From the Spanish-supplied muskets fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775 to the last-minute collection of silver pesos in Havana that funded the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, Spain and Latin America played a decisive role in the American Revolution.
The Spanish smuggled the critical military supplies that the colonies could not produce. Latin American silver provided both the hard currency and the financing for the fledgling colonial economy. In 1779, Spain declared war on Britain, forcing the British to divert manpower and firepower from the Continental Army to battlefronts that stretched from Nicaragua to Florida to Gibraltar to England itself.
The world erupted in conflict. Britain was simultaneously challenged by Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the Mysore kingdom in India. By 1781, Yorktown had become the Americans’ last chance. As the British scrambled to rescue their trapped army, Spain and Latin America supported the French navy and funded the victorious American and French armies on land. The Silver Road tells the story that Americans are rarely told: how the Revolutionary War was actually won.
From the Spanish-supplied muskets fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775 to the last-minute collection of silver pesos in Havana that funded the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, Spain and Latin America played a decisive role in the American Revolution.
The Spanish smuggled the critical military supplies that the colonies could not produce. Latin American silver provided both the hard currency and the financing for the fledgling colonial economy. In 1779, Spain declared war on Britain, forcing the British to divert manpower and firepower from the Continental Army to battlefronts that stretched from Nicaragua to Florida to Gibraltar to England itself.
The world erupted in conflict. Britain was simultaneously challenged by Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the Mysore kingdom in India. By 1781, Yorktown had become the Americans’ last chance. As the British scrambled to rescue their trapped army, Spain and Latin America supported the French navy and funded the victorious American and French armies on land. The Silver Road tells the story that Americans are rarely told: how the Revolutionary War was actually won.
On a warm June morning in 1762, a Spanish lieutenant peered through his spyglass from the high walls of Castillo del Morro in Havana. He was startled to see a huge fleet of ships near the Cuban coast, all flying British flags. He reported his sighting to his commanders, who impatiently dismissed his concerns, believing the massive fleet was on its way to Jamaica, a British colony about 90 miles south of Cuba.[1] Havana, the prized jewel of the Spanish New World, was highly secured. Morro fortress towered in the skyline on the Caribbean Sea as it still does today, guarding the precious city with massive walls six feet wide and fourteen feet high. Annoyed with the lieutenant, the commanders returned to Havana to enjoy their Sunday.
As the hours passed, the pilot appointed to watch the fleet became increasingly dismayed by what he saw. Over 200 ships – including 30 heavily armed warships – changed direction and were now heading directly for the city’s harbor.[2] The sentries sounded the alarm that Havana was under attack. The sound of church bells clanging broke the calm afternoon. Unknown to the stunned commanders, the Spanish had joined the French in a war against the British in May 1762. The Spanish leadership in Cuba remained unaware of the declaration as the British seized the Spanish mail ship that carried the news. In an age without satellite news or text messaging, the Spanish did not know that war was declared or that the colossal British fleet was heading their way. One of the key battles of the Seven Years’ War began on that summer day. This war was the prequel to the American Revolution that determined Spain’s decision to finance and arm the struggling Americans to win against the British.
The invading British force comprised 28,400 men and included enslaved Africans, Native Americans from Canada, Europeans, and free Black militia from Britain and the Caribbean.[3] The British recruited thousands of troops from their North American colonies. Spanish officers estimated that 4,000 Americans arrived in late July.[4] The French, allies of the Spanish, had been fighting the British in the Seven Years’ War since 1756, and their fight had sprawled into the French and Indian War in the American colonies. With the turbulence in Europe and in North America, the Spanish Crown reinforced Havana with artillery, munitions and warships between 1758 and 1761. Battle-tested veteran soldiers had arrived in Havana the previous year, but this seasoned garrison numbered only 2,330 men in June 1762. The British Regulars were about six times that number. The local militia companies, today’s equivalent of the National Guard, were called to duty. These civilian soldiers were overwhelmed by the well-trained British.[5] The siege of Havana lasted over two months, with British troops suffering terrible casualties due to the tropical heat and unfamiliar diseases. The 18th century reporters wrote that both military veterans and fresh volunteers simply “dropped dead” of thirst and heat, and days passed during which thousands of the British were too ill to fight or even to stand.[6]
So many soldiers died in Castillo del Morro that the Spanish were forced to throw the bodies into the sea below. Afro-Cubans were a key factor in enabling the Spanish to hold out as long as they did,[7] and the carnage continued over the weeks. Juan de Prado y Portocarrero was the Spanish Governor and commander in charge of Havana’s defense. The Spanish quickly organized resources and manpower throughout the island and across the sea in Mexico. The Spanish Navy scrambled to ship in artillery and to send its marines into battle and intentionally sunk ships to cut off British access to the port.
