In the midst of the Government’s offensive against the History of Spain, in its strategy to try to justify and shield the deconstruction of our nation agreed with their legislative partners in exchange for their burdensome enjoyment of the State budget, the absence in the public media of a news story that claims exactly the opposite is not surprising.
According to the query I made last Monday, neither in the search engine on the RTVE website nor on that of the EFE agency does the news appear that one of the new Constellation-class frigates of the US Navy, the FFG67, will be baptized with the name of USS Galvez, in homage to Bernardo de Gálvez y Gallardo, Spanish soldier, hero of the independence of the United States. Not every day the war fleet most powerful in the world He designates one of his ships with the name of a Spaniard. The news deserved at least the attention of our public media repository.
The ship with the name of the one who was governor of Louisiana and viceroy of New Spain It will be launched in 2030. The announcement was made on June 21 by the US Secretary of the Navy, Carlos del Toro, of Cuban origin, at the celebration of the anniversary of US independence at its Embassy in Madrid. The news was picked up by other Spanish media with the relevance it deserves, especially as a demonstration that outside our borders they appreciate the past of Spain that is despised here.
The figure of Bernardo de Gálvez that the US Navy is going to honor is added, in the same naval program, to the frigate dedicated to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis of La Fayette, a French general who also fought in the North American War of Independence. Gálvez also shares with La Fayette the title of honorary citizen of the USAwhich was granted to him in 2014 by President Obama. Only eight people hold that title, including Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Both heroes also have the privilege of having their portraits in the Capitol in Washington, although with one difference: that of La Fayette has hung there since 1825 and that of Gálvez had to wait until 2014 to fulfill the promise made in no less than 1783 by the first Continental Congress of the founding fathers of the United States that they would honor the House of Representatives with their effigy for their decisive help to the birth of his nation.
The portrait of the Spanish soldier, born in 1746 in the Malaga town of Macharaviaya, was donated by the Bernardo de Gálvez Cultural Association, based in Malaga, which is today chaired by Miguel Ángel de Gálvez Toro, retired colonel of the Air and Space Army. The aforementioned association has among its projects to erect a monument to Gálvez in Madrid, an initiative approved in the municipal plenary session in 2015 at the request of a proposal presented by the person who writes this when he was a councilor.
The figure of Gálvez exemplifies the crucial role that the Spanish Army and Navy had in the American Revolution against British domination. At first, King Charles III opted for neutralitydespite the sympathies that the independence cause against the eternal British enemy aroused in Spain.
The Americans were clear that they needed Spanish support, which led them to appoint the wise Benjamin Franklin as ambassador in Madrid. although he did not set foot in our country. Despite everything, Gálvez discreetly supported the American cause from the beginning with money, weapons and supplies, in addition to hinder the navigation of English ships down the Mississippi.
In 1779, three years after the proclamation of the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, Spain entered open war against Great Britain on the side of France. The Spanish forces are estimated at 100,000 men, including soldiers and sailors. committed to the fight for the Americans. Of these there would be around 15,000 casualties.
The troops commanded by the already governor and Brigadier Gálvez had a capital performance, liberating the Mississippi from the English presence and conquering key strongholds in Florida such as Mobila and Panzacola, the current ones. Mobile and Pensacolawhere more than 1,300 British soldiers were taken prisoner.
As Manuel Olmedo and Francisco Cabrera state in their recent biography of Gálvez, published by the Cultural Association that bears his name, with these triumphs the English threat on the southern flank of the Thirteen Colonies was cleared, with which “General Washington “he must have breathed a sigh of relief”. Carlos III granted him the title of Castile of Count of Gálvez and in 1785 named him viceroy of New Spain. In that position he would die a year later in Mexico City.
North Americans are proud of the figure of this Spaniard from Malaga today, as demonstrated by the frigate of the US Navy that will be baptized with his name. Proof of this is also the success of the children’s book that journalist Guillermo Fesser has published about Gálvez in the US.
For a definitive recognition by Spain of this hero of North American independence, it occurs to me that, perhaps, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, could use the governor of Louisiana and viceroy of New Spain as an emblem of his campaign of “decolonization” of the museum institutions under their charge. After all, the heroic Bernardo de Gálvez was a distinguished “decolonizer” who contributed, from the Spanish lands to the other side of the Atlantic, to free the North American colonies from the yoke of the British metropolis.
Perhaps this is how Minister Urtasun will finally understand the abysmal differences between the Spanish and Anglo-Saxon presences in America. It was not an isolated Spanish colony that, at the whim of its governor, helped General Washington’s patriots, but rather Spain itself, replicated in American territory, that did so under the command of a unique figure: Bernardo de Gálvez y GallardoCount of Gálvez, who dedicated his life to the service of our nation.
