Bernardo de Gálvez- Hispanic Revolutionary Hero

 

The American Revolution would never have been won without help from other nations. The contributions of the French are well documented.  Without their funds and their navy, the war would have been over shortly after it began. Central Europe provided numerous military leaders who brought their expertise to the front lines of the Continental Army. Spain also provided support to the young country, both financially and in combat.  Many of the Spanish battles were led by one man: Bernardo de Gálvez.  Gálvez was instrumental in providing supplies to the Continental Army, defending Spanish territories, and banishing the British from the Gulf Coast forever.

Born in 1746 in Macharaviaya, Spain, Gálvez began his military career at the age of 16.  He fought in numerous wars across Europe, North Africa and the Americas, before he was named the governor of Spanish Louisiana in 1777. Spain had taken control of Louisiana in 1762, as compensation for supporting the French in the Seven Years War.

Spain’s involvement in the American Revolution was covert in 1777.  They had been quietly supporting the United States with money and supplies, while officially maintain a position of neutrality.  They wanted to weaken Britain, their long-time rival, however the Spanish government was concerned that if they outwardly supported a British colonial rebellion that it would encourage rebellion in their own colonies.

 Luis de Unzaga, the governor of Louisiana prior to Gálvez, established the lines of Spanish support in the Americas. In May 1776, Unzaga created a fictitious corporation based in New Orleans. At the time New Orleans was the epicenter for Spanish merchants wanting to transport good from the Caribbean, so a new trading company did not arise any suspicion.  He then used that company to funnel gunpowder, firearms, food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the colonies without the British knowing. He also authorized a secret transfer of gunpowder that the Continental Army desperately needed.  The boat travelled up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers before it arrived at Fort Pitt. When Gálvez took over Louisiana in January 1777, he continued and expanded the operation Unzaga had established.

Gálvez continued to supply the United States with goods and munitions, using the Mississippi to circumnavigate the British blockage of American ports. “I will extend…whatever assistance I can,” Galvez wrote, “but it must appear that I am ignorant of it all.”

In 1779, Spain officially declared war on Great Britian.  A seasoned military leader, Gálvez went on the offensive.  He recruited soldiers in Louisiana with Cubans, Mexicans, Spaniards, Creoles, French, Native Americans, and free Black Americans among the ranks. With a total of 667 men, Gálvez began to remove the British from their forts in the Mississippi Valley, including Baton Rouge. The Battle of Baton Rouge freed the Lower Mississippi Valley of the British and removed any threat to Louisiana. The Spanish continued into the Gulf of Mexico, capturing Mobile, Alabama in March,1780. But Gálvez wasn’t done yet. He had his sights set on West Florida.

Pensacola was the capital of West Florida. The Spanish had surrendered it to the British in 1763 in exchange for Havana, Cuba. Gálvez wanted it back.  In May 1781, he led roughly 8,000 troops into Pensacola Bay, besieging the British for two months with a land and sea offensive.  After losing around 100 soldiers in a powder magazine explosion, the British surrendered. The losses of Pensacola and Mobile left the British with no bases along the Gulf coast.

While these victories were beneficial to the Spanish, they were also of immeasurable importance to the United States. The Battle of Pensacola had decimated the British naval fleet in the region.  This fact simultaneously allowed two things to happen that directly impacted the outcome of the war. It deprived the British of additional forces it could have deployed to the Siege of Yorktown, and with Spain now controlling the Gulf of Mexico it allowed the French to deploy all their naval forces to Virginia.

In 1783, Spain signed a treaty with Great Britain giving the Spanish control of East and West Florida and the island of Menorca, located in the Mediterranean Sea. That same year in recognition of his contributions, the United States Congress passed a resolution to display Gálvez’s portrait "in the room in which Congress meet."

Gálvez received numerous honors after the war and was eventually made Viceroy of New Spain, (modern day Mexico) in 1785. He was only in the position for 18 months before he died of typhus at the age of 40.

While not as well-known as other foreign supporters of independence, the contributions of Bernardo de Gálvez were influential in the United States winning the war. He was also one of the first military leaders to amass a multicultural military force, showing that the quest for freedom and the desire for justice knows no racial or ethnic bounds. In December 2014, the United States Congress conferred honorary citizenship on Gálvez. He is only one of eight people to have received that honor. That same month, a reproduction of a 1784 portrait of Gálvez was hung in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee room, finally fulfilling the 1783 resolution.