I'm descended from a Spainard. Family lore, is that he fought for Napoleon. All we know about him, is that when he settled in Sweden, he changed his name. Not that this is unusual, it was changed again by one of his descendents after the emigration from Sweden, so my last name is now Green. The reason both times was probably to protect the guilty but I disgress.

This is driving me nuts. The trail only goes back to him and no further. We also all have blue eyes in the family. Now there are blue eyed Spainards. Some of them probably did fight for Napoleon, may have been just a few, but I just don't know.

I was discussing this with my neighbor who has done some history studies. He gave me this qoute, "Beware the blue-eyed Spainard", and said that my ancestor could have been a Basque.

I wish I could dig the old guy up and ask him, but that ain't happening. Any suggestions or places to look?

Thanks much,

Roy

There are a few blue eyed basques, I met some from Guipuzcoa, but they are as scarce as any blue eyed spaniard.

You really have few data. There were very few (percentually) spaniards who fought for Napoleon, but still they are too many to trace. Maybe if you knew he was a high rank officer, the blue eyes input could be enough for a query. Else...

Another fact is that when people change names, many times make the new one resemble the older, or translate the older. However, "verde" is not a usual spanish surname, although "rojo" (red), "blanco" (white), "pardo" (brown) are.

There is a song about eye colours:

Ojos verdes son traidores
azules son "mentideros"
los negros y acastañados
son firmes y verdaderos

It's a little bit different because it's a galician song. Means:

"green eyes are treacherous
blue eyes are liers
the brown and black ones
are firm and true"

Maybe that's why he said so, but the ones I know with blue eyes, in my family (uncles, dad, brother) I would live everything I have got in any of their hand.

He might have been a high official, but I would'nt put any stock in it. The rank increases everytime someone tells the tale. He's probably up to Grand Marshall by now., or whatever the top echelon was. He was probably a common grunt (soldier). I guess he wanted a fresh start, so he went to a new place and made a fresh start. He's not the only one that did it, it seems to be a family tradition.

It's pretty fascinating to have an ancestor who was on the "wrong" side so to speak. I'll have to read Durant's book on Napoleon again.

It also makes me wonder what happened to all those people. Was there a Spanish emigre community in the northern European countriries, after Napoleon's time was over? It sounds like returning to Spain may not have been a good option for his Spanish combatants. Or was it just wild circumstance that my ancestor ended in Sweden?

I do know this about my ancestors, they were good survivors with an exquisite sense of timing. It seems they always made tracks before bad things happened.

Who said Napoleon's troops were the bad side?

France was much more civilized and developed at that time than Spain, we needed a revolution as much as France, and having Napoleon loosing the war condemned us to an absolutist monarchy of very bad governors of our country.

If Jose Bonaparte (Napoleon's brother who had temporaly named king of Spain as Jose I) had had more time, he would have ended some very interesting projects for our country.

It is not extrange that some of the most educated people in Spain decided to back Napoleon efforts, included some important nobles, writers and politicians (for example Jovellanos). They were called "afrancesados" (french-like).

After Napoleon's troops abandoned Spain, some of these persons were prosecuted, others exiled and most remained here with a stigma for life.

Besides, blue eyes in Spain are not common, but neither uncommon. I know two or three persons with blue ayes. Blue eyes are usually a heritage of one of the nordic invaders Spain had: visigoths, sueves, alans,...

Good luck in your investigation!

Fernando

When I was bored in my classroom (and believe me, that happened quite often) I used to reckon the rate of light eyes in my classmates. I can assure you that there are between 20 and 25 per cent blue and green eyed people in Asturias.
I see Napoleon as the 19th century Hitler. He had the skill to find an epical justification for his invasions, damn he. His lovely brother Jose, as his other brothers, were just pawns in a chessboard controlled by Napoleon.
As to his being the champion of freedom and revolution, just remember that he was an emperor! He shut newspapers and shot dissenters. He was a dictator, supported by Swiss bank managers, who got a great profit from his "glorious" campaigns. Napoleon used to see war as business, and whenever he started an invasion, as he did in Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, he had accurate reports about the treasures that he was going to find in locals` churches and manors. Spaniard can be "grateful" for all the golden cups, Velazquez pictures and treasures in general from which Napoleon was so kind to "deliver" them.
The list of atrocities and outrages that French troops commited in Spain is shocking. Fernando, take a look at the 3rd of May shootings in Madrid and you will understand why Spaniards don`t have traditionally a good opinion on Napoleon.

Anyway. Invading another country to "enlghten" it and lead it to democracy et al... Where did I hear that not long ago? :o Of course they were the bad guys no matter they brought more modern political structures. You cannot impose your values to other countries. Much less if they are not as good as you pretend. Napoleon became emperor, and his brother, king of Spain, for a brief time (Pepe "botella", because he was a drunk), so it was not about being a Republic as pretended.

The shootings of May 3rd in Madrid were preceded of a general uprest.