The British cut off the city’s water supply, creating havoc and hardship for Habaneros.[8] They shelled the city for weeks, sometimes shooting a hundred bombs in a single day.[9] The junta de guerra – council of war – appointed Juan Ignacio de Madariaga as sub-delegate of the governor. Madariaga organized supplies and materials throughout Cuba, and deployed all the available land and sea troops, as well as weapons, ammunition and gunpowder from nearby Matanzas, Santiago, and all the smaller outposts near Havana.[10] By early August, every male Habanero over 14 years of age was ordered to join the defense. Supplying the Spanish and Cuban defenders and remaining civilians was a logistical challenge. The military struggled to send 200 to 300 cavalry wagons from the countryside loaded with casaba, cornmeal, cattle, eggs and chickens. Relief convoys of food and ammunition arrived from Campeche and Sisal in Mexico. The fighting continued, and the Spanish and Cubans remained stalwart.
The city was evacuated in early June, with between 10,000 and 30,000 people fleeing British troops[11] in a chaotic and dangerous exodus. Days of rainfall turned the roads into muddy streams. Families with children struggled through the terrain, and looting broke out.[12] Many of the wealthier residents packed up their volantes – large, wheeled carts drawn by a single horse – and loaded mule carts with their baggage, fleeing to the countryside.[13] The vast wealth of silver and gold from the city treasury was hidden in the backcountry. Evacuated Habaneros camped out in the countryside for months. Madariaga later wrote, “Despite the hardships in which many families live, hutted in houses, huts, tobacco houses, and other settlements, there are no robberies, fights, quarrels, deaths, injuries, or disturbances, which is admirable.”[14]
The British barraged Morro from its one vulnerable point, a hill on the eastern side of the city. On the land side of the fortress, the Spanish had carved a huge moat into the solid rock that was over 50 feet wide and 60 feet deep. British strategists determined that the quickest path to victory was to sink a deep shaft into the rock, load the shaft with munitions, and then explode the moat. On July 27, Spanish sentries observed enemy soldiers excavating outside the fortress walls. The Spanish fired relentlessly but were unable to stop them. The British loaded the shaft with explosives, and on July 30, they lit the fuse. The city quaked and a storm of rocks and dust filled the huge moat, enabling the invaders to attack Morro on foot.[15] The battered fortress fell on July 31. Two weeks later, the Spanish and Cubans surrendered, sending shockwaves throughout the world.
The British occupied Havana for eleven months. They seized warehouses full of tobacco and sugar and the vast Spanish merchant fleet that was anchored in the harbor, a plunder worth millions of British pounds[16] and billions in today’s dollars. The British harassed residents with random searches. As one angry citizen reported, “they made a show of searching all of the houses under the pretext of requesting a chest… they assumed that we had stolen.”[17] Without Airbnb or hotels, British soldiers moved into the citizens’ homes for an extended stay.
