Somos Primos

Proudly shares the genealogical research of 

Granville Hough, Ph.D.
& H.C. Hough

Spanish Patriots in the American Revolution

For Hispanic heritage information go to:
http://www.SomosPrimos.com
Editor: Mimi Lozano     mimilozano@aol.com

The following are a few select articles published in SomosPrimos.com representing Dr. Hough's dedication to promote a better understanding of the Hispanic contributions to the American Revolution. For more information on a specific topics, please go to Somos Primos homepage and review previous issues,  http://www.SomosPrimos.com  

Do a keyword search on all issues for surnames, places, dates, etc.:
      SEARCH ALL SOMOS PRIMOS ISSUES

The 8-volume Series, 
Spanish Patriots During the American Revolution, 1779-1783 
Written by Dr. Granville and NC Hough 

[Large PDF files may take several minutes to download. PDF file reader needed.]

Spain's California Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England
During the American Revolution,  
Part 1 
Part 2

Spain's Arizona Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England
During the American Revolution

Spain's New Mexico  Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England
During the American Revolution

Spain's Texas Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England
During the American Revolution

Spain's Louisiana Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England
During the American Revolution 

Spanish, French, Dutch and American Patriots of the West Indies During the 
During the American Revolution  1779-1783 War with England

Spain's Patriots of Northwestern New Spain in its South of the Border 
1779-1783 War with England During the American Revolution 

Hard copies can be purchased from Borderland Books:
P.O. Box 28497, San Antonio, Texas 78228
Retail store:  6307 Wurzbach Road, San Antonio, Texas 78240
Contact: 210-647-7535      Fax: 210-432-0482
E-mail: gfarias@borderlandsbooks.com   http://www.borderlandsbooks.com

Granville was a student at Mississippi State University in Nov 1942 when he joined the Army Enlisted Reserve shortly before his 20th birthday.  He was soon on active duty as an infantryman, but he was
appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point and joined the class there in Jul 1943, graduating in Jun 1946 with a BS in Military Art and Engineering.  He served in the Regular Army as an artilleryman, intelligence analyst, and general staff officer until Jan 1969, concentrating on Cold War and technical intelligence research. After graduating from the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth in 1959, he was assigned to the Pentagon, where he was able to begin his weekend hobby of genealogical and historical research in the Library of Congress and the National Archives.  In subsequent assignments, Granville also graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the Air War College.

The Army had constantly changing needs for people with higher education skills during the Cold War.  Responding to those needs, Granville gained a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from USC in 1955, a Master’s degree in Business Administration from George Washington University in 1965, and a PhD in Public Administration from American University in 1971 (after retirement.)

From 1969 through Spring, 1992, Granville taught business management at California State University, Fullerton, serving three years of that time as Management Department Chairman.  His specialty in teaching was Project Management.

In 1991, Granville joined the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution.  His research experience has indicated to him that much of the history of the American Revolution is incomplete and misleading.  He strongly believes that the NSSAR, and other patriotic organizations, should be at the forefront of revising the history we teach our children about our country and those who have worked with us as allies, co-belligerents, and even as enemies.

In 1996 I learned that the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution, had turned down a California applicant who had no receipt to prove his soldier ancestor had donated one or two pesos to defray  the costs of the war with Britain from 1779 into 1783.  This seemed a strange denial as the applicant's ancestor had risked his life as a soldier, so why worry about a donativo?  I told my SAR chapter I could develop a rationale for acceptance  of Spanish soldiers as patriots, and it said go ahead.

I knew Louisiana soldiers serving under Governor Bernardo de Gálvez had been accepted as Patriots since 1925, and that French soldiers and sailors who served under General Rochambeau and Admiral de Grasse had been accepted since 1903.

So I developed the rationale and looked for applicants to test it.  We found two descendants of California soldiers, with clear lineages, and got our first California descendants admitted in 1998. 

I had no intent of publishing anything, but concluded it might be useful publish the rationale, then to list names of California soldiers, visiting sailors, and other men who were of the right age to make the donativo.  

My daughter joined me in the research, and we did the first book on California, mostly rationale, then the second book giving the names of nearly everyone in California under Spanish jurisdiction during the war period, and most of their descendants until American occupation in 1848, about 5000 persons.

It was interesting research, and no one had ever done such a compilation of Spanish soldiers and  sailors.  We then did Arizona and Northern Sonora, then New Mexico.  We were able to get our first descendant of a New Mexico soldier accepted in 1999.  We moved on to Texas where we found a couple of people had already been accepted but there was no composite list.  So we did one, including all the territory now under Texas jurisdiction. 
   
Up to this time we had worked on more than 20 Presidios, more than 10 flying companies of mounted infantry units, and militia units of the larger towns.  When we worked on Louisiana, we encountered our first organized Spanish Regiment, the Regimento de Infanterie de Luisiana. Then we went on through the West Indies in the seventh volume with numerous Spanish and colonial regiments, then finally back to Northern Mexico for the backup units for the Presidios in the eighth volume.  We have four more volumes in progress.

Along the way, we were questioned on the work we were doing, mainly based on the way people were taught American History.  The question was: "How can we accept descendants of Spanish soldiers.  Spain has always been our enemy."  And that is exactly the way many influential American historians have depicted it.  But that is not the way Spanish soldiers and sailors saw it at the time.  They, just like Americans, fought the British where they were or wherever they were sent.  They celebrated all victories over the British, no matter who won them.

But there is one quote from a highly regarded American historian at the time of WW I and is still quoted:  He made a statement that John Adams and John Jay in negotiating for peace with Britain had no reason to consider Spanish interests as Spain had been of no help to the American colonies and wished them ill. 

He apparently knew nothing of Spanish aid or of the DeGrass/Saavedra Accord which governed French and Spanish operations in the Western Hemisphere from July 1781 until the end of the war.  He was not aware that a Chesapeake Bay Campaign (Yorktown) was the first item of that accord and that its success was due to five elements, two of them Spanish: Washington's Army, Rochambeau's French Army, DeGrass' French Fleet, Spanish financing, and Spanish covering for France in the West Indies.
       
Nor did this eminent American historian have the faintest idea what SECURED Yorktown, or why the four British staging areas at New York, Charleston, Penobscot Bay, and Detroit were never used by the British to reinvade.  Few Americans know that the British were straining mightily in 1782 and 1783 just to hold on in the West Indies.  Bernardo de Gálvez was waiting to invade Jamaica during that time with 10,000 troops at Guarico in Haiti.  He was joined in Venezuela in Feb 1783 by nearly all of Rochambeaus's American Expeditionary Force which had fought at Yorktown, 10,000 more French troops.  French General d'Estaing was lining up 20,000 more French and Spanish troops at Cadiz in Spain awaiting orders to sail.   And Bernardo de Gálvez was already designated as the overall commander of the invading forces.  The British had to negotiate or lose everything in the West Indies.  That imminent threat in the West Indies is what SECURED Yorktown and made it into the victory we celebrate. 

 I will point out two other false beliefs which have harmed our relationships with our neighbors:

One is that the War with Mexico began when Mexican troops attacked American troops on Texas soil near the Rio Grande.  I defy any historian to show evidence that Texas ever extended south of the Medina River. The Mexican War started when pro-slavery President James K. Polk in May 1848 sent American troops into Mexican territory south of the Medina and Mexicans defended their land.  It is clear we started the Mexican War under false pretenses.

Another false belief is that the Spanish American War was started when saboteurs blew up the battleship Maine on 17 Feb 1898.  I defy any historian to show that there were any saboteurs near the Maine that night, whether Spanish, Cuban, or some other.   Most likely, the Maine blew up from instantaneous combustion of overheated coal in confined ship storage.  Admiral Rickover headed the last committee to study that explosion.  The Navy had destroyed all physical evidence, but had pictures of bent metal.  Admiral Rickover's committee reported that the pictures simply gave no conclusive evidence on why the explosion occurred.  It seems quite clear, today, that we entered the Spanish-American War under false pretenses.

These three fallacies have biased American history and textbooks for generations.  They constantly come up in one form or another, in editorials, from TV commentators, politicians, patriotic speakers, and even from reviewers of SAR applications.

But the study of service records of Spanish soldiers shows interesting and remote places where they served, each with some relation to the war with Britain.  Last December, I predicted the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution, would in time remove all geographic restrictions on where Spanish patriots served when enough SAR members understood the relationships among the nations fighting the British.   I mentioned one year, ten years, or even 50 years.  It actually happened in just over 50 days when in March of this year, the Society did remove all geographic restrictions.   Male descendants of Spanish soldiers in service 1779-1783, can now join our organization, no matter where the ancestor served.

History of Somos Primos and SHHAR's connection with Dr. Hough 

In May of 1995, I met California state DAR librarian, Dr. Patricia Stanford Moseley at the National Genealogical Society Conference in San Diego.  At that time and throughout the 1990s Somos Primos was a hard-copy quarterly.  We had a display and complimentary copies for attendees to the conference. 

Dr. Stanford was very much impressed by our mission and the quality of Somos Primos.  She requested a complimentary subscription to Somos Primos be given to the California State DAR library.  Soon she requested a complimentary subscription for the National DAR library in Washington, D.C. We were happy to comply.  

Within two years, and directly related to Dr. Stanford's enthusiasm, NSDAR formed a Spanish Task Force. Called the California Mission Project, the goal was to identify Spanish heritage individuals in the United States whose ancestors contributed to the Revolutionary cause.  Orange County, California educator, Dr. Mildred Murry lead the research effort, with a 2-fold goal: 1) to aid in genealogical research of Spanish connections to the Revolution, thus opening new avenues for NSDAR membership, and 2) to encourage donations to the NSDAR Library concerning these ethnic connections. NSDAR  http://www.dar.org

Dr. Granville Hough and his daughter were busy researching and compiling California data, full-time, a project that he had been dedicated to since 1996.  In 1997, Dr. Hough contacted us for the possibility of SHHAR publishing his work, starting with the California Patriots Volume I (1998).  The copyright was given to us, and the funds raised went to SHHAR.  The importance of the Hough work was clear, and the opportunity to promote his research was met with much enthusiasm.  The publication of the volumes followed,  volume 2 of California (1999).  The series consists of California (2 volumes), Arizona (1999), New Mexico(1999), Texas (2000), Louisiana (2000), Patriots of the West Indies (2001), and the last volume in the series, Northwestern New Spain (2001). Each book (about 180 pages) includes a listing of all the Spanish soldiers present in those locations during that time period.  Each volume focuses on a location where battles were fought and the specific Spanish soldier identified in the military records in that location between 1779 and 1783,

After five years of distributing, with pride, the series, the Board decided to ask Borderlands Books in San Antonio to distribute the series. Borderlands Books specialize in Hispanic heritage books.  They had opened a bookstore and the Board decided that walk in traffic and the numerous conference in San Antonio would give even greater exposure to the Hough series.

Dr. Hough's research continues. In addition to the books, Somos Primos has published on-going research which is included in this compilation, he also was involved in the 2002-2003 Galvez Project. 

American Spirit,, the magazine of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Mar/Apr 2002. Vol. 136, No. 2.  The article featured in the NSDAR magazine was written by Robert H. Thonhoff, a retired educator, author of the book, The Texas Connection with the American Revolution, published in 1981.  Being a Texas researcher, and already in touch with Mr. Thonhoff, I called to congratulate him.  In a telephone conversation Thonhoff said, "For twenty-five years I have felt like John in the wilderness trying to tell everyone about the Spanish contribution to the American Revolution.  People are finally listening."  

Carlos III, was, at this time, diplomatically involved in peace negotiations with Portugal and could ill afford to enter into any alliance that might endanger the successful conclusion of these negotiations. To become openly engaged in the struggle of the American colonists against their mother country would certainly lead to a declaration of war against England and invite an immediate blockade of all Spanish ports, thus ending all possibility of signing the desired treaty with Portugal. Such was the position of Spain when the Americans began hostilities against England. It also sufficiently explains the reasons why Spain decided to keep secret her aid to the revolting colonies.

It was arranged accordingly that, to start with, the two Bourbon Courts would make an outright gift of two million “livres tournaises,” one million to come from each Court. One of the first moves consisted of setting up a fictitious company to direct the aid program, make purchases of supplies, arrange for their shipment to the Colonies, contact American agents living in France, and account for the money spent. (Comment by GWH: the dummy company was the famous “Rodrigue Hortalese and Company,” and its main director was the French playwright and statesman Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais of France.) Thus, in June 1776, when the American Revolution had just begun, we find both Spain and France acting officially, though under the seal of secrecy, as allies of the English colonies against their mother country. Even before this date, however, supplies had been going out on a haphazard basis through the ports of Spain, France, and Holland, as ship captains from America picked up arms and ammunition in personal trading ventures. Moreover, much important trade of this nature had been going on through the Spanish ports in the West Indies. Using these same ports as bases, American captains had been able to prey upon British merchant vessels during the first months of the war. (italics added).

By September 1777, Spain had already furnished the American insurgents with 1,870,000 livres tournaises, but before long, it became apparent to the court of Madrid that the funds which had been given equally by the two nations were being credited, by the Americans, solely to the Court of France.

Nevertheless, Spain was still maintaining in 1777 the cloak of secrecy over its operations, a secrecy believed to be vital to the security of its (Spain’s) American dominion. For this reason, when Charles III decided to send Juan Miralles as an observer to the headquarters of General Washington in 1777, Miralles took up his duties under the patronage of the French Ambassador, following the instructions of the Spanish Court. Miralles’ position was humiliating. He felt, and not without reason, that the affairs of Spain were being adjusted to the indirect advantage of France. But it proved impossible to bring about a change in his status. Washington and Miralles became very close friends. The Spanish diplomat died in Washington’s headquarters, at Morristown, in April 1780. The highest military honors were rendered to him as if he had been a fully accredited ambassador. Washington paid his final tribute to his friend in a letter to the Governor of Havana saying of him “in this country he has been universally esteemed and (his death) will be universally regretted.”

In the fall of 1777, Washington, his army short of clothing and war supplies, was facing the winter that might well decide the fate of his country. Desperate agents of the colonies were becoming more and more indiscreet, announcing openly the sources of aid to America. By giving the strong impression that Spain and France were actually their open allies, they hoped to weaken England’s will to continue the war.

Finally, on the 21st of June 1779, Spain declared war against Great Britain. But before that happened, the hard-pressed Americans were being placed in possession of sorely needed supplies along the western frontier through the Spanish Governor of Louisiana in New Orleans, Bernardo de GÁLVEZ. New Orleans was this to become crucial to the cause of the American Revolution. There, the story of the collaboration between Oliver POLLOCK, who was well on his way to becoming one of the
greatest financiers in North America, and the young Spanish Governor, Bernardo de GÁLVEZ, would remain forever a glorious affirmation of the friendship between Spain and the struggling new nation.
It is not my purpose to go into the narrative of the campaigns which followed. I would rather mention very briefly some of its more relevant details.

Fortunately the renewed interest in their own history awakened in Americans by the celebration of the Bicentennial year has reminded many of the decisive importance of the role played by Bernardo de GÁLVEZ in the unfolding of the American Revolution. Nevertheless, not many Americans know about the “Marcha de Gálvez” and about the fight which took place along the Caribbean (Gulf) coast of the United States or up the Mississippi Valley, in which Americans and Spaniards fought together
against the common English foe. And this is so because there is a tendency to consider the American Revolution as a series of dramatic events taking place in a comparatively small area along the Eastern Seaboard, forgetting the crucial importance that the Mississippi River Valley and the Northeast Coast of the Gulf of Mexico did actually have in the success of the uprising.

The celebration of the Bicentennial has been an excellent opportunity to bring back to the arena of the American Revolution the role played by Louisiana and the rest of the territories of North America which were once under the sovereignty of Spain (italics added.)

Spain’s attitude in the first moments of the Revolution was clearly expressed by Don Bernardo de GÁLVEZ when he wrote Colonel MORGAN, at the time Commander in Fort Pitt, on August 9, 1997. After expressing his support for the colonists’ cause, GÁLVEZ said: “Your can count on me
extending whatever aid is within my power to give, as long as I appear to be totally ignorant of it.” That cautious attitude was totally in line with the secrecy requested for the operation by the court of Spain, as was mentioned before.

Spain’s entry into the War came at a time that was highly critical for the Colonists, who were trying to fight the strongest nation in Europe almost barehanded. In 1778, the center of gravity of the war had been transferred from the North to the South and there the fortunes of war were not exactly favoring the Colonists. That year the English took Savannah and Augusta, as well as other towns, causing severe setbacks for the American forces which had lost some 5,000 men.

It was then the British hastened to put into action their long contemplated plans for the capture of New Orleans, and there is little doubt that their success would have given them permanent command of the Mississippi Basin, from Canada to the Gulf.

It is very easy to imagine what the consequences of such a situation would have meant to the cause of the American Revolution. With the British already controlling all the Eastern Coast, Canada and Florida, their possession of the Mississippi Valley would have strangled the rebellion to death.

Spain contributed to prevent this from happening by entering the Revolutionary War and providing the Colonists with secure Southern and Western borders, from its (Spain’s) bases in Louisiana and Cuba. This was extremely important since it prevented the American Revolutionaries from getting encircled. Supplies could continue to flow up the Mississippi and, from then on, the Colonists would be able to wage their war of Independence with their backs well protected.

The Spanish Commander-in-Chief was Don Bernardo de GÁLVEZ. In September 1779, he led his forces 115 miles north of New Orleans in eleven days, in what is known as the “Marcha de Gálvez,” capturing Manchack (Manchac), Baton Rouge and Natchez, British posts on the Mississippi. Then he turned on Mobile, which he conquered by the end of March 1780, leaving only Pensacola, capitol of West Florida, that was to be surrendered to him by Brigadier General John CAMPBELL, together with
1100 prisoners, by the summer of 1781.

Spain’s declaration of war on England forced the British to fight on several fronts at the same time, having to oppose the combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 90 vessels which was laying siege to Gibraltar, and (which) had even threatened to invade England itself. In this way, they tied up a sizeable percentage of the British fleet from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean, making it impossible for England to effect a blockade on the American Coast, and so facilitating the operation of an
ever-growing fleet of American and foreign privateers. The activities of Spanish privateers were also an important factor as they helped to cripple English means of communication and transportation. Among these privateers was the Spaniard Jorge Farragut, father of the first American Admiral. (Footnote: Jorge Farragut was actually father of David G.Farragut, famous for his capture of New Orleans in the Civil War, April 1862.)

(The above was published by the Genealogical Research Society of New Orleans, P. O. Box 51791, New Orleans, LA, 70151, in its journal, New Orleans Genesis, vol 71( June 1779) 269-270, and used with permission.)

On 21 June 1779, King Carlos III of Spain declared war on England and thus made official his support of Americans in their struggle for independence.  Clandestine support had already been provided for three years, but afterwards support was open and direct.

In the past few weeks, my daughter and I have been studying documents of the Continental Congress looking for names of American mariners.  We found the reports of Arthur Lee, and the 1777/79 manifests of twelve vessels which were loaded out from Cadiz, Spain, with war supplies headed for Boston and Philadelphia.  (Papers of the Continental Congress, Records Group M0247, Item #83, Roll 110, “Letters Received from Arthur Lee, 1776-1780,”).  This was pre-war, but vital to the American effort.

Records such as these have rarely been studied by American historians, as emphasis has been on French support and participation.  Few Americans know that:

1. Early French support included fifty/fifty Spanish/French participation, with Spain as a silent partner, so any so-called French support received before June 1779 should be reanalyzed.

2. Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis was personal representative for King Carlos III, and he negotiated the de Grass/Saavedra Accord in Jul 1781 which governed Spanish/French conduct of the war in the Western Hemisphere.

3. Saavedra was personally responsible for arranging the financing for the Chesapeake Bay operations which resulted in Yorktown.  (Yorktown was thus the result of Spanish financing of cooperative efforts of the French Expeditionary Force, the de Grasse Fleet, and the American
forces.)

4. The victory at Yorktown was made secure by the West Indies strategies of Spain and France.  England was forced into a defensive strategy, as Jamaica was the big target for Spain.  The French Expeditionary Force was moved in 1782/83 from North America to Venezuela to participate in
the invasion.  Spanish General Bernardo de Gálvez gathered in Haiti a 10,000 man force waiting to invade.

5. For two years, England held on, negotiating for the best possible peace terms.  She held four invasion bases in North America (Charleston, New York, Penobscot Bay, and Detroit); but it was to no avail.  She was out of manpower.  The focus in the Western Hemisphere became holding
Canada and the West Indies.

It can be accurately said that what put us over the top at Yorktown was Spanish money, as de Grasse told Saavedra plainly that he could not sail there without it.

