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A collection of occasional thoughts and recollections.

15 May 2015 Another First Salute?Christiansborg Palace seat of the Danish parliament. (Alf van Beem)
The parliament and, in particular, the governmentof Denmark on Tuesday, May 12, 2015, gave their support for a motionsupporting a democratic and peaceful dialogue between Catalonia andSpain with respect to Catalonia's aspirations to self-determination.During a debate seven of the eight political parties represented inthe Danish parliament supported the motion. A vote on the final textwas to be be held on May 19.This unprecedented debate by a national European governing body hasperturbed the Spanish government which has been trying to counterattempts by the Generalitat, or the government of Catalonia, topromote the cause of self-determination on the world stage. With theactions of the Danish parliament the Spanish government is faced witha situation where a foreign government has given de-facto recognitionto the Catalan independence movement. This is something that theSpanish government dreads. Instead of remaining a purely domesticaffair the debate on Catalan independence is on the verge of becomingan international affair. This sort of de-facto recognition on thepart of the Danish parliament recalls a curious incident thatoccurred 250 years ago. In that incident a representative of theDutch government for the first time officially saluted a vesselflying the flag of the United States of America that had recentlydeclared its independence from Great Britain.
On November 16, 1776, the brig AndrewDoria sailed into the open and exposedanchorage opposite Fort Orange on the island of St Eustatius, a Dutchcolony in the Caribbean. The AndrewDoria was flying the ContinentalCongress flag, the forerunner of the Stars and Stripes. A few weeksearlier on July 4,1776, the United States had unilaterally declared its independencefrom Great Britain. The Andrew Doria,a small converted merchantman, was one of the first four ships of theAmerican navy. As the vessel sailed into the anchorage it fired athirteen-gun salute, one for each of the thirteen American coloniesthat had declared independence. In return, and in accordance withinternational custom at the time, the guns of Fort Orange fired aneleven-gun salute.
The man who ordered the return salute was theisland's governor Johannes de Graaff. The firing of a few guns as asalute may seem like an innocuous event but within the strict navalcustoms of the time it had significant meaning. By his action thegovernor recognised the flag of an independent and sovereign nation,the United States of America. It is very likely that de Graaff'saction went against the wishes of the government back in theNetherlands that was wary of upsetting the British. On the otherhand, the visit of the Andrew Doriawas also of some importance to the tiny Dutch colony. What wasgenerally not appreciated at the time, and remains so even today, wasthat St. Eustatuis played a small but very important role in thedenouement of the American revolutionary war in more ways than one.
The incident of the salute itself has over theyears turned into somewhat of a legend, yes it did happen, butperhaps it was not the first instance of an acknowledgement of theAmerican revolutionary flag. There is some evidence that in October1776 an American merchantman received a salute from the then Danishisland of St. Croix now part of the American Virgin Islands. Morerecently the St. Eustatius incident was used by the Americanhistorian Barbara Tuchman as the opening scene of her last publishedbook The First Salute: A View of theAmerican Revolution (1988) an accountof American Revolution's influence on the 18thcentury. In her book Tuchman wrote that, In its responding salutethe small voice of St. Eustatius was the first officially to greetthe largest event of the centurythe entry into the society ofnations of a new Atlantic state destined to change the direction ofhistory. Whether the American Revolution was the 18thcentury's defining event is debatable, the French revolution alsocomes to mind, but it was certainly significant. And just as certain,the little Dutch colony's response to the American revolution was notwithout repercussions to itself.
The USS Andrew Doria taking the salute from the St. Eustatius garrison, from a painting by Phillips Melville.
She flies on her stern the Continental Congress flag and at the masthead the Dutch courtesy flag.
(U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington D.C.)At the start of the American War of Independencethe Dutch were of course neutral but their colonies in the WestIndies provided the American rebels with one of their few sources ofarms and ammunition. The British, who were careful not to set up anarms industry in their restless American colonies lest it fell intothe wrong hands, imported their munitions from the mother country. Asa result the American revolutionaries had to find overseas sourcesfor munitions. Their problem was that the Royal Navy controlled mostof the sea lanes to and from Europe. One of the routes that theBritish were unable to stop completely was through St. Eustatius.Arms were smuggled from the Netherlands aboard Dutch or other neutralships to St. Eustatius and then transferred to smugglers fortransshipment to the American mainland. The British were aware ofthis. But, in an age where ships were dependant on the fickle windsblockading the islands was no easy task. This was was especially truesince a large part of the British navy was at that moment moreconcerned with the direct sea approaches to the thirteen rebelliouscolonies. In fact, the purpose of the AndrewDoria's visit to St. Eustatius was topurchase arms and take them back to the rebels. When the vessel wasgiven an official welcome it raised the stakes as far as theBritish were concerned, and they had to do something.
