When in 1775, the Thirteen Colonies rebelled against England, the monarchies of Spain and France saw an opportunity to get even with their traditional enemy. However, the situation of each was different. France had been expelled from America after the Seven Years' War, while Spain maintained its American dominions and feared that the Creoles would follow the example of the American revolutionaries.
Nevertheless, Spanish aid to revolutionaries was present from the beginning of the hostilities. Merchant and shipowner Diego de Gardoqui, upon request of his partners Elbridge Gerry and Jeremiah Lee, members of the Massachusetts Committee of Supplies, in charge of the organization of the Continental Army, sent large quantities of weapons, ammunition, gunpowder and logistical support of all kinds. For his part, Luis de Unzaga, governor of Louisiana (1770-1776), facilitated the shipment of smuggled supplies, especially gunpowder, from New Orleans via the Mississippi River. He himself delivered, in September 1776, 10,000 pounds that General Charles Lee had requested. Unzaga's successor as governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Gálvez (1777-1783), increased shipments. Much of what was supplied came from Cuba and Mexico.
In September 1776, on the advice of Spanish ambassador in Paris Count of Aranda, both nations paid for and secretly sent a very important cargo, which among other things, included more than 200 cannons, 30,000 rifles with gunpowder and bullets and thousands of uniforms.
All this help allowed the revolution to survive, after a start in which it lacked almost everything and was about to be completely defeated.
In late 1776, the new U.S. Congress sent a commission made up of Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Lee, and Silas Dean to Europe seeking support. The Count of Aranda, after meeting Franklin in January 1777, recommended to the court of Madrid that the representatives of Congress be officially recognized, and that Spain declare war on England. The secretary of state, Marquis de Grimaldi, did not share Aranda's view. Faced with the importance of the matter, the king convened a council of state to seek the opinion of his ministers. Caution prevailed among most of them because of the damage that could be caused if the English fleet were to attack Spanish possessions and interrupt trade flows, including the arrival of precious metals from America. In addition, there was the aforementioned fear of revolutionary contagion in the American provinces.
King Charles III initially adopted a somewhat ambiguous stance: he would continue to help the Thirteen Colonies surreptitiously as long as there was no declaration of war on England, but without recognizing the Declaration of Independence of July 4 or the diplomatic status of the representatives of Congress. In turn, this obstructedd Americans recognition of the decisive help they received from Spain.
To carry out the agreed plans, Gardoqui was tasked with managing supplies to the Thirteen Colonies and Juan de Miralles, a merchant based in Cuba, was appointed unofficial representative of Spain at the Congress of Philadelphia. Miralles was a business partner of Robert Morris, known as the banker of the revolution and who had Oliver Pollock as his representative in New Orleans. Pollock maintained very good relations with both Luis de Unzaga and Bernardo de Gálvez.
France went to war with England in 1778 and dragged Spain into it in 1779, in application of the Family Compact (Pacto de Familia) between the Bourbon dynasties and after negotiations failed to recover Gibraltar and Menorca in exchange for neutrality. The American Revolution became a conflict involving the major powers of the time, each with its own strategic interests.
Bernardo de Gálvez had been making preparations, given the foreseeable declaration of war. By means of a rapid action, he drove the English from the east bank of the Mississippi after taking Fort Manchac, Baton Rouge and Natchez with a very small, multiracial, multicultural, well directed and motivated army. He seized Mobila in March 1780 and Pensacola in May 1781, in the boldest and best-known of his actions. The British could no longer send reinforcements and supplies across the Gulf of Mexico.
In May of 1780, the British attempted to occupy the northern part of the Mississippi River Valley in Upper Louisiana. Captain Fernando de Leyba mounted a Numantian defense from the remote post of St. Louis, Missouri. With limited means, he managed to push back the attack and abort the English offensive.
Another important figure who played a key role was Francisco de Saavedra, who arrived in Cuba in 1780 as a special envoy of Charles III. He became renowned for his conciliatory spirit in the often-difficult relations between the Americans, the French and the Spanish. In 1781, he managed to have a squadron sent from Havana commanded by José Solano y Bote with Bernardo de Gálvez’s expedition that was going to lay siege to Pensacola. That same year, Saavedra agreed with French admiral De Grasse on the strategy to be followed in the Caribbean and on the loan of large amounts of Spanish money to pay his soldiers and sailors as well as the Americans. He also managed the transfer from Santo Domingo in Spanish ships of the French troops that participated in the decisive battle of Yorktown, which took place that same year.
Since the declaration of war in 1779, a large part of the budget of the Spanish empire was devoted to financing it. Between 1780 and 1783, the king had to establish a special donation to all the inhabitants of the empire. Most of it was collected in the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Finally, in 1783, the peace treaty establishing the independence of the United States was signed at Versailles.
Courtesy of José Manuel Rodríguez Gómez-Escobar.
In September 1784, Diego de Gardoqui was appointed as the first official ambassador of the Kingdom of Spain to the new nation. He presented his credentials in New York, then the nation's capital, in June 1785. From his post, he tried to get Congress to accept Spain's exclusive right of navigation on the Mississippi, which could have been accepted by the northern states, but not those of the south, which depended on that waterway to get their products to the Gulf of Mexico. These states even threatened to break up the Union if Spain was recognized the right it claimed. Despite the help, in this case of Secretary of State John Jay, Gardoqui did not get the necessary majority in Congress for his request to be accepted and included in a treaty between the two nations. Finally, the ambassador had to give up his difficult mission, which ended after attending as Spain's representative the inauguration of the first president, George Washington, in New York, in 1789.
An idea of the importance of Spanish aid to the independence of the Thirteen Colonies is given by the fact that the first currency of the United States was the Real de a ocho (Spanish peso fuerte), known as “Spanish Dollar” among English speakers. Long used, it was declared official currency by the Continental Congress on July 6, 1785, being legal tender until 1857. When the first US dollar was minted in 1794, it was made following the pattern of the Spanish currency. The $ sign of the current dollar comes from that Hispanic currency.
The history of the United States would have been very different without the help of Spain, help that it never recovered or even got the recognition it deserved.
Text extracted and adapted from The Hispanic Roots of the United States by courtesy of Héroes de Cavite Cultural Association.
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