British officers threatened to seize the cathedral’s bells and melt them down for artillery[18] and the British commander, the Earl of Albemarle, wrote to the Catholic bishop of Havana, Pedro Agustín Morell de Santa Cruz, demanding an astounding sum as a “donation” to the victorious Army of the Church of England. Morell threatened to sue the commander in London and Albemarle accused the bishop of treason, since he was now technically a British subject and was disobeying authority. As punishment for his defiance, the British forcibly seized Morell and shipped him to the swamplands of Florida.[19] Albemarle spitefully used the bishop’s beloved church as a stable.[20] To provide lodging for British soldiers, Albemarle seized the Hospital of San Juan de Dios, and British soldiers forced out sick patients, the homeless poor, and the brothers of the order.[21] In addition to seizing the riches to which he was entitled under British rules of war, Albemarle listed Havana’s many religious institutions as “rich,” “very rich” and “very, very rich” – hoping for more opportunities to seize Spanish wealth. He wrested control of the lucrative slave trade from the Havana cabildo trading company and appointed himself as the intermediary to import more enslaved people into Cuba, to further enrich himself.[22]
Angry disputes erupted among the city’s elite merchants when several businessmen treacherously collaborated with Albemarle while others resisted. The import and export trade was heavily regulated under Spanish law, and some merchants viewed the less restricted trade under the British as a business opportunity. Several merchants expanded their import of enslaved Africans while exports of Cuban goods to Britain increased – including exports of Havana’s famous tobacco snuff.*[23] Two leading businessmen, Sebastián de Peñalver Angulo and Gonzalo Recio de Oquendo, were accused of collaboration and “vileness, thievery, wicked impostures, and other means, but all at the expense of this unfortunate town and the honor of both men, if they had any.”[24] Both men were accused of conducting shake-downs of their fellow citizens, the Royal Havana Company, and religious organizations, demanding hundreds of thousands of pesos on behalf of Albemarle and themselves. They redirected trade of lucrative merchandise, including flour, iron, and tobacco, to benefit themselves at high profits. After Havana was liberated in 1763, both men were extradited to Spain, where they were tried and convicted. Peñalver died in disgrace in Spain, while Oquendo was eventually pardoned.[25]
For Spain, the defeat of Havana marked a disastrous and humiliating opening to the Seven Years’ War. Spanish leaders watched with growing alarm as their French allies steadily lost territory to Britain in the French and Indian War in North America, a theater uncomfortably close to Spain’s own holdings in the American Southwest. Across continents and oceans, the globe was ablaze with warfare, a struggle later recognized by historians as the “first war of the world.”
The First War of the World
When Carlos III was crowned King of Spain in 1759, the Seven Years’ War was already raging, with the French fighting against the British, among other nations, in a multi-front war. Millions of people around the world were embroiled in this terrible conflict as European powers viciously fought for colonial conquests and domestic territories. The bloody struggle rattled the earth and most of its seas, through Latin America, the Caribbean, the Philippines, India, West Africa, the Ohio Valley, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Canada, and most of Europe. Armies of hundreds of thousands marched through Europe, while forces of tens of thousands landed in North America. In India, the British and French battled for commercial power and trade. This rivalry continued for decades during the wars with the kingdoms of Mysore and Maratha. The global scale of the conflict was unprecedented. More than one million people died, including those in a ruinous skirmish in 1754 led by an inexperienced Virginia militia officer under the British Army – the young, ambitious, red-haired George Washington.
Starting in the 16th century, the ruthless fur trade raged through the immense forests, lakes, and rivers of North America. This far-flung ecological landscape would astonish us in the 21st century. Hundreds of millions of animals, including beavers, mink, sea otters, and wildcats lived among the emerald cathedrals of trees and the crystal blue water. Many were hunted almost to the point of extinction. This savage commerce ignited the French and Indian War in 1754.
The fur-hunting grounds were on the homelands of the Native American nations, through which British and French hunters and soldiers recklessly trampled. The Native Americans fought on both sides of the conflict, astutely concerned with safeguarding their sovereignty. The powerful Haudenosaunee – the Iroquois League – had an important and unacknowledged influence over the outcome in eastern North America.[26] Tanaghrisson, a Haudenosaunee leader, was central in sparking the conflict in the Pennsylvania woodlands. The French had expanded their forts along the Ohio valley, and the Native Americans were angered by this invasion. Tanaghrisson delivered a stern, eloquent warning to the French camped near Lake Erie, Pennsylvania, as Washington later wrote in his journal. “Fathers, both You and the English are White. We live in a Country between, therefore the Land does not belong either to one of the other,” Tanaghrisson said, insisting that the French withdraw. The French commander mocked his speech, and Tanaghrisson astutely waited for his chance to respond. He struck back in May 1754 as the French fought against the Virginia militia commanded by Washington, with their Haudenosaunee allies. After the French surrendered, Tanaghrisson killed Jumonville, an important French envoy. While Washington received the attention of the ethnocentric London press for the musket volley that “set the world on fire,” Tanaghrisson himself struck the killer tomahawk blow. Washington was blamed for the “assassination,” which he unknowingly conceded in the French language surrender agreement. As the French Governor wrote, “… he [Washington] was stupid enough to admit in his capitulation.[27] (Ouch!)
