Don Diego de Gardoqui
Encyclopedia
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
, Spain (La Ribera street with Santa María street) - d. 1798, Madrid, Spain) Gardoqui-Gardoki Translation: Basque - Fernery (from "garo"- fern, and "toki" - place) was a Spanish-born politician and diplomat.
Biography
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, meeting with John Jay
John Jay
John Jay was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, and the first Chief Justice of the United States ....
on various occasions. The mercantile business of "José de Gardoqui e Hijos" in Bilbao (of which Diego was one of three sons in a partnership with their father) supplied the patriots with 215 bronze cannon - 30,000 muskets - 30,000 bayonets - 51,314 musket balls - 300,000 pounds of powder - 12,868 grenades - 30,000 uniforms - and 4,000 field tents during the war. After the Revolution he became Spain's envoy to the United States. He arrived in New York in the Spring of 1785. In the summer of 1786, he and Jay, who was Secretary for Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation, worked up a treaty in which the United States would receive a commercial treaty with Spain in exchange for giving up its claims to free navigation of the Mississippi. Although Jay backed the treaty, congress never ratified it.
Gardoqui continued as Spain's Minister to the United States until his death in 1798. He attended George Washington's
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
inaugural address and pronounced it "an eloquent and appropriate address." In honor of the inauguration, Gardoqui decorated the front of his house on Broadway in New York City, near Bowling Green, "with two magnificent transparent gardens, adorned with statues, natural size, imitating marble. . . . There were also various flower-pots, different arches with foliage and columns of imitation marble, and on the sky of these gardens were placed thirteen stars, representing the United States of America--two of which stars showed opaque, to designate the two States which had not adopted the Constitution."
In the early years after the Revolutionary War when congress and the president resided in New York City, Gardoqui's house was also the meeting place of the first Catholic dignitaries representing their countries. There Mass was said for the congregation composed of such men as representatives of France, Spain, and Portugal, as well as Charles Carroll, his cousin Daniel, and Thomas Fitzsimmons, Catholic members of Congress, officers and soldiers of the foreign contingent, merchants and others. Diego de Gardoqui laid the cornerstone of St. Peter's, the first permanent structure for a Catholic church erected in the State of New York, on October 5, 1785. The church first opened on November 4, 1786.
Because Spain was in control of the Louisiana Territory
Louisiana Territory
The Territory of Louisiana or Louisiana Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1805 until June 4, 1812, when it was renamed to Missouri Territory...
, Gardoqui worked to protect the King's interests on the Mississippi River. Various factions in Kentucky were frustrated with congress' refusal to allow them statehood. Gardoqui worked with John Brown and General James Wilkinson in 1788 to procure a treaty between Kentucky and Spain concerning navigation on the River. In the end, of course, Kentucky joined the United States and there was no separate treaty. Gardoqui also worked with Colonel George Morgan and Benjamin Harrison in 1788 and 1789. They had been attempting to buy land in Illinois from the United States government with no success. Morgan and Gardoqui worked out an agreement whereby 15000000 acres (60,702.9 km²) west of the Mississippi, south from its junction with the Ohio, and north of the St. Francis River would be deeded to American settlers. Morgan was to be the commander of the colony, subject to the king of Spain. Settlers would have religious freedom and some degree of autonomy. The new colony was to be called "New Madrid." However, the Spanish governor at New Orleans, although somewhat in favor of the project, refused to allow self government and required that all settlers be Catholic, and the settlement never saw fruition as a Spanish colony.
On July 7, 1794, during the Council of State held in Philadelphia, Diego de Gardoqui made the following statement:
"The worst misfortune that could befall Spain would be that the new dominion (the United States) should unite with England to work in common accord against the Spanish monarch."
George Washington said of Gardoqui on August 10, 1790, "... no man in his most Catholic Majesty's dominions could be more acceptable to the Inhabitants of these States."
To see the statue of Diego de Gardoqui by Luis Antonio Sanguino on Logan Square in Philadelphia, given to the city by King Juan Carlos of Spain as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.
He was a member of the wealthy Gardoqui
Gardoqui
- Gardoqui Family of Bilbao, Spain :Wealthy Basque proprietors of the 18th-Century House of José Gardoqui and Sons of Bilbao, Spain....
family of Bilbao, Spain. He was of Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
descent. He married Brígida Josefa de Orueta y Uriarte on December 6, 1765, in Vitoria
Vitoria-Gasteiz
Vitoria-Gasteiz is the capital city of the province of Álava and of the autonomous community of the Basque Country in northern Spain with a population of 235,661 people. It is the second largest Basque city...