It can also be accurately stated that what made Yorktown significant and secured it as the last great land battle in America was the British preoccupation with defending the West Indies (particularly Jamaica) against  Spanish and French invasion.  So we owe the Spanish people for their contributions to our freedom.  It is a debt we should not forget.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "This fact shows how the French alliance had changed the nature of the war. It now became to a large extent a contest between the two navies (e. g., British and French), the principal evolutions of which occurred in West Indian and European seas." Perhaps the statement could be improved from the French perspective if the Indian Ocean were added. Certainly the result was much of what George Washington had hoped for. (endnote 3)

Britain Wins the First Strategic Moves

Britain aligned her available forces in the Western Hemisphere by pulling General Clinton back from Philadelphia to New York so she could send 5000 of Clinton’s troops to take the initiative in the West Indies. Of course, George Washington gained maneuver room; but it also gave the West Indies commanders the forces needed to capture the port of St Lucia on 30 Dec 1778. With this naval base thirty miles from the French base at Fort Royal, Britain could monitor French naval activities in the West Indies. For the British, this became the most important naval outpost in the West Indies for the remainder of the war. The British also strengthened their hold in Central America.

In protecting its homeland, Britain relied on its navy; and the first engagement was at Ushant, just off the coast of France. The British forces met the French forces and fought an inconclusive engagement on 27 Jul 1778, though each side claimed victory. What it actually did was to make the British realize the French Royal Navy had been rebuilt and retrained well enough to meet the British head on. It caused the French to pause in their thinking they could conquer Britain with sea and land forces in a cross-channel attack. They realized after Ushant that the British navy was standing by and concentrated to fight any invading force every step of the way. The British had met their first challenge to the homeland, and they kept the initiative afterwards. The French ambition to invade Britain did not die immediately, but each time the French put out feelers, the British navy was waiting. The concentration of British sea power near the British Isles did allow greater access by other ships to the southern route to the West Indies, then northward to the United States.

The French were committed to aid America and sent an Expeditionary fleet under Admiral Count d’Estaing on 12 April 1778 to that end. This fleet arrived at the Delaware River too late to stop General Clinton on his way back to New York. Then it went on to New York, but it would not enter the harbor to attack. It did engage the British at sea near Newport, but bad weather hampered operations.

D’Estaing went on to Boston to refit and repair, having achieved neither American nor French objectives. Then he moved on to the West Indies where France had real interests. General Bouillé had already captured Dominique in 1778. This cut the British islands in two but this was balanced by the British capture of St Lucia. D’Estaing failed in his attempt to recapture it. He captured St Vincent and Grenada and fought several successful naval engagements, preventing the British from
either recapturing these islands or accomplishing their other aims. From there he decided to intervene again in the American colonies at Savannah, Georgia, which the British had captured and fortified. He led a land and sea force to Savannah, joined with American forces, and laid siege to it in Sep 1779. British regulars and Loyalist units made a brilliant defense and soundly defeated both Americans and French in Oct 1779. Admiral d’Estaing sent the West Indies troops back to their bases and took his own fleet to France.

Britain gained strategically and lost economically in these first West Indies battles, but St. Lucie was of greater strategic value than the islands she lost. She also gained in the U. S. by holding Savannah and fortifying New York, but lost when she abandoned Narraganset Bay, Rhode Island, which soon provided an excellent naval base and safe haven for Rochambeau’s Expeditionary Force.

Welcome Help from Spain and India Sultan
France as a member of the Bourbon Alliance with Spain encouraged that country to enter the war. In the 12 Apr 1779 secret Convention of Aranjuez, the conditions for Spain’s entry were established. As summarized by historian Jonathan R. Dull in his book, The French Navy and American Independence, page 142, this Convention activated the articles of the Bourbon Family Compact relating to mutual assistance in case of war. It contained an article relating to mutual assistance for the invasion of Britain in accordance with the operational plans then held in France. Spain promised not to make a separate peace, (probably recognizing France’s obligation to the American colonies not to make peace unless American independence was secured, though the American colonies/United States were not mentioned in the Convention). Then Dull continues, page 143, "The critical section of the convention related to the war aims of the Bourbons. Spain and France promised not to end the war until the former had obtained the restitution of Gibraltar and the latter the abrogation of the restrictions placed in 1763 upon fortifying Dunkirk. Floridablanca (the Spanish negotiator) tried unsuccessfully to insert the capture of Minorca and the Atlantic coast of Florida into the category of absolute preconditions for peace. Each power then announced its other war goals. France announced her intention to acquire the expulsion of the British from Newfoundland, freedom of commerce and the right to fortify her trading posts in India, the recovery of Senegal, the retention of Dominica, and the rectification of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), governing commercial relations with Britain. Spain announced her intention to obtain the reacquisition of East and West Florida, the expulsions of the English from their illegal settlements on the Bay of Honduras, the revocation of English timber rights on the coast of Campeche, and the restitution of Minorca." (endnote 4.)

When the naval and army needs for each objective of the Convention are considered, it is clear that it was a Europe-centered approach to the war. There was of course no mention of any French Expeditionary Force to the United States. The plans to invade England were a central feature and had been drawn up by French officials Sartine and Montbarey, and had been ready since 19 March, with 20,000 troops to occupy the Isle of Wight and subsequently to land at Gosport from which the Portsmouth naval arsenal and hopefully the British fleet could be destroyed by mortar fire. Vergennes hoped the transports and supply ships could be collected by the end of May. Spain was to pay for the invasion. The Irish nationalists were extremely interested in invading Britain, and both Spain and France had Irish Regiments which would have been enthusiastic participants. 

Both France and Spain wanted a quick and decisive stroke, BUT: Dull notes, page 134. "Since to attack England would require 70,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, Vergennes (the leading French minister) suggested instead to attack Ireland with 27,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, half to be provided by each country. Vergennes expected the Irish, particularly the Irish Presbyterians with their passion of democracy, to rise against the English…." When the Spanish made clear they would not provide troops, but only limited naval support, Vergennes began to consider alternative invasion plans. This went on all through the summer of 1779. One plan after another was studied and put on hold. The British spy network in France and Spain reported on the planning and put the British people on alert. Alfred T. Mahan, in his Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence, page 117, stated: "The alarm in England was very great, especially in the south. On the 9th of July a royal proclamation had commanded all horses and cattle to be driven from the coasts, in case of invasion. Booms had been placed across the entrance to Plymouth harbor, and orders were sent from the Admiralty to sink vessels across the harbor’s mouth. Many who had the means withdrew into the interior, which increased the panic…"

The situation was finally resolved in August, 1779, when the Spanish fleet joined six weeks late, and both fleets suffered from an epidemic. (The name of this disease and the number of casualties it caused have not been found, and it apparently did not affect the British fleet. In the U. S. political climate of late 2002, it would surely be credited to biological warfare.) The combined but sickness- weakened French and Spanish fleet of 65 warships could not even find, let alone destroy, the English fleet of 35 warships protecting the British Isles, such destruction being the prerequisite for invasion. The troops waiting to attack had to go on to other missions. Though Britain did not know it at the time, it gained its first priority objective of protecting the homeland from invasion in August, 1779. The French minister, Vergennes, gradually moved the focus of the war to the Western Hemisphere, though the terms of the Aranjuez Convention were not changed.

Other hostilities by Spain began immediately at sea, in West Florida, and in Central America. Greatest successes were achieved by Governor Bernardo de Gálvez of Louisiana, who captured Baton Rouge in 1779, then Mobile in 1780, then focused on Pensacola in 1781. In 1780, Spain sent an army of 10,000 men to the West Indies to support its activities there. Her main effort, however, was in her adjacent waters where she blockaded Gibraltar and laid siege to it, and moved to recover all the Balearic islands she had lost after the Seven Years War.

When the news of war with France reached India in 1778, the British authorities there moved against the French installations with the intent of eliminating the French presence in India. They captured Pondicherry in the Bay of Bengal in 1778. A fleet arrived to help in 1779. British capture of the French port of Mahé on the Western shore of India alarmed the Sultan of Mysore, and he declared war on the British in July 1780. This diverted the British efforts for some time until the Sultan could be neutralized. By 1781, both France and Britain had fleets in the Indian Ocean protecting their individual interests, as explained below.

The Netherlands Takes a Beating

Under the guise of free trade, the Netherlands had been involved from the beginning in clandestine support of the Americans. Her island port of St Eustatius in the West Indies was the world’s busiest port in 1778 and 1779, handling the majority of supplies and arms bound for the United States. Britain was determined to shut it down. When the British ministries learned on 16 Dec 1780 that the United Provinces of the Netherlands had resolved to join, without delay, the Armed Neutrality Pact with Russia, Sweden, Prussia, and Italy, Britain sent orders for Admiral Rodney to seize the Dutch West Indies and South American possessions, and similar orders were sent to the East Indies.

The Ambassador at the Hague was recalled. On 20 Dec 1780, Britain declared war on the Netherlands. Admiral Rodney captured St Eustatius on 3 Feb 1781, and captured or neutralized all other Dutch outlets in the West Indies and in Surinam. (He actually captured 130 merchantmen in the port, including one Dutch frigate. He also captured a Dutch warship with a convoy of Dutch ships which had just left. He left the Dutch flag flying for more than a month after the surrender, and captured 50 more American ships loaded with tobacco. A convoy from Guadeloupe was brought in. Records vary, but most totals come to more than 200 sail. This gave him several thousand prisoners, with which he filled all the available space in Barbados and Jamaica. Likely, he converted some of the merchantmen into prison ships. For many months later, almost every armed ship going to New York, Halifax, and the British Isles had its contingent of prisoners.) In August, 1781 the Dutch fleet was defeated at Dogger Bank in the English Channel, and the Netherlands was unable to protect her overseas possessions either in the Dutch East Indies on in the West Indies. The Netherlands became the heaviest loser of the war in terms of net loss per citizen. As the American naval historian, Mahan, noted: "…The principal effect, therefore, of the Armed Neutrality, upon the war was to add the colonies and commerce of Holland to the prey of English cruisers."

King Carlos’ Personal Representative Expedites War in the Western Hemisphere

Don Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis was personal representative of King Carlos III in the West Indies (endnote 5). His journal, only recently translated (1989), notes that on the way to Havana in late 1780, his ship was captured by the British, who accepted his claim to be a Spanish merchant and took him to Jamaica. They put him on parole, giving him an opportunity to get around in the country where he quietly studied its defenses. In early 1781, he was finally able to get put aboard a ship to Cuba and immediately began to carry out his mission. His mandate was to speak as the King and do the following in priority:
(1) capture Pensacola;
(2) remit rapidly to Spain all funds possible;
(3) to assist the president of Guatemala to expel the English from Nicaragua;
(4) and in conjunction with the French, conquer Jamaica.
He galvanized Spanish authorities to reinforce General Matías Gálvez in Central America and General Bernardo Gálvez at Pensacola. He personally went to Pensacola, where he took part in the final part of the Siege and in the negotiations. This completed the first mission given him by King Carlos III. Whether oversight or Spanish lack of concern for the interests of the United States, Gálvez and Saavedra released the captured British when they agreed never again to fight the forces of Spain. These British soldiers were immediately sent to bolster the defenses of New York City, where they stayed until 1784.

It was a few weeks later when Saavedra showed up in St Domingue to develop further plans for an invasion of Jamaica. Within a week after his arrival on 12 Jul, he had met with all the key government and military officials and had analyzed the defenses of Cap Français. Admiral de Grasse arrived from a successful venture on 16 Jul and by the time he had docked, Saavedra had analyzed the armament and sheathing of every ship in his fleet. He and de Grasse met officially on 18 Jul and showed each other their official orders: Saavedra’s authorization from Madrid to deal with de Grasse and other French officials; and De Grasse’s authorization to deal with Saavedra and Spanish officials. They analyzed the opportunities and settled on three: "These were to aid the Anglo- Americans powerfully, in such a way that the English cabinet would in the end lose the hope of subduing them; to take possession of various points in the Windward Islands, where the English fleets lying in protected forts were threatening French and Spanish possessions; and to conquer Jamaica, the center of the wealth and power of Great Britain in that part of the world." (page 200, Saavedra Diary.) For simplicity in this essay, they are referred to as Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III.

What next happened is best put in Saavedra’s words (pages 200, 201), "Then Comte de Grasse made known to me the project already agreed upon, that of taking possession of Chesapeake Bay in North Carolina (actually in Virginia) and penetrating inland by way of the deep rivers that empty
into it, in order to cut off the retreat and prevent the reinforcement of the army of Lord Cornwallis, who was in that area. At the same time General Washington, Comte de Rochambeau, and the Marquis de Lafayette, who had already agreed to the plan, would encircle him on all sides with their respective troops and totally destroy him or oblige him to surrender." This was the ideal activity to accomplish the first part of their agreed plan. When de Grasse let Saavedra know of the Chesapeake Bay Campaign, he, with de Grasse’s help, developed their plan in French and English, made six copies, signed them, and dispatched them to their respective governments in Madrid and Paris. When these papers were accepted in Madrid and Paris, they became known as the "de Grasse – Saavedra Convention." They governed the subsequent French-Spanish relations and conduct of war in the Western Hemisphere. They were, in effect, the operational plans for Vergennes’ moves to shift the war to that hemisphere, modifying the focus of the Convention of Aranjuez. These papers explain the urgency for getting funds for de Grasse to take to Rochambeau. But there was one hitch: de Grasse could not raise the money (endnote 6).

Havana Citizens Help Finance Attack on North American Mainland

De Grasse had received a 6 June 1781 letter from General Rochambeau that Rochambeau’s funds on hand were insufficient to maintain his army after 20 August, that there was no money available in America, and that it would be advantageous to the Royal service for de Grasse to borrow in the islands 1,200,000 livres in gold by means of bills of exchange drawn on M. de Serilly, Treasurer- General of the Army. As de Grasse and his wife had rich sugar plantations in Haiti, de Grasse first tried to use these plantations as collateral in order to raise the money, but was only able to gain 50,000 livres that way. At no point in his diary did Saavedre ever mention any mortgage on de Grasse properties in St Domingue, but others indicate that was the case for these 50,000 livres. De Grasse then tried to get money from Governor Lillancourt of St Domingue, but that treasury was empty. On 25 July, seeing de Grasse was having no success, Saavedra gave him 100,000 pesos, from funds assigned to the Santo Domingo Treasury but in temporary safe-keeping at Cap Français. Saavedra also believed there was money in the Havana Treasury which he could authorize, so on 26 Jul de Grasse wrote Rochambeau that he would bring the money in specie as requested. Saavedra departed for Havana on 4 August and arrived there on 15 Aug; but to his surprise, there was no money in the Treasury.

So on 16 Aug 1781, Saavedra turned to the people of Havana, who in six hours sent to the Treasury 500,000 pesos in specie. By 18 Aug 1781 Saavedra was able to get these funds to Mananzas and into the French fleet, and de Grasse set off to the Chesapeake Bay. The specific amounts mentioned by Saavedra were the three amounts noted above, a total of 600,000 pesos and 50,000 livres. (The money was disembarked at its destination and placed in the cabin of Commissar Blanchard, Financial Officer for Rochambeau, where during the first night its weight broke the floor and the specie fell into the basement.) The Battle of Yorktown in Sep/Oct 1781 clinched American Independence and effectively ended the land war in the United States, and it blocked the British third priority of regaining the thirteen colonies, though neither of these were obvious at the time.

The de Grasse – Saavedra Convention also explain why de Grasse was so impatient after Yorktown to return to the West Indies. Phase II was waiting for him, and de Grasse must have considered it was his personal obligation to do what he had committed the French government to do. In the following months, de Grasse in the West Indies did indeed accomplish enough of Phase II, recovering islands which had been lost to Britain and taking British islands, to go on into Phase III, the invasion of Jamaica. While concentrating troops for that operation in 1782, he met his fate at Les Saintes. 

Allied Gains Always Mixed with Losses
Despite the Dutch losses, the year of 1781 must have been the high point for those fighting Britain, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. Early in the year, General Bernardo Gálvez, with French help, had captured Pensacola. In September and October, the Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown Campaign was successfully completed. After the Chesapeake and Yorktown battles, Admiral de Grasse left the Chesapeake Bay for the West Indies and began to recover islands taken by the British. French General Bouillé recaptured the former Dutch island of St Eustatius by a night raid on the port fort from the land side; he also recaptured other islands the British had taken. Duc de Crillon, a French general leading French and Spanish troops, in July landed 14,000 troops on Minorca in the Mediterranean Sea and doomed Port Mahon, which finally fell 5 Feb 1782, giving Spain one of its objectives. The French Captain (later Admiral) Suffren defeated a British fleet at Porto Praya in the Cape Verde Islands, then reinforced the Dutch in the Cape in South Africa, then moved on into the Indian Ocean.

The Siege of Gibraltar was making slow progress, and the British were seriously overextended. The Spanish, however, lost a naval encounter with Admiral Rodney off the coast of Spain, with the Spanish admiral being captured. This was one of only a few fleet confrontations the Spanish had with the British, and this one seemed to make the whole Spanish navy overly cautious. (With respect to the Spanish navy, the author of this essay notes that its year by year experience, for generations, had been, first and foremost, to guard or serve as the treasure ships which moved the riches of Spanish America and the Philippines across the Atlantic to Spain. This was an absolutely essential duty, for the treasure ships were the economic lifelines of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish admirals could and indeed did fight on other assignments, but they did best what they were experienced in doing, guarding or being the treasure ships.)

By 1782, operations to invade Jamaica were well underway in the West Indies. Large British and French fleets were poised to support or repel the invasion. While Admiral de Grasse was concentrating troops for the Jamaica invasion, he was forced into a climactic battle at Les Saintes
and was thoroughly defeated on 9 and 12 April. He lost five of his thirty warships in the battle and two more later in the pursuit. His fleet was scattered, but gradually rallied by Admiral Rigaud de
Vaudreuil who took command. On 13 April Admiral Vaudreuil had 10 ships. On 14 April and in following days he was joined by five more. When he got to Cap Français, he found five more, bringing his total to 20. The five remaining ships had fled to Curacao, 600 miles away, and were able to rejoin the fleet later in May.

According to French sources, de Grasse’s fleet suffered 791 killed, 1119 wounded, 415 disappeared. These figures seem absolutely accurate for the categories listed because all the ships engaged had killed and wounded, not just those captured. The category left out is the largest one, the able-bodied mariners and soldiers from the seven captured ships who were taken to prisons in Kingston, Jamaica, and other places. How many were there? We actually have the names of 4200 mariners assigned to the seven vessels captured, the Ville-de-France, Glorieux, Caton, Hecto, César, Ardent, & Jason. All these records are for the time of Les Saintes except the César, which is for the end of 1779. When the soldiers permanently assigned to the ships are added in, the French combatants killed, died of wounds, captured, and disappeared in the Les Saintes actions must be a greater number than the 3100 figure given by American authors (endnote 9). (De Grasse was himself captured on his warship and taken to England where many people came to visit him. His behavior was so well received that he was asked to contribute to peace negotiations.)

Les Saintes stopped the invasion of Jamaica in 1782, and established a naval standoff in the West Indies and no further great naval battles took place, even though the combined French and Spanish warships were greater than the British. The fleets watched each other and maneuvered hither and yon. The British and French gained in caution. (The Spanish fleet was already cautious.) The British did take the initiative in small, privateering and profiteering operations, with the example of Rodney’s fortunes from St Eustatius before them. They quickly reestablished themselves on the Central American coast, recaptured the Bahamas on 7 May 1783 so Nassau could be reestablished as a privateering base, and wreaked havoc on Allied privateers and shipping. (World War II veterans remember the German U-boats, and the privateers were the U-boats of the Revolutionary War.)

Americans were best privateers because they had little else. The British also got very good at it toward the end of the war, with naval vessels joining in when an opportunity arose. The Spanish had black and mixed descendants of buccaneers whose normal occupation was smuggling and piracy. Also flying the Spanish flag were familiar names such as Jean Lafitte and Captain Jorge Farragut (grandfather of Capt David Farragut of Civil War fame.)

At Gibraltar, the siege slowed down into a stalemate. Each time the garrison and people were reduced to eating grass to stay alive, a British fleet would break through the blockade with supplies. However, the great effort against Gibraltar on 13/14 Sep 1781 was a fiasco with all ten floating batteries sunk or disabled. In Oct 1782, British Admiral Howe, by skillful maneuvering, was able to get through the stronger Spanish and French blockade and replenish the garrison, reducing any Spanish or French hope of starving the garrison and people. Shortly afterwards, preliminary peace negotiations began, with an agreement on 30 Nov, 1782 with the United States, and in January,
1783 with France and Spain. Peace with the Dutch was not signed until 1784.

Meanwhile, the British Admiral Hughes took a fleet into the Indian Ocean where it fought with Admiral Suffren five times, on 17 Feb, 12 Apr, 6 Jul, 3 Sep 1782, and 20 June 1783. Though neither side could claim a decisive naval victory, Admiral Suffren was able to frustrate British plans and protect French land victories. The British had earlier captured the French port of Mahé on the West Coast of India, then in the Bay of Bengal the French trading post at Pondicherry (1778), then
Cuddalore (1782), the Dutch port of Trincomalee on Ceylon (1782), the latter three recaptured by the French. A British historian Piers Mackesy in his book, The War for America, stated: "The British Army’s situation was serious…"; with French forces on land holding the advantage, far more so than the peace negotiators knew (endnote 8). A small French force under La Pérouse also got into Hudson’s Bay, Canada, and captured several frontier forts. But the tide had turned. There were no more serious discussions of a French invasion of England. However, concentration of forces to invade Jamaica were well advanced; and Saavedra went to Paris and Madrid to seek support for Jamaica operations. The fact that he had been there and studied the fortifications paid off.

