Like most Americans, I studied the American Revolution in Elementary School, maybe a little in High School. And in college, I needed one History class so I took History of the American Revolution. And most of the maps looked something like this showing the 13 colonies stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
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| Courtesy of the United States Military Academy Department of History |
But that is misleading.
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| Credit: http://jb-hdnp.org/ |
Take a look at this map. Notice how small of an area the original 13 colonies take up compared to the land claimed by France (blue) and the land claimed by Spain (orange). And neither of these maps assume that the natives of this land have any authority.
Although the Title is “English, French, and Spanish Settlements to 1776”. It is really a map showing the English, French, and Spanish boundaries in 1750.
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| Credit: NPS |
In 1763, the Treaty of Paris changed several of the boundary lines and much of what was New France became Spanish Territory. Spain was not happy with England over the Treaty and that set the stage for the Spanish support for the American Revolution.
Before 1763, the land now called Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi was populated by Native American Indians, Blacks – both free and slave, French, French-speaking Acadians, Germans, British, Mexicans, and Spaniards.
So why does this matter? Because the American Revolution was fought not just in the original 13 colonies — but also across the coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1776 when the colonies declared war on England, Spain was not ready to join the colonists but was supportive and began sending supplies from Louisiana up the river to General Washington in secret. In 1777, King Carlos of Spain sent a young but experienced Spanish soldier, Bernardo de Galvez, to New Orleans to be the Acting Governor of Louisiana. Galvez continued his country’s secret support of the American Colonials with guns, bullets, food, and other supplies.
On June 29, 1779, Spain declared war on England after England refused to recognize the new American government. Governor Galvez now had the authority to build a military but he had to do it quickly before the British invaded New Orleans. After Spain’s loss to England in the previous 7 Years War, Spain had learned the value of building ethnically diverse military units. So Gov. Galvez recruited Texan Vaqueros, Germans, French, Spaniards, Mexicans, American Indians, French Acadians, and free blacks to join his Militia.
In the “Marcha de Galvez” with his extraordinarily diverse militia, Gov. Galvez and his troops marched 115 miles north of New Orleans in 11 days capturing the British posts of Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez on the Mississippi.
Then they went on to conquer the British at Mobile in 1780 and completed their efforts at Pensacola in 1781.
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| Imaginative engraving of the 1781 Battle of Pensacola, State Archives of Florida |
The County of Galveston, Texas and the Parish of St. Bernard, Louisiana were named to honor this American Patriot.
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