In the midst of the government’s offensive against the History of Spain, in its strategy to justify and protect the deconstruction of our nation in agreement with their legislative partners in exchange for the heavy enjoyment of the state budget, the absence in the public media of a report stating exactly the opposite is not surprising.
According to the query I made last Monday, neither in the search engine of the RTVE site nor in that of the EFE agency, does only one of the new ones appear Constellation class frigates of the 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. It is not every day that the war fleet the most powerful in the world He named one of his ships after 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 Its launch will take place in 2030. The announcement was made on June 21 by the US Secretary of the Navy, Carlos del Toro, of Cuban origin, during the celebration of the anniversary of the independence of the United States at his embassy in Madrid. The news was picked up by other Spanish media with the relevance it deserves, especially to demonstrate that outside our borders they appreciate Spain’s past is despised here.
The figure of Bernardo de Gálvez that the US Navy will honor is added, in the same naval program, to the frigate dedicated to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de 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 United Stateswhich was awarded to him in 2014 by President Obama. Only eight people hold this title, including Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
The two heroes also have the privilege of having their portraits in the Capitol in Washington, with one difference: that of Lafayette has hung there since 1825 and that of Gálvez had to wait until 2014 to fulfill the promise made in 1783 by the First Continental Congress of the Founding Fathers of the United States to honor the House of Representatives with their image for their decisive help in the birth of his nation.
The portrait of the Spanish soldier, born in 1746 in the town of Macharaviaya in Malaga, was donated by the Malaga-based Bernardo de Gálvez Cultural Association, now chaired by Miguel Ángel de Gálvez Toro, a retired colonel of the Air and Space Force. The aforementioned association has among its projects the erection of a monument to Gálvez in Madrid, an initiative approved in the municipal plenary session of 2015 at the request of a proposal presented by the one who writes this when he was a councilor.
The figure of Gálvez illustrates the crucial role that the Spanish army and navy played in the American Revolution against British rule. At the beginning, King Charles III opted for neutralitydespite the sympathies aroused in Spain by independence against the eternal British enemy.
The Americans made it clear that they needed Spanish support, leading them to appoint the wise Benjamin Franklin as ambassador to Madrid. although he has not set foot in our country. Despite everything, Gálvez discreetly supported the American cause from the beginning with money, weapons and equipment, in addition to hinder the navigation of English ships down the Mississippi.
In 1779, three years after the Thirteen Colonies declared independence, Spain entered into open war against Great Britain on the side of France. The Spanish forces were estimated at 100,000 men, including soldiers and sailors. engaged in the fight for the Americans. Among them, there are approximately 15,000 victims.
The troops commanded by the already governor and brigadier Gálvez achieved a capital performance, liberating Mississippi from the English presence and conquering 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, these triumphs eliminated the English threat on the southern flank of the Thirteen Colonies, thanks to which “General Washington “He must have breathed a sigh of relief.”. Carlos III granted him the Castilian title of Count of Gálvez and named him viceroy of New Spain in 1785. In this position, he would die a year later in Mexico City.
North Americans are today proud of the figure of this Spaniard from Malaga, as evidenced by the frigate of the US Navy which will be named after him. The success of the children’s book that journalist Guillermo Fesser published in the United States about Gálvez is proof of this.
For a definitive recognition by Spain of this hero of North American independence, it seems to me that the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, could perhaps appeal to the governor of Louisiana and the viceroy of New Spain. as an emblem of his campaign of “decolonization” of the museum institutions they are responsible for. After all, the heroic Bernardo de Gálvez was a distinguished “decolonizer” who contributed, from Spanish lands to the other side of the Atlantic, to liberating 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 the patriots of General Washington, but Spain itself, reproduced on American territory, that did so under the command of a unique character: Bernardo de Galvez and GallardoCount of Gálvez, who dedicated his life to the service of our nation.