After Les Saintes, the Spanish and French leaders in the West Indies had taken stock of their combined army and naval fleet strength and again began to concentrate their forces for the invasion of Jamaica, the third part of the de Grasse – Saavedra Convention. Saavedra was able to arrange for 9 million pesos to be furnished from Mexico to support the invasion, 18 times the amount which
guaranteed the Yorktown success. The Expeditionary Force to America, so successful at Yorktown under Rochambeau, was moved in Dec 1782 from Boston to Puerto Cabello in Venezuela to take part in the invasion. General Bernardo de Gálvez was to be the Spanish commander and leader, with a total of 20,000 troops, mostly waiting in St Domingue. General Marquis de Viomesnil, of the
Expeditionary Force was to be French commander and second in command of the French forces of about 8,000 troops. Saavedra was able to encourage the reinforcements gathered at Cadiz in Spain under Comte d’Estaing of a combined land force of 12,000 men plus an escort sea force of 24 ships of the line by early 1783. D’Estaing was to take along the Governor-designate of Jamaica, Marquis de Lafayette. But it was too late. Britain had gained its second priority, its most productive sugar islands, in the peace negotiations.

Exhaustion Breeds Peace

Peace negotiations went on while concentration of battle forces for the Jamaica operation continued, as well as a hot naval and land war in and near India, and a privateering and profiteering war in Western Hemisphere. Being outnumbered in capital ships, Britain was faced with the possible loss of Jamaica and all her sugar islands. She was barely hanging on at Gibraltar and India was all but gone, though the peace negotiators did not know that. In the United States, she only held New York and Charleston. She had lost Minorca in the Mediterranean and Tobago and other islands in the West Indies. Britain was forced to negotiate, but she, like Saddam Hussein in 2002, was very good at that. In these negotiations, she accepted the independence of the United States. She gave up advantages gained in 1763 at the end of the Seven Years War. She retained the Dutch port of Nagapotam but gave up Trincomalae in the East Indies.

France had made good on her promises and had assured the independence of the United States, but at great cost. In 1987, the estimated cost of France’s participation was set at 1500 million livres. Translated into 2002 currency it comes out as 4. 5 billion dollars, huge by any standard, for which Americans should be forever grateful. (Endnote 7) France and Spain had been initially unable and later unwilling to invade England; further, the war had put the French Royal finance on the road to bankruptcy. France was ready to negotiate, and in these negotiations gained nearly all her Aranjuez objectives. She gave up all her sugar island conquests except Tobago and regained St Lucie.
Spain’s losses were less than those of France as she was in the conflict a shorter time and furnished less financial aid to America. She had failed in her main aim to retake Gibraltar. She even offered to exchange Puerto Rico for Gibraltar, but the planter monopolists of Jamaica and the sugar islands objected because they feared what the competition would be if Puerto Rico were in British
hands. Spain was having financial difficulty and was ready to negotiate. In these negotiations, she kept West Florida and Minorca and gained East Florida, and blocked the British in Central America.
The peace treaty was finally signed 3 Sep 1783, with all participants in the war financially depleted and emotionally exhausted.

And the Winner is ….?,

In the global conflict which the American Revolution became, with Britain conducting five wars at once, in as many different theatres of operation, it is clear that Britain lost the immediate war; but, as a prudent loser must, she took careful stock of her situation. From these postwar analyses, she gradually evolved a recovery plan through the following years and decades which placed her
ahead as a world power. Although the combined French and Spanish battle fleets outnumbered the British battle fleet at the end of the American Revolution, they could never combine operations well enough to overcome the British. Britain gained naval superiority over other nations by default, but she retained that superiority until World War II. What she did not win in war, she negotiated into the Peace Treaty and gained relative advantages in commerce which allowed her to recover before France and Spain. She was able to observe, with minimal participation, when the winners, France and Spain, went into self-destruct in the next two decades. She was also careful to be never again caught fighting an allied coalition that could assemble superior naval strength. Of her five priority objectives, she lost the third priority one, her 15 colonies, 13 to America and 2 to Spain. She kept Canada and Ireland and laid the foundation for the British Empire. What she lost in her fifteen colonies, she began, slowly and carefully, to replace in India, Africa, Australia, Pacific Ocean, and elsewhere. Many historians indicate Britain flat out lost the war, and that her subsequent development had nothing to do with war, coming later at other times and for other reasons. But this author concludes that the foundation of her empire was in her careful analysis of events of the eight years which preceded 3 Sep 1783. 

Without this war to shake her up and get her refocused, the world would have developed much differently. Because she supported the great ocean explorer, Capt James Cook (1728-1779), Britain also came out of the conflict knowing more about the Pacific Ocean than any other power. Capt Cook and his scientific explorations really opened the Pacific world, which had partly been known to the Spanish but kept secret by them. He experimented with sauerkraut and citrus and confirmed that scurvy (the ancient scourge of sailors) could be prevented. British sailors became known as
"limeys" but were the most "fit to fight" sailors in the world. He confirmed there was no usable "Northwest Passage." Cook’s sightings on the British Columbia coast and brief stop on Vancouver Island supported a British claim of discovery which almost led to war with Spain later, but was avoided with an agreement of joint rights. Eventually Britain successfully expanded the claim to all of Western Canada. Spain never took advantage of Cook’s discoveries, but France did make a start with the great voyage of La Pérouse after the war. (This voyage was the high point of the 1780 decade for the isolated Spanish communities he visited on the Pacific rim. His descriptions of Los Californianos are the best available discussions on early California life and customs. His ships were the first non-Spanish vessels the Californians had ever seen.)

In 1779 Joseph Banks proposed in Parliament a solution to handling the British criminals and riffraff formerly sent to the American Colonies. He had seen Australia when he was with Capt Cook, and knew the Southeastern Coast could be colonized. He also thought it would be a suitable place to resettle American Tories, but that did not happen. However, Australia was soon colonized with
soldiers and convicts as a British possession.

How the World Has Changed Since Then!

Older SAR members can recall our post-World War I grade school texts. When we read our first America history text, we gloried in the accounts of Bunker Hill, Stony Point, Saratoga and Yorktown. Then we picked up our geography text for the next class and marveled at the world map with all that pink representing the British Empire.

No teacher pointed out that these were two aspects of the same story of how the United States became a great nation and Britain became a world empire. No teacher suggested that the climactic battles which determined these outcomes were not fought by the United States but by our allies and co-belligerents. The genius of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and other founding fathers was not on American battlefields but rather in involving Britain’s traditional enemies to join in fighting her.

It was also the genius of the Founding Fathers to set up a representative democracy which gradually became the model for the rest of the world, sweeping away all that British pink on the world globe as well as the multicolored holdings of other European empires. Those ideas and ideals of the Founding Fathers continue today on every continent.
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Endnotes

1. Before preparing the essay above, My daughter N. C. Hough and I wrote eight books, each of which is complete with references. The general title is "Spain’s {Borderland area} Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England – During the American Revolution" (Society of Hispanic History & Ancestral Research Press, Midway City, CA 92655). For full title replace {Borderland area} with the name below and note the publication date: California, Part 1, 1998; California, Part 2, 1999; Arizona, 1999; New Mexico, 1999; Texas, 2000; Louisiana, 2000; West Indies (2001), this book includes Spanish, French; Dutch, and American Patriots); and Northern New Spain – From South of the U. S. Border, 2001.
As we cannot travel, we exhausted the lending libraries of the National Genealogical Society and the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, then settled for one reference per week of interlibrary loans for items not in the lending libraries. We went through everything indexed for the Orange County (CA) Public Library System, The Library for the University of California, Irvine, and the Saddleback College Library (Mission Viejo, CA). We used the resources of the Family History Center, Salt Lake, UT, through its Mission Viejo facility to find the service records for Spanish soldiers who served during the war period and later. Through the internet we studied summaries of several thousand files in the Documentary Relations of the Southwest, University of Arizona, Tucson. We studied the holdings of the History Institute of the Army War College to see if we missed anything. We purchased books not otherwise available. We know we have learned a bit about the individual soldiers and sailors who fought against Britain, where they served, and why they went there. We also know that American historians and histories are ignorant or mute on three significant aspects of the war: (1) that Spain as well as France, both together and separately, provided financial aid and war materials to America beginning in 1776 and continuing throughout the war; (2) that the military and naval actions of Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown and subsequently in the Western Hemisphere were the first phase of the "de Grasse-Saavedra Convention," and (3) that the primary source of funding for Spain, and indirectly to France and America, were the "treasure ships" from Spanish America, the product of work by the peoples from the West Indies through the Philippines and in South America. Without these treasure ships, and the work of those Hispanic peoples providing the treasures, there would have been no funding, no support, probably no
successful Revolution.

2. Aid to America by Spain and France is a subject which should be carefully re-analyzed by American historians. What this author has learned about this aid is that Spain and France each furnished aid separately, and they agreed to share the costs of some aid 50/50. France furnished more aid; however, Spain furnished substantial aid at critical times. Not as characteristic of Spanish
aid but found in French aid is that merchants and other private individuals made large contributions with no apparent involvement of the French government. Finally, it can be argued that French aid was less self-serving than that of Spain. What has been overlooked even by those who know about Spanish aid is that much of it came from Spanish America, not European Spain, and even that which
came from Spain was financed by Spanish America through periodic treasure ships. The aid which flowed through New Orleans up the Mississippi/Ohio River system and enabled the U. S. post-war boundary to shift from the crest of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River came from Mexico with no French support.

Each Spanish area had its special products, and we can consider Mexico as an example? Above and in footnote 5 below, the activities of the personal representative of King Carlos III, Saavedra, are described; and his second priority was simple: SEND MONEY. In November, Saavedra went to Mexico to carry out this priority and inspect the facilities there. On 19 Nov 1781, he met with the Viceroy and got his agreement to send as much money as possible to Havana.

On 22 Nov, he examined the mint and the functions of all its divisions, where 20 to 23 million pesos were minted each year. On 23 Nov he examined the House for the Smelting of Gold and Silver. On 24 Nov, he examined the gunpowder factories of Santa Fe (under construction) and Chapultepec (in operation). On 6 Dec 1781, he visited a region of copper mining, where the interest was in making artillery pieces and preparing copper sheathing for armed vessels. On 13 Dec 1781, he was back in Veracruz where he observed the counting and packing of 1 million pesos for the waiting French frigate Courageuse, which carried food supplies for two months of navigation. Saavedra did not state it was to support Rochambeau’s forces or where it was headed, but it was clearly needed by the French government to support operations somewhere. On 15 Dec, he observed the packing of 2 million pesos for the San Francisco de Asís, which he was to accompany and deliver to Havana. While in Mexico, he arranged for one regiment to be sent immediately to join General Bernardo Gálvez for the invasion of Jamaica. While Saavedra did not visit a foundry in Mexico where artillery pieces were made, other sources indicate one was in operation. Saavedra’s itinerary allowed him to check only a few of the resources from Mexico flowing into the war.

Later, American frigates from time to time went to Havana and picked up money to be delivered to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The activities of the Spanish representative to the Continental Congress, Juan de Mirales, may be useful in determining how much support Spain gave, both before Spain declared war and afterwards. The total amounts are not known. In the 1790’s a Spanish official who had worked with clandestine aid was designated to prepare a total so the United States could pay. He went to Mexico City but died there before he could complete his accounting. No one else took up the task. Spanish officials became engrossed in their European peninsular affairs, and the United States paid what had been previously documented. The remainder has not been paid to this day.

3. The Encyclopaedia Britannica in any edition is good for general discussions of the Revolutionary War as seen by the British, and perhaps by others in Europe. Most articles are substantially accurate in most editions, though historians prefer more exact works. We used the 1955 edition which is at least representative of the point we are making in the quote. We find few historians who disagree with the quote. We ourselves never read the sections below until we looked to see if they supported our initial draft of the above essay. They did, so we used some of their language rather than our own. What we do find are objections to wording of the recommended reading sections "American Revolution, The (1775-1781)" (Vol 1:795-801), "Great Britain" and "Defense:Army" Vol 10:679 and 688, and "United States of America," Vol 22:786-787. Perhaps these objections to the wording are the best recommendations for reading them.

4. Dull, Jonathan R., The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774-1787, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1975. Some historians have endeavored to show that a French invasion of England was a Spanish pre-condition to entering the war which was set at the Convention of Aranjuez. Dull makes clear this was not the case. The planning in France was already complete at that time. Spain merely signed on at Aranjuez to support it. Dull devotes two chapters to this subject. In the preliminary discussions leading up to the Convention of Aranjuez, Floridablanca (the Spanish minister) encouraged a Europe-focused approach to the war, with an invasion of England a central part. This would draw English forces away from the over-extended Spanish empire. France got very serious about invading England, and completed planning to do so. After the Convention of Aranjuez was agreed to, the costs of such an invasion began to emerge. Further, in the summer of 1779, Spain made clear it would provide no troops and only limited naval support. Then in August, 1779, when the combined French and Spanish naval forces were so unsuccessful, Vergennes abandoned the English invasion and began to move the focus of the war to the Western Hemisphere, while concentrating in Europe on capturing convoys, which would effectively place economic pressure on England. Another interesting point about the early French-Spanish negotiations was that Floridablanca in 1777 would not even begin serious discussions on entering the war until the "treasure ships" were safely in Spanish ports. While Dull seems to indicate this was a matter of recovering the battleships on treasure ship duty, this author considers it was equally the necessity for getting the funds in hand for running the Spanish government and supporting any war effort.

5. "Journal of Don Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis during the commission which he held in his charge from 25 June 1780 until the 20th of the same month of 1783," edited by Francisco Morales Padron, and translated by Ailean Moore Topping (University of Florida Press, Gainesville, VL, 1989. For those not fortunate enough to have read this journal, it may be useful to review who he was and what he did. Saavedra was a Spanish noble who was well educated, fluent in Spanish and French, with a working knowledge of English, who had served in the Spanish Army but had joined the diplomatic corps. He was the King’s personal representative in the West Indies, elegant and soft-spoken, but who carried a big stick. When the ship on which he was traveling was captured by
the British, he played the part of an innocent Spanish merchant. He was taken to Jamaica but was put on parole when he expressed a desire to look for commercial opportunities and to improve his English. What he actually did was analyze the British defenses, as he was an expert in that field. While on such a trip, he accidentally ran across two Spanish officers from Central America, also on parole from a prison ship, from whom he got a thorough understanding of the British attacks in Central America, and of the problems faced by General Gálvez (General Matias Gálvez, the father of General Bernardo Gálvez, sometimes referred to as the "other General Gálvez"). Saavedra actually then knew more about the Central American situation than was known in Havana. He knew more about Jamaican fortifications and defenses than any other Spaniard. He could plan the invasion of Jamaica.

6. The funds for Yorktown are discussed in Saavedra’s diary, pages 204-212. The translator and editor, Francisco Morales Padron, added an explanatory footnote on page 208 in which he explained the sequence of events as taken from Henri Doniol, Vol 4:649, Histoire de la participation de la France a l’etablissement des Etats-Unis d’Amerique (Paris, 1884-92); and pp 24-67, Eduardo J. Tejera, La Ayuda Cubana en la Lucha por la Indepencencia Norteamericana (Miami:Ediciones Universal, 1972). The funding arrangements are also discussed in Loliannette, Spanish diplomatic policy and contribution to the United States independence (Umi, 1990).

One question which one might well ask is why the people of St Domingue, a richer colony than Cuba, would not lend the money. This also puzzled Saavedra, who stated on page 208: "It was said that this reluctance of the French to serve their king in so urgent a juncture originated in the fact that, having on another occasion lent money against bills of exchange drawn on the Royal Treasury, the people lost confidence when the redemtion of the bills was delayed for a much longer period than was stipulated in them, and so they refused to give their money even for a premium of 25 percent."

Many legends have grown up about the funds which de Grasse brought from St Domingue and Havana to Comte Rochambeau’s forces. The man who arranged the funds, Saavedra, recorded the facts simply and clearly. As he made no mention of any mortgage on de Grasse properties in his diary, it is not clear how or where such mortgage applied. It most likely applied to the 50,000 livres raised in St Domingue. Certainly it did not apply to the 100,000 pesos of Santo Domingo funds which Saavedra turned over to De Grasse. Certainly it did not apply to the Spanish government funds Saavedra expected to find in Havana. When Saavedra found no money in the Havana treasury, an announcement was immediately promulgated among the Havana citizens in which it was proclaimed that anyone who wished to contribute toward aiding the French fleet with money should send it
immediately to the treasury. Two French officers were sent to collect the funds (and Saavedra does not indicate whether they merely went to the treasury or whether they conveyed the money from the citizens to the Treasury). In six hours the French officers had 500,000 pesos. It is very questionable that the citizens who provided money knew of any mortgage. The citizens of Havana had already loaned money to the Spanish government in Madrid, and a loan to the French government in Paris, an ally of Spain, would have been treated no differently. To Saavedra, representing the Spanish King, any mortgage on de Grasse private properties was not of enough consequence to record.
Probably the source of this legend is best found on in these words: "Grasse profited from his stay in the Antilles to obtain from the Governor 3400 men as reinforcements for Rochambeau. He could also conclude, through the good will of the Spanish governor of Havana, a loan of 1,200,000 livres for which he gave as security his private fortune." (p 13, Du Ministiere des Affairs Etrangeres, Les Combattants Francaise de la Guerre Americaine, 1778-1783, Washington Imprierie Nationale, 1905. This reference was the result of work by French and American representatives of the Sons of the American Revolution to record the names of French Patriots. They of course did not consult Spanish records, and it was 84 years before the record made by Saavedra, the man who arranged the funding, was made available in English.

The other more romantic legend is that the ladies of Havana took their jewels and sold or hocked them and gave money to support the Battle of Yorktown. This is indeed pure fantasy. The best one can gather from what Saavedra recorded is that the people had previously loaned money to the Spanish crown, and this was a similar act, though he does not specify so. Second, the destination of the French Fleet was a secret. Neither de Grasse nor Saavedra knew that Cornwallis
was going to arrive or had arrived at an insignificant little river town called York. All the public knew from the proclamation and request for contributions was that the fleet was moving north to attack the British on mainland America.

Of course, Saavedra and key Spanish officials knew the Chesapeake Bay destination, but they would not have disclosed it. While the two French officers collecting the money on 16 August may also have known the Chesapeake Bay destination, it is also unlikely they would have disclosed it. Their mission was to receive the money, whether from the Treasury or from whomever had it, and get it to Matanzas, where a frigate was waiting to take it to the fleet. Thirdly, no females show in the record of those who provided the money. If there were a shortfall in the promised 1,200,000 livres or if there were a subsequent collection of funds for Americans in which Havana ladies could have contributed their jewels, Saavedra did not mention it.

8. When the Spanish officials in Madrid learned that Admiral Hughes’ fleet was headed into the Indian Ocean, they concluded his target might be Manila, in a repeat of the British capture of Manila during the Seven Years War, some thirty years earlier. Immediately, packet boats were dispatched with messages to be taken to the Spanish Pacific ports and forts and from Acapulco on to Manila with a warning of possible attack by a British fleet in the Pacific. The small Spanish San Blas (Mexico) Navy was still recovering from its unsuccessful search for Captain Cook. Of course, the Spanish had no inkling of how well Admiral Hughes would be occupied around India by Admiral Suffren. Perhaps a rumor was deliberately set to mislead the Spanish. If so, it worked. Each night, the California Presidios on the coast had to take their horses each evening several kilometers inland to prevent their capture by coastal invading British. It is interesting to compare this to the British actions in July 1779 when they thought the French were invading.

9. Joachim Merlant, a French poet and Army captain, published a summary of French participation and costs/losses as: La France et la guerre de l’independence americaine (1776-1783) (Paris, F. Alcan, 1918), which was translated into English as: Soldiers and Sailors of France in the American War for Independence (1776-1783, (1920). Merlant obviously took his figures from someone else; but, for the years indicated, he shows French losses to be 45,289 men and vast war materials as follows: at sea, 63 fighting ships, 3668 cannon, 32,609 officers and mariners (unseparated total); on land, 697 officers and 11,830 soldiers,…; and uncounted merchantmen and smaller ships and supplies lost to privateers and mishaps. These figures can be challenged, but they seem quite reasonable considering the total numbers of persons involved through the two years of preparation and clandestine support and five hot war years, plus the areas where they were fighting. Dull shows 70 fighting ships (frigate and larger) removed from the registry during this period. How Merlant got 63 of this 70 is not clear. He may have included losses to fighting ships smaller than a frigate. In deaths, he should have included those who died in service for whatever reason. For example, those who say the invasion of Britain would have been successful had not an epidemic swept through the French and Spanish fleet in August 1779 should know how many died in that plague. 

For those sent to the West Indies, there was a period from arrival of a soldier or sailor until he had become immune to tropical diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever, and others. In this period of "seasoning," or arrival sickness, death losses might be quite high, twenty percent or more. After this period, the troops would be called "seasoned." After battle service and battle losses, they would be called "seasoned and battle-hardened."

