VILLEFRANCHE, Charles Pierre de (veal-frahnsh), historian, born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1756; died in Havana, Cuba, in 1809. He was of French descent, received his education partly in New Orleans and in Havana, finished his studies at the University of Seville, and entered the colonial administration in 1778. He held posts successively in Venezuela, Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica, and Louisiana, but, having become nearly blind, he was retired on a pension and settled in Havana, devoting his time to historical researches and to classifying the notes and documents that he had collected in the colonial offices where he had been employed. He published several valuable works, among them "Historiadores primitivos de las Indins Occidentales " (Havana, 1797), which corrected and completed Barcia's history (Madrid, 1749), and for which Villefranche received a present from the secretary of state, and "Historia de la fundacion de la ciudad de Santiago de Cuba" (1804).