UNVEILING MEMORIES - Key Persons
Arthur Lee was a medical doctor from Virginia, commissioned in 1777 to solicit the support of Spain, France, and Prussia for the North American Revolution.\n\nOn November 29, 1775, the Continental Congress created the Committee of Secret Correspondence, initially composed of John Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, John Jay, Thomas Johnson, and Robert Morris. Its purpose was to manage foreign affairs, including intelligence gathering and the secret acquisition of arms through intermediaries, via ships sailing under a foreign flag. The committee sent Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin to France in 1776 and John Jay to Spain in 1778, in order to forge alliances with the Bourbons and to arrange for the delivery of weapons, military equipment, and cash in support of the war.\n\nLee was born in Stratford, Virginia, in 1740. In 1764, he moved to Great Britain to pursue his studies, first at Eton and then in Edinburgh, where he was graduated with a degree in medicine. He studied and subsequently practiced law in London between 1770 and 1776. When the American Revolution broke out, he immediately declared his support for independence. The Continental Congress appointed him envoy to the Kingdom of Prussia, where he was unable to garner any support for the war effort, and then to the Kingdom of Spain. _\n\nSince Spain had not yet declared war on England and was concerned about ruffling diplomatic feathers, Lee was not authorized to enter Madrid. Instead, he met with the former prime minister, the Marquis of Grimaldi, and with Diego de Gardoqui in Vitoria. During those meetings, held in March, 1777, Spain agreed to provide 24,000 muskets and 30,000 blankets, as well as white and blue cloth for rebel uniforms, all of which would be sent, secretly, on private commercial vessels. The shipments were repeated the following year.\n\nUpon his return to France, Lee became one of the negotiators of the Treaty of Alliance signed in 1778, although his relations with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, the other two American negotiators in Paris, were often frayed. He also acted as a spy in England, France, and Spain, gathering intelligence about the plans and maneuvers of the three warring countries. In 1780, he was replaced in Spain by John Jay, and in 1782 the Congress ordered his return home, where he served as Virginia delegate for several years. He never married and died childless in Urbanna, Virginia, in 1792.
"Why should the sovereign care if the man who serves him well is white or black? I have seen a flag better defended in the black hands of a mulatto than in other, whiter hands"
Bernardo de Gálvez was assigned to the Sevilla Regiment, and in 1775 he was selected for advanced military training in an academy created in Avila for this purpose. There, he would meet Francisco de Saavedra, who became one of his closest friends. Unfortunately, however, within a few months, Gálvez's unit was incorporated into a special force assembled to attack Algiers, seat of the Berber piracy that was wreaking havoc on the Spanish coasts in the western Mediterranean.
The result of the expedition was disastrous: approximately 4,000 soldiers lost their lives and as many were wounded, among them Captain Gálvez, who was shot in the left leg with a rifle. Such a wound often proved fatal at the time, but he survived, perhaps because of his unusually strong constitution. For his heroism in battle, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
The following year, after the death of Julián de Arriaga, Minister of the Indies, in January, 1776, Gálvez was appointed his successor. A few months later, on July 4, 1776, the Thirteen English Colonies on the east coast of North America declared their independence from Great Britain.
Now a colonel, Bernardo de Gálvez returned to America on January 1, 1777. He arrived in New Orleans as governor of Spanish Louisiana and head of the regiment garrisoned there. His predecessor, General Luis de Unzaga, a native of Málaga, had been extending aid to the North American Patriots for years, using the Mississippi as a conduit for supplies, mostly gunpowder and money.
That November, seemingly at the point of death, Bernardo married Felicité Saint-Maxent, with whom he would have three children: Matilde, Miguel, and Guadalupe. Shortly before the wedding, he had contracted an illness diagnosed by the medical experts as "intestinal amoebiasis". It resulted in his having near-weekly health crises for the rest of his life, and Bernardo would succumb to the disease nine years later.
Gálvez remained actively involved in supplying all sorts of aid to the North American fighters, but he tried to do so in utmost secrecy, in order to avoid a premature conflict with the British. He also increased his network of spies, with the purpose of assessing the condition of the British installations along the left bank of the Mississippi and in the more formidable forts of Mobile and Pensacola, which held the key to West Florida. In these efforts, Gálvez would come to rely on the crucial collaboration of Oliver Pollock, a Patriot and the representative of Spanish Louisiana before the Continental Congress,.
