Hector, baron de Carondelet

Hector, baron de Carondelet (born c. 1748, Noyelles, Flanders—died August 10, 1807, Quito, Viceroyalty of New Granada [Ecuador]) was the governor of the Spanish territory of Louisiana and West Florida from 1791 to 1797.

Carondelet was born of a distinguished Burgundian family and married into an influential Spanish family. He served in a number of other Spanish colonial posts before his appointment to New Orleans.

Though he struggled valiantly with the many difficulties he met there and managed to construct a canal connecting New Orleans with the Gulf of Mexico and to make a considerable number of other civic improvements, the problems presented by the Native Americans and by U.S. encroachment proved to be too much for him. Both the United States and Spain claimed territory north of the 31st parallel of latitude, and to defend Spain’s claim Carondelet formed alliances with local Indian tribes to repel U.S. settlers, installed a gunboat fleet on the Mississippi River, and built fortifications in the disputed area.

He also negotiated with Gen. James Wilkinson and others in Kentucky to effect the secession of the trans-Appalachian territories from the United States and to secure their alliance with Spain. All this was terminated by Pinckney’s Treaty (Treaty of San Lorenzo) in October 1795, in which Spain—embroiled in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars—agreed to set the U.S. southern boundary at latitude 31° and conceded U.S. citizens free passage on the Mississippi and tax-free storage of goods at New Orleans. Carondelet was relieved of his position in 1797 and became governor-general of Quito.