Argentine Navy

William Porter White 1790 literally created the Argentine navy. Living in Buenos Aires during the early nineteenth century, he made his fortune importing mate, a popular tea-like beverage from Paraguay. When the Spanish blockaded Montevideo—and, incidentally, cut off White's enterprise—he used his own money to help buy and outfit six ships and a sloop. Two months after they set sail they broke the blockade and propped up Argentina's sagging morale.

White's popularity in Argentina did not last. In 1814 he got into a fist fight on a Buenos Aires street with the admiral of the newly created navy, who in revenge kidnapped White and held him prisoner aboard the naval flagship. White's government cronies got him released, and he sought refuge aboard a British warship.

White later raised funds for the South American revolutionary Jose de San Martin and was Simon Bolivar's "director of correspondence" with England and the United States. He died penniless at age 73 in Buenos Aires. In the late nineteenth century the Argentine government honored him by naming a street in the nation's capital and a destroyer after him. The government also made good on the 350,000 pesos White had spent in building the navy; the money went to his heirs.

White got the navy afloat and then died penniless.