Once Spain declared war on Great Britain, Gálvez, who now held the rank of brigadier, took the initiative, and in August, 1779, after overcoming the ravages of a hurricane in New Orleans, he advanced his troops toward the British forts on the left bank of the Mississippi. They were a motley army composed of 300 regimental soldiers, plus French, English, German, and Spanish colonists from nearby villages, as well as slaves, freedmen, mestizos, Indians, and North American Patriots, adding up to nearly 1,600 men. Under Gálvez's command, they succeeded in occupying Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez.
Nevertheless, two solid British redoubts remained: Mobile and Pensacola. This time, Gálvez and his troops would have to weather a massive storm that dispersed the naval convoy carrying the men before they succeeded in seizing Fort Charlotte in Mobile on March 14, 1780. Seven months later, an expedition left Havana to attempt a similar feat in Pensacola; however, another storm, a powerful hurricane, decimated the Spanish force. Gálvez would not be deterred. He persuaded the authorities in Havana to assemble another expedition, which managed to disembark on the island of Santa Rosa in March, 1781.
If he were to undertake the attack on the three redoubts defending the main British stronghold in West Florida, Gálvez needed naval support to shield his troops as they crossed from Santa Rosa to the mainland. But the mouth of the bay was being defended from Fort Barrancas Coloradas, where the British had mounted five 32-pound and six 8-pound guns. San Ramon, the lead ship of the support fleet, attempted to enter the bay but it grounded on a sand bar, and in what would be a tactical error, the fleet commander refused to send any more ships, fearful of a similar fate. Not even his lighter frigates would be allowed to attempt a crossing.
Bernardo de Gálvez's victories occurred almost simultaneously with those of his father, Matías de Gálvez, who was active in another theater of operations, Guatemala, from where he expelled the British. King Carlos III also rewarded his valor, promoting him to lieutenant general and subsequently giving him the title of Viceroy of New Spain. He would be remembered there for his honesty and his protection of the Mexican people and their culture.
Yet Matías de Gálvez would not live long after his victory, and his son Bernardo was named his successor. In June, 1785, the Count of Gálvez arrived in Mexico to a clamorous welcome. Word of his heroic feats had preceded him, and his popularity only grew as the people became increasingly aware of his own kindheartedness and positive personal traits.
Gálvez's tenure in New Spain would be brief, but he would be remembered, particularly for his leadership during a terrible famine, when a severe early freeze destroyed most of the crops in the area. To solve the crisis, he invested significant government funds, as well as his own resources, including the inheritance he had received from his father.
But Bernardo de Gálvez's days were numbered the moment he contracted the disease mentioned earlier. He died in Tacubaya on November 30, 1786. He was laid to rest wearing the uniform of lieutenant general and shrouded with the cape of the Order of Carlos III. His viewing and funeral Mass were attended by large crowds who accompanied his body to the crypt at the main altar of the Cathedral of Mexico. Some months later, the body was transferred to its permanent resting place in the Franciscan Church of the Apostolic College of San Fernando in Mexico.
Bernardo de Gálvez was a great soldier and a great governor. In the 6th century, Sun Tzu had defined those virtues indispensable to a true leader: intelligence, honesty, humanity, courage, and discipline. Bernardo de Gálvez exemplified all of these. Today Spain, the United States, and Mexico can claim him as their hero.
In 1779, the great New Orleans poet, Julien Poydrás, who had witnessed many of Gálvez's actions in Spanish Louisiana, wrote:
Gálvez mérite la gloire de devenir inmortal. Gálvez has merited the glory of becoming immortal.
Bárbara de Arias was born in the island of Tenerife in 1767. In May, 1780, at the age of thirteen, she arrived in the city-port of New Orleans with her father, Sebastian de Arias, an infantry soldier. They had been traveling on the brigantine Nuestra Señora de los Dolores as members of an expedition that had embarked from Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Sebastian had learned of an opportunity to prosper by serving in the Fijo de La Luisiana Regiment. In exchange for everything that he and others like him were leaving behind, each of these men would receive a deed to some land. It was an arrangement designed to address two concurrent needs: the reinforcement of military garrisons in the wide expanses of North America and the supply of skilled labor, in both farming and manufacturing, for the mostly uninhabited region, thus generating a local self-sufficient economy.
