| 1744 |
Born in province of Catalonia, Spain. He came to La. at the beginning of Spanish dominion and was made colonel of the regiment of La. |
| 1779 |
In the conquest of West Florida he was second in command to Gov. Galvez and when he later was called to St. Domingo he became provisional governor. |
| 1781 |
Ship captains and pilots attempt to use their marine fuero to avoid paying a duty on liquor. Governor Miro takes measures to enforce the payments that began with O’Reilly. |
| 1782 February 15 |
The Cabildo sends a letter directly to Governor Galvez, by-passing Miro, his acting governor. The letter complains that Charity Hospital administrator Lopez de Armesto has been neglecting the hospital and has not sent them the hospital accounts. They are still trying to assume control of the hospital which had been taken from civilian control by O’Reilly in 1769 and assumed by the planters on the Cabildo in 1778. Galvez refers them to Miro. |
| 1782 March 1 |
Esteban Miro becomes acting governor of Louisiana. |
| 1782 Summer |
Miro questions the loyalty of the Cabildo when the merchants conspire to exclude new foreign merchants from the local business community. Miro is in Natchez where he is fortifying the post. He believes the members of the Cabildo are trying to subvert the loyalty of the merchants and he will not abet this nefarious scheme. Differences between the merchants and planters diminish after 1782 because of new rules on trade. Miro will finally side with the planters after the 1788 fire because of their dominance of the Cabildo. and desire for open competition among all merchants. |
| 1782 December |
The Cabildo, led by Alferez Real Francisco Maria de Reggio, objects to Miro about the clandestine manner in which "usages and customs" had been disregarded. Again the focus is Charity Hospital and Almonester’s violation of their prerogatives as agents for the public administration of the hospital. Miro waits three months to reply. |
| 1782 |
The source of the Cabildo’s objections at Charity Hospital was actually Andres Almonester who is a one time government employee and scribe who has enriched himself by acquiring land on the Plaza de Armas by direct royal grant, where he built stores, as well as other land in the city. Almonester offers to rebuild Charity Hospital. He begins construction early in 1782 with Miros blessing. |
| 1783 Feb. and March |
Acting Governor Miro sends two detachments of soldiers to apprehend numerous fugitive slaves. They caught 43 slaves and forced others to return to their owners. |
| 1783 |
Miro rebukes the Cabildo for its attitude of injustice and ingratitude in regard to reconstruction of Charity Hospital by Almonester. He also refutes the council’s authority regarding the Hospital and its administration. Almonester made very few friends in the French Creole community for his philanthropy. |
| 1783 |
Governor Miro complains to acting Captain-General Jose de Ezpeleta about not having enough musicians in the regiment because many had left with the troops withdrawn to Cuba. He asks for clarinetists, trumpeters and a maestro. |
| 1784 April 29 |
In a cabildo abierto planters present eleven articles regulating slave conduct. Soon after Governor Miro issues his won decree to the colony. The articles prohibit slaves from traveling without written permission from owners; denied the sale of liquor; gunpowder or shot to them; forbid them from using firearms; except when specifically permitted; forbade black assemblies without passes from owners; prohibited the hiring out of unskilled blacks; required free blacks to carry certificates of their emancipation; prohibited citizens for giving horses to slaves and required owners to inspect for runaways among their own slaves. |
| 1784 May |
Governor Miro and the Cabildo issue new rules for slave conduct that will go unchallenged for five years. |
| 1784 May, early June |
Francisco Bouligny is acting governor while Miro has been called away to Indian congresses in Pensacola and Mobile. The Cabildo presses Bouligny to send out expeditions to capture the San Malo gang. A week later the Cabildo complaint becomes shrill, claiming a slave insurrection was imminent. |
| 1784 |
An investigation into the actions of Bouligny and Reggio in the San Malo trial was conducted under Miro and Captain-General Galvez in Cuba. Galvez ruled that Reggios court was not inferior to Miro’s as governor. Reggio was found to have acted properly. Galvez however told Miro that the Cabildo had acted improperly toward Cirilo de Barcelona over the church slave Baptiste. |
| 1784 |
Charity Hospital is to be rebuilt (1784-1786) and supported by Don Andres Almonester y Roxas who asked the king to be appointed its patron and director. It is named the Hospice of St. Charles in honor of the King of Spain. The vicar general and governor Miro approve the plan. Almonester submits rules for management and the Council of the Indies approves them. The hospital is a controversy until Don Andres death in 1798. |
| 1785 July 14 |
Esteban Miro becomes proprietary governor after serving as acting civil and military governor of the colony of Louisiana. Miro succeeded to the office of governor "on account of his services as 'governor ad interim' during the absence of titular governor Count de Galvez while commanding the army in the late war." |
| 1785 |
Captain General Galvez informs the Cabildo through governor Miro that the city would assume the cost of cleaning and repairing the city’s gutters. |
| 1785 |
Miro grants an extension of time to the British subjects of West Florida to settle up their affairs and leave the district and recommended more liberal regulations regarding the commerce of the province of Louisiana. |
| 1785 |
Governor Miro appoints Nicolas Forstall commandant at Opelousas. Forestall is a regidore and alcalde ordinario, again Forstall will be absent from his council post for long lengths of time. |
| 1786 June 2 |
Miro issues his Bando de Buen Gobierno ordering that no work be done on the Sabbath of holy festival days except in cases of urgent necessity, that shops should be closed during divine services, no negro dances on public squares on evenings while church was in session, blacks prohibited from holding meetings after night fall. No large assemblies to take place without knowledge of the government. No citizens to leave the city without a passport; gambling, dueling and carrying of weapons were placed under ban; the inhabitants were not to purchase anything from soldiers, Indians, convicts or slaves. Verbal sales and transfers of slaves forbidden, better fire protection and drainage recommended; no hogs allowed to run at large; and number of dogs to be kept by families regulated. He prohibits slave importation from the Caribbean. |
