“Gálvez and Louisiana in the American Revolution”

Told through text, multimedia screens, re-created period garments, old and newly rendered artwork, and historical objects such as maps, documents and guns, the new Cabildo exhibit “Gálvez and Louisiana in the American Revolution,” is intended to offer a comprehensive overview of our regional piece of the larger story.

“I do feel strongly that there’s a hole in the American Revolutionary War story the size of Spanish Louisiana,” said Stephen Kling, guest curator.. “And the story needs to be told. It was important, and for reasons that I really can’t fully explain — part of it I can — it’s been sidelined.”

Kling is also co-author of a new 600-page book, An Underappreciated Victory: Bernardo Gálvez’s Mississippi River Campaign Against the British in 1779. 

At age 31, Gálvez became the fourth governor of Spanish Louisiana in 1777. He married New Orleans-born Marie-Félicité de Saint-Maxent and fathered a son and two daughters.

From his post in New Orleans, he engineered Spain’s clandestine support of the Americans, directing weaponry and other supplies to patriot fighters in the northeast until Spain declared war on Great Britain in June 1779.

Between then and 1781, Gálvez engineered victories at Fort Bute, Baton Rouge, Mobile and Pensacola.

The last two are better known than the battles of the Mississippi River Campaign, hence the Underappreciated part of Kling’s book title.

“The reason it’s been sidelined, at least in my opinion, is that it’s so hard to get at the research,” Kling said. “You’ve got to know Spanish, you’ve got to know French, you’ve got to know some German.”

Print and podcast coverage: here and here. 

Extra thing: Once the online version of the column posted, a reader emailed: 

“The guy is interesting and even admirable, but it should not be suggested that he fought for America or for freedom. He acted to support the degenerate and evil Bourbon dynasty in Spain, soon to be ousted by Napoleon. He implemented slavery in Louisiana, a fault we think disqualifying for most of our heroes.”

All images courtesy of the Louisiana State Museum.