As a young girl of modest means, Bárbara would learn every task pertinent to running a home, from needlework to shellfishing, as well as all kinds of farming chores. In addition, since she was motherless, she took on the role of homemaker, managing the family household.
Bárbara and her father eventually settled in Terre aux Boeufs, an area circumscribed today by St. Bernard Parish, in Louisiana. There she would put the skills she'd acquired in her young life to good use. The land was harsh and demanded rigorous efforts, but the Mississippi River also could be generous, and they found a means of livelihood and trade opportunities in shellfishing.
Everything in their surroundings-the landscape, their neighbors-was totally new. The cultural diversity they first encountered ceased to be anecdotal and became a quotidian reality. Sebastian's army buddies married women of different ethnicities, and Bárbara's friends and neighbors came from every region of Spain. Many others were French, Irish, German, Acadian, Anglo-Saxon, indigenous, or even of African descent, owing to a measure allowing slaves to "self-purchase" their own freedom.
One of these cases involved Mathieu Devaux, one of Sebastian's military comrades. Mathieu had married Agnes, a freed slave who, by virtue of her marriage, would now enjoy the same rights as Bárbara. However, Agnes's "self-purchase" required Governor Gálvez's intervention, in order to overcome the obstinate opposition of her proprietress to her freedom.
Bárbara, like all the women in these military families, assumed three roles: first, she worked side by side with the men for the fruit of their labor, whether it was farming, hunting, or fishing. Secondly, she brought the surplus produce to market, taking also some of the delicate embroideries she had learned to make from childhood. They earned her a bit of extra cash. Lastly, as did every military wife or daughter, she served the armies of the king. On June 16, 1779, when Gálvez ordered his men to march against the English strongholds, hold their positions, and reclaim the territories lost in the previous war, the women marched along with the troops. They prepared meals, did the washing, cared for the wounded, and distributed gunpowder; they were the quiet soldiers who kept the military machine finely tuned and running.
Bárbara's history is the silent history of countless anonymous Spanish women who raised a new world with their own hands. Where there were only forests and swamps, they would see the birth of a nation, and they transformed their children into its citizens.
Job Titles:
- Indispensable Merchant and First Ambassador
Diego de Gardoqui y Arriguibar was a skillful merchant, diplomat, and civil servant in the Court of Carlos III. He was commissioned by the Spanish monarch to oversee the delivery of funds and supplies to the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolution. In response, Gardoqui sent all manner of supplies to the Continental Army by using his own company, Joseph Gardoqui and Sons, which was based in Bilbao, an important city-port in northern Spain. At the end of the war, he became the first Spanish ambassador to the new country and one of only two foreigners to attend the inauguration of George Washington as first President of the United States in 1789. He is one of those key players who do not appear in the history books. Yet, it is easy to perceive Gardoqui as the draped figure depicted in so many 18th century portraits behind the hero or the politician.
Diego Maria de Gardoqui was born in Bilbao in 1735 as the second son of José de Gardoqui and Simona de Arriquibar and one of eight children. His father was a resourceful entrepreneur who founded several companies. In 1763, he obtained the authorization to import cod from England and North America. That same year he sent his son, Diego, to study in London for five years, under the tutelage of George Harley, head of the Company of the Indies. There Diego would learn the language and become closely acquainted with Anglo-Saxon customs. He completed his studies under the guidance of his maternal uncle, Nicolas de Arriquibar, an economist and jurisconsult, and a member of the Sociedad Vascongada de Amigos del Pais (Basque Society of Friends of the Country), one of the most prestigious institutions of the Spanish Enlightenment.
After José de Gardoqui's death in 1765, his children took over the family firm and presided over its growth into one of the most lucrative importers of salted cod from Terra Nova and the northern New England ports, primarily in exchange for iron and Spanish wool. However, the company eventually suffered a number of business reversals brought about by stiff competition with other businesses, such as the port of Santander. These challenges would turn out to be advantageous for the American Revolution, since the Gardoquis offset their losses by increasing their business with the northern Atlantic ports of Salem, Boston, and Marblehead. In the latter, their major business associates would be Elbridge Gerry and Jeremiah Lee, two key figures in the young nation's struggle for independence.
