It is no coincidence that Macharaviaya, a small town in Axarquía in Malaga, celebrates the Independence Day of the United States every July 4. On this day, a specific battle is reenacted in the town, that of Pensacola, the last battle where the Spanish army recaptured Florida, which was under British rule on March 29, 1781.
It was a Spanish general named Bernardo de Gálvez who was able to capture the city of Pensacola, capture the English garrison, consisting of about 14,000 men, prisoners, and return the North American peninsula to Spanish hands.
Because of this, Bernardo Gálvez was promoted to Lieutenant General and named Captain General of Florida and Louisiana. King Carlos III even gave him the title of Count of Gálvez. And not only that, but in the victory parade, Bernardo de Gálvez marched next to George Washington in the streets of Philadelphia, who said that, “if the Spanish military did not give its help and to Spain, the United States would not ” I would have won the War of Independence.”
And why is the 4th of July celebrated in Macharavuiaya and the Battle of Pensacola is recreated? Because Bernardo Gálvez was born in this small town on July 23, 1746.
From a noble family, he spent his childhood working in the fields and attending school in the neighboring town of Benaque. He lost his mother very young, at the age of two, in 1748 and two years later, his father remarried. It is likely that he spent part of his youth in the Canary Islands, especially in Tenerife, where his father was stationed between 1757. and 1778. At the age of 16 he began a military career and in 1769 he arrived in America , requested by his uncle who holds the job of general visitor of the region.
Thanks to his exploits he is now remembered as a key figure for the freedom of the United States. Indeed, on December 16, 2014, the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, signed a joint resolution of the US Congress that granted honorary citizenship of the United States to Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, 229 years after the end of the American War. in Independence.
