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.

Window to Past & Present Ugliness


Yesterday I visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History with my friend Kim Roberts.  I wanted to get a second look at their splendid exhibit African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond before it closes next Monday, September 3rd.  After we took in the beautiful artwork, including one last live look at Claude Clark's gorgeous Resting, we decided to explore a few of the other exhibits in that cavernous building.  The Old Patent Office houses both the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.  The six-year renovation and redesign a few years back resulted in the intermingling of the two museum's collections and it makes for some smashing juxtapositions.  This is how we found ourselves on the opposite wing of the first floor and the current exhibitions commemorating the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

Of the many pieces of photography, painting and statuary I was most struck by a small exhibition of the drawings of the Civil War-era artist Adalbert Volck who created some of the most fascinating (and disturbing) political cartoons of the era and seeing them are a window to the Confederate mentality.  According to the Smithsonian's site, Volck was a recent German emigre who savagely attacked the North through this series of cartoons entitled Sketches from the Civil War in North America.  Unlike most recent emigres, Volck chose to side with the Confederacy during the Civil War (he also was said to have served as a courier for Confederate President Jefferson Davis).

Rounding a corner from a series of Mathew Brady portraits, I  came across these drawings and was first struck by their tiny precision.  I came up close to them to take in their beautiful thin-lined detail.  But I don't know how else to describe these illustrations but as racist, pro-slavery, extremist artwork.  They are beautiful illustration in the service of ugly repulsive sentiments.  They are pieces in the service of demagoguing and demonizing almost everything that we now consider just and fair.  One piece entitled "The Worship of the North" really struck me.  Here's the description from the Gettysburg site:

In an elaborate scene of idol worship, Northern leaders are shown sacrificing a white man to a shrine of "The Negro." A black man sits atop this shrine, labeled "Chicago Platform" with carved busts of Lincoln as a serpent carved into its base. Henry Ward Beecher uses a sacrificial knife, Charles Sumner holds a torch, and Horace Greeley holds a censer from which snakes slither. John Brown, with a pike, is represented as St. Ossawatomie. General H.W. Halleck, General Winfield Scott, General David Hunter, Governor John Andrew of Massachusetts; and Harriet Beecher Stowe are all present in the crowd.

What the description doesn't mention are the "bricks" forming the "shrine" to "Negro Worship."  They read "Socialism," "Atheism," "Free Love," "Rationalism," "Witch burning," and "Spirit Rapping." I don't know what "witch burning" refers to specifically in this case.  I assume "spirit rapping" is a reference to the popular spiritualism of the time.  But I'm struck at how some of these attacks are still used now by the Republican Party and the right-wing's current (and I guess this artwork reveals continuing) conflation of lies, smears and bogey men.  It's certainly hard not to think of these lasting ugly currents as you pay attention to the words and actions coming from the "festivities" around Tampa's Republican convention this week (those are all separate links there).  There's an irony here of course as it's the Republican party then in power that Volck was attacking with his drawing.

Today's campaign would probably change out some of those "bricks."  I'd imagine a present day Adalbert Volck adding bricks reading "MEXICANS" or "ALIENS", "GAY MARRIAGE," "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE," and "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" to the "altar."  I highly recommend checking out this exhibit, or at the very least, check out this piece online in it's full size (here).  Volck was a gifted artist who, although relatively new to the country, was quite successful in tapping into an ugly stream of American fear-mongering.  This is American history and it's not pretty. And as this presidential campaign has shown us, it is still very much with us.