Leyba was the commanding officer during the successful defense of Spanish St. Louis against British attacks in 1780. He collaborated with Colonel Rogers Clark and his men, thus keeping the upper Mississippi free from enemy hands during the American Revolution.
Fernando de Leyba y Córdova was born on July 24, 1734, in the Spanish city of Ceuta on Africa's northern coast, one of the most emblematic strongholds of the Spanish military. Despite the long military tradition of his father's family line, whose earliest known ancestors took part in the 15th-century reconquest of Granada, it seems that originally Fernando had no intention of pursuing a military career. It was, instead, the untimely death of his father that obliged him, as well as his siblings, to join the Royal Service. He was not quite seventeen when he joined the army of Carlos III as a cadet. Fernando served with the España Regiment for three and a half years before being promoted to company sub-lieutenant in the Aragón Regiment on March 25, 1756. He held this rank for almost seven years, taking part in the defense of Havana during the British Siege of 1762, and then in the battle of Castillo del Morro under Captain Fernando de Párraga. Leyba was taken prisoner when the fortress fell to the British. Soon after his return to the Peninsula, he was promoted to flag sub-lieutenant on May 22, 1763, and to lieutenant with the Soria Regiment in just four and a half months, on October 11, 1763. In 1764, he requested a transfer to the Corps of Engineers, but while his captain underscored Leyba's proficiency in mathematics in his report, it seems Leyba returned to the Aragón Regiment instead. This outfit, garrisoned in Orán, would supply part of the troops selected for a battalion to be permanently stationed in New Orleans in the Province of Louisiana, and Leyba was promoted to company captain on June 4,1768.
On learning of his transfer to Louisiana, even before his patent for the new rank had been issued, Fernando de Leyba married Maria de la Concepción de César y Martínez-Fortún, in July, 1767.
A year later, in October, 1768, the troops destined for America sailed from Cádiz. On their arrival in Havana, they were met with news of the expulsion of Louisiana's first governor, Antonio de Ulloa, from New Orleans. Leyba would spend the following year in the Cuban capital while preparations were being made for an expedition to retake the colony. In the meantime, the Leybas were also awaiting the arrival of their first child, who was born the day before the expedition sailed. Josefa María de los Dolores, whom the family would endearingly call Pepita, was born on July 5, 1769.
A fourteen-day crossing of the Gulf of México landed the 24-ship expedition at the Head of Passes, and another 28 days of warping and towing brought them to the wharf in New Orleans. Lieutenant General Alejandro O'Reilly took formal possession of the colony on August 18, and a new provincial government was organized and the battalion formed. Fernando de Leyba was placed in command of the Third Company of Fusiliers, which was to remain and serve in the capital. Over the next decade, Leyba would also command two frontier posts: Arkansas Post (1771-1774) and St. Louis in the Illinois Territory (1778-1780).
Leyba's Arkansas Post command, which he held by order of Governor Luis de Unzaga, provided him with valuable learning experience. The post was situated on the Mississippi River, 550 km (800 km by river) north of New Orleans. It consisted of a small wooden fort that garrisoned 14 soldiers and a village of 78 mostly French-speaking merchants and hunters. This first contact with the Louisiana wilderness was overwhelming, as Leyba was met with serious problems upon his arrival: a ruinous fort with useless armaments, unpaid troops on the verge of rebellion, and a dangerous lack of provisions. Once these initial problems were resolved, his governance focused on ensuring the general well-being of the inhabitants, controlling commerce and the sale of alcohol, and maintaining good diplomacy with the local Quapaw Indian tribe. Adding to these challenges were the constant danger of attack by the warring Osage Indians and severe and repeated bouts of personal illness. Still, Leyba persevered in his command and gained the upper hand on the many difficult situations he encountered. What was supposed to be a five-year term was cut short, however, due to his continual bad health. After just three years in Arkansas, he returned to his command in the capital.