Events in Europe were irrevocably inflamed with the chain of events of the Prussian invasion of an ally of Austria in 1756, which then entangled France, also an Austrian ally. By 1762, Carlos III and his advisors made the fateful decision to enter the War. The two monarchies signed the Bourbon Family Compact in 1733, pledging cooperation and military alliances during the wars that frequently raged in Europe. The Spanish also had their own motivations for acting against the British, which included protecting their valuable mines and territories in Latin America and reclaiming Gibraltar, the small rocky territory at the southernmost tip of Spain held by the British since 1713.[28]
After declaring war on Spain, British forces rapidly invaded Spain’s empire throughout the world. After Cuba, their next target was the rich Spanish trading hub of Manila in the Philippines, which they attacked in late September 1762. The port was a cosmopolitan and lucrative FedEx-type warehouse hub for international trade. Merchants from all over the world congregated to buy and sell. A traveler reported as early as 1662 that the diversity of people in Manila was among the greatest in the world, including globetrotters from Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Persia, Russia, China, Japan, and Africa.[29] Majestic Spanish galleons encircled the world during these centuries, calling on ports across Asia and the Pacific Island nations, trading aromatic spices, lustrous silk, rare woods, crafted pewter, elegant Chinese porcelain, glowing pearls, and sparkling gems.
The British East India Company funded the Manila attack. Chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, the Company became the most powerful commercial and military “broligarchy” in the world. The conglomerate instigated and impacted events throughout the globe – from conquering India to kindling the opium pandemic in China to inciting the Boston Tea Party in 1773. For a modern comparison, imagine a combination of OpenAI, Meta and Apple, completely unregulated and dedicated to corporate violence,[30] with their own private military force of over 260,000 in the 19th century – a terrifying thought! The East India Company expedition sailed from Madras, India, with a thousand men. The Spanish recruited five hundred soldiers from Mexico, who fought with a small number of local volunteers to defend Manila. The battle was over quickly, and the Spanish surrendered Manila in October 1762. The economic loss for the Spanish was staggering. The largest Spanish galleon in the history of the Pacific trade was captured, with a cargo worth 3 million pesos,[31] or approximately $6.2 billion in today’s dollars.*[32]
This first war of the world was structured on an international economy that was globalized for the first time in our history as humans. All the continents of the world interacted in this economy, powered by the trade in precious metals.[33] At the center of this trade were Spain’s colonies in Latin America, which had the richest silver and gold mines in the world. The Spanish held vast expanses of continents, millions of subjects, and dazzling mineral wealth. Spanish silver was the global currency from the 16th through the 19th centuries, just as the green US dollar is today. China, then the powerful Middle Kingdom, was known as “the silver graveyard,” since so much of the world’s silver was used to pay for Chinese goods and remained in China.[34]
Discovering neither precious metals nor populous kingdoms in North America, the Spanish focused their attention on the southern hemisphere, which then held the balance of people and wealth in the Americas. By the mid-18th century, Mexico City — formerly Tenochtitlan, the elegant Mexica capital — had a population of 150,000, five times larger than Philadelphia, the most populous city in the US. “Silver Kings” managed Latin America’s mines, building huge operations from the mountains of Peru to the stark deserts of central Mexico to the jungles of Central America.