The figures for losses as a result of the Les Saintes actions can be checked for reasonableness by using the 1905 work of the French and American SAR members, who listed the names of the mariners assigned to the ships. Les Combattants Français de la Guerre Américaine, quoted above, is an early and current reference used to check French soldier/sailor descendant eligibility for joining the SAR. Just count the names for each ship and eliminate those who died before 9 April 1782. Then assume some reasonable number of effectives on board such as 75%, and you have 3150 mariners present for duty and on board. Then add in the rmy contingents normally assigned to each ship, say 100 men at 75% present, and you have 575 more. 3725 French combatants, whose fate was to be killed or captured. You don’t have to argue whether the pre-invasion army troops were on the battleships or on the transports. Of those captured, many were sent to England as prisoners on the captured French warships. That fleet was caught in a huge hurricane and some historians estimate 3500 persons drowned when the ships foundered. This 3500, if accurate, included the prisoners, the British guards for the prisoners, and the British sailors manning the vessels. Les Saintes was a huge disaster for the French, just as Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown was a huge disaster for the British. Even though the King of France brought de Grasse out of disgrace in 1788, the French people did not. (Historians do not like the statement that the consequences of Les Saintes were more dead French combatants than Americans lost in non-combatants on 9/11 2001 in New York City).

As author, I wish to acknowledge very useful comments from fellow members of the Sons of the American Revolution, Jacques de Trentinian and Albert D. McJoynt, who certainly do not agree with all my conclusions or even with many facts I believe are well documented.

Prejudice and Ignorance among American Historians
by Granville Hough, Ph.D. gwhough@earthlink.net


Robert Thonhoff in the May issue of “Somos Primos” gave us insights into the prejudices of current commentators and editorial writers about Spanish participation in the Revolutionary War.  When you hear these commentators or read their work, you ask yourself how they could be so ignorant.  The answer is that they are merely repeating what they learned in school or what they learned from writers of American history.  I want to illustrate the historian ignorance with one example.

James Breck Perkins was a Francophile who wrote in the 1900 era, and he had great influence on subsequent historians who studied European aid to the American Revolutionists.  In his concluding statements in his 1910 final book, France in the American Revolution,  Perkins says: “I have endeavored to give some account of the aid furnished by France to our ancestors in the war for national existence. … At all events, the new nation owed a heavy debt of gratitude to France for assistance in the hour of need….”   (Endnote 1):

Perkins was also quite clear about his understanding of Spanish participation.  He shows this in a response to the French historian Henri Doniol’s statement that the early and unexpected preliminary peace agreement between the United States and Britain upset negotiations by which Spain was to regain Gibraltar in exchange for West Indies sugar islands or other valuable property.  He stated :  “If Jay and Adams (negotiators of the peace agreement) saved Guadeloupe and Dominica for
France, they did her a friendly turn, and certainly there was no reason that the Americans should have sacrificed anything to assist Spain. Spain had no claims on the United States, she had wished ill to the cause of American independence and had done nothing to further it; her policy had been selfish and she could not ask for generosity; there was no reason the the people of the United States should sacrifice one cod on the Newfoundland Banks or one acre of land in the Western to obtain
Gibraltar for Spain….”  (Endnote 2)

So here you have an early and influential historian’s view on the participation of France and Spain in the American Revolutionary War, and he is still quoted as an authority.  Perkins certainly did not know that much of the aid he listed from France was actually paid for 50/50 by Spain; he apparently never heard of the April and June 1777 loans made through Arthur Lee; or of Juan de Miralles, close friend and supporter of George Washington; or of Francisco de Saavedra, who negotiated the DeGrasse-Saavedra accord for French/Spanish conduct of the war against Britain in the Western Hemisphere; and of Saavedra’s role in providing the major Spanish funding for the Chesapeake Bay Expedition, which we know as Yorktown; or of Diego de Gardequi’s support of American merchants and privateers in moving critical supplies to America; or of the secret 50/50 French/Spanish aid provided through Beaumarchais and the Dutch; or of the direct and indirect support of Spanish minister of war José de Gálvez and his nephew Governor of Louisiana, General Bernardo de Gálvez; or of the role of the Mexican mint and powder
factories in the aid picture.  (Endnote 3)

Endnotes:  1.  P 522, Perkins, James Breck, France in the American Revolution, Boston, Houghton-Mifflin Comp., 1911, republished 1970 in New York by Burt Franklin: Research & Source Works Series #504, American Classics in History and Social Sciences, #133, and separately republished in 1970 at Williamstown, MA by Corner House Publications.

2. op cit, p 518.

3.  Fernandez, Enrique, “Spain’s Contribution to the Independence of the United States,” Revista/Review Interamericana, Vol X, #3, (Fall, 1980), pp 290-304, discusses the aid through Arthur Lee and through Governor Gálvez, among others.  Revista/Review Interamericana was published by

Spanish Heroes of the American Revolution
 Viceroy of New Spain, Don Martin de Mayorga
by Granville Hough, Ph.D.
gwhough@earthlink.net
Somos Primos July 2003

SPANISH HEROES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: 
FRANCISCO SAAVEDRA DE SANGRONIS

by Granville Hough, Ph.D

American historians who have encountered the name Francisco Saavedra have been puzzled and perplexed by it.  In his 1969 dissertation on New Spain, Melvin Bruce Glascock stated in a footnote: “The exact identity of Francisco Saavedra and his mission to New Spain remain a mystery…
(Endnote 1.)  “…Bancroft describes him as a mysterious stranger who had no specific duties but who had access to the highest official circles… (Endnote 2.)  Bustamente has written that Saavedra was an agent of the Minister of the Indies (José de Gálvez) sent to criticize the unfortunate Viceroy (Mayorga)…” (Endnote 3.) 

Jonathan Dull partly understood the importance of Saavedra but completely misunderstood his role and activities, inadvertently crediting Bernardo de Gálvez with activities and events which were not within Bernardo’s authority. (Endnote 4.)  Caughey, most quoted biographer of Bernardo de Gálvez, does not index Saavedra at all.

To remain ignorant about Saavedra’s role in the Western Hemisphere is to misunderstand how Yorktown came about, and how that Yorktown victory was secured by two more years of relentless pressure on British forces and holdings in the West Indies, holding of which at the time was Britain’s highest priority.  (Britain’s first objective had been accomplished when she secured her homeland in the failed invasion of Britain in the summer of 1779, so her sugar lands and timber sources moved up to first priority.)  Britain’s third objective of re-conquering her former colonies came to a halt at Yorktown; but it was merely set aside until her West Indies and other priority objectives could be managed.  Recall that Charleston, New York,  Penobscot Bay, and Detroit were staging bases held in readiness for future campaigns.

Few Americans have ever heard of the de Grass/Saavedra Convention which governed Franco-Spanish operations in the Western Hemisphere from July 1781 until the end of the war.  Yet this Convention set up the Chesapeake Bay Expedition for de Grasse which resulted in Yorktown.
Most Americans would know that General Rochambeau himself returned to France, but few have ever learned that his entire Expeditionary Force, so successful at Yorktown, went to a Venezuela staging area for the forthcoming invasion of British Jamaica.  Naval buffs all remember the battle at Les Saintes, where British Admiral Rodney captured French Admiral de Grasse, but few would recall that de Grasse saved the troops he was moving into position for the Jamaica invasion.  Few Americans would know that this invasion was first planned in Spain in 1778, a year before Spain declared war, and that Saavedra worked on the plan.  Few Americans would know that ships and men were waiting in Spanish and French ports as reinforcements for this invasion, and that Marquis de Lafayette was designated as Governor-to-be of Jamaica. The British were placed in a position having a noose being tightened, notch by notch, on their West Indies/Central American holdings.  So they negotiated for peace on the best terms they could get.  In studying this planned invasion of Jamaica, as it evolved month by month, one of the most frequent names encountered is that of Saavedra.

So, who was Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis?  Born in 1746 to an upper class family in Seville, he was educated in Granada, by seventeen years of age a licenciada and doctor.  He was interested in the military, and both he and Bernardo de Gálvez served in the campaign against the Moors
in Algiers.  Bernardo in 1776 offered to introduce Saavedra to his uncle, José de Gálvez, who had just taken over the new Ministry of the Indies.  Saavedra became well acquainted with the Gálvez family and resigned his commission in order to join the Ministry of the Indies. First he did financial planning, though he did get involved in military strategies as well.  By May 1778, he had taken part in a plan to invade Jamaica, which alerted Spanish officials in America to the real probability of war.  In June 1780, while Saavedra was still working on financial aspects of the war, the news came that General Bernardo de Gálvez had captured Mobile.  Pensacola was the next Spanish goal. 

At this time Minister José de Gálvez and King Carlos III had become aware that bureaucratic wrangling in Havana was interfering with the war effort.  King Carlos III needed a man in the West Indies who knew the plans and views of the King and Spanish court, who could attend military juntas and bring leaders into agreement,  who could confer with officials of allied nations, remit funds from one place to another, and go freely wherever the King’s word and prestige were needed.  In other words, King Carlos needed someone to knock heads together and get instant compliance.  Saavedra agreed to take the role, King Carlos III authorized the appointment, and Saavedra was on his way to America by first available transportation. 

Saavedra very carefully kept a journal, unfortunately not published in English until 1988, Journal of Don Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis during the Commission that he held in his charge from 25 June 1780 until June 1783.  (Endnote 5.).  So, in this journal and in the confidential letters to Havana and other officials, it is clear that Saavedra was speaking for the King, who expected punctual and effective compliance to Saavedra’s requests.  In his oral instructions, Saavedra was told to get Pensacola into Spanish control and eliminate Britain from the Gulf of Mexico; send all available money to Spain; get Britain out of Central America; unite French and Spanish units into a joint effort to invade Jamaica and eliminate Britain from the West Indies, or any other joint operation which circumstances might dictate.  (There was no mention of North America, unless it was implied in the last phrase.)

After several delays in his journey, Saavedra’s vessel, the frigate Diana, was captured after a spirited fight by the British warship, Pallas, and the prisoners were taken into Jamaica.  Saavedra,
understanding financial matters, passed himself off as a wealthy merchant seeking trade opportunities.  Under this guise, he made many friends and was able to travel around Jamaica and analyze its forts and harbors.  These analyses gave him the intimate knowledge on how an
invasion could be accomplished.  He also met other Spanish officers, prisoners from the British invasion of Central America, from whom he learned the situation of Governor-General Matías de Gálvez of Guatamala.  Eventually, he was able to get a French cartel ship to take him to Cuba in Jan 1781, six months after he started on his mission.

He first met with his old friend Bernardo de Gálvez, who gave him the current situation, then with the Governor and Army and Navy Commanders. A junta was called for 1 February, and he negotiated and maneuvered tirelessly through February in gaining support for the Pensacola operation and for General Matías de Gálvez in Central America.  As soon as these forces were on their way in March, he worked somewhat on the long-range plans for invading Jamaica, but mainly on providing
reinforcements for Pensacola.  Realizing that Pensacola was the priority objective, he pushed for combined French and Spanish reinforcements and embarked with them on 9 April 1781.  He was able to take part in the final assaults on the forts at Pensacola and on preparing the surrender terms
for 9 May 1781.  On 16 May he returned to Havana to send to Spain news of the British surrender.  When he arrived, he found dispatches which showed results of his earlier reports.  The Governor, the Army Commander, and the Navy Commander had all been replaced with people with whom he could work more effectively.  General Bernardo de Gálvez had been promoted to Lt General and became the new Army Commander.  Saavedra sent this news on to Bernardo, who was still at Pensacola.  From the Minister of the West Indies, José de Gálvez, Saavedra received on 18 June instructions that he was to go to Cap François where he could confer with French Admiral Comte de Grasse on the next operation.   He arrived at Cap François on 13 July, paid his respects to the government officials, and awaited Admiral de Grasse who was out with his fleet. Saavedra went to a high hill on 15 July where he could observe the return of the French fleet.  Before the French fleet vessels could drop anchor, Saavedra had recorded each of its 31 vessel’s armament, apparent condition, and whether or not it had copper sheathing.

On 18 July 1781, Saavedra and de Grasse met, exchanged credentials, and analyzed all the possible operations they could undertake over the following year.  The French had an obligation to help the American colonists which de Grasse wanted to meet, so the two agreed on three enterprises: first, strike a blow to aid the Anglo-Americans so strongly that the British cabinet would give up subduing them; second, to retake the Windward sugar islands the British had occupied; and third, to conquer Jamaica.  For the first enterprise, the American General Washington had proposed two plans to the French, one for retaking New York, and two, capturing General Cornwallis, who had overrun the Southern Colonies and was then moving toward the sea in Virginia. Admiral de Grasse had a plan to take possession of Chesapeake Bay and bottleneck and destroy General Cornwallis nearby on land, either in Virginia or North Carolina.  Saavedra agreed with this plan, further stating that Spanish army and naval forces would protect French possessions while the French fleet and army were on the Chesapeake Bay Expedition.  (Spain could not participate with naval and army units as she had not yet recognized the United States.)  Admiral de Grasse and
Saavedra drew up the plans for the next year in six copies, and signed them as the de Grasse-Saavedra Convention and sent them to their respective governments where they were ratified.  It was this agreement which governed Franco-Spanish operations in the Western Hemisphere for the remainder of the war.  Admiral de Grasse prepared to take to the Chesapeake his entire fleet and all available militia units from the French islands.

Then Admiral de Grasse encountered an insurmountable problem.  He did not have enough money for the operation and could not raise enough on the French islands.  Rochambeau had written that he only had funds to sustain his army through mid-August, and he needed funds to move his
army from Rhode Island to the Chesapeake.  Washington also needed money for the American forces.  Admiral de Grasse asked Saavedra if he could help.  Saavedra immediately provided 100,000 pesos from Santo Domingo, which was available in Cap François, and promised more which had been in Havana when he was last there.  Admiral de Grasse set sail through the
Bahamas so that he could send a frigate to Matanzas, Cuba, to pick up  the money Saavedra would provide.  When Saavedra arrived in Havana on 15 Aug 1781 to pick up the money in the Spanish treasury, it had already been dispatched to Spain.  In desperation, Saavedra turned to the citizens and soldiers of Havana, who in six hours, provided 500,000 pesos in specie, which was carried to Matanzas on 16 Aug 1781 to the waiting frigate, and which joined the French fleet in the Bahama
Channel. Later that same day, General Bernardo de Gálvez arrived in Havana from New Orleans, where he had gone after Pensacola as a result of the Natchez uprising.  He was delighted to learn what had taken place at Cap François and for the blueprint of future actions.  (Endnote 4.)

When Admiral de Grasse dropped anchor in Chesapeake Bay, he learned that Cornwallis and his forces were at Yorktown and at Gloucester; and, to Americans, the Chesapeake Expedition became known simply as Yorktown.  Admiral de Grasse had to fight one naval battle to secure the
area, but the expedition went through as planned, although British historians excuse it as a failure in British naval strategy.  After Yorktown, Admiral de Grasse became impatient to return to the West
Indies for two good reasons.  First, Saavedra, even with support from General Bernardo de Gálvez, had been unable to get the Spanish navy to provide the covering forces for the French islands.  Second, de Grasse wanted to move on to the next phase of the agreed operations against British occupied islands.

Saavedra was busy with specific plans for invading Jamaica during late 1781 and early 1782, and General Bernardo de Gálvez moved to Guarico (near Cap François) and concentrated Spanish forces there.  Saavedra also visited Mexico to determine what gunpowder, specie, and other
resources could be made available for the Jamaica invasion.  Admiral de Grasse was successful in the retaking of British –occupied islands in the second phase of operations.  However, when Admiral de Grasse began moving land forces to staging areas for the third phase, the invasion of
Jamaica, he was met by British Admiral Rodney at Les Saintes in April 1782 and was captured, along with seven of his warships.  However, he had saved the troopships he had in convoy.  To the British, it saved their possessions in the West Indies for the moment.  For the rest of the war, they were aggressively on the defensive in the West Indies. They had no troops nor ships for North American adventures.  The Spanish and French slowly regrouped, and Saavedra worked on with Jamaica invasion plans.  The French in Dec 1782 moved Rochambeau’s Espeditionary Force from Boston and Rhode Island to a staging area in Venezuela where it awaited invasion orders.  General Bernardo de Gálvez held together 10,000 French and Spanish forces at Guarica, waiting for French and Spanish transportation.  Saavedra went to France and Spain to expedite plans for reinforcements, which were collected at Cadiz, Spain under Count de Estaing, who wanted to redeem his reputation in the Western Hemisphere.  The reinforcements included 12,000 French troops and 24 Spanish ships of the line, and other Spanish troops and French ships.

At this point, the failure at Gibraltar in Oct 1782 had taken away the Spanish enthusiasm for the war, the French had gained some objectives, the Americans were virtually independent, the British were being defeated in India, so all were ready to negotiate.  The invasion of Jamaica never took place, but Saavedra’s work was not in vain, as far as Americans were concerned.  He and Bernardo de Gálvez kept the British focused on the West Indies, away from North America for the better part of two years.  It made Yorktown the last land battle of the Revolutionary War, and the decisive one, as far as Americans were concerned.  It is fair to remember that Yorktown, as we know it, was agreed to as a campaign  by Saavedra and de Grasse, then financially supported through efforts of Saavedra. It would not have happened without them, and its importance was
amplified afterwards by the constant pressure on British forces posed by the buildup to invade Jamaica.

Saavedra’s commission ended in Jun 1783, and he became Intendant/Governor of  Caracas.  When he returned to Spain in 1788, he was placed on the Supreme War Council.  In 1797, he became Minister of Finance, and in 1798, Minister of State.  He retired to Andulusia from this position for reasons of health.  When France invaded in 1810, he came out of retirement and helped in several positions.  He introduced several free schools in Triana and took part in development enterprises
in Spain.  When he died 25 Nov 1819, he was buried at La Magdalena.

Endnote 1.  Glascock, Melvin Bruce, page 248, footnote 34, New Spain and the War for America, 1779-1783, Louisiana State University, PhD dissertation, 1969, University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI, 1980.

Endnote 2.  Glascock, ibid, quoting Bancroft, Hubert H., The History of Mexico, 6 vols, San Francisco, A. L. Bancroft Comp., 1883-1888, Vol 3, pp 381-381.

Endnote 3.  Glascock, ibid, quoting Bustamente, in Cavo, Andrés, Los tres siglos de Mexico durante el gobierno español hasta la entrada de ejercito trigarante con notas por el Licienciado Carlos María de Bustamente, 4 vols, Mexico, Imprenta de Luis Abadiano y Váldes, 1836-1838, Vol 3, p 42.

Endnote 4.  Dull, Jonathan R., The French Navy and American Independence, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1975, pp 249-253.  Dull clearly understood that Saavedra and Bernardo de Gálvez were jointly responsible for the West Indies Spanish successes, but he
misidentified Saavedra as an aid to Bernardo, and he mistakenly gave to Bernardo the authority which Saavedra held as the King’s representative.  Bernardo knew nothing about the negotiations between Saavedra and de Grasse, or of the funding arrangements, until Saavedra informed him.

Endnote 5.  Saavedra de Sangronis, Francisco, loc cit., Journal of Don Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis during the commission that he had in his charge from 25 June 1780 until June 1784, Gainesville, University of Florida Press.  Saavedra was a trained and urbane diplomat who was well
trained to move to high places in sensitive roles.  He took no orders from anyone except the King he represented, but those orders generally came through Minister José de Gálvez.  He listened carefully and quietly, and took suggestions from those he found to be knowledgeable. However, he put up with little nonsense and officials who did not cooperate and do their best soon found themselves out of power.  The word got around.

These words from the eminent American historian Charles F. Lummis should enlighten most readers on this historical injustice perpetrated on Spain. This is what he had to say over 100 years ago:

"It is because I believe that every other young American loves fair play and admires heroism as much as I do, that this book has been written. That we have not given justice to the Spanish pioneers is simply because we have been misled. They made a record unparalleled; but our text-books have not recognized that fact, though they no longer dare dispute it. Now, thanks to the New School of American History, we are coming to the truth, - a truth which every manly American will be glad to know. In this country of free and brave men, race-prejudice, the most ignorant of all human ignorances, must die out. We must respect manhood more than nationality, and admire it for it own sake where found, - and it found everywhere. The deeds that hold the world up are not of any one blood. We may be born anywhere, - that is a mere accident; but to the heroes we may grow by means which are not accidents nor provincialisms, but the birth right and glory of humanity.

We love manhood; and the Spanish pioneering of the Americas was the largest and longest and most marvelous fact of manhood in all history. It was not possible for a Saxon boy to learn that truth in my boyhood; it is enormously difficult, if possible, now. The hopelessness of trying to get from any or all English text-books a just picture of the Spanish hero in the New World made me resolve that no other young American lover of heroism and justice shall need to grope so long in the dark as I had to . . ."

Villamel Publishing Company  
7311 Blvd. East
North Bergen, NJ, 07047
201-888-6750

                                                                                    John P. Bridge, Katy, Texas
                                                                                    November 8, 1997,  Houston Chronicle

Inclusiveness of Patriotic Organizations
by 
Granville W. Hough
           
Research in the “Spanish Patriot” series of publications by Granville W. and N. C. Hough is intended to support the patriotic inclusiveness of two organizations, the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution (SAR), and the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution
(DAR). If other organizations can and do benefit, the authors will be pleased.