He was a military officer, an adventurer, and a conspirator. He dreamt of an independent South America and took part in Spain's military campaigns in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean during the North American Revolution. He was also a central figure in the French Revolution. He lived in exile most of his life, traveled widely around the known world, and loved life and women passionately. He spent his closing years as an outcast, ill and in prison.
Francisco de Miranda Rodríguez was born of Spanish parents in the city of Caracas, in the Viceroyalty of New Granada (currently Venezuela and Colombia) on March 29, 1750. His father, Sebastian, was a wealthy and prominent businessman. Francisco lived in the city of his birth for the first twenty years of his life, but he became disheartened by the lack of opportunity for a Creole to rise socially and professionally in society, and he moved to Madrid in March, 1771. Under the guardianship of one of his father's friends, he studied mathematics and geography, as well as French and English. In 1772, Carlos III authorized his enlistment in the army, after he had attained the rank of captain in the Princesa Infantry Regiment. He enjoyed the company of women of different social standings, whom he would charm with his elegance and intelligence, as well as courteous and attentive manners. He had numerous lovers throughout his life, one of them an Englishwoman, Sarah Andrews, with whom he had two sons, Leandro and Francisco.
He underwent his first combat experience during the defense of the Spanish city-port of Melilla, on the northern African coast, which had been under a yearlong siege by the Sultan of Morocco. Not long after that, he took part, as many Spanish soldiers did, in the disastrous expedition to Algiers in 1775. He requested a transfer to America and was denied, but managed to be sent to Cádiz, where he met the British merchant John Turnbull, who had businesses in Gibraltar and became a lifelong friend. He also initiated a friendship with General Juan Manuel de Cagigal, who took him under his wing for the next several years. In April, 1780, when Cagigal was appointed head of the Ejército Expedicionario departing from Cádiz to combat the English in America, he named Miranda his aide-de-camp. Miranda arrived in Havana in August as a captain in the Aragón Regiment, along with 11,000 Spanish soldiers. The following year, he took part in the victorious assault on Pensacola, where the Spanish forces, under the command of Bernardo de Gálvez, conquered West Florida, dealing a severe blow to the British strategy in the United States War of Independence. In recognition of Miranda's exceptional action in battle, the king promoted him to lieutenant colonel.
Between August and December, 1781, Miranda was in British Jamaica as Cagigal's representative to negotiate a prisoner exchange. In fact, he was also gathering secret intelligence on the defenses of the island. When he returned to Cuba, he provided Gálvez with highly detailed sketches that would assist him in planning his attack on the British colony. The operation, involving combined French and Spanish troops gathered in the island of Hispaniola, was postponed after the defeat of the French fleet in the Battle of the Saintes and eventually canceled with the end of the Revolutionary War. The following April, Miranda was at Cagigal's side once again, this time during the joint Spanish and North American attack on the Bahamas. It would be his responsibility to negotiate the surrender of the British garrison in Providence Island on May 8, 1782.
Over the years, Miranda built an elite personal library, which included all of the major works of the Enlightenment, books by Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, which were considered revolutionary and, therefore, were banned in Spain and France. On the other hand, his unorthodox and countercultural traits earned him a not-insignificant number of enemies, in and out of the army. The law was often at his heels, and despite the protection Cagigal offered him on more than one occasion, he was eventually accused of sedition and of smuggling. Although later absolved of these charges, he decided to abandon Cuba, and in June, 1783, he sought refuge in the newly independent United States.
For about a year, Miranda traveled across the Thirteen Colonies and met some of the Founding Fathers, among them George Washington and Alexander Hamilton; he also met General Knox and General Lafayette. During this time, inspired by the American Revolution, he began to envision a unified South America, independent of Spain. It was an ideal to which he would devote the rest of his life. On several instances, he sought British and North American aid for an invasion that would liberate Colombia and Venezuela, but the promises he was given never came to fruition. In December, 1784, Miranda traveled to England, which seemed interested in loosening Spain's hold over its possessions in America, in retaliation for Spanish involvement in the British defeat in the U.S. War of Independence.