Within one year, the British had captured Havana and Manila, two of the most important trading ports of the Spanish Empire.[35] Stunned by these developments, Carlos III and his government feared for Spain’s silver and gold mines in Latin America. As stipulated in the 1763 Peace Treaty, the British withdrew from Havana thirteen months after invading the city, and the new Spanish governor arrived on July 4, 1763.[36] The British lowered their flag, and the Spanish raised theirs. The Spanish and Cubans celebrated with 24-hour parties. The Afro-Cubans had more reasons to celebrate. At the time, more than half of Cuba’s population was of African descent[37] and Spain had promised freedom to enslaved Afro-Cubans who enlisted to defend the country. These men were predominantly from the Mandingo, Fulani, Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba civilizations, and many were trained warriors in their home countries. This promise was kept to a surprising degree.[38] In one instance, a formerly enslaved man escaped to Spain to pursue his case for freedom, which eventually escalated to Carlos III. The King instructed his officers to confirm the man’s manumission, reimburse his former owner from the government treasury, and enforce the promise to enslaved Africans “as reward for their fidelity and honor.”[39] The newly appointed Spanish governor held hearings for two weeks, then posted the names of the liberated men publicly to ensure that their Carta de Libertad status was protected.[40] This legislation, plus the Spanish law of “coartación” through which enslaved people could purchase their own freedom, resulted in a large, free, Afro-Cuban population in late 18th century Havana.[41]
Completely shaken by the outcome of the War, the Spanish government implemented an all-encompassing reorganization and restrengthening of its Empire through 1773. The Bourbon Reforms, as these programs were known, impacted almost all sectors of the Cuban economy, society, and military. The Cuban military forces were rebuilt under the leadership of Ambrosio Funes de Villalpando, conde de Ricla, and his close friend, General Alejandro O’Reilly, one of the many Irish officers serving in the Spanish Army.[42] Acknowledging that the number of Spanish and Cuban males was not sufficient to provide the needed military forces, Ricla also created two battalions of free Afro-Cubans and biracial Cubans, confidently predicting that they would become the best volunteers on the island.[43] The Spanish built a huge new fort on the hill near Morro. With the established trade between Cuba and the US, this massive fort was partially built with bricks produced in Virginia and New York.[44] When Carlos III learned that the new fortification overlooking Morro Castle was completed in 1774, he reportedly asked for his telescope. Certainly, as the story goes, with the immense cost and years of labor needed to construct the fortresses, the King could view them across the Atlantic from his palace in Madrid.[45]
During the peace negotiations in Paris in 1763 the Spanish were forced to give up their territory in southeastern America. At the time, the Spanish were long established in Florida; by 1675 they built a chain of more than thirty missions across the state. Thousands of Spaniards hastily packed their possessions and sailed from Florida to Cuba and Mexico at the start of the British occupation in 1763. To compensate the Spanish for these disastrous outcomes, the French gave Louisiana and New Orleans to Spain, as a buffer against further British expansion into Spanish territory in western North America and ultimately the priceless mines in Mexico and Latin America. The Spanish maintained their claims to territory west of the Mississippi. A map of 18th century North America shows the sweeping expanse of this empire, from the small outpost of San Francisco founded in the desolate wilderness of Alta California in 1776, to the province of Tejas with its Spanish cattle ranchers to the fortress of San Augustín, Florida, the first continuous European settlement in North America, founded in 1565 decades before Jamestown, Virginia. Spanish explorers traveled up the Pacific Coast to Canada in 1774 and by the late 1700s had established a military post on Vancouver Island, 350 miles north of Seattle. The Spanish sailed up the Atlantic Coast through the Chesapeake Bay in 1526 – then called the Bahía de Santa María – about 80 years before the English encounter with Pocahontas. In the 1520s, Spanish navigators explored as far north as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and the present site of Bangor, Maine.[46] The Spanish settled the southwest of America in the 16th century, battling with Native American nations, and officially founded Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1610. The Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe is still open to visitors and remains the oldest continually occupied public structure in the US built by Europeans. Spain had dominated the Caribbean since 1492, and the seas were known as the “Spanish Lake.” The massive fortress of Castillo San Felipe del Morro still rises 140 feet along the coast of Puerto Rico, watching over the beautiful colonial city of San Juan. The fortress was so formidable that the British refrained from attacking it during the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolutionary War.
The King and the Anti-King Revolution
The Spanish and French kingdoms were rivals with the British for their global empires and were related in an intricate lineage. Carlos III, who ruled Spain from 1759 to 1788 and during the years of the American Revolution, was the son of a Spanish King and an Italian duchess, the great-grandson of French King Louis XIV, and the uncle of the then-ruling French King Louis XVI.[47] Carlos III and Louis XVI were further united by a renewal of the third Bourbon Family Compact in 1762, which declared that the enemy of one of the two countries was the enemy of both – in other words, the British. The strong familial and political relationship between the French and Spanish kings united their actions during the American Revolution.
Carlos III had a decisive impact on the outcome of the American Revolution. He actively authorized Spain’s financing of the extensive supply shipments and military campaigns, issuing orders from Madrid to his leadership throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Carlos was a man of simple tastes, sharply contrasted to the showy opulence of monarchs of his time. His usual attire, described by a traveler in 1776, “seldom varies from a long hat, gray Segovian frock [named for the Spanish province], a buff waistcoat, a small dagger, black breeches, and worsted stockings; his pockets are always stuffed with knives, gloves, and shooting tackle.”[48] He had to be patiently persuaded by his servants, with whom he had unusually cordial relationships, to wear new clothes. He wore wigs only on formal occasions, unlike his male contemporaries whose heads were constantly coiffed, curled and powdered.