The National Society, Sons of the American Revolution, has its national headquarters, offices, and library at 1000 South Fourth St, Louisville, KY 40203-3292; Ph: (502) 589-1776; Fax (502) 589-1671; email:nssar@sar.org ; Web site: http://www.sar.org  . There are about 490 local chapters, plus state organizations, and organizations in several foreign countries. There are over 25,000 active members. The National Society publishes The SAR Magazine quarterly for its members.

The National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, has its national headquarters, offices, and library at 1776 D Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006-5303; Ph: (202) 628-1776; Web sites: http://www.dar.org  and http://members.dar.org . There are a few thousand chapters, and there have been 804,361 members, of whom over 200,000 are still active. The National Society publishes The National Spirit quarterly for its members, and in 2001 began a new bi-monthly publication, Daughters of the American Revolution Newsletter.

When the SAR was founded by men, their wives asked to join, pointing out that they too descended from patriots of the Revolutionary War. The men were taken aback, but stood their ground and said in effect: “Oh no, men did the fighting; this is for Sons, not Daughters.” BIG MISTAKE. The wives said in reply: “All right, we will form our own organization,” which they did with the result that today it is TEN times larger than that of the men. Each organization has been fiercely independent as to eligibility rules for membership, so the following applies mainly to the NSSAR. National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution first included the French

In 1899, the NSSAR elected to become an inclusive organization, but the War Department had no record of the French soldiers and sailors who took part. In Oct 1899, the NSSAR leadership appointed a Commission to research the French archives to prepare a list of those who served. To make the research manageable, the list was to include persons of known units who served in the thirteen colonies or in their adjacent waters. The Commission worked for many months and the work was first published in French by the Ministère des Affairs Étrangères, with title: Les Combattants, Française de la Guerre Amércaine, 1778-1783. This work, with parallel English translations of major parts, was republished by the United States Congress, 58th Session, Senate Document No. 77, printed at Washington, Impremerie Nationale (Government Printing Office), 1905. 

Since that time, it has been a basic document for NSSAR use with applicants of French soldier or sailor descendants. However, one must note what the Chairman of the Commission placed in the Introduction, first, with respect to its completeness and second, with respect to its inclusiveness.
“But before placing the work of the commission under the eyes of readers, it is not without utility to remark how incomplete is the list. In the first place, all the documents which should figure here were not found; our lists, those of the fleets, contain nearly all the sailors who had effectually taken part in that campaign, but those of the infantry comprise only about one-half of those who actually fought
in the United States; the documents about the troops garrisoned on each ship notably have not been established in an absolute manner and are not included in this work, and each ship of d’Estaing’s fleet as that of de Grasse, had on board 100 to 150 infantry men; also the documents concerning the legion Lauzun, companies of artillery and engineers, and the company of the regiment Grenoble, have not been found.

These researches deal only with the direct and official participation of France in the American War. On the one side the rolls of the French ministerial departments from which the lists have been taken exclusively, and which will be found in this volume, give no indication of volunteer inscriptions, nevertheless numerous, which preceded governmental interference; on the other hand, it is not only the French fleets which have figured in American waters, nor only the French armies which fought on American soil, which have contributed to the enfranchisement of America, but all the French fleets and armies which struggled against England at the same time. The exploits of Suffren, for example, in the Indian Ocean, contributed, perhaps, as much as those of which the Chesapeake was the theater, to achieve the final result. Also, at the same time that d’Estaing had set sail for America, the French fleet sustained on the coast of Europe against English fleets splendid combats, of which the duel of the Belle Poule and the Arethuse and the combat at Ouessant remain famous episodes, and which, in weakening Great Britain, gave great aid to the colonies in their efforts for liberty.

In our desire to include in this publication only troops which have fought either in the waters or on the soil of America, we have excluded the fleet of Count de Guichen, who fought in the fAntilles and was there in constant contact with the fleets whose operations were being carried on on the other side of the Atlantic. The names of all the French soldiers and sailors engaged in that war would have been given here if we had not been obliged to circumscribe the limits.”

Only in the current time period has research begun to complete listings of French soldiers and sailors, lead by the NSSAR chapters in France. There has been a 100 year delay, for which there is no good explanation. The Hough publications are the only ones which specifically include those who fought only in the West Indies or in other theatres.

NSSAR next included the Spanish from Louisiana

At the time the NSSAR began to include descendants of French soldiers and sailors, there was no thought of including Spanish. After all, the United States in 1899 was in the middle of a war with Spain, an unfortunate conflict called the Spanish-American War. Secondly, World War I intervened and efforts of the NSSAR were more on survival than on expansion. It was the next generation which picked up on inclusiveness concepts, and this generation focused on Spanish soldiers and sailors who specifically served in or from Louisiana.

Compatriot C. Robert Churchill of the Louisiana SAR Society headed the effort, and he was able over a period of several years from 1920 through 1925 to gain acceptance of the service of the soldiers and sailors serving under the Spanish flag from Louisiana. He prepared lists of the Louisiana French and the Spanish participants who served in the various campaigns of Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola under Spanish Governor Bernardo de Gálvez. The lists he prepared are still in use by the NSSAR. As his focus was on Louisiana, he did not try to list all the other Spanish, French, and West Indies patriots who served under Governor Gálvez at Mobile, Pensacola, and later. There was an important difference, to some, between accepting French applicants and Spanish
applicants. France had signed an Alliance with the United States and fought as an ally. Spain was an ally to France under the Bourbon Alliance, but she never signed a direct alliance with the United
States. Thus Spain was an indirect ally, but more realistically a co-belligerent in our war against England. So Churchill established the precedent for accepting descendents of soldiers or sailors of
co-belligerents in our war against England. However, the work started by Churchill soon came to a halt while the country and the NSSAR coped with the Great Depression and World War II.

Spanish Service in other Border States. 

About sixty-five years after Churchill’s work, several scholars became interested in Spanish contributions from areas other than Louisiana. Robert Thonhoff made significant contributions on Texas soldiers who fought Indians and vaqueros who drove cattle and horses to Louisiana to support the efforts of Governor Gálvez. Thomas E. Chávez and José Esquibel documented the contributions of the citizens and soldiers of New Mexico. In the early 1990’s, the NSSAR accepted its first member who descended from a Spanish soldier in Texas. This was done without fanfare, and this acceptance was not generally noted by the NSSAR membership. 

In 1996, the Houghs began research on their Patriot series, developing the rationale for
accepting descendants of Spanish soldiers and sailors who served in California and other border areas during the period Spain was at war with England, 21 June 1779 until 3 Sep 1783. The NSSAR responded favorably and in March 1998 accepted its first descendants of soldiers who served in California. In August 1999, it accepted its first descendant of a soldier who served in New Mexico. It has accepted three descendants of the Spanish King, Carlos III. These recent acceptances are a belated pickup on the work of Churchill in Louisiana after a 75 year delay. King Carlos III was the man who gave the orders. It seems logical that the NSSAR should also accept as Patriots those who carried out his orders, and this has now been done for the soldiers of Louisiana, Texas, California, and New Mexico. The extension of membership to descendants of Spanish soldiers or sailors who served in other areas has not been tested.

OTHER NATIONALITIES
Swedish. 
The present King of Sweden has been invited to become a member, based on his descent from King Gustavus III, who approved of young Swedish naval officers serving with the French and the Dutch. Probably some descendants of the Swedish officers who served with the French have joined the NSSAR, but not those who served with the Dutch.

Dutch. 
Apparently no concerted effort has been made to include the Dutch, among the earliest and most consistent of supporters of the American colonies. They already had a form of democratic government which became one of the models considered by Americans. They were bankers for the Spanish and the French governments. Their supply and support center for the American Colonies at Saint Eustatius in the West Indies was for a short time the busiest port in the world. It was so
important that it was a deciding factor in England declaring war on the Netherlands, just to close it down. The Dutch became co-belligerents against the British, and they signed treaties with the United States. They were perhaps the heaviest loser of the war.

Sultanate of Mysore. 
The Sultan of Mysore, Hyber Ali, declared war on England, and his forces fought the British for some time in India. One could say this had nothing to do with the United States, but this is not so. Americans so admired his action that one or more privateers of the
West Indies were named Hyber Ali.

Global War. 
What Americans forget is that the American Revolution became a global war, and that the 13 colonies were on the sidelines after France entered the war. The British priorities changed with protection of the British Isles coming first, protection of their precious sugar islands and timber resources of the West Indies coming second, and the American Colonies coming third. Immediately after France entered the war, the British withdrew from Philadelphia back to New York, then sent 4500 to 5000 of its New York troops to the West Indies. This gave General Washington breathing room. Soon the British were fighting Americans, French, Spanish, Dutch, and even the Sultan of
Mysore.

NSSAR Policies on Acceptance. 
In 1899, the NSSAR began accepting descendants of soldiers of an ally, France. By 1925, it was accepting descendants of a co-belligerent, Spain. In 2001, it was accepting descendants of a Swedish king from the Neutral Alliance. The listing of who is acceptable and who is not is unclear to anyone researching the field. Precedents have already been set of long standing. What wording for acceptance would both be inclusive and serve the long-term goals of
the NSSAR? It is easy to say what the policy will eventually be, considering how it has evolved since 1899, and the words may be adopted next year, in the next decade, by 2050, or by 2100:

THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (NSSAR)
SHALL ACCEPT DESCENDANTS OF ANY SOLDIER, SAILOR, OR CONTRIBUTOR WHO SERVED WITH UNFAILING FIDELITY UNDER ANY ALLY (FRANCE) OR CO-BELLIGERENT (SPAIN, THE NETHERLANDS, OR SULTANATE OF MYSORE) IN ITS WAR AGAINST BRITAIN DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. THE NSSAR WILL ALSO ACCEPT DESCENDANTS OF ANY OTHER PERSON FROM ANY COUNTRY WHO MADE SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTIONS WITH UNFAILING FIDELITY TOWARD THE AMERICAN CAUSE BETWEEN 19 APRIL 1775 AND 3 SEPTEMBER 1783.

So, there we have it, the history of how the NSSAR became an inclusive organization, and of where it will eventually go in that inclusiveness.   

      

Robert S. Weddle, The Handbook of Texas (Texas State Historical Assoc.,Austin, TX, 1995).
Robert S. Weddle, San Juan Bautista: Gateway to Spanish Texas (Univ. of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1968).
Robert S. Weddle & Robert Thonhoff, Drama & Conflict: The Texas Saga of 1776 (Madrona Press, Austin, Texas, 1976).
Light Townsend Cummins, Spanish Observers and the American Revolution, 1775-1783 (LSU Press, Baton Rouge).
Carlos Fernandez-Shaw, The Hispanic Presence in North America From 1492 to Today (Facts on File, New York, 1991).
Robert H. Thonhoff, The Vital Contribution of Spain in the Winning of the American Revolution: An Essay on a Forgotten Chapter in the History of the American Revolution (privately published, Karnes City, TX, 2002).
Jose Rodulfo Boeta, Bernardo de Galvez (Publicaciones Espanolas, Madrid, 1977).
Texas and the American Revolution (Institute of Texas Cultures, San Antonio, TX, 1975).
John Walton Caughey, Bernardo de Galvez in Louisiana, 1776-1783 (Pelican Press, Gretna, LA, 1972 reprint).
Robert H. Thonhoff, The Texas Connection with the American Revolution (Eakin Press, Austin, TX 1981).
Robert H. Thonhoff, El Fuerte del Cibolo: Sentinel of the Bexar-La Bahia Ranches (Eakin Press, Austin, TX 1992).

Granville W. Hough and N.C. Hough, Spain's Texas Patriot's in its 1779-1783 War with England during the American Revolution (SHHAR, Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, Midway City, CA, Part 5, 2000).
Granville W. Hough and N.C. Hough, Spain's Arizona Patriot's in its 1779-1783 War with England during the American Revolution (SHHAR, Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, Midway City, CA, Part 3, 2000).
Granville W. Hough and N.C. Hough, Spain's Louisiana Patriot's in its 1779-1783 War with England during the American Revolution (SHHAR, Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, Midway City, CA, Part 6, 2000).
Granville W. Hough and N.C. Hough, Spain's New Mexico Patriot's in its 1779-1783 War with England during the American Revolution (SHHAR, Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, Midway City, CA, Part 4, 2000).
Granville W. Hough and N.C. Hough, Spain's California Patriot's in its 1779-1783 War with England during the American Revolution (SHHAR, Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, Midway City, CA, Part 1 & 2, 2000).
Granville W. Hough and N.C. Hough, Spain's Patriot's of Northwestern New Spain from South of the U.S. Border in its 1779-1783 War with England during the American Revolution (SHHAR, Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, Midway City, CA, Part 8, 2000).
San Antonio: The First Civil Settlement in Texas (Canary Islands Descendants Association, San Antonio, TX, 1981).
Robert A Black and Terry P. Wilson, The American Indian Quarterly, (The Native American Studies Program, U. of CA., Berkeley.
Elizabeth A. H. John, Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795 (Texas A & M Univ. Press, College Station, TX, 1975).
Thomas E. Chavez, Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift (Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM, 2002).

Respectfully submitted,
Edward F. Butler
Vice President General
SAR International District

Also forwarded by Clarence Lucas Clucas@bart.gov

Why Patriotic Organizations 
Accept Descendants of Spanish/Mexican Soldiers 
Who Served in the Southwestern Spanish Borderlands 
During the American Revolution.

JUSTIFICATION
by Granville Hough, Ph.D.

1. What is the basis for acceptance?
Spain declared war on England 21 June 1779 and continued operations against England until peace was declared 3 Sep 1783. Spanish King Cárlos III ordered his people to fight English forces wherever they were found. ("Royal Proclamation of His Majesty (Carlos III) in which He
Manifests the Just Motives for His Royal Resolution of 21st of June of this Year (1779) Authorizing his American Vassals to Seek Amends by Way of Reprisals and Hostilities, on Land and Sea, Against the Subjects of the King of Great Britain," The SAR Magazine, Sons of the American Revolution, Vol XCI, #2 (Fall 1996):16-17.) This call was heard very clearly in North America, where the Spanish Borderlands of Louisiana and the Provincias Internas of New Spain faced English forces or claims along the Mississippi River, in the Gulf coastal areas, and along the northern borders of Texas through California. The normal procedure was for every Presidio to gather its troops in parade formation to hear read such Royal Orders as this declaration of war.

2. What period of time and what activities are involved?
The period of time from 21 June 1779 until 3 Sep 1783 is considered to be very definitive, that being the period any English force was to be attacked, as instructed in the King's Order. Actually, some activities began earlier, and most frontier areas did not learn of the end of the
war until early 1784.

PROVINCIAS INTERNAS. Activities common to all Provincias Internas of New Spain and Louisiana were service in the Spanish Army, service in the militia, service as Indian auxiliaries, making voluntary contributions to defray expenses of the War, and leading public prayers as mission priests. As the priests did not leave descendants, our interest is in locating and marking their graves as patriots. Voluntary contributions were certainly made, and amounts are known for CA, Sonora, NM, and Nueva Espana as a whole, but no general lists of contributors have been found to date. Until such lists are found, there is no easy way to define the patriots who contributed. This leaves those who served in the various forces as soldiers, militia, or Indian auxiliaries as the ancestral patriots for joining the Sons of the American Revolution.

CALIFORNIA. Activities relating to California are covered, pp 26-27, Granville W. and N. C. Hough, Spain's California Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England - During the American Revolution, Part 1, 1998, SHHAR Press, P. O. Box 490, Midway City, CA 92655-0490. 

ARIZONA. Activities relating to Arizona (and Sonora) are covered, pp 20-23 , Spain"s Arizona Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England -During the American Revolution, 1999, SHHAR Press, P. O. Box 490, Midway City, CA 92655-0490

NEW MEXICO. Activities relating to New Mexico include the 1779 Expedition into Colorado against the Comanches; subduing the Moquis (Hopis) in 1780; leading in establishing a trade route to Sonora in 1780-81; establishing workable relationships with the Navajos and Utes;
campaigns against the Apaches; and making peace with the Comanches so that a trade route could be established to Texas and Louisiana. Citizens of New Mexico were asked to contribute to the war effort and did so, with $3677.00 collected. Lists of contributors have not been
identified. New Mexico was the most remote province from any English installations, but it was the center of the frontier. Its Governor Juan Bautista de Anza was perhaps the foremost strategic thinker of the Northwestern Frontier, and he was personally involved in California, Arizona (Sonora), and New Mexico. His project to establish trade routes to Texas and Louisiana (San Antonio, Natchitoches, and St Louis) was successful after his retirement and death.

TEXAS. Activities relating to Texas include furnishing beef to Galvez' Army in Louisiana (1776-1783), protecting the province from the internal Indian threat (1779-1783), and probably making voluntary contributions to the war effort. No records for these contributions have been identified. It may be noted that the appointed Governor of Texas in 1779 was a Louisiana Patriot, Athanase de Mézières, who arrived in San Antonio with a militia unit from Louisiana to bolster the San Antonio defenses. He had been a successful negotiator with Indian tribes, and he had been appointed governor partly because he believed he could negotiate with the Comanches and work through them to establish a trade route to New Mexico. Governor-designate de Mézières died before he could take the office. Descendants of those who drove beef cattle to Louisiana to help Governor Gálvez have been accepted by the NSDAR and by the NSSAR. The NSSAR has also accepted descendants of Spanish soldiers who served at San Antonio.

LOUISIANA. Louisiana activities are well known and descendants of its soldiers for the war period have long been accepted; however, some relationships to the Provincias Internas should be noted. One was the suggestion by the first Commandante General, Caballero Teodoro de Croix, that Col. Bernardo de Gálvez of Louisiana bring 300 to 400 hunters (frontiersmen) from Louisiana to help him eliminate the Apaches. As he had known Bernardo de Gálvez earlier in Nueva Vizcaya, he knew this would be successful. However, de Galvez had already been appointed Governor of Louisiana and could not be spared. A second activity was the recommendation by Bernardo de Gálvez in 1778 to his uncle, Joséf de Gálvez, on the superior merits of Louisiana's approach to handling hostile Indians to those of the Provincias Internas. When Bernardo de Gálvez later became Viceroy of New Spain, he put these recommendations into effect with good results. A third item was noted above in the support for appointing Athanase de Mézières as Governor in Texas. Finally, after war started when Governor Domingo Cabello y Robles of Texas asked for permission to furnish livestock to support Galvez in Louisiana, he was encouraged to do so. 

3. Where were the soldiers in the Southwest Spanish Borderlands?
About 300 soldiers were stationed in Alta and Baja California during the 1779-1783 period. They were assigned to the five Presidios of San Diégo, Monterey, San Francisco, Santa Bárbara, and Loreto. 

About 100 soldiers were stationed at Tucson and Tubac in Alta Pimeria (Southern Arizona), backed up by about 200 soldiers in the Sonoran Presidios of Pitíc, Fronteras, Altar, and Las Nutrias.

About 600 soldiers and militia were in New Mexico (and Nueva Viscaya) taking part in the campaigns under Governor Juan de Anza. They were from the Presidios at Santa Fé, El Paso (San Elizario), Carrizal, Buenavista, and Janos, and from the populated centers.

About 200 soldiers were in Texas at the Presidios of La Bahía and San Antonio. The supporting Presidios and mobile units of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Nuevo Santander were on or near the Rio Grande at Aguaverde, Monclovia, and El Presidio, and at sites farther south.

From time to time, militia units were formed from population centers; and they took part in campaigns. There were more than 500 persons in these units, but records are scanty. Indian auxiliaries were used in several campaigns as scouts or allies; and numbers are known but not
many names of individual warriors. (The 1772 Regulations actually authorized each Presidio to have ten Indian scouts on the payroll. They were to serve as interpreters and trackers. As they were usually given Christian names, it is difficult to determine which soldiers were in this group. Later, the ten Indian scouts were dropped as an economy measure, and their functions were taken over by unpaid Indian auxiliaries.)

4. What is the NSSAR policy regarding applicants?
The SAR Constitution Article III states, with regard to eligibility, "….. as a foreign national of, but not limited to, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, or Switzerland who rendered service in the cause of American Independence…." The cause of American Independence was clearly served by Spain's financial support from 1776 onward and its 1779-1783 War with England. Descendants of Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and California soldiers have been accepted. Also, decendants of some Texas ranchers who provided beef to Louisiana have been accepted. 
Supporting this acceptance is the record of the 1997 SAR visit to Spain to commemorate the support of King Cárlos, Governor Bernardo de Gálvez of Louisiana. National Headquarters, NSSAR, has accepted the role of Spain as the major European power financing the war, and is willing to consider activities other than those commemorated in 1997. (Donald J. Pennell, "SAR Delegation Travels to Spain, England for Dedication of Plaques," The SAR Magazine, Sons of the American Revolution, Vol XCII  #1, (Summer, 1997:12-14.) 