Between 1785 and 1789, he traveled over much of Europe, from Italy to St. Petersburg, observing, learning, filling the pages of his remarkable journal with numerous details about current reforms and upheavals that would lead to the Enlightenment. In 1792, when it was obvious that England would not come to his aid, he moved to Paris, a city now in the throes of the French Revolution. There, thanks to the letters of recommendation he carried with him and his military background, he was given the rank of marshal in the revolutionary army. He fought in campaigns against the Prussians in northern France and Belgium. The maelstrom of the revolution and its internal intrigues would ultimately land him in prison charged with treason, but he regained his freedom in January, 1795.
Miranda returned to England, where he spent several years elaborating his political project for a new and independent South America. Despite his efforts and countless consultations, he would not garner any substantial support, either in Great Britain or in the United States, even though he traveled to Washington for a private meeting with then president Thomas Jefferson. In 1805, he convinced the Jewish banker, Samuel Ogden, and his friend Turnbull, as well as other New York businessmen, to finance a small military expedition. And so, at the head of three ships, he set sail for Venezuela, by way of Haiti. The entire effort would end in a catastrophic failure as soon as he attempted to land, and he was forced to return to England.
In December, 1810, a second opportunity seemed to open up for Miranda to carry out his plans. The Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula had left a power vacuum in the Spanish territories of America, creating the ideal conditions for an independence movement. Miranda returned to Venezuela, this time alongside the rebel leader, Simón Bolívar. Yet, the next years would be characterized by futile fighting, dissension, and internal disputes among the revolutionary leaders, and Miranda was eventually betrayed by his companion Bolívar, who handed him over to the royalists in 1812.
Miranda was transferred to Cádiz, a city where he had spent much of his youth and from which he had departed in 1780, many years before, with his sights on America. He would be incarcerated there the rest of his life, never leaving his prison. He died on July 14, 1816, after several months of a hard and bitter illness. He is considered the great originator of South American independence, although in his dreams he had envisioned a unified South American nation, under one flag, the flag he had designed in 1805. Its colors have since been incorporated into the flags of various Hispanic American countries in his honor.
Francisco de Saavedra Sangronís was born in Seville on October 4, 1746. At the age of eleven, he entered the prestigious Colegio de Teólogos y Juristas del Sacro Monte de Granada (College of Theologians and Jurists of the Sacro Monte in Granada), an elite educational institution of the Spanish Enlightenment. However, in 1768, rather than pursue religious studies, Saavedra decided to enlist in the army. He attained the rank of lieutenant in 1771 and attended the Army Officers School in Avila as a contemporary of Bernardo de Gálvez. In 1775, Saavedra, too, would take part in the disastrous expedition to Algiers, where he was wounded during the desperate retreat of the Spanish troops from the beaches.
In 1778, Saavedra's friendship with Gálvez gave him the opportunity to work alongside one of the major figures of the Court, José de Gálvez, Secretary of the Indies and Bernardo's uncle. Historically, it was an exciting time for Spain, when the king and his government were driving the country forward by enacting improvements in education, commerce, the armed forces, infrastructure, and foreign relations with Europe and America.
John Jay served as negotiator of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, acting as congressional representative. The treaty did not fully satisfy the interests of the allies and caused discontent in both the French and Spanish Courts. In 1789, Jay argued for a law barring Catholics from holding public office. In 1799, he was one of the most ardent supporters of legislation to abolish slavery. He was appointed the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1789, and in 1795 he negotiated a treaty with Great Britain that made him deeply unpopular because its terms were unfavorable to American commerce. He also served as governor of New York and died in Bedford, New York, in 1829.
José Solano was born in Zurita (Cáceres) in 1726. He joined the Royal Armada when he was barely sixteen years of age, and he spent most of his life at sea, involved in naval conflicts. At nineteen, he was already a ship captain, having served on a seven-year scientific and diplomatic expedition to mark the boundaries between the territories of Spain and Portugal in America. In recognition of his outstanding performance on this mission, he was named governor of Venezuela and Santo Domingo. After Spain declared war against England in 1779, Solano would take part in several naval operations in the Atlantic between the English Channel and the waters of the Gulf of Cádiz.
Solano's leadership skills and his experience in America led to his being given one of the most crucial commands in the war. He would lead an enormous convoy of more than 100 ships of every type, transporting the entire Ejército de Operación that would wage war in Spanish Florida and the islands of the Caribbean. The fleet left Cádiz in April, 1780, with General Juan Manuel de Cagigal and more than 11,000 soldiers on board. In August, having outmaneuvered numerous enemy vessels patrolling the Atlantic under the command of Admiral Rodney, he arrived in Havana.
