Felicitas and Bernardo: the Power Couple of Spanish Louisiana, Thursday, January 19, 2023 6:30PM

Item details

Date

Thursday, January 19, 2023 6:30PM

Name

Felicitas and Bernardo: the Power Couple of Spanish Louisiana

Description

Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street
Admission is free. Registration is required.

Explore the remarkable lives of Spanish Colonial Governor Bernardo de Gálvez and first lady Felicitas in a special lecture by noted Galvez authority Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia. Presented with the support of the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain.

At a time when marriages were little more than alliances between like-minded elites, Bernardo and Felicitas broke one convention after another by sharing their lives to the fullest while contravening social traditions. They married on November 2, 1777, less than two years after Bernardo de Gálvez arrived to New Orleans as acting governor, and from that moment on they only separated when Gálvez was defeating the British from the Mississippi River to Mobile and Pensacola. While Gálvez was viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), the couple shocked the local upper crust by walking the streets and parks of Mexico City holding hands, enjoying bullfights and parties, or by sleeping in the same bed. When Gálvez died at the age of 40, Felicitas moved to the court in Madrid where she hosted one of the most brilliant salons of the capital, a place where enlightened ideas reigned. When the events that followed the French Revolution turned the tide against progressive thinkers, she was kept under close watch by the Spanish police and was even banished from the court for a time.   

Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia, PhD SJD, is the author of Bernardo de Gálvez: Spanish Hero of the American Revolution, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2018, which was awarded the Distinguished Book Award by the Society for Military History.

Online registration has closed. Tickets will be available at the event. Doors open at 6 p.m.