(It has not been determined when the NSSAR began accepting descendants of Louisiana soldiers. It is known that Compatriot C. Robert Churchill, then President of the Louisiana Society of the SAR, in 1921 went to Seville, Spain, to research in the Archivo General de Indias for lists of Louisiana soldiers and militia who had served during the war period.  He made five copies of his lists in 1925. Probably the NSSAR was accepting descendants soon after 1921. There is some indication that acceptance was considered several years before 1921 but was delayed because official rosters were not yet identified. Research in Spanish records was cut off by the terrible civil war in Spain during the 1930 decade and was not encouraged by American scholars until the end of the Franco regime, a period of almost 50 years. Scholarly research now going on in Spanish archives in Spain, Mexico, and elsewhere is recovering much new information about Spain's part in the War with England.)

 5. What is the NSDAR policy?
The policy of the Daughters of the American Revolution is of interest because female relatives of prospective SAR members want to join that organization. The DAR has published its policy regarding Spanish participation, and only descendants of soldiers in Gálvez' army in Louisiana have been accepted as "Louisiana Patriots" since 1925. Further, the period of acceptance has been extended back to 24 Dec 1776, when Spain began clandestine support to the American Colonies. Descendants of Texas citizens who drove cattle to Louisiana to support Governor Gálvez have also been accepted as "Louisiana Patriots." 

6. What is significant about the 1776 date used by the DAR?
The DAR quotes the 1776 order by Minister of the Indies José de Gálvez to the Governor of Louisiana instructing him to support the Americans.(Eric Beerman, "The First Spanish Aid to the American Revolution," Daughters of the American Revolution, Magazine, Washington, DC, Vol
117:24, #1 (Jan 1983). This was part of his overall strategy to nullify English claims and block English advances all across North America. Earlier, as the king's Visitor-General, he had orchestrated the settlement of Alta California to nullify the old English claims to Nova Albion, and to offset England's mastery of the sea. Possibly to him, and certainly to Thomas Jefferson later, Louisiana was a territory from the Mississippi River to the Columbia River basin, where it joined Alta California. At the same time in 1776 when Gálvez was giving instructions to the Governor of Louisiana, he was also working with his successors in New Spain to carry out his plan to fortify and settle San Francisco Bay.

7. Why did Spain really want to help the American Colonies? 
Like France, Spain was governed by self-interest in support of the American Colonies. In neither was higher government's love of liberty so strong that it governed policy. The Seven Years War had been disastrous for both countries, but more so for France, which was left practically bankrupt. In Spain, particularly, the memory of rivalry with England was strong. It went back to the sinking of the Armada and the depredations of English pirates on Spanish shipping, but the immediate recall was the loss of Havana and Manila to the English forces during the Seven Years War, which had ended in 1763. King Cárlos III had considered his options and instituted the Bourbon reforms to revitalize his kingdom. Soon after 1763, King Cárlos had sent his personal representative, Visitor-General Joséf de Gálvez, to carry out his reforms in New Spain. The American Revolution fitted into his resolution to counter the English wherever he could. Keeping the English occupied in the eastern colonies of America gave him opportunities to move in other areas, such as California and Louisiana. 

8. What did Visitor-General Gálvez do in New Spain?
First, Gálvez reformed the military approach in the Northern part of Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana. He ousted the Jesuits from the frontier areas and replaced them with other orders such as the Franciscans and Dominicans. He then began a major project to settle Alta California. He had an European's appreciation of the sea power of England, and its long rivalry with Spain. He recognized the vulnerability of Spain's Far Eastern trade, which had replaced gold and silver production as the main source of income and wealth for the Spanish crown. This trade came through Manila, and he knew very well the anguish of the Spanish authorities when the English had captured Manila and Havana. To get these ports back, Spain had traded England the areas of East and West Florida, which Spain had discovered and conquered 200 years before. Gálvez wanted to have protection for the Manila galleons on the California shores before some other European power could settle there and threaten them. He remembered that in 1579 Francis Drake had refitted his ships at a bay in Alta California and had claimed the land for England as Nova Albion. Then, he also knew that Sir Francis Drake had sunk the Spanish Armada a few years later. Galvez began during the late 1760's the project of settling Alta California, first moving as far north of Acapulco as he could to build a new support port at San Blas. Then, as soon as he had built ships there, he was ready in 1769 to move forces to Alta California. By 1771, he had supervised the beginning forts and missions.

Having gotten Alta California started, Gálvez turned his attention to other parts of the Northwestern frontier. He had a clear vision of a Spanish line of advance northward from newly acquired Louisiana to the Pacific Coast. What he found were isolated prongs of Spanish life far
north of effective support. Presidios and pueblos were not arranged so they were mutually supportive, and each prong responded only to its own Provincial Governor. The Viceroy of New Spain was the first common authority over all, and this office was so far south that it was
engulfed in local problems. The frontier was lowest priority. Gálvez proposed three changes which were put into effect by King Cárlos III in 1776: 
(1) separate the military and civil functions by putting all military actions under a Commandante-General of the Provincias Internas;
(2) realign the Presidios so they would be mutually supportive; 
(3) move the military command center far to the north so it would remain focused on frontier problems. By the time these changes began in 1776, Galvez had become Minister of the Indies. He was already supervising from Spain two other supportive activities. First was Anza's Expeditions to settle San Francisco Bay and secure it from foreign incursions. Second was the secret agreement that Louisiana would be a focal area for clandestine support of the American Colonies in their War with England. So the strategy was clear. Nullify the English claims to the Pacific Coast, fortify the strategic ports, protect the Manila trade, consolidate the Spanish borderlands further north, stop the English at the Mississippi River, and recover the lost territory of East and West Florida. The fact that no English war fleet ever reached the Pacific Ocean during the War shows that the American, French, and Spanish efforts kept the English fully occupied in the Atlantic. 

(In setting up support for the American Colonies, it was necessary to conceal Spain's role as Spain did not want to go to war with Portugal, an ally of England. Therefore, most of the support Minister of the Indies Joséf de Gálvez arranged was sent through French fronts, and France happily took credit for it. Historians now have better access to Spanish archives, and understand that the preponderance of supposed French support in money and materiel was actually from Spain. After Spain entered the war, she was better able to take credit for her support; but she soon found also that she had to support the French efforts in addition to the American ones. A particular case was the Siege of Yorktown in Sep/Oct 1781, which combined Spanish financial aid from Cuba, the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse, and the combined French and American Armies. On his way to Yorktown, Washington stopped in Philadelphia and he and others drank toasts to the Americans, the King of Spain, the King of France, and especially to Admiral de Grasse (who could participate only after he had sufficient Spanish support).  (p 450, Benson Bobrick, The Triumph of the American Revolution, 1995).  It took four tries to get everybody toasted. 

9. So, why are Southwest Spanish Borderlands soldier descendants accepted as SAR members? 
It is just a matter of balanced and equal treatment. They were part of the same strategic plan of protecting Spanish interests and blocking the English, who, as Spain's greatest European rival, were gaining more power each year. Each Spanish action and campaign on its Northwestern
Frontier Borderlands gained and held territory in trust for future U. S. expansion. 

10. How many people apply?
Indications are that descendants of Spanish soldiers apply in about the same ratio as their counterparts whose ancestors served in the eastern colonies in American forces. With a beginning base of about 1500 soldiers, there may be a few members for each chapter in California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, then a few scattered through other states. In five years there may be as many members as original soldiers, but this would require far more participation from this group than from any other colonial group from the Atlantic seaboard. (In 1999, there were 27,000 SAR members. Going back in time, the Revolutionary War itself had 290,000 participants. There is, therefore, roughly one SAR member for each 10 Revolutionary War participants.) 

11. Who is eligible?
Of the 1500 plus soldiers and militia who were in service between 1779 and 1783, we know families for less than half. Descendants of these families are the ones who will be eligible. The other soldiers either did not marry or we do not know their families. 

12. What references do applicants use for establishing soldier service? 
We have enlistment records and rosters for most Presidios, and in a few cases we have census or other records for 1779 through 1783. The applicants generally include these records with their applications. 

13. What other references do applicants use?
Draft lists of the references an applicant may study to determine his ancestry or how his own ancestors fitted into the historical activities have been prepared for each state. States currently available on request from the authors are California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas,
Louisiana and Florida. (See an example, pp 148-155 ahead, "References for Descendants of Spanish Soldiers Who Served in New Mexico and the Spanish Borderlands During Spain's 1779-1783 War with England."

If you are a descendent of any of these cattlemen, Somos Primos would like to publish your pedigree.  Descendants of these ranchers can apply for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution.  California soldados are being recognized for their protection of the California coast line against the British.  Texas ranchers can be recognized for their support by supplying cattle.  

The cattlemen exporters are listed by the number of cattle that were exported.

In 1776 officials in Mexico and Spain were not satisfied with the state of defense of the frontier of New Spain, especially in the western areas where the Apaches were more troublesome than ever. Accordingly, the Commandacy General of the Provincias Internas del Norte was created as a more effective organization for dealing with both Indians and foreign menaces to New Spain's northernmost colonial provinces. Headquarters was to be located at Arizpe in Sonora.

Charles III, King of Spain, appointed Brigadier Theodoro de Croix as the first Commandant General. Croix was born in France and had served the Spanish army for nearly 30 years prior to his appointment. He had come to New Spain in 1766 as a captain of his uncle's [the marqués de Croix, Carlos Francisco de Croix] vice-regal guard. Serving as commandant of the fortress of Acapulco and subsequently as inspector of all troops in the viceroyality, Croix was knighted as a caballero in the Teutonic order.

Croix assumed his new appointment on May 16, 1776. In special royal instructions King Charles III defined Croix's new authority with almost vice-regal powers over the provinces of Texas, New Mexico, Coahuila, Nueva Vizcaya, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Baja California. In the new province of Alta California, however, he was to share authority with Viceroy Bucareli.

I was applauded and nobody challenged me," he said. 

He explained how Tejanos came to occupy this soil, only to see their vibrant communities and way of life disappear and give way to Anglo settlers. 

He also gave several theories on why Tejano history has been omitted from the books. 

"The historians of Texas did not speak Spanish, and half the history of Texas is written in Spanish," Tijerina said. "Walter Prescott Webb, called the dean of Texans historians, did not speak or read Spanish. He was walking through a gold mine blindly and did not see any of it." 

Tijerina continued, "Some did it on purpose - intentionally omitting this history - because of economic interest, so they could take economic advantage of Tejanos and their land, cattle and economy." 

He argued that Tejano heritage has often been presented in a "derogatory light." 

"Texas and Americans have tended to look down on the Mexican culture. Our identity was associated with the worst characteristics - that we were lazy and corrupt and unable to understand the most rudimentary principles of government," he said. "It was offensive to me, so I have had this drive to bring out the truth." 

Tijerina, an instructor at Austin Community College, said Tejanos were responsible for bringing Western civilization, law, government, society, land titles, and industry into Texas when they founded it in the late 1600s and early 1700s. 

The Spanish term "Tejanos" refers to the state's original Spanish and Mexican pioneers, their descendants, and all others who have adopted their culture. 

"They are the ones who gave Texas its distinctive flavor and culture, which make it different from all other states. No other state had 6 million longhorns. Texas was also different from all of Mexico because of its millions of wild mustangs, sheep and goats," he said. 

The history of these Tejanos and the name "Texas" has their roots in the Spanish explorers. 

In 1689, the Spaniard Captain Alonso de Leon reported Native Americans in the East Texas region of Tyler and Nacogdoches would hold up their hand and say "Tejas." 

"They assumed that meant 'friend.' So when de Leon went back and recommended to make this land a province of Spain, they called it 'Los Tejas,' because in Spanish, the 'j' and 'x' are interchangeable," Tijerina said. 

Two hundred years later, in the 1800s, about 4,500 Tejanos lived between the Nueces River and the Sabine River, which is the boundary between Texas and Louisiana. 

Many lived in the towns of San Antonio, Nacogdoches, Goliad and Victoria. Others lived in ranches, which had several homes and a tapia (courtyard) spanning almost a city block, he said. 

"Tejanos have always scattered out in ranch country. Just look at the Rio Grande Valley," he noted. 

Tijerina then described the brutality suffered by Tejanos in the last 300 years. 

Between 1813 and 1819, half the Tejano population was killed by the Spanish army; hundreds were slaughtered in and around San Antonio and what is now the Austin area. 

Although Mexico declared its independence from Spain in 1810, the war lasted until 1821. 

"These Tejanos kept fighting back and finally got rid of the Spanish government and army... Two years later, they allowed Anglos to come in and gave them land because they had just won their independence," Tijerina said. "That's why it's a misnomer to say Texas got its independence in 1836." 

"Tejanos wanted to set up their own government and have their own decision-making authority. They did not want Mexico to make decisions for them or come take their land," he added. 

"They knew that with their land, the Gulf Coast and the ports, like Lavaca, they could become one of the wealthiest states, but not if Mexico taxed them, so they partnered with the Anglos," Tijerina said. "When Santa Ana came, he wasn't after Davy Crockett, he was after those rebellious Tejanos." 

He explained that when Anglos came to Texas, they came in buckskin, moccasins and coonskin caps. They were farmers of corn, tobacco and cotton and carried long rifles. 

"Within five years, they were all riding horses, wearing chalecos, working cattle, using pistols and daggers, rope and lassos. They adopted the values of living in ranches," he said. 

As the years went by and after 1848, South Texas was added to the map and included Laredo, Brownsville, Corpus Christi and El Paso. 

Tejanos had their own form of government, land titles, economy, cattle industry, art, literature, music and civic organizations. Tejano pioneers in the legal field established homestead, adoption and community property laws that other U.S. states later adopted, he said. 

"What happened?" Tijerina replied. "Well, they were outnumbered 100 to 1 by Anglos. And the U.S. government and U.S. Army helped the Anglos fight and kill Tejanos." 

When Santa Ana defeated the Anglos and Tejanos at the Alamo, he was not defeated by the Texans at San Jacinto, but by the U.S. Army. 

"Conventional wisdom holds that it was Texans who defeated Santa Ana because troops of the U.S. Army regiments, who were stationed in the Louisiana area, simply defected from the U.S. Army, stripped their uniforms and declared themselves to be Texans," Tijerina explained. 

"They have gone down in history as Texans, but how can we call them Texans if they had only been here less than two weeks? Davy Crockett had been in Texas less than two months," he remarked. "The irony is that the real Texans - the Seguins and all those who had been here 150 years - are not called 'Texans,' they are called 'Mexicans'." 

During the battle of San Jacinto, Tijerina noted whole regiments of the U.S. Army crossed into Texas and defeated the Mexican army. They then camped out in Corpus Christi during the U.S.-Mexico War of 1845. 

After the war, the U.S. Army never left Texas. 

"Three-quarters of the entire Army was in Texas from 1850 to 1900. They, along with the Texas Rangers and Anglo-American gangsters, persecuted Mexican-Americans and assassinated thousands. Many were political leaders," Tijerina said. 

One of the clearest examples occurred in Laredo. 

On May 17, 1885, Texas Ranger B.D. Lindsay and other Rangers shot an elderly gentleman who was a "well-known citizen of good repute of Laredo." 

"The Rangers were hiding in the brush and saw him with two younger men ride in from the ranch and shot him in the back. He was an upstanding social and political leader of Laredo," Tijerina said. 

He then detailed countless episodes of massacres and theft of land that eventually wiped out the Tejano culture and pushed those who remained into the marginalized shadows of history. 

"Fortunately, things are changing slowly. History books are starting to talk about Tejanos, and in the past five years, most major colleges in Texas have teachers of Mexican-American descent teaching Texas history. That's what's remarkable," Tijerina said. 

"Texas history is a distortion. It is a comic book history. Texas historians have to start writing the truth because Americans are starting to open their eyes," he argued. 

Some of Tijerina's books include: Tejanos and Texans Under the Mexican flag (1994), Tejano Empire: Life on the South Texas Ranchos (1998) and A History of Mexican-Americans in Lubbock (1979). 

For high school readers, Tijerina discovered El Mesquite, a short work of fiction written by a Tejana, Elena Zamora O'Shea, in 1935. He has had it published through Texas A&M University Press and is currently at work on a biography of Ricardo Beasley, the only known vaquero artist. 

(Staff writer Tricia Cortez can be reached at 728-2568 or tricia@lmtonline.com  11/24/03

Canary Islanders - Forgotten Patriots of Louisiana

 by Dr. Granville Hough

A recent article in The Los Angeles Times, entitled "Spanish Cajuns' Win Place in History Books," dated 2 Sept 2000 lauds the fact that, after over 200 years of no mention, the Canary Islanders of Louisiana now get who pages in the eighth grade history books of Louisiana  this is almost an insult to people who came to Louisiana as soldiers to fight for Governor Gálvez when Spain was supporting the United States in its effort to gain independence.

Soon after Colonel Bernardo Gálvez took over as Governor of Louisiana Province, he took a census of his soldiers and militia and found he had less than one soldier for each mile of frontier he was to protect.  He desperately needed soldiers and population if he was to hold Louisiana from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.  He sent an urgent message to authorities in Spain, including his uncle, Minister Jose de Gálvez, asking for soldiers and settlers, actually soldier--settlers.  Having observed and fought alongside the Presidial soldiers of the Southwest against Apaches and another Indian tribes, he believed more in soldier-settlers than in the soldiers who served an enlistment and then moved on to other areas.

The Crown was sympathetic to his plea and decided to do a recruiting effort in the Canary Islands, which was somewhat poor and overpopulated.  In a few months, 700 Canary Island men volunteered as soldiers, along with their wives and children, 2300 in all.  They went on the payroll for the Louisiana Infantry Regiment, which paid all their expenses for travel and upkeep.  They began their move in 1778, as ships became available.  The first five ships were the Santísimo Sacramento, La Victoria, San Ignacio de Loyola, San Juan Nepomuceno, and the Santa Faz.  These ships all arrived in Louisiana before war started, and Governor Gálvez was able to form four more companies, with Canary Islanders both going into the new companies and replacing the soldiers moved from the old companies.  482 soldiers had arrived along with 1100 dependents.  The older solders, or those encumbered with large families were settled into new town of St. Bernard, Galveztown, Barataria, and Valenzuela. There they were paid militia on call to defend their areas if required to do so.  The other soldiers were those providing the manpower nucleus which enabled victories at Manchac, Baton rouge, and Mobile.  These Louisiana companies served on through the Pensacola Campaign, and also saw service at Natchez, Arkansas Post, and some many have been at St. Louis.

The sixth ship bring Canary Island volunteers with families, the El Segrado Corazón de Jesús, reached Havana in July, 1779 with 423 passengers, just as news of war with England reached that port.  Because the British had naval superiority in waters between Havana and News Orleans, the Governors of Cuba and Louisiana decided to hold these soldiers and their families in Havana until it was safe to travel.  This stretched into four years.  Eight young bachelors enlisted or trans3erred in Havana to the Matanzas Dragoons.  the others were held in readiness near Havana.

The remaining 99 soldiers in the Canary Islands and their families came in three smaller ships, the San Carlos, San Pedro, and Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.  Only the Dolores arrived safely in Havana with its 17 volunteers and families.  These joined those already held in Havana.  The San Carlos was captured by the British in Caribbean and its 47 volunteers and their families were deposited at Tortosa.  These people were able to go to Puerto Rico first, then alter to Havana, where they joined the others.  The San Pedro went astray and landed at La Guaira, the port for Caracas, Venezuela.  What happened to its 33 soldier and their families has not been recovered.

Towards the end of the war, when it became safe for sea travel, the 178 soldiers and their families in Havana, less those who had died or deserted, patiently awaited transportation to Louisiana.  The first opportunity occurred in early 1782 when 36 families, 145 persons in all, from the de Jesús, were given homes in Pensacola.  They were not supported or given land, so they eventually retuned to Cuba.  The others in Havana came to New Orleans in August, 1783 on the Margarita and the Santísima Trinidad.  The last group came on the Delfin in December, 1783.  These last arrivals were mostly settled on Terre-aux-Boeufs, in St. Bernard Parish, near the earlier settlement of St. Bernard., southeast of New Orleans, though other also were given land there.  This becalmed the settlement which most retained the Canary Island culture and dialect.  Barataria only lasted a short time, and Galveztown and Valenzuela lasted about one generation.  The settlers there gradually merged into the general population, retaining only their Spanish surnames and their Catholic religion.

So it is that about 600 Canary Islanders became soldier-settlers who were to help hold Louisiana for the Crown and then became part of the cultural melting pot which Louisiana is, still, to this day.  However, the memory of Canary Islanders, as Patriots of Louisiana, has been mostly lost.  So far as can be determined, only three persons from the Canary Islands have been listed as ancestors for DAR or SAR members.  Several thousand potential members live in St. Bernard Parish, alone, and others are scattered throughout Louisiana and other states.

References: Din, Gilbert C. The Canary Islanders of Louisiana, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA, 1988.  This is the best reference now available on these people.

Villere, Sidney Louis. The Canary Island Migration to Louisiana: 1778-1783, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD, 1972. This is an older reference best used for its listing of 207 settlers at Terre-aux-Bouef in St. Bernard Parish.

