Dionisio Alcalá Galiano (8 October 1760 – 21 October 1805) was a Spanish naval officer, cartographer, and explorer. He mapped various coastlines in Europe and the Americas with unprecedented accuracy using new technology such as chronometers. He commanded an expedition that explored and mapped the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia, and made the first European circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. He reached the rank of brigadier and died during the Battle of Trafalgar.
He sometimes signed his full surname, Alcalá-Galiano, but often used just Galiano. The published journal of his 1792 voyage uses just the name Galiano, and this has become the name by which he is most known.
Early life
Galiano was born in Cabra, Córdoba, Spain, in 1760. He entered the Spanish navy in 1771, at the age of 11, and enrolled in the Spanish naval school in 1775. After graduation in 1779 he entered active service.
He participated in several hydrographic surveys and became skilled in cartography. As a junior officer he spent time in the River Plate region and the Falkland Islands. He returned to Spain in 1783.
In 1784 Galiano met and worked with Alejandro Malaspina, with whom he would later journey to America. Both men were among a group of officers studying astronomy at the Royal Observatory in Cádiz under Admiral Vicente Tofiño. The association was brief, as Tofiño was called upon to create an atlas of the coast of Spain, and he chose Galiano to work on the project. Thus Galiano assisted Tofiño's great hydrographic study, which resulted in the Atlas Maritímo de España, published in 1789. This experience was the basis of Galiano's expertise as a professional cartographer.
In 1785 Galiano married María de la Consolación Villavicencio. Soon after the marriage he left on a survey of the Strait of Magellan under another influential teacher, Antonio de Córdoba.
In 1788 he was given charge of a mission to fix the location of the Azores, during which he was in command of the brig Natalia. In the same year he assisted in the final stages of Tofiño's mapping project.
Malaspina expedition
In 1789 Galiano was selected as the hydrographer for Malaspina's ambitious scientific and political voyage. Aboard the expedition's second ship, Atrevida, commanded by José Bustamante, he helped map the coastline Patagonia and most of the Pacific coast from southern Chile to Mexico. In addition, he engaged in various scientific tasks including astronomical observations, and gravity and magnetic measurements.
The expedition arrived in Acapulco in March 1791. Galiano was put in charge of a group of Malaspina's scientific officers assigned to stay in Mexico for a year. Malaspina's letter to the viceroy of New Spain, Juan Vicente de Güemes, Count of Revillagigedo, read in part: Under the orders of Ship Lieutenant Don Dionisio Galiano, he, together with [Novales, Pineda, and Olavide], will proceed to [Mexico] ... [Galiano] will be charged with coordinating in that capital, and later in Spain, all the notes of our past tasks ... Besides, he must extract all that information conducive to giving an exact idea of the former and present state of [New Spain].
Thus Galiano remained in Mexico, compiling the expedition's hydrographic and astronomical data, and making maps. He also investigated the colonial archives and collected information useful in assessing the state of the colony. This was one of the political tasks of the Malaspina expedition, for which Malaspina and his officers had royal authority above that of the viceroy, authorizing access to any and all documents they might think relevant. He spent about a year at this task, while the Malaspina expedition sailed to Alaska and Vancouver Island.