, Spain.
He served under the Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
kings Charles III of Spain
Charles III of Spain
Charles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...
and Charles IV of Spain
Charles IV of Spain
Charles IV was King of Spain from 14 December 1788 until his abdication on 19 March 1808.-Early life:...
. Gardoqui, as a Spanish diplomat, operated under the ministry of Count Floridablanca
José Moñino y Redondo, conde de Floridablanca
José Moñino y Redondo, Count of Floridablanca , Spanish statesman. He was the reformist chief minister of King Charles III of Spain, and also served briefly under Charles IV. He was arguably Spain's most effective statesman in the eighteenth century...
. He became Finance Minister in 1791, as Minister Pedro López de Lerena, Count of Lerena, suffered an important illness. Gardoqui was officially named Finance Minister after the death of Count de Lerena, in 1792.
Gardoqui was the Spanish counterparty to the Jay-Gardoqui Treaty
Jay-Gardoqui Treaty
The Jay–Gardoqui Treaty of 1789 between the United States and Spain guaranteed Spain's exclusive right to navigate the Mississippi River for 30 years. It also opened Spain's European and West Indian seaports to American shipping...
of 1789, negotiated by John Jay of the United States, relating to the navigational rights of Spain in the Mississippi River. Gardoqui, in 1785-86, had arranged for a Spanish horse to be sent to Jay.
In 1785, Gardoqui laid the cornerstone of the first Catholic Church in New York City, St. Peter's
St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, New York
St Peter's Church is the oldest Roman Catholic parish in New York City and part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The church was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965. The original church's cornerstone was laid in 1785 and the first...
on Barclay Street.
After Gardoqui returned to Spain in 1788, he was later succeeded in the United States by two diplomats, José de Jaudenes y Nebot and José Igancio de Viar (serving as chargés d'affaires to the U.S.), both of who had served on Gardoqui's own staff during his 1785-1788 tenure.
Tributes to Gardoqui
The city of Constitución, Chile
Constitución, Chile
Constitución is a seaside resort, industrial city, minor port and commune in Chile, located in the Maule Region, Talca Province.-History:-8.8 magnitude 2010 earthquake:...
was originally named Nueva Bilbao de Gardoqui in his honor.
There was a World War II-era ship in the United States Navy, the USS Guardoqui [sic] that honored the Gardoqui
Gardoqui
- Gardoqui Family of Bilbao, Spain :Wealthy Basque proprietors of the 18th-Century House of José Gardoqui and Sons of Bilbao, Spain....
family of Bilbao, Spain. It, in turn, had been named for a U.S. ship, the USS Gardoqui, that had seen action in the Spanish American War.
In 1977, the Spanish Crown
Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I |Italy]]) is the reigning King of Spain.On 22 November 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated king according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. Spain had no monarch for 38 years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the...
, in commemoration of the Bicentennial
United States Bicentennial
The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to the historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic...
of the United States, presented a statue of Don Diego de Gardoqui, crafted by Spanish artist Luis Antonio Sanguino (b. 1934, Barcelona, Spain), to the City of Philadelphia. The statue currently stands in Logan Square
Logan Circle (Philadelphia)
Logan Circle, also known as Logan Square, is an open-space park in Center City Philadelphia's northwest quadrant and one of the five original planned squares laid out on the city grid. The circle itself exists within the original bounds of the square; the names Logan Square and Logan Circle are...
.
External links
- Diego de Gardoqui Statue.
- Fairmont Park Art Association description of Gardoqui statue in Philadelphia.
- Smithsonian Catalog Entry for Charles Willson Peale Portrait of Gardoqui.
- Nacimiento de Nueva Bilbao de Gardoqui in Chile.
- Description and photograph of statue of Gardoqui in Philadelphia.
- U.S. Navy list showing USS Gardoqui as having been decorated in the Philippine Campaign during the Spanish American War.
- Catholic Encyclopedia entry: Archdiocese of New York.
- Ongoing Exhibit (from 9/27/07 to 2/10/08) at Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery -- Legacy: Spain and the United States in the Age of Independence, 1763-1848.