Spain in the American Revolutionary War
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| Anglo-Spanish War | |||||||||
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| Part of the American Revolutionary War | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Spain |
 Great Britain |
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| Commanders | |||||||||
| Bernardo de Gálvez, Matías de Gálvez, Luis de Córdova y Córdova, Juan de Lángara |
George Brydges Rodney, Richard Howe, George Augustus Eliott, John Campbell |
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In a renewal of the Bourbon Family Compact, Spain entered the American Revolutionary War as an ally of France in June 1779, precipitating a parallel Anglo-Spanish War. Unlike France, Spain did not immediately recognize the independence of the United States, as Spain was not keen on encouraging similar colonial rebellions in the Spanish Empire. Even before its formal entry into the war, Spain had been providing weapons and other supplies to the rebels through the important port of New Orleans.
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[edit] Entry into the War
Spain's entry into the war, like that of France, was essentially a direct result of the Battle of Saratoga, following which General John Burgoyne's large British army surrendered to a mixed force of the Continental Army and New England militia on October 17, 1777. The battle had two major effects, the first being material loss of the army, as Saratoga wiped 7,000 British troops off the chessboard at a stroke. The British were already short of troops in the colonies, and the disaster stretched their manpower even more thinly across the globe. Secondly, Saratoga gave the rebel colonists a new credibility they had not previous enjoyed. France had long toyed with the idea of intervening in the war, but had until that point not seen the fledgling United States as a suitable ally. Saratoga changed this at once, and on February 6, 1778 France formally entered the war by signing a Treaty of Alliance with the American government.
The French strategy was ambitious, and even involved a large-scale invasion of Britain as an eventual aim. France would meanwhile try and seize Britain's outlying colonies while funneling aid to the United States. France believed they could comprehensively defeat the British within two years, reversing the massive losses of the Seven Years War.
It was soon clear to the French planners that to accomplish this they would need the combined strength of France and Spain, particularly in the naval sphere, where the British were so dominant. France began pressuring Spain to join them in a coalition against their old mutual enemy. The Spanish were initially reluctant: in 1777 a new Prime Minister, José Moñino y Redondo, Count of Floridablanca had come to power, bringing with him a reformist agenda that drew on many of the English liberal traditions.
The French resorted to trying to restore the principles of the Bourbon Family Compact, an alliance that had been in place since the Bourbons became Spain's ruling dynasty in 1713. This alliance was similar to the one used in the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War, and drew as much on the sheer bond of blood as any sense of national interest.
By June 1779, the British cause seemed to be at a particularly low ebb. The Spanish finally succumbed to pressure and joined France in the war, implementing the Treaty of Aranjuez, though they were never technically an ally of the United States, as they did not wholly recognise the new American confederation.[1]
[edit] War fronts
[edit] European waters
The main goals of Spain were, as in the Seven Years War, the recovery of Gibraltar and Minorca from the British, who had occupied them in 1704.
The Great Siege of Gibraltar was the first and longest Spanish action in the war, from June 24, 1779, to February 7, 1783. Despite the bigger size of the besieging Franco-Spanish army, at one point numbering 100,000, the British under George Augustus Elliott were able to hold out in the fortress and secured their supplies by sea after the Battle of Cape Saint Vincent in January 1780; nor was the aged but energetic Luis de Córdova y Córdova able to add a third British convoy to his conquests as Howe's fleet successfully resupplied Gibraltar consequent to the Battle of Cape Spartel in October 1782.[2]
The combined Franco-Spanish invasion of Minorca in 1781 met with more success; Minorca surrendered the following year[3], and was restored to Spain after the war nearly eighty years after it was first captured by the British.[4]
[edit] West Indies and Gulf Coast
In the Caribbean, the main effort was directed to prevent possible British landings in Cuba, remembering the British expedition against Cuba that seized Havana in the Seven Years War. Other goals included the reconquest of Florida (which the British had divided into West Florida and East Florida in 1763), and the resolution of logging disputes involving the British in Belize.
