The New International Encyclopædia/Galvez, Bernardo, Count de

GALVEZ, gäl′vā̇th, Bernardo, Count de (1755-86). A Spanish administrator, Governor of Louisiana and Viceroy of Mexico. He was born near Malaga, a member of a powerful Spanish family; entered the army in 1771; studied military science in France in 1772-75; served under O'Reilly against the Algerians in the latter year, rising to the rank of brigadier; and in 1776 was sent to Louisiana as Lieutenant-Governor under Luis de Unzaga, whom he succeeded in the same year. During the Revolutionary War his sympathies were largely with the Americans, whom he assisted in various ways, even before Spain's declaration of war against England in June, 1779, after which he prosecuted hostilities with considerable energy against the English possessions in this part of the country, and succeeded in capturing Fort Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Fort Panmure (1779), Mobile (1780), and Pensacola (1781). For these successes, and as a reward for his general administrative efficiency, he was raised in 1783 to the rank of count, was promoted to be lieutenant-general, and was appointed Captain-General of Cuba. This position, however, he relinquished two years later, to succeed his father as Viceroy of Mexico, where he lived with much ostentation, and for this, and for his construction of a fortified palace at Chapultepec, was accused by many of planning to create an independent Mexican kingdom, with himself as king. Both in Mexico and in Louisiana he introduced numerous and important reforms, and he has been regarded as one of the ablest Spanish administrators ever sent to America. Consult: Gayarré, History of Louisiana, vol. iii. (last ed., New Orleans, 1885); and Bancroft, History of Mexico, 1516-1887 (San Francisco, 1883-88).