"Spain's Lousiana Patriots in in its 1779-1783 War with England 
During the American Revolution." 
By Dr. Granville W. and N.C. Hough

This is the sixth study we have undertaken of Spain's patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England, during the Revolutionary War; and it covers Louisiana, West Florida, East Florida, and related areas under Spanish control at the time.  As we have worked our way across the Spanish Borderlands from California to Florida, we believe we have gained an appreciation of Spanish activities beyond that held by historians who have preceded us in recording the soldiers of Louisiana.  Their interest has been in identifying the units and individuals of Louisiana who served, with little attention paid to the Spanish soldiers, mariners, and volunteers who constituted the bulk of the forces involved.

We know there were over 10,000 persons involved in the various army, naval, and mariner units of Spain and France, with about 2000 of the number coming from the militia, Indians, or other forces normally indigenous to or assigned to Louisiana.  We believe we have doubled the number of identified persons whose service would qualify descendants to join the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) or the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).  We regret that we have been unable to travel to the libraries which hold additional information, but we have done what we could using interlibrary loan resources.  We believe there are at least 6000 persons yet to be named as soldiers, sailors, or other patriots, serving along with General Gálvez.

We have prepared a consolidated list, with asterisks used to designate those for whom we believe records are suitable as documentation of service during the war.  We have also include others who were of a suitable age, but for whom we did not see documentation.  In our previous studies, we included lists of males over 18 who may have contributed to the war fund set up by King Carlos III for defraying expenses of the war.  We found no direct record of contributions collected in Louisiana.  It seems that there would have been collections, as many of the people were more able to contribute than those of New Mexico or California.  We did find evidence of contributions in Cuba, which was under the same military jurisdiction.  We also found no direct record of priests actually carrying out the request of King Carlos III to pray for victory.  We assume they did, so priests are included as patriots.  As priests left no descendants, the SAR interest is in finding and marking their burial sites.

Our presentation outline includes an introduction, a summary time line, then a listing of units involved in each engagement or campaign, then a listing of persons involved, then a list of references which may be useful to other researchers. 

 gwhough@earthlink.net                                                                       Return to Table of Contents

Understanding the French and Spanish Connections
Daily Canary Island newspaper
http://www.canarias7.es/hoy/index.shtml
Sent by Bill Carmena
Somos Primos, September 2004

France ceded Louisiana to Spain and Great Britain in 1766 following the French and Indian War. Spain acquired that part of Louisiana lying west of the Mississippi River and the Island of Orleans, an area east of the Mississippi including New Orleans.

Early in the 1770's Spanish officials learned that the British were planning to invade and occupy the Province of Louisiana, using the province as a base from which to attack Mexico and deprive Spain of the vast deposits of Mexican silver and gold. The British attempted to realize their plans almost fifty years later during the Battle of New Orleans. Consequently, Spanish administrators started developing Louisiana as a barrier between Mexico and the British colonies east of the Mississippi River.

Reacting to successful British colonization efforts along the Gulf Coast in British West Florida, Spain settled thousands of immigrants from Malaga and the Canaries, as well as Acadian refugees, in Louisiana. The settlers came to Louisiana to increase production of food, populate the province and defend it against the projected British invasion.

The first Isleños arrived in Louisiana during 1778 and continued to arrive in the province until 1783. They were settled in four locations, strategically placed around New Orleans to guard approaches to the city. Galveztown, situated just below Baton Rouge, was the first settlement. The others were Valenzuela, located along Bayou Lafourche; Barataria, located along Bayou des Familles in Jefferson Parish; and La Concepcion, later San Bernardo, located in St. Bernard Parish along Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs.

A fifth settlement for Bayougoulas was planned, but never completed.Isleños fought against the British during the American Revolution through their service in the Galvez Expedition. Militiamen from the four Isleño settlements, including San Bernardo, participated in the three major military campaigns (Baton Rouge, Mobile and Pensacola) of the expedition, which resulted in the expulsion of the British presence from what is now the United States Gulf Coast. 

My G/G/Ggrandfather Josef Morales came from Aguimes on the isle of Gran Canaria on the Spanish Friggate "San Ignatio de Loyola", landed in New Orleans in January of 1779 and was a militiaman with the Regiment of Louisiana at the fort at Galveztown.My G/G/ Grandfather Roumaldo Carmena, a Corporal in the detachment at Galvez, arrived in 1791 and married Josef's daughter Josefa Morales in 1796. . Enjoy. Bill Carmena JCarm1724@aol.com

For more information on the participation of the Islenos a brief historical overview of The Los Islenos Heritage and Cultural Society: http://www.canaryislands-usa.com/cifec/losislenos.html

Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society was organized in 1976 in an effort to preserve the culture and history of the Canary Islanders who settled in Louisiana between the years 1778 and 1783. The Isleños, or Islanders, were a hearty group of pioneers who braved the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean and the marshes of Louisiana to mold St. Bernard Parish and other areas of the state into livable and productive communities. 

E-Mail: info@losislenos.org
Los Islenos Heritage & Cultural Society
1357 Bayou Road, St. Bernard, LA 70085 
Telephone/Fax: (504)-682-0862

Somos Primos, January 2004

Although the title says Louisiana, the site includes information on Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.  Great resource, with maps, links to genealogist, articles, etc.. 

Initially established and manned by peninsular Spanish regulars in 1765 as an infantry battalion to occupy Luisiana, acquired from France three years earlier, what would ultimately become the veteran and professional  Regimiento de Infantería de Luisiana formed the core of Spain's military establishment in Louisiana and, later, in the Spanish Floridas until it faded into oblivion during the terminal period of Spain's colonial tenure in North America.

Reorganized after its arrival in North America in 1769, the battalion's detachments performed garrison duties at outposts in Spanish Louisiana as far north as Illinois.  In 1779, when Spain joined France in an alliance against England during the American War for Colonial Independence, the unit was enlarged to regimental strength through the addition of a second battalion and participated with distinction in the 1779-1781 conquest of then-British West Florida under the leadership of Louisiana Governor Bernardo de Gálvez.  Spain's official repossession of Florida by the terms of the 1783 Treaty of Paris resulted in a third battalion being added to the regiment for service in the Floridas in 1786.  This seemingly impressive force was, however, a "paper tiger." It never achieved its newly authorized strength in manpower, nor did it enjoy adequate supplies of material provisions to properly maintain itself. 

CALIFORNIA'S DONATIONS TO SPAIN’S 1779-1783 WAR WITH ENGLAND 
by Granville Hough, Ph.D.

Chapter X of the book 
Spain's California Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England During the American Revolution
Published, 1998 by the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research
Somos Primos, September 2004

The author hopes that all those in the DAR who are working on the donative will reconsider service in the Spanish Army or Navy and conclude it was even more patriotic than donations, and just as patriotic as serving in the Spanish Army and Navy with Gálvez in Louisiana and West Florida (where their descendants have been accepted into the DAR since 1925.)"

It is well known among historians that King Carlos III on 17 August 1780 asked all his "free vassals in America" to make a contribution to defray expenses of the War with England.  This message was heard in California and the rest of New Spain, just as it was heard in the West Indies, South America, and all other Spanish lands of America.  The royal decree, requesting the donation, was issued at the Royal Palace at San Ildefonso, 17 Aug 1780, from The King:

"The insulting tyranny of the English nation has precipitated me into a war, the exorbitant cost of which has forced me to raise the revenue exacted from the provinces of our Spanish homeland by a third.  I had hoped not to have to extend this burden to my loyal subjects in America, even though they would seem to be the principal target of the grasping avarice of my enemies.  Nevertheless, I have always been able to count on the faithful generosity of the voluntary contributions of those vast and wealthy colonies.  To make this burden as light as possible, I have resolved to ask for a donativo of one peso from every freeman who is an Indian or of mixed blood, and two pesos from every Spaniard and those of the higher class.  These last may also pay for their servants and workers and later discount the amount from their salaries or daily wages.' 'Therefore, I command all of my royal officials in the Indies to announce and explain my royal decree so that all of the inhabitants of the Indies will once again have opportunity to show me their love and gratitude for the benefits I have bestowed on them.  I also charge all of my church officials there to expedite this project by their
persuasion and good example, for this is my will.' 'All copies of this decree, duly signed by my Secretary of State and Universal Office of the Indies, who also signs below, shall have the
same force as the original." 'Given at San Ildefonso, on this seventeenth day of August of the year
seventeen hundred and eighty."  Signed by I, The King and José de Gálvez (Minister of the Indies), and certified as a copy of the original by José de Gálvez.

It took a year for the royal decree to get through the English blockade and all the bureaucratic channels and reach Commandante General Cabellero de Croix at Arispe for execution.  In August, 1781, he transmitted the royal decree to each Governor, along with a list of thirteen instructions from Viceroy Martín de Mayorga for those who supervised the operation.  Commissioners were to be set up for each jurisdiction, and each had to give his donors a receipt and turn in the signature of each one, showing the amount he gave, lest the accounts be pilfered.  The eighth instruction forbade commissioners from using any coercion or showing any displeasure if the prospective donor gave
nothing.  The collections were stopped by Commandante General Felipe de Neve in January, 1784, when he learned the war with England was over. Any collections after that time were for pledges made earlier.  (There were two problems with Viceroy Mayorga’s instructions for those on the
frontier.  The Commissioners for remote areas could not always write; and when they could, there was frequently no paper available.  As making paper was a monopoly, it was scarce in peace or war.)

From Arispe, Sonora, on 12 August 1781, Commandante General Theodore de Croix of the Northern Provinces of New Spain dispatched the message notifying Fray Serra of the terms of this Royal  Order.  Fray Serra then notified the missions.  Each Spanish citizen over 18 was to contribute 2 pesos (or Spanish dollars) and each Indian neophyte over 18 was to contribute 1 peso.  At the time, this would have been equivalent to a week's pay.  It is certain the message also went to the military
authorities of Alta and Baja California.

(It is not clear how de Croix's message got to Alta California and Fray Serra.  There were no supply ships or packetboats, whatsoever, to Alta California in 1781.  The courier passage from Sonora to San Gabriel had been closed in July, 1781, by the Yuma uprising, though de Croix had not learned of this disaster when he prepared the letter.  It is most likely the message was carried by Lt Col Pedro Fages when he was sent to Alta California to get help to subdue the Yumas and reopen the passage.  In this case the message reached San Gabriel 26 Mar 1782 and was sent from there to Monterey.  The only other courier path was south from Arispe to San Blas, then across the Gulf of California to Loreta, then up the Baja Peninsula, a long and dangerous wilderness trek.  In 1781, there was indeed one supply trip to Loreta in the frigate "Favorita" under Juan Pantoja, but the timing of this trip has not been recovered.  If the message followed this route, it would have arrived late in 1781 or early 1782.)

The message was clearly in Alta California in mid 1782, where Fray Serra and Governor Felpe de Neve managed the collections of the donations so that everyone paid.  Each Presidio therefore developed a roster of its soldiers for 1782, although the records do not indicate the rosters were simply to record donations.  Each mission was to draw up a padron of all the Indian males eighteen years and older within its jurisdiction, along with an account of the produce turned over to the
governor and  sold by him for cash.  This was the only way to do it as the colony operated on a barter economy and the Indians had no money at all.  So the contributions were not in currency as we know it but in accounting records which were converted into cash after the records were received and approved in Mexico.

We can also accurately fix the timing of the contributions to the year 1782 because Governor de Neve made up the deficit of contributions, and he left Alta California with Lt Col Fages in mid 1782 to attack the Yumas.  Governor de Neve did not return to Alta CA as he was promoted to become Inspector General of the Internal Provinces (Provincias Internas) while on the campaign, and he proceeded on to that post in Northern Mexico from the Colorado River.  A few months later, he replaced Theodore de Croix as Commandante General.  Also, as Santa Barbara Presidio and Mission San Buenaventura each contributed, and each was founded in 1782, it seems they could only have done so by late summer. In the fall of 1782, San Diego and San Juan Capistrano were still
requesting relief from the contribution.  When Governor de Neve made up the deficit of contributions from various installations, he probably covered San Diego and San Juan Capistrano, expecting to be reimbursed later; however, no such expectation has been identified in the records.

So, the contributions from the missions had been arranged in the accounts by late 1782, so that when he received and approved them, the Procurator in Mexico City could make the actual cash contribution to the War fund.  If, as Bancroft indicates,  all the funds went to Commandante General Theodore de Croix, Governor de Neve probably took them, along with all other dispatches, when he went in mid-1782 to supervise the joint military operations against the Yumas.  As noted above, de Neve did not return to California.

When de Croix announced on 7 Dec 1782 that the amount of the collections was $4216, this differed from the Alta California records which showed $2683.  Bancroft indicated the difference was made up by Governor de Neve, and it is possible this difference was part of the negotiations between de Croix and de Neve when de Neve turned over the Governorship of California to Lt Col Fages and became Inspector General of the Internal Provinces.  In just a few months, de Neve became Commandante General of the Internal Provinces.     The records could have gone on to Mexico City in Dec 1782 or early 1783.  If, however, the accounts were actually sent on the last packetboat to leave Alta California in 1782, they would have arrived first at San Blas; and from there, sent overland
to Mexico City, probably arriving there in early 1783.  Then, after studying the accounts, the Procurator could have converted them into cash for the war fund some time in 1783.

Actually, some contributions were made in California in 1784, noted by Fray Serra as a year after the war was over.  These 15 pesos in the accounts were for 15 neophyte Indians who had run away and were not present when the first records were made.  They had been captured and returned to the missions, so the fathers believed they should be included in the contribution records.  This scrupulous accounting leaves no doubt that all the contributions were made in good faith, and that
such contributions throughout the Spanish dominions helped the Spanish King Carlos defray expenses of the war, thus supporting the American Colonies in the overall fight with England.  On 1 July 1784, a few weeks before his death, Fray Serra mentioned an envelope entitled: "Reports,
Inventories, and Census List of San Gabriel Mission," which he had received; so a census list was certainly made for San Gabriel, but the period which it covered was not noted.  It had to be 1782 or 1783.

The timing of the Alta California contributions relative to world events may be of interest.  We forget today that Alta California was one year behind in world events, and six months behind in Mexico events.  It vied with Manila to be the end of the Spanish world.  We may note that the virtual end of land hostilities in the American Colonies was the Cornwallis surrender at Yorktown on 19 Oct 1781, probably before or about the time the request for contributions was received in Alta California.  The preliminary articles of peace between the American Colonies and England were signed 30 Nov 1782, before General de Croix announced on 7 Dec 1782 the amount collected to be $4,216.  Hostilities between Spain and England ceased in January, 1783, after a treaty was signed at Versailles, probably before the accounts could reach Mexico City and be converted to cash for the war fund.   The only remaining major action before the general peace treaty of 3 Sep 1783 was a July, 1783 naval battle between the English and French in the Indian Ocean.  (The Admirals did not know the war was over.)  No Spanish or Americans were involved.

There seems to be no utility in tracing the funds beyond the time they left Alta California in late 1782.   They were undoubtedly used to defray expenses caused by the war, exactly as planned.   Once aggregated with other contributions in Mexico City, it is not possible to say which debts the California contributions paid.  With equal validity, one could suggest they paid for Chapultepec gunpowder shipped up the Mississippi River to Americans, or they repaid the loans made by Havana citizens to support the Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown operations, or for building forts at San Blas or Manila, or supporting Central American operations against the British, or for attacking British at Gibraltar, or for paying the Spanish and French troops waiting to invade Jamaica.  And, like Andrew Jackson's battle and victory at New Orleans in 1815, the Alta California contributions were made carefully and faithfully; but they had no effect on the war, which was already over.  (It is also likely Felipe de Neve was never reimbursed for any funds he advanced to cover the shortages in contributions.  He died as Commandante General of the Internal Provinces in 1786 and left no wife nor children.)

What is of interest today is finding the mission censuses or lists of Indian neophytes who were over 18 at each mission.  This would give a valuable record for genealogists working on California Indian ancestry. The list of pobladores who contributed would also be of interest.  These lists or censuses could  also be used to support applications by descendants to join historical societies.  However, as a general statement, we can say every male over 18 in Baja and Alta California, who could be accounted for in military or mission activities, was credited with a voluntary contribution at the time.  It is possible that the names of collecting Commissioners will be found, along with the amounts each collected.  It seems unlikely that more specific records of individual contributors will ever be found.  But they may exist.

Because of the way the contributions were handled, the records are most likely in the financial accounts for each mission, presidio, and pueblo for 1782, 1783, and 1784.  It seems that very few of these accounts have been translated and published; indeed, few may survive.  Some are at the Santa Barbara Mission Archives, some are in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, and some have been filmed by the LDS.  Others may be in records of the Commandantes General of the
Provincias Internas of New Spain or the records of San Blas in the Archives in Mexico City.  Herein lies an opportunity for someone fluent in Spanish to make a scholarly reputation.

References:

Robert Archibald.  The Economic Aspects of the California Missions. Washington, DC, Academy of American Franciscan History, 1978.

Bancroft, Hubert Howe.  History of California, Vol 1 (18), pp 426-428, Santa Barbara, Wallace Hebberd, 1884.  (Bancroft references Provincial State Papers, Benicia Military, MS ii:5; iii:11, 27-29; and viii:4; then Provincial State Papers, MS, iv:76; then Provincial Records MS ii:70,
74-75. Presumably, these records are at the Bancroft Library.)

Beilharz, Edwin A. Felipe de Neve - First Governor of California, San Francisco, California Historical Society, 1971.  This study covers the critical years from 1777 until 1782 from the viewpoint of the first governor to actually hold the title and live in Monterey.

Kieran McCarty, pp 51-56, Chapter 12, "Arizona's Contribution," Desert Documentary: The Spanish Years, 1767-1821, Arizona Historical Society, Historical Monograph, No. 4, Tucson, AZ, 1976.

Mildred L. Murry, Spanish Mysteries and Missions During the American Revolution: A Resource Guide for Teachers, pp 25-29, 59.  Blankenship and Murry, 1996.

Antonine Tibesar, Writings of Junipero Serra, Vol IV, pp 119, 147, 187, 213, 277.  Washington, DC, Academy of American Franciscan History, MCMLXVI (1966).

Francis J. Weber.  "California Participation in the Spirit of 1776," Southern California Quarterly, Vol LVIII, #2, (Summer, 1976), pp 137-142.  Most of the references of this article were found in the Santa Barbara Mission Archives.

CARevCont.doc, 28 May 1998, revised 3 Aug 2004, Granville W. and N. C. Hough

General Bernardo de Galvez Project

The Project is nonpolitical, politically neutral and funded by Hispanics and Non-Hispanics alike.  We at Somos Primos E-Magazine seek your support. The project as envisioned by the newly appointed General Bernardo Galvez Project Executive Council will promote the contributions of the great Spanish hero of the American Revolution, Bernardo Galvez.  The Project's varied media outreach approach will cluster around a documentary about his life and military exploits during the founding of this great nation.

We at Somos Primos are dedicated to the accurate depiction of all Hispanic-American history, culture and genealogical findings.  Contributing parties are ethnically, racially and religiously diverse, represent Hispanic and Non-Hispanic backgrounds, and some may have surnames not necessarily Spanish.  That is to say, many may or may not have a Spanish progenitor somewhere in their family lines.  Others may have Sephardic-Spanish ancestry.  What they have in common is an appreciation and love for Hispanic culture and history.   To that end, we welcome those who share our interests in an honest portrayal of that rich cultural and historic contributions to the United States and elsewhere.  The truthful depictions of those contributions made to the societies in which we all live are of great importance to the sponsors of this project.

It is also our intent to include living descendants of Bernardo de Galvez as part of the Executive Council to make the point of  the ongoing presence and contributions of Hispanics in the Americas.  Somos Primos is committed to family heritage as an integral part of this project.  Various organizations and individuals are invited at assist and contribute during the course of this wonderful historic project.  In short, we welcome all efforts toward the successful completion of this endeavor.  Via an organized approach to this Project, Somos Primos has built an international affiliation of contributing parties.  Those parties that reside in close proximity to historical locations (near English held forts that Galvez and his army defeated), state and county governments, local educational institutions, and other stakeholders are participating.  Members of the international community were encouraged to participate and many are now committed.  This project is truly of an international scale.

Some Periods in the Life of General Bernardo de Gálvez.
by  Granville W. Hough, Ph.D  
gwhough@earthlink.net

Macharaviaya, Spain    
          Bernardo de Galvez Hometown
              by Michael Stevens Perez, Galvez Project Manager 

Somos Primos, Sept 03

Macharaviaya, however, is particularly distinguished by a single name, Galvez. A family of this name rose to prominence not only in the town but in the political life of Spain at the time and members of this distinguished family were selected by King Carlos the third ( 1759-1788 ) for positions of importance in his reformist administration. 

The Galvez family which lived mainly in Madrid never forget their native town and in spite of the then vast distance in terms of transport between the capital and this small village, important schemes were financed by the family and carried out to improve the economical and spiritual life of the villagers. Roads were built, streets were paved, a church was built, a public laundry and schools were constructed and most importantly a playing card factory was established in 1776 which supplied Spain and the American possessions. 

The political prominence of the family also extended to America and the town of Galveston in Texas bears testimony to the name of Don Bernardo de Galvez who was a general and viceroy at the time of the American War of Independence and played a part in the conflict.