| 1787 April 1 |
Captain Jose Lopez de la Peña is appointed political and military commandant at Natchitoches by Miro. |
| 1787 |
The Cabildo asks governor Miro to release confiscated American flour to avert a shortage. Next year after the fire Miro will send ships to Philadelphia to replace flour destroyed in the conflagration. |
| 1788 March 21 |
The first Great Fire of New Orleans destroys 856 buildings out of 1,100. Governor Miro quickly sets up tents and provides food and other supplies. Much of the city will be rebuilt by 1791 except for several major buildings. The fires destroy most of the primitive structures of the French colony and the Spanish replace them with courtyards, thick walls and arcades to protect from the heat. The two fire engines are operational but the flames consume them. Many of the homeless moved out of the city temporarily or permanently. |
| 1788 May 10 |
Governor Miro will hold the office of intendant until December 30, 1791 when Carondelet takes over and continues holding both offices. |
| 1788 |
The ships that Miro sends to Philadelphia for flour after the fire will begin direct trade with the Americans. Most of the flour will come down the Mississippi River from western settlements on the Ohio. Next year the Spanish crown decrees to let American goods paying a tax come down the river, assuring a constant supply of flour during the early 1790s. |
| 1789 Spring |
The Spring floods inundate most of the Tchoupitoulas district upriver from the city. Governor Miro asks the Cabildo to become involved in repairing the levee particularly on lands that Juan Batista Macarty and Leonardo Massange had abandoned because they could not afford to maintain the levee with their own resources. Both the repair of the levee and the tax that the Cabildo imposes are contrary to Spanish law, the Code O’Reilly and custom, but a long explanation is sent to the Council of the Indies to explain the necessity. The Cabildo tries to auction off the abandoned lands, but a clause that it cannot be resold unless the levees are in good repair probably prevented their sale. The lands could not be given away and the next year the new levees are destroyed anew. |
| 1789 |
The Spanish crown circulates a liberal slave code for the Spanish Empire called "His Majesty’s Royal Cedula on the Education, Treatment, and Occupations of Slaves". The Cabildo asks Governor Miro to suspend its enforcement and petition the crown to nullify it on the basis of its economic unfeasibility and potential danger. |
| 1789 |
Father Antonio de Sedella who had been appointed commissary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition for Louisiana begins to invoke his power as inquisitor during a period when Governor Miro is trying to promote Protestant immigration to Louisiana. Auxiliary bishop Barcelona moves to stop him. The governor arrests Sedella and deports him to Spain. He returns to the colony in 1793 cleared of charges. |
| 1789 |
Fort Miro is built near Monroe, Ouachita Parish. by Commandant Jean Filhoil and Lieut. Joseph de la Baume of the Ouachita District. Half of the timbers are furnished by officers; half by garrison and settlers. |
| 1789 |
During Miro’s administration the Cabildo will reach the height of its power and prestige. After the indigo and tobacco crops declined and before they were replaced by cotton and sugar the merchants of the colony took advantage of their new found prosperity to buy Cabildo seats. The dynamics of Carondelet’s administration also overshadows the councilors. |
| 1790 Oct. |
Miro wrote to the Spanish government asking for a place in the department of the Indies. In his letter he said "I have now had the honor of serving the king, always with distinguished zeal for thirty years and three months, of which 21 years and eight months in America." His request was granted the following year. |
| 1790 |
Father Antonio de Sedella who had been appointed commissary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition for Louisiana begins to invoke his power as inquisitor during a period when Governor Miro is trying to promote Protestant immigration to Louisiana. Auxiliary bishop Barcelona moves to stop him. The governor arrests Sedella and deports him to Spain. He returns to the colony in 1793 cleared of charges. |
| 1790 |
During Miro’s administration the Cabildo will reach the height of its power and prestige. After the indigo and tobacco crops decline and before they were replaced by cotton and sugar, the merchants of the colony take advantage of their newfound prosperity to buy cabildo seats. The dynamics of Carondelet’s administration also overshadows the councillors. |
| 1790 |
Fort Miro is built near Monroe, Ouachita Parish by Commandant Jean Filhoil and Lieut. Joseph de la Baume of the Ouachita District. Half of the timbers are furnished by officers; half by garrison and settlers. |
| 1791 |
It was during Miro’s administration that negotiations were commenced for a boundary with the United States. He issued a proclamation that no clocks, boxes, coins, or other articles bearing the figure of the goddess of liberty should be brought into Louisiana. |
| 1791 |
Governor Miro was popular outside of his own domain, as was evidenced by the naming of the Cumberland River region, Miro district in his honor. |
| 1791 |
While governor Miro was called upon to act as judge of residence in the investigation of the official acts of governor Galvez. When it is considered that he was a warm friend of Galvez, under whom he served, the results of the investigation can be understood. |
| 1791 |
Late in the year he sailed with his wife, formerly a Miss Macarty of New Orleans for Spain where he rose to the rank of mariscal de Campo or Lt. General. |
| 1802 April |
Dr. Luis de Jaen, a lawyer of the Cuban audiencia arrives in New Orleans to conduct a belated residencia of Esteban Miro. Although he eventually absolves the deceased governor of all charges he finds many irregularities in the Cabildo’s operations. By exceeding his authority vis-a-vis the council, Jaen dealt it a lethal blow. |