Alejandro Ramírez y Blanco

1. Training and First Destinations in Guatemala

Born in Alaejos (Valladolid), Alejandro Ramírez showed remarkable administrative aptitude from a young age: at the age of fifteen he was already working in the Decimal Income Accounting Office of Alcalá de Henares, under the protection of Cardinal Francisco de Lorenzana.

In 1794 he was assigned as Accountant to the Captaincy General of Guatemala, where he would become Secretary of the Royal Consulate. During these years he promoted agricultural improvements in the region and developed the enlightened reformist vision that would mark his entire public career.

2. Intendant of the Treasury of Puerto Rico (1813–1816)

Nominated by Puerto Rican deputy Ramón Power before the Cortes of Cádiz, Ramírez was sworn in as Intendant of Puerto Rico on December 14, 1812, and arrived on the island the following year to find a bankrupt public treasury.

He opened the ports to free trade with foreign countries, simplified the complicated tax system into a single contribution and ordered the withdrawal of the inflationary issuance of paper money that circulated on the island, restoring solidity to public finances in record time.

He also founded the Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Puerto Rico, the Consulate of Agriculture and Commerce, theEconomic Journal of Puerto Ricoand the Royal Lottery of Puerto Rico, the oldest in the Americas.

3. Superintendent of Cuba (1816–1821)

In 1816 he was transferred to Havana as Intendant of the Treasury and Superintendent of Cuba, a position in which he replicated and expanded his reforms: in just two months he resolved the issue of royal lands on the island, establishing private property and favoring the rise of commercial agriculture.

He promoted the end of tobacco monopoly, the freedom of foreign trade and numerous educational and scientific institutions, among them the School of Drawing and Painting of Havana, renamed in his honor asSan Alejandro Academy, which exists to this day.

4. Legacy for Collectors

As Mayor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro Ramírez approved the vouchers of theNational Treasury of Puerto Ricoissued in 1813 to finance the colonial administration in the midst of a fiscal crisis. A specimen of this issue, with his signature, can be seen in the catalog entry for the25 Pesos of 1813of the collection.

He died in Havana in 1821, shortly before assuming a new assignment in Guatemala, leaving behind an exceptional reputation for honesty and administrative efficiency in two of the most important Spanish colonies in the Caribbean.