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Juan Procopio de Bassecourt Thieulaine y Bryas López de Ochoa, (22 April 1740 – 12 April 1820) was Baron of Maials, Count of Santa Clara an office he assumed before the Spanish Cession enacted by the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, Captain General of Cuba, (6 December 1796[1] - 13 May 1799) and Captain General of Catalonia (14 May 1802 - 1808). While he was Captain General of Cuba he was responsible for the construction or improvement of numerous fortifications in Havana, including the Santa Clara Battery.[2]
Juan Procopio Bassecourt y Bryas was born the son of Procopio Francisco de Bassecourt y Thieulaine, a Field Marshal of the Royal Spanish Army, Marquis of Bassecourt, as well as Count of Santa Clara (a noble title granted in 1748 by King Fernando VI of Spain, the family having served imperial Spain since at least the middle of the 16th century), Baron of Maials, and Governor of Lerida, and of Ignés de Bryas, described in some papers and documents as Inés María de Bryas y López de Ochoa.
Coat of arms of Juan Procopio de Bassecourt (decorated tiles at the Capitania General de Barcelona)
He was the nephew of Maria Catalina de Bassecourt, who married the Palermo-born Spanish military officer Juan Gonzalez-Valor, Marquis of Gonzalez since 1736, a title awarded in 1736 by Charles VII of Naples and Sicily, King of Naples and Sicily 1716–1736, later King Charles III of Spain (1759-1788).
^United States. Adjutant-General's Office. Military Information Division; Louis Charles Scherer (1898). Military Notes on Cuba. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 2, 67.
