Independence Won

The Pensacola chapter may be of particular interest to local visitors. Its focus is Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish colonial governor of Louisiana, and the part that he and his diverse army played in the American Revolution as they faced down British troops in what was then British West Florida. The inclusion of this little-known story will give visitors a more thorough understanding of the reach of the American Revolutionary War and its effects on varied peoples, even far from the Atlantic seaboard.

Gálvez had arrived in the Spanish colonial capital of New Orleans in December of 1776 to take command of the army’s Fixed Louisiana Infantry Regiment. He almost immediately assumed the role of acting governor of the Louisiana colony on January 1, 1777. Gálvez was then 30 years old, an inexperienced administrator, and he would soon be faced with military and diplomatic problems that would have challenged any veteran governor or commander.

The young Gálvez owed his position in part to his family connections; his uncle José de Gálvez was the powerful minister of the Indies, overseeing Spain’s American dominions, while his father Matias de Gálvez served as the viceroy of New Spain, or Mexico. Yet Bernardo had excelled in his own military career, having studied tactics and doctrine in France and serving with distinction in the prestigious Regiment of Seville in Spain, after which he was promoted to the rank of colonel and assigned to New Orleans.

It was not an enviable position. New Orleans was far from other Spanish colonial outposts such as Havana or Mexico City, and there was no large military force immediately available to keep order, so a citizen militia had to be carefully cultivated. Nor was Spain the only European colonial power in the region. Across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans was British West Florida, extending from Natchez and Baton Rouge east to Pensacola. There were British forts on the Mississippi from which attacks could be launched downriver. Only a token Spanish force guarded New Orleans. To complicate matters further, Great Britain’s Atlantic seaboard colonies had declared their independence the previous summer, thus embroiling much of the continent in open warfare.

Spain was officially neutral toward both Great Britain and the American revolutionaries at the time of Gálvez’s arrival, but he nevertheless began quietly planning for the possibility of war with the British by assembling an intelligence network with contacts in West Florida and the newly declared United States. Gálvez’s predecessor, Governor Luis de Unzaga, had covertly aided the American cause by supplying gunpowder to patriot forces operating in the Trans-Appalachian West. Gálvez continued Unzaga’s policies and went further by accepting American deposits at New Orleans, even opening the port to American privateers. He ordered the seizure of British smuggling craft in Louisiana waters. He also aided the Irish-born merchant Oliver Pollock, who acted as an American agent in New Orleans, in securing additional military supplies such as medicines and muskets, as well as Spanish dollars to help sustain the American war effort.

Gálvez set about improving New Orleans’s defenses, raising additional troops, and gathering intelligence about the three British forts on the lower Mississippi River—at Natchez, Manchac, and Baton Rouge—that could threaten New Orleans. These preparations enabled Gálvez to take the initiative when Spain entered the war in the summer of 1779.  He prepared to march upriver with a group of soldiers that included recruits from Mexico and the Canary Islands, free men of color, and American volunteers. They were joined along the way by 160 Indigenous volunteers, including Houmas, Choctaws, and Alabamas.

They reached their first objective, Fort Bute on Bayou Manchac near the Mississippi River, on September 2. Few men would have known the nature of their mission, and Gálvez chose this moment to announce that war had broken out between Spain and Britain, and that together they would attack the British posts on the Mississippi. His men responded with cheers and stormed the rudimentary log fort. Many of the British soldiers had evacuated upon seeing Gálvez’s approach; of the remaining 21 men, Gálvez’s men killed one and captured the remainder. This small victory greatly encouraged Gálvez’s men, among them French-speaking Acadians who had no love for the British after their expulsion from Canada.

Their next objective was the fort at Baton Rouge, which was significantly larger and held more than 400 troops, augmented by an additional armed force of civilians and enslaved men. The fort’s cannons prevented a direct assault, so Gálvez resorted to misdirection, ordering a detachment to a nearby grove to noisily cut down trees and construct an earthwork during the night. While the British focused their fire on this distraction, Gálvez’s remaining men hastily dug trenches on the opposite side of the fort to shield their artillery guns. When daylight came, British gunners saw their mistake and tried to redirect their fire to the new threat. However, Gálvez’s artillery was too well protected, and after a few hours of mounting damage, the fort raised a flag of surrender. Thus did Gálvez and his men end British control of the lower Mississippi in September 1779 and retake the western half of British West Florida for Spain.

Having ensured the safety of New Orleans from an immediate threat, Gálvez set about planning his campaigns against the remaining British strongholds in Mobile and Pensacola. He spent the final months of 1779 gathering the necessary troops and supplies. Captured British boats were refitted as troop transports, and gunpowder and shot were shipped from Havana. In late January 1780, the expedition against Mobile left New Orleans. The troops included just over 750 men, crammed into 13 vessels. This fleet arrived at Mobile Bay in early February to begin operations against Fort Charlotte. The British commander of the fort, Elias Durnford, could not hope to prevail with his small garrison of fewer than 300 men. Though he turned down one demand for his surrender in early March, Durnford was compelled by Gálvez’s siege guns to seek terms on March 13, 1780. Fort Charlotte had fallen, and only Pensacola remained.

Pensacola was the capital of British West Florida and the most difficult and well-defended objective that Gálvez faced. His counterpart, British general John Campbell, commanded a force of nearly 1,100 men garrisoning three forts and the town. Allied with Campbell’s troops was a Native contingent of about 500 Choctaw and Chickasaw warriors.

Due to logistical problems and disagreements with military officials in Havana, Gálvez was forced to delay his Pensacola campaign to the following year, 1781. In March, as the Spanish fleet approached Pensacola Bay, Gálvez faced his first challenge. Citing fickle weather and insufficient knowledge about navigational hazards, Spanish naval officers refused to enter the bay, especially while under fire from British shore batteries. In an act later memorialized in his coat of arms, a frustrated Gálvez boarded the small brig Gálveztown, which he’d brought from Louisiana, hoisted a broad pennant signifying the presence of a flag officer, and entered the bay under heavy fire without suffering any significant damage. The army troops aboard the Spanish fleet cheered, while the naval officers decided that perhaps they had better follow Gálvez’s example. His coat of arms includes a small vignette of Gálvez aboard his ship standing beneath a banner that reads “Yo Solo,” or “I Alone.”

The Gálvez chapter in American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition provides visitors with an overview of the entire Pensacola campaign, from Gálvez’s arrival and initial landing of troops through the establishment of his fortified camp and multiple artillery batteries to confront the formidable British fortifications. Visitors will see and learn more about Gálvez’s troops, which, like those that fought at Baton Rouge, were very diverse: veteran Spanish army regiments, white and free Black militia from New Orleans and Havana, Francophone Acadians, French volunteers, and Native allies including Houmas, Alabamas, and Six Towns Choctaws. Animated 3-D renderings will take visitors through the trenches to the Spanish forward batteries as British cannonballs whiz overhead.

The chapter concludes with the climax of Gálvez’s campaign, on the morning of May 8, 1781, when a Spanish artillery shell struck the powder magazine of the outermost enemy fortification. Following the spectacular and devastating explosion, Gálvez ordered his troops to advance. British defenses soon collapsed. Visitors will see General Campbell raise a white flag over Fort George, signaling the end of hostilities, and they will learn more about the long-term significance of Gálvez’s victory.

The loss of Pensacola and West Florida signaled a dramatic reversal of the dominance Great Britain had established in North America in 1763. The British decision to end military operations in North America was further hastened by another disastrous defeat, at Yorktown, which—along with Pensacola—provided further incentive for their eventual diplomatic recognition of an independent United States.