♂Manuel Muñoz

Manuel Muñoz was a resident of Santiago de Guatemala, the capital of the Spanish Kingdom of Guatemala^W, who in 1753 was named in the parish register as “el Gobernador” and stood as godfather to his own grandson. He was the fifth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his daughter Maria Ana Muñoz y Barba de Figueroa (1733–1823).

The 1753 baptism

The one record of him read so far is the baptism of his grandson Raphael Croquer, entered in the register of the cathedral parish (El Sagrario) of Santiago de Guatemala. The child was born on 5 January 1753 and had been given an emergency baptism^W by a priest, Carlos Coronado, because his life was in danger. On 21 January 1753 the remaining ceremonies were supplied by Sancho Barba, rector of the church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios outside the city walls. The register names the child’s parents, Estanislao Croquer and María Ana Muñoz, and as maternal grandparents “el Gobernador D. Manuel M[uñoz]” and doña Micaela Barba de Figueroa, then already dead, both described as residents of the city. It then names the godfather as the same maternal grandfather, the governor don Manuel Muñoz.

The register does not say what post or province he governed, and no other record of his office has yet been read.

Notes

His daughter’s name follows Spanish custom: Muñoz was her father’s surname and Barba de Figueroa her mother’s. A biographical file on the Croquer family, compiled by a historian of colonial Central America whose own sources are not open to the public, gives his full name as Manuel Muñoz y Martínez de la Carra and his years as 1690 to 1753; if that is right, he died in the year he stood godfather to his grandson. No record of his birth, marriage or death has been found. Burials at the cathedral parish in December 1772 and January 1773 were signed by a priest named Bernardo Muñoz y Barba, who bore the same pair of surnames as his daughter; whether he was a kinsman is not known.