Person
Arenal Cuesta, Ángel del (1790-1828)Other forms
Armaño (Cillorigo de Liébana, Cantabria, España) 1790-04-17 - Pontedeume (A Coruña, España) 1829
Spanish soldier. Son of Vicente José del Arenal and Jesusa de la Cuesta. He studied Law and Philosophy at the University of Valencia and during the Peninsular War he willingly joined the Army.
In 1818, he married Concepción de Ponte Tenreiro in Ferrol. Together, the couple had three daughters: Luisa, Antonia and the writer Concepción Arenal Ponte.
He was a liberal military opposed to the absolutist regime of Ferdinand VII. Throughout the "Trienio Liberal" (in English, "Liberal Triennium") he was deployed as governor of Lugo in 1821, and then as a member of the Estado Mayor (in English, "military staff") in Pontevedra in 1822. With the return of the absolutist power in Spain in 1823, Ángel del Arenal retired with an indefinitive license to his hometown in the parish of Leiro, municipality of Miño.
He is the author of a great variety of works about military strategy, highlighting "Memoria y relación circunstanciada del pueblo y hermoso Arsenal del Ferrol", for the "Diccionario geográfico y estadístico de España y Portugal", of Sebastián de Miñano. In 1832, Ildefonso Rodríguez asked the Consejo de Castilla (Council of Castille) the license to print the book. Moreover, he wrote other works about military organization and political and social issues, as well as topics referring to Galicia.
Date of the event: 1820 - 1823
Gil Novales, Alberto. Diccionario biográfico de España (1808-1833) : de los orígenes del liberalismo a la reacción absolutista. Alberto Gil Novales. Madrid: Fundación Mapfre. 3 v. (3406 p.). 978-84-9844-236-6 (Vol. 3).