On the mainland, the governor of Spanish Louisiana, Count Bernardo de Gálvez, led a series of successful offensives against the British forts in the Mississippi Valley, first capturing Fort Bute at Manchac and then forcing the surrender of Baton Rouge, Natchez and Mobile in 1779 and 1780.[5] While a hurricane halted an expedition to capture Pensacola, the capital of British West Florida, in 1780, Gálvez's forces achieved a decisive victory against the British in 1781 at the Battle of Pensacola giving the Spanish control of all of West Florida. This secured the southern route for supplies and closed off the possibility of any British offensive into the western frontier of United States via the Mississippi River.
When Spain entered the war, Britain also went on the offensive in the Caribbean, planning an expedition against Spanish Nicaragua. A British attempt to gain a foothold at San Fernando de Omoa was rebuffed in October 1779, and an expedition in 1780 against Fort San Juan in Nicaragua was at first successful, but yellow fever and other tropical diseases wiped out most of the force, which then withdrew back to Jamaica.
Following these successes the Spaniards again went on the offensive, successfully capturing the Bahamas in 1782 without battle. In 1783 Gálvez was preparing to invade Jamaica from Cuba, but these plans were aborted when Britain sued for peace.
[edit] American Midwest
The Spanish garrisons in the Louisiana Territory repelled attacks from British units and the latter's Indian allies in the Battle of Saint Louis in 1780. A year later, a detachment travelled through present-day Illinois and took Fort St. Joseph, in the modern state of Michigan. The prospect of further Spanish advances in the region caused concern even among the Americans.
[edit] Treaty of Paris
The reforms made by the Spanish colonial authorities in the Americas as a result of Spain's poor performance in the Seven Years War had proved successful. Spanish forces remained undefeated—in the American theatre at least—until the end of the war. As a result, Spain retained Minorca and West Florida in the Treaty of Paris, and traded the Bahamas for East Florida. The lands east of the Mississippi, however, were recognized as part of the newly independent United States of America.
[edit] Aftermath
Spain's involvement in the American Revolutionary War was widely regarded as a successful one. The Spanish took a gamble in entering the war, banking on Great Britain's vulnerability, caused by the effort of fighting their rebellious colonists in North America while also conducting a global war against a growing coalition of nations. This allowed Spain some easy conquests, particularly in the New World, as the British were increasingly stretched as they tried to wage war on so many different fronts.
The war gave a strong boost to national morale, which had been badly shaken following the major losses to the British during the previous war. Even though Spain's most coveted target, Gibraltar, remained out of its grasp, Spain had more than compensated by recovering Minorca and regaining its place as a major player in the Caribbean, all of which were seen as vital if Spain was to continue into the nineteenth century as a great power.
Spain was seen to have received tangible results out of the war, especially in contrast to its ally France. The French had invested huge amounts of manpower, finance and resources for little clear national gain. France had been left with crippling debts which it struggled to pay off, and which become one of the major causes of the French Revolution that broke out in 1789. Spain, in comparison, disposed of its debts more easily.
One particular outcome of the war was the manner in which it enhanced the position of the Prime Minister, Floridablanca—despite his strong misgivings about Spain's entry into the war in 1779—as he and his government continued to dominate Spanish politics until 1792. The war also reinforced the long-standing Bourbon Family Compact that linked the Spanish crown to its neighbour across the Pyrenees. In a continuation of the compact, the Spanish went to war with the French First Republic in the 1790s in an attempt to restore the French Bourbon monarchs to their thrones.
Spain had an uneasy relationship with the new United States after the war. Disputes over the borders of Florida, and the failure of the Spanish to control the Indian population there, combined with Spanish concerns over the westward expansion of Americans into what is now Texas, led to the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty, in which the United States acquired Florida in exchange for giving up claims for Texas. Tensions continued to exist, especially over trade and commercial interests with respect to Cuba, which culminated in the 1898 Spanish-American War.
[edit] See also
- France in the American Revolutionary War
- Gardoqui Family of Bilbao
- Great Siege of Gibraltar
- The Spanish and Latin American Contribution to the American Revolutionary War
[edit] Bibliography
- Harvey, Robert. A Few Bloody Noses: The American Revolutionary War. Robinson (2004)
- Chartrand, Rene. Gibralter 1779-83: The Great Siege. Osprey Campaign (2006)