Although the salute may have seemed a minor incident it was of greatconcern to the British as can be gauged by their reaction to it. Atfirst there were, of course, diplomatic protests made to thegovernment of the Netherlands. The governor, de Graaff, was recalledto the Netherlands where he had to explain his actions. The Dutchgovernment could not have disapproved too much because de Graaff wasreturned to his post on St. Eustatius. With the continuation of therebellion in their American colonies the British resorted to moremilitary efforts to stop the trade in arms coming out of the Dutchcolonies in general, and St Eustatius in particular. From the Britishpoint of view it was very important that the arms trade in theCaribbean be stopped. According to some sources the majority of thearms reaching the American colonies were transshipped from St.Eustatius. The island and de Graaff thus played an important militaryrole in the American Revolution. Tuchman wrote that governor deGraaff, [b]y intentionally encouraging, in defiance of his owngovernment, the Dutch trade in military armament to the [American]Colonies, the Governor assured the continuance of shipments from St.Eustatius, a critical factor in saving the American Revolution at itsfrail beginnings from starvation of firepower.
Eventually the deterioration of relations between Great Britain andthe Netherlands led to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784) whenthe British declared war on the Dutch. Soon after the declaration, inFebruary 1781, the British occupied St. Eustatius when they sentoverwhelming naval and army forces to the island. De Graaff who wasstill governor was at the time unaware that a state of war existedbut he surrendered without resistance. There was only a small Dutchgarrison on the island and it was no match for the British. Despitethe peaceful surrender once in control the British devastated theisland. The British also came into possession of the account books ofvarious merchants and discovered to their consternation that someBritish businessmen had also been supplying the American rebels. TheBritish occupation of the island lasted only ten months because latein 1781 the French, by then allies of the Dutch and of the Americanrevolutionaries, captured the island in turn. Under the terms ofpeace the island returned to Dutch sovereignty in 1784 under which itremains to this day.
When the American Revolution flared up in 1775 thegovernment of the Netherlands was careful of not upsetting theBritish and did not get involved. However, there was a curious mutualattraction between the Dutch public and the American revolutionaries.Although by late 18thcentury the Dutch republic was much weakened and past its formerglory it remained an inspiration for the American rebels. The Dutchrepublic had also been born of a struggle against tyranny in thiscase by decades of war against Spain during the 16thand 17thcenturies. For the Dutch who recalled their own wars for independencethe struggle of the American colonies fighting for the same elicitedmuch sympathy for the revolutionaries. On the other hand the Britishthemselves did much to garner sympathy for the Americanrevolutionaries in particular by the Royal Navy's high-handedbehaviour on the open seas. As the most powerful navy in the world itstopped and searched at will neutral ships much to the annoyance ofmany governments.
There is a common thread between the Catalan debate in the Danishparliament and the incident at St. Eustatius two and half centuriesago. What is in theory an internal Spanish affair has suddenlyattracted the attention of outsiders. This attention confers to oneof the parties a level of legitimacy, of recognition, that the otherparty has been trying to avoid. Soon after the debate the Spanishembassy in Denmark downplayed its importance. It claimed that all ofthe Danish political groups in favour of the motion said that thedebate between Catalonia and Madrid is strictly an internalaffair within Spain. Well, perhaps it is, but if more parliamentsboth within Europe and around the world were open to discussing theclaim of Catalan self-determination then perhaps the Spanishgovernment will have to explain its unwillingness to dealdemocratically with Catalonia's aspirations. After all, the motion inthe Danish parliament calls for nothing more radical than for ademocratic and peaceful debate. Catalan self-determination onlydepends on the will of the Catalan public but gaining acceptance fromother nations will make it easier to achieve.Posted byXavier Maciaat13:17No comments: Older PostsHomeSubscribe to:Posts (Atom)
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