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| Christiansborg Palace seat of the Danish parliament. (Alf van Beem) |
The parliament and, in particular, the government
of Denmark on Tuesday, May 12, 2015, gave their support for a motion
supporting a democratic and peaceful dialogue between Catalonia and
Spain with respect to Catalonia's aspirations to self-determination.
During a debate seven of the eight political parties represented in
the Danish parliament supported the motion. A vote on the final text
was to be be held on May 19.
This unprecedented debate by a national European governing body has
perturbed the Spanish government which has been trying to counter
attempts by the Generalitat, or the government of Catalonia, to
promote the cause of self-determination on the world stage. With the
actions of the Danish parliament the Spanish government is faced with
a situation where a foreign government has given de-facto recognition
to the Catalan independence movement. This is something that the
Spanish government dreads. Instead of remaining a purely domestic
affair the debate on Catalan independence is on the verge of becoming
an international affair. This sort of de-facto recognition on the
part of the Danish parliament recalls a curious incident that
occurred 250 years ago. In that incident a representative of the
Dutch government for the first time officially saluted a vessel
flying the flag of the United States of America that had recently
declared its independence from Great Britain.
On November 16, 1776, the brig Andrew
Doria sailed into the open and exposed
anchorage opposite Fort Orange on the island of St Eustatius, a Dutch
colony in the Caribbean. The Andrew
Doria was flying the Continental
Congress flag, the forerunner of the Stars and Stripes. A few weeks
earlier on July 4,
1776, the United States had unilaterally declared its independence
from Great Britain. The Andrew Doria,
a small converted merchantman, was one of the first four ships of the
American navy. As the vessel sailed into the anchorage it fired a
thirteen-gun salute, one for each of the thirteen American colonies
that had declared independence. In return, and in accordance with
international custom at the time, the guns of Fort Orange fired an
eleven-gun salute.
The man who ordered the return salute was the
island's governor Johannes de Graaff. The firing of a few guns as a
salute may seem like an innocuous event but within the strict naval
customs of the time it had significant meaning. By his action the
governor recognised the flag of an independent and sovereign nation,
the United States of America. It is very likely that de Graaff's
action went against the wishes of the government back in the
Netherlands that was wary of upsetting the British. On the other
hand, the visit of the Andrew Doria
was also of some importance to the tiny Dutch colony. What was
generally not appreciated at the time, and remains so even today, was
that St. Eustatuis played a small but very important role in the
denouement of the American revolutionary war in more ways than one.
The incident of the salute itself has over the
years turned into somewhat of a legend, yes it did happen, but
perhaps it was not the first instance of an acknowledgement of the
American revolutionary flag. There is some evidence that in October
1776 an American merchantman received a salute from the then Danish
island of St. Croix now part of the American Virgin Islands. More
recently the St. Eustatius incident was used by the American
historian Barbara Tuchman as the opening scene of her last published
book The First Salute: A View of the
American Revolution (1988) an account
of American Revolution's influence on the 18th century. In her book Tuchman wrote that, “In its responding salute
the small voice of St. Eustatius was the first officially to greet
the largest event of the century—the entry into the society of
nations of a new Atlantic state destined to change the direction of
history.” Whether the American Revolution was the 18th century's defining event is debatable, the French revolution also
comes to mind, but it was certainly significant. And just as certain,
the little Dutch colony's response to the American revolution was not
without repercussions to itself.
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| 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 Independence
the Dutch were of course neutral but their colonies in the West
Indies provided the American rebels with one of their few sources of
arms and ammunition. The British, who were careful not to set up an
arms industry in their restless American colonies lest it fell into
the wrong hands, imported their munitions from the mother country. As
a result the American revolutionaries had to find overseas sources
for munitions. Their problem was that the Royal Navy controlled most
of the sea lanes to and from Europe. One of the routes that the
British were unable to stop completely was through St. Eustatius.
