano y Domínguez, Duke de la Torre	Prime Minister of Spain 1868-1869	Succeeded by Juan Bautista Topete y Carballo