June 21, 1779

Spain declared war on Britain on June 21, 1779, and Bernardo de Galvez, Spanish governor of Louisiana, wasted no time invading West Florida as soon as he could. At the time, West Florida included more than half of present-day Alabama and had just two towns of significant size: Pensacola and Mobile, its ports on the Gulf of Mexico. Galvez laid siege to Mobile’s Fort Charlotte in March 1780. The fort had 304 defenders, while Galvez had almost 2,000 attackers. Spanish artillery smashed breaches in Fort Charlotte’s walls, and Elias Durnford, the fort’s commandant, surrendered on the 13^th day of the siege. For the next year, Spanish forces attacked the Pensacola garrison and Britain’s Native American allies in Mobile. Pensacola surrendered to Galvez in May 1781, ending British rule in West Florida.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

A 1763 map titled “A New and Accurate Map of East and West Florida.” It was published by R. Baldwin of London. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of University of Alabama W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library)

Portrait of General Bernardo de Gálvez, c. 1783-1784. (Painting by Mariano Salvador Maella, Wikipedia)

Statue of Bernardo de Galvez in Spanish Plaza, Mobile, 2009. (Altairisfar, Wikipedia)

Jan Barent Elwe’s re-issue of the Jaillot copperplate map of the United States, 1792. (Jaillot-Elwe, Wikipedia)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.