Captain-General Miguel Bautista is the main antagonist of the Bernard Cornwell novel Sharpe's Devil. He is a Spanish official in Chile during the War of Independence in 1820.
Biography[]
Miguel Bautista was the governor of the Spanish-controlled province of Puerto Crucero. Like many of the Spanish officials left in the country, he was corrupt and aware that the country would inevitably fall to the rebels, so concentrated on amassing as much wealth as he could. This put him at odds with Captain-General Blas Vivar, one of the few honest men remaining. However, when Vivar disappeared, Bautista was made captain-general in his place, moving his camp to Valdivia, the capital of the Spanish-held territory.
Colonel Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper came to Chile to investigate Vivar's disappearance, only to be informed that Vivar was dead and Bautista had had him buried in Puerto Crucero with little ceremony. Bautista arranged for two thieves to steal the pair's baggage. He then had two other men accused of the theft and branded as punishment, returning most of the baggage but keeping a portrait that Sharpe had been given by Napoleon on St Helena to deliver to the American consulate. Bautista was reluctant to commit his army to a battlefield for fear of being defeated and blamed. Instead, he had worked on fortifying the capital, which would likely lead to a lengthy siege, and insisting that he needed artillery to destroy the rebels, transferring the blame to others.
Sharpe requested permission to return Vivar's body to Spain and Bautista appeared to give it, but arranged for one of his loyal soldiers, Sergeant Dregara, to accompany Sharpe and Harper, intending to have them killed and the deaths blamed on the rebels. They managed to avoid Dregara after a warning from Captain Morillo, who had been loyal to Vivar, but were arrested in Puerto Crucero before they could unearth the body. Bautista had Morillo reduced to the ranks and sent to the salt mine, and Ferdinand, a native who had guided the pair, blown apart by cannon, offering no justification except that they had disappointed him. He then revealed that Napoleon had used the portrait to smuggle a secret message to the rebels and accused Sharpe and Harper of treason. With the agreement of the sycophantic British consul George Blair, Bautista, worried of repercussions if he had them executed, ordered them expelled from the country and put on a ship back to Europe, confiscating their possessions.
Sharpe and Harper returned after joining up with Admiral Cochrane's rebels and made their way to Puerto Crucero, only to discover that Vivar's grave contained the remains of a dog. After learning of a secret room that Bautista maintained in Valdivia, they suspected Vivar was being held there and helped the rebels capture the city, with the Spanish refusing to fight a lost cause for Bautista. Sharpe and Harper investigated the locked room only to discover not a prison cell but an opulent quarters, Bautista's true rooms rather than the spartan quarters he kept in public, acting both as a strong room for the wealth he had looted and a love nest for him and Captain Marquinez, his aide and secret lover. Bautista had committed suicide, blowing his head off with Harper's volley gun, but Marquinez was unable to bring himself to commit suicide with him. He admitted to Sharpe that Bautista had intended to kill Vivar, not least because he had learned of their relationship and threatened to expose them, but Vivar had disappeared first, so Bautista had had his death faked to avoid questions. In fact, Vivar had been taken prisoner by Cochrane.
