Spain and the American Revolution: New Approaches and Perspectives ed. by Gabriel Paquette and Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia (review)

As the introduction makes clear, the essays in this collection reveal the importance of understanding the American Revolution from the Spanish perspective. The first few essays amplify the larger message. Anthony McFarlane demonstrates that Spain went to war against Great Britain for its own reasons and did so in the midst of reforms of its empire, and that any rebellions that were contemporary with the American Revolution were concerned with the situation within the Spanish Empire—not with what was happening in British North America. Laurie D. Ferreiro focuses on the coordination of Spanish and French navies in the eighteenth century, demonstrating that the American Revolution was an episode within a larger story. We gain further insight into the Spanish perspective in María Bárbara Zepeda Cortés’s essay on how José de Gálvez was responsible for the Spanish success in the Caribbean during the Anglo-Spanish war of 1779 to 1783. Along with the work of Manuel Lucena-Giraldo, which discusses the use of science in the navy, these essays show that as far as the Spanish were concerned, the American Revolution was nothing more than another point on a long line of conflict with Great Britain.

This broader perspective appears in a series of essays covering the far-flung nature of the Anglo-Spanish war. Emily Berquist Soule discusses the Spanish attempt to establish outposts in the Bight of Biafra to engage directly in the slave trade. If the long arm of the Spanish empire reached to the far shores of Africa, it also stretched up the Mississippi River, in a raid on Fort St. Joseph in the Great Lakes region. John William Nelson explains that the raid preempted another British attack on St. Louis and extended Spain’s support among Native Americans in the region. Emmanuelle Perez Tisserant argues that during the revolution, Spain was busy establishing its claim along the Pacific Coast to meet the Russian and British threat. Indeed, the new American republic did not have much of an impact on the area until the 1810s. Ross Michael Nedervelt argues that the Spanish-American attack on the Bahamas on May 6, 1782, represented the strategic interests of both the US and Spain in securing an Atlantic borderland.

Three essays explore the delicate diplomatic relationship between Spain and the United States. Benjamin C. Lyons’s essay on John Jay’s negotiations in Spain in 1780 reveals the unwritten law of nations which emphasized both honor and legal precedent in European diplomacy. Mary-Jo Kline outlines the complex life of Sarah Jay during her stay in Spain as the wife of an unrecognized diplomat. Gregg French examines the personal relationships between agents of the Spanish government and various Americans in Europe, Louisiana, and the United States and how these informal contacts were vital in providing aid to the Americans and settling potential problems between the two nations.

Two other essays deal with the impact of the ideals of the American Revolution in the Spanish American empire. Eric Beccara demonstrates that liberty was not the exclusive province of the American revolutionaries. Spain enticed American settlers into its territory by offering them liberty through land ownership, security against Native Americans, access to trade on the Mississippi, religious freedom to worship as they wished, and local control over taxation and the judiciary. Eduardo Posada-Carbó argues that the early constitutions of New Granada were influenced not just by the US Constitution but also by the state constitutions.

Perhaps the editors could have pushed the authors more rigorously to articulate their joint argument, and they certainly could have insisted on a consistent form of citation (some of the essays use parenthetical citations, some endnotes, and the introduction has both), but the overall message of the book remains important: the Spain that emerges from this book during the American Revolution was not...