As a result of illnesses contracted during the voyage and after arriving in Cuba, only a fraction of the troops was able to join Gálvez's forces for the assault on Pensacola in March, 1781. Nevertheless, a few weeks later, Solano left Havana with some 3,000 men on board to replenish Gálvez's besieged and exhausted army. With Solano's fleet was a French squadron under the command of Chevalier de Monteil, and the arrival of these combined forces effectively dispersed the British ships threatening the Spanish operations. Gálvez's victory in Pensacola was thus made possible by these timely reinforcements.
As a reward for his actions, Solano was promoted to lieutenant general and given the title of Marqués del Real Socorro (Marquis of the Royal Succor); he was also placed in command of the squadron of the Antilles, based in Havana. From there, he began to coordinate the invasion of British Jamaica with Bernardo de Gálvez and Francisco de Saavedra, in conjunction with the French squadron under the Count de Grasse. However, the attack never took place, due to the French defeat in the Battle of the Saintes and the cessation of all hostilities in late 1782.
Having been appointed State Councilor, Solano spent some time in the Spanish Court, but he returned to America during the second war against England, winning further naval victories in Antillean waters in 1796. In 1802, he received the highest rank a Spanish naval officer could be given: General Captain of the Armada. He died in Madrid in 1806.
Job Titles:
- Entrepreneur, Diplomat and Spy
In a letter to the Spanish authorities, Washington wrote, "Mr. Miralles has been universally esteemed in this country and his loss will be deeply felt." In his last will and testament, Juan de Miralles bequeathed "a new coat" to each of his servants. He likewise directed that Rafael, his only black slave, be granted freedom in Havana, and that he and his wife and son be given a piece of land "where they might settle". Most of the loans he had provided to the American Revolution were never reimbursed to him or his estate. His secretary, Francisco Rendón, took over his mission in Philadelphia until he was replaced by Diego de Gardoqui in 1785.
Oliver Pollock is known today as one of the key financiers of the American Revolution because of the money and supplies he raised for the rebel cause in Spanish Louisiana. A successful merchant, he worked with Louisiana Governor Bernardo de Gálvez in supporting the war aims of the Second Continental Congress. Once Spain entered the conflict, Pollock also served the Spanish cause by participating in the Mississippi River campaigns of Governor Gálvez and fighting with the Spanish army at the Battle of Pensacola in 1781.
Pollock was a native of Northern Ireland, born in County Tyrone in 1737. He immigrated to the British colony of Pennsylvania in 1760 in search of a better life. He first found work in a merchant house trading goods at the town of Carlisle. Within a year, he moved to Philadelphia, where he became affiliated with the firm of Willing and Morris, one of the largest mercantile establishments in the English colonies. The firm sent him to Havana in 1762, after the city had fallen to the British during the Seven Year War. Pollock supplied the British troops with goods furnished by Willing and Morris. He remained a resident of Havana after the Spanish resumed control of the city, operating a very profitable mercantile operation. In 1770, he married Margaret O'Brien, the daughter of another Irish merchant. He also befriended Spanish General Alejandro O'Reilly, who had been posted to the island.
The Peace of Paris, 1763, ceded Louisiana to Spain. Antonio de Ulloa was sent to New Orleans as the first Spanish governor, but his two-year term proved to be a failure, ending with an uprising of New Orleans residents against him in 1768. The Spanish king responded by dispatching troops from Cuba under the command of General Alejandro O'Reilly to restore control over the province. Oliver Pollock followed General O'Reilly to New Orleans, where he supplied flour and other foodstuffs to the Spanish soldiers. The general welcomed Pollock, permitting him to establish a merchant house in the Louisiana capital. Pollock sent for his family from Havana and became a successful merchant residing in New Orleans.
