Honor Bernardo de Gálvez: Statue for Galveston

Help us raise funds for the Bernardo de Gálvez statue to be erected on the Historical Galveston Sea Wall, in Galveston, Texas!

Did you know there is no statue of Gálvez in the world-famous city in Texas that is named after him?

We mean to rectify this, with a Bernardo de Gálvez statue ceremony in 2026.

What many Americans don’t realize is that the American Revolution was not just a war fought in the original 13 colonies by colonists. There was a remarkably diverse group of men from our part of the country who helped win our independence! Men of Spanish, African, Native American, and other European heritage also fought against British tyranny for independence. We want to recognize and memorialize their contributions!

The most famous of these men may have been Bernardo de Gálvez, then Spanish Governor of Louisiana. Amongst Gálvez’s troops to fight the British in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast to Florida were an estimated 330 recruits from Nueva España or New Spain and the Canary Islands, along with 80 free Black men. Gálvez recruited another 600 men among Louisiana’s German and Acadian immigrants, and 160 Native Americans. Spanish troops and ships sailed from Spain and Cuba.

A portrait of the Gálvez expedition’s journey through the bayous and marshlands of southern Louisiana was commissioned by the New Orleans Historical Society to commemorate the 300th anniversary of that city’s founding by Gálvez. The portrait hangs in the Cabildo at Jackson Square, and I have included a photograph of the portrait here to help you visualize what that journey must have been like.

Citizens in northern New Spain and the area that is now Texas also supported the cause against the British by supplying cattle to Gálvez’s troops with a number of cattle drives accompanied by drovers and soldiers, from that area across the Sabine River deep into Louisiana. Spanish residents contributed money at the request of the King to help the cause.

Without the intervention of Gálvez, and the sacrifices of many men of different cultures and races driving the cattle from northern New Spain to the Colonies, independence from the British may not have happened!

This is an opportunity to revere & honor the sacrifices of this great American Patriot and bring awareness in Texas to him & the contributions of his troop for generations to come!