We can't judge a historic figure like Napoleon with current rules and morals. At the time it was very a simple choice: being a satellite country of Napoleon or being ruled by a real pawn (Fernando VII) who was an absolutist monarch.

Napoleon was much better, and Jose Bonaparte would have been a very good governor if he would have been given the chance.

Fernando

We CAN judge Napoleon by modern standards, since his values were supposed to be, after all, our values: the rights of man, democracy and all that stuff, were born in the French revolution that he claimed to be promoting with his cannons. It is a different thing if he was an hypocritical who gathered wealth and power under oh-so-cute excuses.
The uprising in Madrid had a very good reason to start, and was smashed in a bloodbath and a reign of terror planned cold-blood by Murat. If I accepted random shootings as "reasonable measures to restore order", my ideas of good and evil would crumble down.
Tyrants always have good, moral and noble reasons to kill thousands and opress millions: ain`t it funny all the mischief that they always unleash for our own good?

I guess I should have said losing side. I look upon Napoleon, bad or good, was an agent of change. Change is a constant process, personal, political, or societal. If it is resisted or suppressed, it builds up pressure and then it can happen rather quickly and brutally, in some cases. It cannot be always managed but it helps if it is.

Hey Ignacio...the "where have I heard that before recently" comment....hmmm....maybe "that country you're thinking of" got its ideas from "a certain monarchy who in the late 15th century imposed its will on an established religious and gubernatorial system finally expelling them in 1492 and then funding an expedition to a new corner of the world, which, when discovered, was 'Christianized' at the musket point....in the mean time at home those dissenters were systematically stripped of land, wealth and prestige unless they adopted the predominant religion." Yikes...monarchofascism. I think I just coined a phrase!

That cycle just keeps going around. We're all more enlightened than the next guy and we all know how to build a better mouse trap. BTW: I think the pawn Jose wasn't worth his salt, and Napoleon was a piece of shtuff. Of course, history is simply written by the victors and open to interpretation by the rest of us. Had the Carlists been victorious in one of their two efforts, Spain might be incredibly different...or what if the Brigada Lincoln had been able to make a difference circa 1938...35 years of isolation would've been replaced with destruction during WWII...you win some you lose some.

Boy did I digress...am I still on topic?

Regarding the ancestor: The post re: Asturias...I'm blond and blue-eyed, and when my Spanish was a little more polished, I was asked what town in Asturias did I call home by some. My usual description of Spain to those who want to know "what a 'Spaniard' looks like" is this:

You start in Asturias with blond/blue eyes, and they get fewer and further between the further south you go. There are a lot of folks in the north that would fit your ancestor's description. The one argument for being a Basque would have less to do with eye color than it would with being a soldier-for-hire. Of course the Basques haven't like the Francos since 778 when they decided to destroy Roland and Charlemagne's rear guard. Old wounds run deep.

Probably the Spanish region with more blue eyed people among its population is Galicia, in the very north west.

That your ancestors fought for Napoleon is not so strange, since the Napoleon’s troops included many forced soldiers from the countries invaded by the French troops, and many mercenaries too.

Spain has given many mercenaries to foreign Armies along its history. And Galicia, since it is one of the poorest regions of Spain give many, many mercenaries, together with Extremadura (where there are also usual the blue eyed people, and from Extremadura come many conquistadors, like Pizarro or Hernán Cortés)

Cali:

I was not thinking in this very country, you know , but that one too, imperialists resemble each other. The one you mention imposed their control, their razzias, religion, and confiscated goods not only in America, but also in Europe.

My boyfriend from madrid has light brown hair (used to be blond when he was little), and blue/green eyes. He does not look typically Spanish, but was born and bred in madrid. Parents as far as i know both from madrid too.

Rustedbird: If you are wanting to trace your family tree back to it's European origins where ever that might lead, I would recomend starting with the records of the Mormon Church. Look in your local phone book for the nearest one to you, call them and ask where the nearest "Family Center" is. There is no charge to use their facility and most have records going back into the 15th century. If they have to order records from Salt Lake City they will charge you a small handleing fee. The records that they send for will not be allowed to remove from their center but you will be allowed to read it and make your records from the center. They are not going to start to preach to you about joining the Mormon Church as many people think. From the Salt Lake City records they claim to have records going all the way to Adam and Eve. There claim not mine.

Another excellant place to look for information is the immigration records from the various ports of entry. If you have some idea as to when you ancestors came to America you can find out which ports were open then and start going through the records for the ports. That may help trace it backward. Several books and movies have been made where immigration was part of the plot and how the names have been changed at the ports by immigrations officers. How do you think all the Smiths, Jones etc got here. Excellant examples of this are Kane and Able by Jeffery Archer and The Godfather Part Two by Mario Puzzo.

Feel free to send me a personal E mail and I might possibly provide more places to look. Be sure to mention the Madridman in the subject line so that I will know to open the mail rather than delete without opening.