Don Diego de Gardoqui

Modern portrait illustration of Diego de Gardoqui by an unknown artist. Diego María de Gardoqui y Arriquibar (born November 12, 1735, Bilbao, Spain – d. 1798, Turin, Italy) was a Spanish politician and Spain's first envoy to the United States.

Biography, origins, and youth Member of a family of Basque councilors, among them Martín Gardoqui and John Gardoqui, also common ancestors of the governor Luis de Unzaga, whose grandfather was the Bilbao councilor Thomas de Unzaga Gardoqui; This family saga was dedicated for upcoming generations to business, especially to commerce and the incipient metallurgical industry related to the Navy shipyards.

He married Brígida Josefa de Orueta y Uriarte on December 6, 1765, in Vitoria, Spain.

Portrait of Gardoqui, ca. 1750, by an unknown artist, in the collection of the Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Diego de Gardoqui, the fourth of eight children, was the financial intermediary between the Spanish Court and the Colonies during the American Revolutionary War, meeting with John Jay on various occasions. He was a Basque and a member of the wealthy Gardoqui family of Bilbao, Spain. The mercantile business of "José de Gardoqui e Hijos" in Bilbao (of which Diego was one of three sons in a partnership with their father) supplied the patriots with war supplies during the war.

In November 1775, Gardoqui supplied the Massachusetts troops with 300 muskets with bayonets. The trading firm Joseph Gardoqui and Sons supplied Spanish blankets, tents, boots, and uniforms that helped keep hundreds of Continental Army soldiers warm through the brutal winter of 1777 at Valley Forge.

After the Revolution he became Spain's first envoy to the United States. He arrived in New York in the Spring of 1785.

Portrait of Spanish count Pedro López de Lerena in about 1791 by Mariano Salvador Maella. Gardoqui served under the Bourbon kings Charles III of Spain and Charles IV of Spain. Gardoqui, as a Spanish diplomat, operated under the ministry of José Moñino, 1st Count of Floridablanca. He became Finance Minister in 1791, when Minister Pedro López de Lerena, Count of Lerena, suffered a debilitating illness. Gardoqui was officially named Finance Minister after the death of Count de Lerena, in 1792.

Gardoqui was the Spanish counterparty to the Jay–Gardoqui Treaty of 1789, negotiated by John Jay of the United States, relating to the navigational rights of Spain in the Mississippi River. Gardoqui, in 1785–86, had arranged for a Spanish horse to be sent to Jay.

In 1785, Gardoqui laid the cornerstone of the first Catholic Church in New York City, St. Peter's on Barclay Street.

After Gardoqui returned to Spain in 1788, he was later succeeded in the United States by two diplomats, José de Jaudenes y Nebot and José Ignacio de Viar (serving as chargés d'affaires to the U.S.), both of whom had served on Gardoqui's own staff during his 1785–1788 tenure.

Gardoqui was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1789.

Tributes

There is a Calle Gardoqui in Bilbao, Spain, but it is named after his brother, Cardinal Francisco Gardoqui (1747–1820).

The city of Constitución, Chile, was originally named Nueva Bilbao de Gardoqui in his honor.

There was a World War II ship in the US Navy, the , which honored the Gardoqui family of Bilbao, Spain. It, in turn, had been named for a US ship, the , which had seen action in the Spanish–American War.

In 1977, the Spanish Crown, in commemoration of the United States Bicentennial, presented a statue of Don Diego de Gardoqui, crafted by Spanish artist Luis Antonio Sanguino (b. 1934, Barcelona, Spain), to the City of Philadelphia. The statue currently stands in Logan Square; in 2019, the statue was refurbished.