Background
Gayoso de Lemos was born on May 30, 1747 in Oporto, Portugal, to Spanish consul Manuel Luis Gayoso de Lemos y Sarmiento and Theresa Angélica de Amorín y Magallanes.
Gayoso de Lemos was born on May 30, 1747 in Oporto, Portugal, to Spanish consul Manuel Luis Gayoso de Lemos y Sarmiento and Theresa Angélica de Amorín y Magallanes.
A natural diplomat, Gayoso de Lemos was equipped by schooling in England with a thorough knowledge of the English language, and his conduct and correspondence give evidence of unusual zeal, sagacity, and breadth of vision.
In 1773 Gayoso de Lemos began four years of service with the Lisbon Regiment. In 1787, while holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel of infantry and attached to the Spanish embassy in Lisbon, he was summoned to Madrid where, on November 3, 1787, he was commissioned governor of the newly created District of Natchez under the orders of the governor of Louisiana. Although instructed to proceed at once to his post, he did not arrive in Louisiana until April, 1789. In that year he was promoted to the rank of colonel. His first duty at Natchez was to carry out the new Spanish policy of inducing the American frontiersmen to settle on Spanish soil. That the policy failed was not his fault, for Americans as well as Spaniards were impressed by his ability, intelligence, and lavish hospitality. Another duty was to promote an intrigue looking toward the separation of the West from the United States. In this connection he carried on an extensive correspondence with James Wilkinson - who once said that he would willingly sacrifice one arm if he might embrace Gayoso with the other - and in 1795 executed a commission to confer with the Kentucky conspirator, Sebastian, at the mouth of the Ohio River. He contributed to the northward extension of the Spanish frontier by building forts at Walnut Hills (1790-1792) and Chickasaw Bluffs (1795). In 1793 he persuaded the Southern Indians, in a congress at Walnut Hills, to form a confederacy and enter into a defensive alliance with Spain against the United States. As he was about to surrender Natchez to the United States in accordance with the Treaty of San Lorenzo (1795), he was required by a secret order from Madrid to suspend evacuation. This involved him in a controversy (1797-1798) with Andrew Ellicott, United States boundary commissioner, which was terminated by a final order from the court to evacuate. Gayoso had become a brigadier-general in 1795. On August 5, 1797 he took possession of the government of Louisiana, succeeding the Baron de Carondelet. In this post, which he occupied until his death, he devoted his attention mainly to excluding Americans from settlement in Louisiana while encouraging their commerce with it; to fomenting the Indian trade; and to putting the province in a state of defense against an expected invasion from the United States. He enjoyed the reputation, rare among Spanish colonial officials, of never having used his office for personal gain. He died bankrupt.
As governor, Gayoso de Lemos consolidated the military power of Spain in New Orleans, still fearing a possible thrust south by Britain and desiring to keep Spanish Louisiana a buffer between the U. S. and Spanish Texas. He was pragmatic and continued the unofficial policy of allowing Americans to bring their slaves with them from the north, although the importation of new slaves had been prohibited since 1792.
In 1798, Gayoso de Lemos issued a comprehensive edict concerning Catholicism as the state faith of the colony. In addition to increasing formal church membership, it attempted to coerce people to give up unnecessarily working on Sundays and holy days. In the edict Gayoso de Lemos condemned anyone who challenged the theology or social centrality of the Church.
Before his departure from Spain in 1789, Gayoso de Lemos was married, with the King's permission, to Teresa Margarita Hopman y Pereira, who died shortly after their arrival in America. In 1797 he married Margaret Watts, the daughter of a planter living in the Natchez district.
