Cavalry Colonel
Occupation: Army officer
1783-1847
Antonio Figueira d’Almeida was born in 1784 in the Portuguese city of Elbe. He served as an officer and fought against the French army sent to Spain to support the Bourbon dynasty. He was the first Portuguese philhellene who supported Greeks.
The creator of the greek cavalry army
After the beginning of the Greek Revolution, Antonio Figueira d’ Almeida came to Greece. In August 1826, having the command of the colonel of the cavalry, he distinguished himself as a corps commander in Tripoli. In March of the following year, he fought under George Karaiskakis in Attica. With the arrival of the governor Kapodistrias in Greece, d’Almeida became an inspector of the regular cavalry and was assigned the reorganization of the corps of the newly formed Greek state. On January 22, 1830 he was appointed as a guard of Nafplio. After the murder of Kapodistrias, he arrested one of the perpetrators, Georgios Mavromichalis. For his lawful attitude he was named an honorary citizen of Nafplio by the 5th National Assembly and in March 1832 he was promoted to general. However, after king Otto arrived in Greece, the Regency didn’t recognize him as a general and finally on May 10, 1833, he was appointed guardian of Aegina. He was promoted to lieutenant general after the suppression of Colonel N. Zervas’s rebellion in Messolonghi, where d’Almeida was appointed military commander in 1836. In 1839 he was appointed military commander in Nafplio. He died in 1847 in Batalia, Venice. He was married to the greek woman, Zoe Mavrokordatou.
A handwritten document of the guard Antonios Figueira d’Almeida is kept in the historical Archive of Nafplio, in Greece.