As with most dynasties and empires and periods of great bounty, time took its toll and little by little the village reverted to its simple agricultural roots. The family is still remembered and the visitor can admire the magnificent facade of the church of San Jacinto in whose interior lie the mortal remains of Don Jose de Galvez, marquis of Sonoro. The main facade of the church bears the coat of arms of King Carlos the third of Spain.  In the adjoining hamlet of Benaque the poet Salvador Rueda was born (1857-1933). Poet, novelist and dramatist his work,of great range and diversity on mainly Andalusian themes, influenced many writers of the time, particularly the early works of another significent writer, Juan Ramon Jumenez. 

May 3, 2003, General Bernardo de Galvez:
A Hero of the American Revolution
Huntington Beach Central Library
Golden West & Talbert
7111 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach, CA

Michael Stevens Perez, Program Manager of the Bernardo de Galvez Project, accompanied by the Honorary Spanish Consul Maria Angeles O'Donnell Olson and Dr. Granville Hough will address the Orange County California Genealogical Society in Huntington Beach.

In 1779, General Bernardo de Galvez and his multi-ethnic army of Creoles, Indians, free African Americans and his own Spanish regulars, marched on the British-held forts at Baton Rouge and Natchez. Then they took the British at Mobile and Pensacola. They immobilized the British forces in the South when Great Britain needed them most, resulting in its eminent defeat. Today, Galveston, Texas bears honor to his name.

Come and learn more about this Spanish-American hero and others at our May meeting featuring Michael Stevens Perez. He will also be discussing the Bernardo de Galvez Project, which honors this great man.  In the afternoon, Michael will speak on the de Riberas, a New Mexico family of Spanish Colonial soldiers, 1599-1843. Come and learn about the vital role that Spain played in creating our United States!

        In his address to the joint meeting of the House and the Senate held at the House of Representatives on June 2, 1976, Juan Carlos I, King of Spain declared: In this year of the Bicentennial, it is with pleasure that I recall the role that Spaniards, and Spain, with her diplomatic, political, financial, naval and military resources, played in the global struggle whose victory received the recognition of the independence of the United States."
        Although it is true that Spain remained officially neutral at the beginning of the American Revolution, it is not less certain that Spain became in 1779 a great ally of the American colonies, second only to France.
        On June 27, 1776, when the independence of the United States had not yet been declared, the Spanish Secretary of State, the Marquis of Grimaldi, notified the Ambassador of Spain in Paris that his Majesty, Carlos III, had granted the American Revolution four million reales de Vellón.  
       In 1777 Benjamin Franklin, head of the Delegation of the Continental Congress decided to send Arthur Lee to Spain.  Upon returning to Paris, Lee received from the Spanish Goverment a bank draft for 50,000 pesos of gold.  In April he received another draft for 81,000 Livres Tournois.  And in June the Spanish the Spanish Government handed over to him new drafts totaling more than 100,000 pounds.
        The aid that Spain provided to the cause of the American Revolution in its initial states was not limited to the financial contributions; it was not limited either to just allowing the Americans privateers to find sanctuary at the Spanish ports.  The United States received help on American soil itself through the Spanish Governors of Louisiana.        
        In May 1776 (before the Declaration of Independence had taken place),   General Charles Lee wrote to the Governor of Louisiana, Luis de Unzaga, explaining that he was the second-in-command under General Washington and that in this capacity he requested help from the Spanish Governor in order to continue the war.  General Lee's letter reached the hands of Governor Unzaga through Captain George Gibson, who arrived in New Orleans at night along with Lieutenant William Lee.  When the Governor realized how difficult the situation was in which he found himself, he cleverly plotted the following scheme to maintain his neutrality and to help at the same time the cause of the revolution:  Captain Gibson was supposedly imprisoned, to quiet the suspicions of the British Consul, but Lieutenant Lee was allowed to leave New Orleans.  One month later Governor Unzaga set Gibson free, who chartered a boat and went up the Mississippi with 1,000 pounds of gun power from the Spanish arsenals.
        When Ungaza was appointed Captain General of Caracas, a young Colonel,  31 Years old, named Bernardo de Gálvez, became the Governor of Louisiana by Royal Degree of February 1, 1777.  The new governor quickly gave signs of wholehearted sympathy for the American Revolution by not allowing the British Navy to operate the Mississippi waters or in the mouth of the river, by opening the Port of New Orleans to the trade with the rebel colonists. 
        Gálvez when even further, and in the spring of 1777, he seized 11 British ships on smuggling missions, and ordered the British subjects to leave Louisiana with fifteen days. Galveston in the state of Texas is named after Governor Bernardo de Gálvez.
        On June 21, 1779, Spain declared war on Great Britain.  The war against Great Britain allowed the Spanish governor of Louisiana and the Captain General of Cuba to increase the shipment of military supplies.  While the Spanish Army and Navy played an important role in the struggle for the independence of the United States from its bases in Louisiana and Cuba, Fray Junipero Serra, the father and founder of California sent a dispatch dated June 15, 1780, to the Spanish missions in California asking the Friars to pray for the victory of Spain and her allies over the British, and later on by his initiative the missions made a collection asking the Spaniards to contribute with two pesos each, and every Indian with one.  The amount collected was delivered to the Viceroy of Mexico, who, in turn, sent it to the General Rochambeau who participated with his French troops at the Virginia Campaign, 1781, along with Washington, LaFayette, and Wayne.  it is said that the Cathedral of Málaga lost one of its towers, and became a "victim" of the American Revolution, because the money assigned for it was ceded to a public subscription for Governor Gálvez expeditions against the British in their struggle with the American Rebels.  Finally, it should be remembered that the Spanish treasury backed and guaranteed the first issue of American currency, 
authorized by the Continental Congress in a Resolution dated May 9, 1776, which was to take its name dollar from the Spanish milled dollars, i.e. doblas.  The dollar sign - from the pieces of eight of the Spanish Government - evolved from the two upright posts on all coins and a winding inscription reading plus ultra which for years appeared on the United States coinage.
        There is much more to say about the contributions of Spain and Spaniards to the independence of the United States, but I believe I have taken already enough time.  Thank you.

The book from which I gather the information for my presentation is called Spain's contribution to the independence of the United States, published by the Embassy of Spain, United States of America in 1985.  Author Enrique Fernández y Fernández. In the inside cover it says:  Article originally published in REVISTA/REVIEW INTERAMERICANA - Vol. X, No. 3, Fall 1980 - Copyright 1985 by Enrique Fernández y Fernández - All rights reserved.  Printed in the United States of America.
        Professor Fernández y Fernández teaches Spanish Language and Literature at Eastern College, St. Davids, Pennsylvania.  Born in Madrid, he studied Humanities, Philosophy and Theology at the Metropolitan Seminary of Oviedo, Spain.  He completed a Master of Arts in Spanish at Temple University and a Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. His doctoral dissertation on the history of the Castillian Bibles in the 16th century was published in 1976. 

Bibliography for General/Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez
Prepared by Granville W Hough  gwhough@earthlink.net

With the increasing interest in the life and work of Bernardo de Gálvez, it is worth noting what is currently available and in our libraries. We can start with the Library of Congress and then go on to more specialized libraries. We see there are obituaries, epic poems, engravings and likenesses, genealogies, diaries, children’s books, and serious studies of his campaigns and contributions.

Baker, Maury and Margaret Bissler Haas, Eds. "Bernardo de Gálvez’s Combat Diary for the Battle of Pensacola, 1781," Florida Historical Quarterly,Vol LVI (Oct 1977):176-99. (in English.)

Beerman, Eric. "’Yo Solo’ not ‘Solo’: Juan Antonio de Riaño," The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 58, #2, (1979):174-184. This short study of Bernardo’s brother-in-law shows how he was with Bernardo commanding another vessel in the famous crossing of the sandbar at Pensacola Bay leading the invasion of Pensacola. After fighting with distinction there, Riaño was promoted, married Bernardo’s sister-in-law, Victoria de St Maxent, then transferred to the Spanish Army when Bernardo became Viceroy of New Spain. After forty years service, Riaño was killed 28 Sep 1810 as Governor of Guanajuato in the Hidalgo uprising, along with his son Gilberto. Another son was killed in 1812 in the battle of Cantle de Amilpas. His surviving children were son Honorato, who married Victoria Setien y Riaño, and dau Rosa, who married Miguel Setien.

Gálvez, Bernardo de. Engraving, undated, part of the picture collection, LSU Libraries. How this engraving looks is not known to the author of this list; however, there are on the internet Gálvez likenesses at www.oakapple.net/gwhough/galvez.jpg/  for quick viewing, and for detailed downloading at www.oakapple.net/gwhough/galvez-big.jpg/

Works Progress Administration (LA). Louisiana Militia under Don Bernardo de Gálvez, 1770-1797. This is a work which the author of this list did not learn about while working on Louisiana Patriots. It was done during the Great Depression as a make-work enterprise for historians. It is available from FHL US/CAN Film #1794157, item 5.

   Unrecognized Minority Groups Serving Under General Bernardo Gálvez

                                                    by Dr. Granville W. Hough

When studying membership lists of U. S. patriotic organizations, it is notable that certain groups have not been honored by their descendants. It is not prudent to say this is the fault of the patriotic organizations, such as the DAR or the SAR, or the fault of the descendants. At least now, if not before, descendants can honor their Patriot ancestors.

Under General Gálvez were Spanish, French, German, English, and assorted others of European stock. Also with him at Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola were soldiers of American Indian and African stock, as well as mixes of these races with the Europeans. All fought bravely, and all deserve to be recognized.

When Gálvez first moved against Manchac and Baton Rouge, he called on Louisiana Indians for help; and they responded with all the fighting braves they could spare. The village chiefs came separately to Natchitoches and took the oath of allegiance to the Spanish crown. We have their names, but we have not recovered the names of the 160 warriors who actually served.

1. Chief KYAAVADOUCHE of the Nadaque Nation, 74 warriors.

2. Chief COCAILLE of the Yatasse Nation, 16 warriors.

3. Chief YAMOH of the Natchitoches Nation, 13 warriors.

4. Chief QUENSY of the Adayes Nation, 16 warriors.

5. Chief CAPOT of the Bydaye Nation, 7 warriors.

6. Chief TYNIQOUAN of the Grand Cadoe Dahiou Nation, 77 warriors.

7. (chief deceased) of the Petite Cadoe Dahiou Nation, 58 warriors.

8. Chief NICOTAGUE-NANAN of the Quy de Singeo Nation, 54 warriors.

When Gálvez got to Mobile, he either recognized or organized the Compañia de Negros de la Mobila, commonly known as the "Compañia de Petit Jean." Activities of this company were frequently mentioned in records for Mobile, even though there were only 18 men. The Company Commander was Petit Jean, a free mulato, formerly slave to Louis Lusser of Mobile. Next in command was Corporal Garcí/García. Others who have been identified were Joseph Agustín, Agustín Badon, Cupidón Badon, Ambrosio Benoit, Andrés Chastán, Nicolás Chastán, Sinegal Chastán, Joseph Dubrocar, Jean Luis Duret, Luis Duret, Joseph Forgeron, Joseph Livois, David Medair, Philipe Narbonne, Príncipe Orbane, and Will Trouiller/Truillet.

Another organized unit of black soldiers was the company of the Moreno Battalion of Havana which found itself at Mobile for the British counterattack on the Village on 7 Jan 1781. They were from an infantry battalion of free blacks assigned to the Fall, 1780, attack on Pensacola which was destroyed by hurricane. Their transport ship had managed to take refuge from the storm in the Mobile harbor, and they were assigned to prepare for British counterattack. With others, they held the line at the Village in fierce fighting, forcing the British into retreat.

They later served at Pensacola. Only the names of the dead and wounded have been recovered. Also serving at Mobile were blacks or mixed race people who were generally slaves from New Orleans or Mobile on loan to Gálvez by their owners. Some had special skills, while others were simply strong workers. They included: 
Alexos, laborer, from Mr. LeBlanc of New Orlean:s
 Apolon, laborer from Mr. Cristóbal of German Coast, 
Bacus, worker at the fort, from Madame Fortier of New Orleans; 
Bacus, from Mr. LaBranch of New Orleans; 
Pierre Boissieux, blacksmith; 
Carlos/Carlos de Cadefiel, mulato laborer from Mr. Tizoneaux of New Orleans; Cristóbaland Estevan, laborers, from Mr. Bernoudy of New Orleans; 
Negro Flon, blacksmith; 
Francisco, laborer from Madame Trepanier of New Orleans; 
Francisco and Guilhaume, laborers, from Mr. Bienvenu from New Orleans; 
Francisco, from Mr. LaMaziere of New Orleans; 
Honoré, special confidence missions, slave of Felicité Detrian; 
Hoyos, blacksmith; 
Jacabo and  Maturin, laborers, slaves of Mr. Duparc of New Orleans; 
Mulato Libois;
Louis, from Mr. St. Martín of New Orleans; Negro Mangula; 
Marcus, of Mobile Plaza; 
Phelipe, laborer, from Mr. Donoy of New Orleans; 
Pedro, from Mr. Colin Latour of New Orleans, 
Samacón, blacksmith;
  and Sanson, from Mr. DuGruize of New Orleans.

Another group important at Mobile were the slaves captured on the plantations near Mobile. They were fed and sustained by the Spanish and put to work on the fortifications or in other support roles. The names of many of this group are known as well as their fate. Under terms of surrender, they were returned to their pre-attack owners.

References:

Allan J. Kuethe, Cuba, 1753-1815, Crown, Military, and Society, Knoxville, TN, The University of Tennessee Press, 1986.

Elizabeth Shown Mills. Natchitoches Colonials - Censuses, Military Rolls, and Tax Lists, 1722-1803, Chicago, IL, Adams Press, 1981.

F. de Borja Medina Rojas, José de Espelita: Governor of Mibila, 1780-1781, Sevilla (Spain), Publicaciónes de la Escula de Estudios Hispanos Americanos de Sevilla, 1980.

FIGHTING THE BRITISH IN CENTRAL AMERICA 
DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION – 

UNDER THE OTHER GENERAL GALVEZ

(Second Part, the Taxpayers and Merchants)

Researched and Submitted © 2002 Granville W. and N. C. Hough

These records were found in LDS Roll 0741892, covering a few locations in present day Honduras (Comayagua) and Guatemala. They are mostly for 1781 and 1782 and frequently list products which the person grew or traded, or for which the person was taxed.  Cultural historians will be interested to note that the products mentioned included: 

Granville Hough, Ph.D. response:

Jaime, this is what I recall from studying civil and military duties in New Mexico and Texas. I would expect similar customs in other areas.

The alcalde (mayor) was War Captain of his district and the nominal head of the militia, which had age limits of all able bodied males 16 to 60 as I recall. The militia did get called out, both in New Mexico and Texas, more than it wished to be because of the Commanche or Apache raids.

It was the alcalde's duty to furnish the response, or requested number of horsemen and horses for a chase or even an extended campaign. He did not himself have to go if he had a competent alcalde (teniente) assistant who relished that duty. It is my own belief that most alcaldes were older, less physically active men, who did not mind at all if an assistant wanted to do that hard riding and often fruitless work. In addition, it was never safe to have all the militia away at the same time. That just invited an attack by the Indians behind the lines.

This was so routine in New Mexico that there is seldom anything listed more than the number of men furnished by each neighborhood. Leaders or alcaldes are seldom mentioned directly. Sometimes the militia got paid for being called out for extended periods; but for a day or two of chasing horse thieves, they generally got only the experience.

Now there is another aspect of wartime duty for alcaldes. They were Commissioners to collect the voluntary contribution called for by King Carlos III. In New Mexico, we have a pretty good listing of the alcaldes who performed that duty. It is a basis for joining either the SAR or DAR. In the materials I studied for Central America, sadly mostly secondary, I found no mention of the voluntary contribution. I know the proclamation went to all parts of New Spain, and it must have been honored in Central America. I just did not find references to it.  (I did an article in the current Sept Somos Primos on the California contributions.)

The SAR might not accept as sufficient the fact that an ancestor held office in the 1779-1783 period in a certain town. It would also want a record that that town militia was called out for duty and that the ancestor either led it or arranged to have someone else lead it (in which case the alcalde would be the backup or rear guard commander.) Alternatively, the SAR might accept a record that the
alcalde was Commissioner to collect the voluntary contributions. So far as I know, we have had no SAR cases or applications which would test the review process. Possibly the DAR has accepted descendants of Alcaldes who served as Commissioners in New Mexico.

I do think of a third possibility where a civil servant in some capacity of little significance was also a militia officer in his area, either by election or appointment. In such a case, you would just need
a record of his militia service, with his civil service status making no difference.

What about civil service as a category of qualifying service in its own right? That would include all the normal offices of civil service, elective or appointive, jury duty, tax collecting, Committees of
Correspondence, Selectmen (councilmen), etc. In the case of the thirteen colonies, you held these offices IN SPITE OF British authority, and acceptance was tantamount to declaring rebellion or committing treason (in British eyes.) If you were captured after holding these offices, you could be severely punished. That is why Henry Laurens from SC was a Capital prisoner held on public display in the Tower of London after he was captured. He had been President of the Continental Congress from Nov 1777 until Dec 1778. 

In the Spanish and French civil service, you received appointments indirectly from the crown, and you served at the pleasure of the crown.  If you were captured, your risks were no greater than those of any other citizen of equal rank. So I think a distinction could be made, but we would have to have a test case to develop the pros and cons. The best reference I found for militia activity began on page 150 in Marc Simmons' Spanish Government in New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM,
University of New Mexico Press, 1968.

With my regards, Granville W. Hough.

Black/Mulatto?Mestizo Spanish Soldiers.

Information shared by Granville Hough, Ph.D. gwhough@earthlink.net
Somos Primos, August 2003

The DAR published a series of  pamphlets on minority soldiers from the 13 colonies.  One of the problems encountered in searching for Black/Mulatto Spanish Soldiers is that one priest or census-taker would list everyone as Mestizo and the next would list the same persons as Mulatto. 
I suspect the translator merely assumed an abbreviation such as M was Mulatto or Mestizo, with further checking. I think today the best translation for abbreviations or for Mulatto/Mestizo is simply Mixed.

The other problem is that the designations were not strictly accurate but reflected social status. A San Diego soldier whose descendant joined the SAR was recruited as an Indian, then as a successful soldier was Mestizo, then as a retired soldier and owner of the land in and around UCLA, he was Español. 

I think the problem for the descendants of black soldiers is working back the six to eight generations to identify the names of soldiers or sailors.

As far as the 8-volume Spanish Patriot's books are concerned, I included racial designations if they were given in the references used. However, it doesn't matter to the Sons of the American Revolution. What matters is that the service is documented.

I believe there is no way to develop a list of Spanish soldiers which accurately indicates racial background. They were all culturally Spanish because the Spanish Empire was the foremost racial integrator of its time. We forget that the Republic of Mexico would not elect a President who was not part Indian, or did not elect one until possibly Fox

Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic) was actively involved in financing, providing troop support, and protecting itself during the Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown Campaign in which America’s independence was assured. Here is how it came about.

After General Bernardo de Gálvez’ captured Pensacola, his working partner, the King’s Representative, Francisco de Saavedra, went in July to Cap Français (capital of what is now Haiti) to coordinate Spanish-French activities. Saavedra, as representative of King Carlos III, and de Grasse, as representative of the French government, developed the de Grass-Saavedra accord, which their governments later ratified, for conduct of the war against Britain in the Western Hemisphere: 

First in their agreement was to strike a blow in America which would assure American independence. Second was to recover bases and sugar islands in the Caribbean. 
Third was to eliminate the British from the West Indies by taking Jamaica. 

De Grasse had a plan for the first objective, which was to use his fleet in the Chesapeake Bay to work with Rochambeau’s French Expeditionary Force and with Washington’s American forces to corner and defeat Cornwallis in Southeastern Virginia. Saavedra approved this plan, but de Grasse had a problem. Before he could sail, he needed 2 million livres for his fleet and for Rochambeau’s army. He could not raise the money in Haiti.

Saavedra, recognizing that immediate action was required, transferred 100,000 pesos, which happened to be stored at Cap Français, half the funds allocated for Santo Domingo’s governance, to de Grasse; then went to Havana to secure the additional money. It is well known how the citizens of Havana, in six hours, provided 500,000 pesos, and were able to get the money to the de Grasse fleet. (Five days later, 1,000,000 pesos from the mint of Mexico was dispatched from Havana on another French vessel to de Grasse.) But the Santo Domingo money was first and very encouraging to de Grasse.

By terms of the de Grasse-Saavedra accord, de Grasse took his whole fleet and all the armed forces and militia in Haiti. Then, the regular garrison of Santo Domingo, the Enghien Regiment, moved from Santo Domingo to Haiti to cover for the absent troops. Within Santo Domingo, the local militia was alerted to defend their land and shores in case of any British attacks.

So the Dominican Republic, not really in the center of events, became truly committed to the Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown operation. Everyone must have been aware they were contributing to truly significant events.

Hough Recommended Bookmarks 
Suggestions by Granville Hough, Ph.D. gwhough@earthlink.net
Somos Primos, December 2003