Pollock had a natural sympathy for the rebel cause, from the moment news of the fighting at Lexington and Concord reached him in New Orleans. His first opportunity to assist the Americans came later in 1776 when a small detachment of rebel troops under the command of George Gibson floated down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers seeking military supplies from the Spanish government. Pollock welcomed Gibson and his men to the city, securing an audience for the military leader with Governor Unzaga. The governor agreed to furnish the supplies Gibson requested. Unzaga charged Oliver Pollock with assembling these supplies and sending them up the Mississippi to the colonies in rebellion. Thus began Oliver Pollock's career as the American supply agent at New Orleans. Over the next several years, he would send many riverboats, called bateaux, up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Fort Pitt in western Pennsylvania. There the supplies were loaded onto wagons and sent by road to the troops of the Continental Army. Pollock did not assemble these supplies in New Orleans by donation, but bought them from other merchants. He paid for them out of his own personal funds with the understanding that he would be reimbursed by the Continental Congress. When his money began to run out and no reimbursements were forthcoming from the Congress, he secured loans from merchants in New Orleans to keep the supplies flowing. In recording his financial accounts in his ledger, he abbreviated the notation of his funds by superimposing the "p" and the "f" of the Spanish peso fuerte. This symbol became the dollar sign which denotes the United States currency. Pollock is credited as its inventor.
The arrival of Bernardo de Gálvez as the new governor of Louisiana signaled a time of increased Spanish support for the American rebel cause. Gálvez became an anti-British partisan of the American rebellion, forging a strong partnership with Pollock, who was named official New Orleans agent of the newly proclaimed United States of America that same year. At the end of 1777, James Willing, an officer in the Continental Army, led a military expedition down the Mississippi, attacking British settlements upriver from New Orleans. Governor Gálvez extended Willing the hospitality of the city. He allowed Pollock and the American commander to auction the plunder taken from the British plantations in New Orleans. When the British protested the welcome the governor had extended to Willing, Gálvez brushed off these complaints and declared the city to be neutral territory. Thereafter, during all of 1778, Pollock continued shipping needed supplies up the interior river system to Fort Pitt. Supplies sent from New Orleans sustained the Continental Army during its crucial victory over the British at the Battle of Saratoga in October, 1777.
This rebel victory at Saratoga proved to be the turning point in the conflict, since it brought France into the war against Great Britain in February, 1778. Spain, on the other hand, decided to wait for further developments in the conflict before joining the war as a combatant. Spanish assistance would continue in New Orleans nonetheless, and Pollock carried on with his supply activities through 1778. These grew tremendously in scope when the American military commander George Rogers Clark attacked British fortifications in the Illinois territory. By early 1779, Clark had taken British posts at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes. Oliver Pollock became the primary source of supplies for Clark's operations. Again, Pollock borrowed money, securing loans as well from Governor Gálvez, to purchase these supplies.
Spain's entry into the war occurred in June, 1779. Governor Gálvez commanded successful Spanish military campaigns against British posts at Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola. Pollock and eight other American Patriots accompanied Gálvez during his victory at Baton Rouge, and Pollock traveled to Natchez to accept the British surrender in person as the representative of the governor. He was also with the Spanish army when Gálvez laid siege to the fort at Pensacola in the spring of 1781, this time accompanied by about two dozen Americans.
By the end of the year, however, Oliver Pollock's fortunes began to turn sour, because of the large indebtedness he had incurred over the four years he had been shipping supplies. He paid for most of these with his own money and by securing loans in New Orleans, but the Congress still had failed to reimburse him. By 1782, Pollock was bankrupt. In an effort to secure repayment for his loans from the American authorities, he decided to travel to the United States. Passing through Cuba, he was arrested and imprisoned briefly on warrants from his creditors seeking payment of their loans. Eventually freed through the intervention of his friend Gálvez, he returned at last to Pennsylvania.
With the end of the Revolution, Pollock made his permanent home in Silver Spring, a small town in the Shenandoah Valley of Pennsylvania, where he remained a merchant. Years later, he received partial payment of his debts from the Congress. He did visit New Orleans briefly in 1788 after a disastrous fire that had devastated the city, bringing a shipload of supplies, including a fire engine he sold to the Cabildo. In his retirement years, he moved back to the Mississippi Valley, settling at Tunica Bend on the river, north of Baton Rouge, in 1819. He died there on December 17, 1823. Oliver Pollock's story is essential to understanding the role Spain played in supporting the independence of the United States during the American Revolution.
Job Titles:
- Superintendent of Finance for the Continental Congress