Dionisio Alcalá-Galiano
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Dionisio Alcalá-Galiano (1762-1805) was born in Cabra, Spain; pursued a career in the Spanish navy, reaching the rank of brigadier of the naval forces; and was killed off the Spanish coast in the Battle of Trafalgar.
He enrolled in the Spanish naval school in 1775. After graduating in 1779 he participated in hydrographic surveys of the Spanish and South American coasts and other Spanish navel scientific explorations.
"Alcalá-Galiano wrote an account of his explorations which was published in 1802. Unlike other accounts dealing with the northwest coast of North America, his account gave a positive view of the economic potential of the region. But since no passage to the Atlantic had been discovered, the Spanish authorities lost interest in the region. This lack of interest explains, no doubt, why it was possible to publish Alcalá-Galiano's account, for until that time Spain had always kept the results of its explorations secret."[1]
[edit] Sources
- collectionscanada Alcalá-Galiano (1792)
- Dionisio Alcalá-Galiano Association (in Spanish)
