On Spanish Naval Heroes

There are many ways that the history of Spanish speaking people disappears from American history. One of the ways is by mispronunciation and respelling.  The names are changed in ways that separate a place or a marker or even a person from it's Spanish source.  Like how the city of Galveston loses it's "z" and it's connection to Bernardo de Galvez, (the forgotten hero of the American Revolutionary War without whose contributions the American rebel colonies would've fallen to the British. More on him some other time, I promise).

Today I'd like to talk about the Spanish-American naval hero David Farragut.  He's one of the navy's greatest figures and perhaps the greatest naval figure of 19th century America -- famous for his (probably apocryphal) command during the Battle of Mobile, "Damn the torpedoes!  Full speed ahead!"  I live in Washington, DC and most Washingtonians don't realize that Farragut Square, or the metro stops at Farragut (East and West) are named for a Spanish-American naval hero.  In fact the other day as a friend and I were walking by the square I mentioned his Spanish roots and she replied with some surprise, "Farragut?  That's a Spanish name?"

Well, actually it's a Catalan name.  Not that you'd know it from the way we pronounce it in this country.  His father George Farragut was a navy man too. "George" was born Jordi Farragut in Minorca Spain, son of Antoni Farragut and Joana Mesquida. He changed his name to "George" after he gave up his commission as a Captain in the Spanish Merchant Marines to fight on the American side during the Revolutionary War. He gave up being a Captain to be a Lieutenant in South Carolina's Navy and perhaps Anglicizing his name was the price he had to pay for fitting in.  Although it may have been the exasperation of repeated mispronunciations.  We will never know.  He fought against the British at Savannah and did some cavalry service as well.  After the war he married Elizabeth Stine, settled down and raised a family.

Jordi's son David is the more famous Farragut and his distinguished naval career in the War of 1812 and the American Civil War's the reason so many things bear that name across the United States.  There are monuments to him all over the country.  There are a number of schools from Massachusetts to Puerto Rico named after him.  There's a Farragut, Tennessee, a Farragut, Iowa, and a neighborhood in Brooklyn.   There's even a Starship named after Farragut in the fictional Star Trek universe. But Farragut as a name has become so incorporated into Americana that it's lost any of its Catalan roots.  Any way you slice it, you can't talk about American Navy history without talking about the son of a Spanish immigrant who changed his name to fit into the United States.