Arms were smuggled from the Netherlands aboard Dutch or other neutral
ships to St. Eustatius and then transferred to smugglers for
transshipment to the American mainland. The British were aware of
this. But, in an age where ships were dependant on the fickle winds
blockading the islands was no easy task. This was was especially true
since a large part of the British navy was at that moment more
concerned with the direct sea approaches to the thirteen rebellious
colonies. In fact, the purpose of the Andrew
Doria's visit to St. Eustatius was to
purchase arms and take them back to the rebels. When the vessel was
given an “official” welcome it raised the stakes as far as the
British were concerned, and they had to do something.
Although the salute may have seemed a minor incident it was of great
concern to the British as can be gauged by their reaction to it. At
first there were, of course, diplomatic protests made to the
government of the Netherlands. The governor, de Graaff, was recalled
to the Netherlands where he had to explain his actions. The Dutch
government could not have disapproved too much because de Graaff was
returned to his post on St. Eustatius. With the continuation of the
rebellion in their American colonies the British resorted to more
military efforts to stop the trade in arms coming out of the Dutch
colonies in general, and St Eustatius in particular. From the British
point of view it was very important that the arms trade in the
Caribbean be stopped. According to some sources the majority of the
arms reaching the American colonies were transshipped from St.
Eustatius. The island and de Graaff thus played an important military
role in the American Revolution. Tuchman wrote that governor de
Graaff, “[b]y intentionally encouraging, in defiance of his own
government, 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 its
frail beginnings from starvation of firepower.”
Eventually the deterioration of relations between Great Britain and
the Netherlands led to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784) when
the British declared war on the Dutch. Soon after the declaration, in
February 1781, the British occupied St. Eustatius when they sent
overwhelming naval and army forces to the island. De Graaff who was
still governor was at the time unaware that a state of war existed
but he surrendered without resistance. There was only a small Dutch
garrison on the island and it was no match for the British. Despite
the peaceful surrender once in control the British devastated the
island. The British also came into possession of the account books of
various merchants and discovered to their consternation that some
British businessmen had also been supplying the American rebels. The
British occupation of the island lasted only ten months because late
in 1781 the French, by then allies of the Dutch and of the American
revolutionaries, captured the island in turn. Under the terms of
peace the island returned to Dutch sovereignty in 1784 under which it
remains to this day.
When the American Revolution flared up in 1775 the
government of the Netherlands was careful of not upsetting the
British and did not get involved. However, there was a curious mutual
attraction between the Dutch public and the American revolutionaries.
Although by late 18th century the Dutch republic was much weakened and past its former
glory it remained an inspiration for the American rebels. The Dutch
republic had also been born of a struggle against tyranny in this
case by decades of war against Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. For the Dutch who recalled their own wars for independence
the struggle of the American colonies fighting for the same elicited
much sympathy for the revolutionaries. On the other hand the British
themselves did much to garner sympathy for the American
revolutionaries in particular by the Royal Navy's high-handed
behaviour on the open seas. As the most powerful navy in the world it
stopped and searched at will neutral ships much to the annoyance of
many governments.
There is a common thread between the Catalan debate in the Danish
parliament and the incident at St. Eustatius two and half centuries
ago. What is in theory an internal “Spanish” affair has suddenly
attracted the attention of outsiders. This attention confers to one
of the parties a level of legitimacy, of recognition, that the other
party has been trying to avoid. Soon after the debate the Spanish
embassy in Denmark downplayed its importance. It claimed that all of
the Danish political groups in favour of the motion said that the
debate between Catalonia and Madrid is strictly “an internal
affair” within Spain. Well, perhaps it is, but if more parliaments
both within Europe and around the world were open to discussing the
claim of Catalan self-determination then perhaps the Spanish
government will have to explain its unwillingness to deal
democratically with Catalonia's aspirations. After all, the motion in
the Danish parliament calls for nothing more radical than for a
democratic and peaceful debate. Catalan self-determination only
depends on the will of the Catalan public but gaining acceptance from
other nations will make it easier to achieve.