His hobbies included carpentry, fishing and billiards, but hunting was his favorite sport. The report of a wolf sighting sent him rushing outdoors, regardless of the weather. His portrait by Francisco Goya, the headshot painter for the celebrity class, shows him standing in the countryside with one gloved hand gripping a long rifle and the other holding a hunting glove, with a sleeping retriever by his foot. He was not handsome; his face narrowed too sharply from a high wide forehead towards his small chin, accentuating his long, bulbous nose. His blue eyes were lively and warm; his expression one of seemingly bemused tolerance for the formality of a royal portrait.
Carlos III was viewed as a progressive man, genuinely concerned with public service. He was a supporter of the Enlightenment, the powerful intellectual and social movement sweeping Europe with electrifying, humanist ideas, which Carlos III viewed as a force for modernization. A man of his times, he supported revolts against other kings in their colonies, but certainly not in his own — 18th century NIMBY. In 1780, his regime brutally suppressed the revolt of Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua and Túpac Amaru II, the Incan power couple who tried to overthrow the Spanish Empire in Peru.*[49]
Although his marriage was an arranged affair of state, he fell deeply in love with his temperamental blue-eyed blonde Saxon queen, Maria Amalia. At their first meeting, Maria Amalia walked forward intending to kneel as was customary in formal presentations, but Carlos chivalrously picked her up, took her to his carriage, and they rode off into the sunset for as much happily ever after as royal life in the 18th century allowed. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 36, leaving him with a large family of 13 children, seven of whom reached adulthood. Carlos was inconsolable, refusing to remarry despite pressure from the politically inclined matchmakers at the Court. His projects to improve Madrid are the highlights of 21st century tours, including the Prado Museum and the Royal Botanical Gardens. His mission statement during his reign is worthy of modern democracies: to balance the budget, cut taxes and to devote all his attention to improving the welfare of his subjects.
“Everything that circumstances permit…”
The Seven Years’ War and the French and Indian War had dramatic and unforeseen impacts on the American colonists and their relationship with the British Empire. The British national debt almost doubled, from £75 to £125 million, an increase of about $656 billion in today’s currency.[50] To pay for the huge costs of the conflict and to maintain troops in the colonies, the British passed a series of laws restricting the economic power of the colonies, taxed personal income, and levied tariffs on trade. Taxes covered everything from liquor licenses to dice and cards. The British East India Company tried to take over the tea trade with higher prices, which infuriated Americans as much as doubling coffee prices would today. The Americans responded to these British efforts as “Taxation without Representation,” and engaged in noisy protests, bloody street riots and determined boycotts, actions that led to the movement for American independence.[51] The Crown prohibited Americans from printing their own currency to retain control of the colonies’ financial system. Parliament restricted domestic production of fundamental industrial commodities to ensure that Britain dominated the American economic infrastructure. These restrictions constrained production capacity as the Americans mobilized for war.
The Spanish carefully monitored the growing American rebellion. Two leading Spanish newspapers, El Mercurio and the La Gaceta de Madrid, printed regular reports on the ongoing rebellion — the 18th century equivalent of doomscrolling.[52] In March 1777, José Moñino y Redondo, the conde de Floridablanca and the powerful Spanish Secretary of State, wrote, “the fate of the colonies interests us very much, and we shall do for them everything that circumstances permit….”[53]
Spain, with its Latin American empire, was a world power in the 18th century. Their kingdom possessed the financial strength, production capacity, armed forces, naval fleet, and economic might to influence the outcome of the American Revolution as victory or defeat. When the harsh discussions of war echoed in the elegant marble palaces of Madrid, Carlos III and his ministers remembered all too clearly the devastating losses of power, wealth and territories from their last conflict with the British during the “first war of the world” in 1762. The Spanish had much to lose and much to protect in the dangerous period of convulsing empires and global conflict that loomed before them. The silver and gold mines of Latin America and the strategic territories in Central America were as important as today’s highly contested oil fields or rare earth mineral mines. They knew the British would retaliate if the Spanish openly aided the American rebels. This time, they carefully planned their response. From 1775 until the Spanish declared war against the British in 1779, Spanish assistance to the American rebels was provided with as much secrecy as possible. Before the ink had dried on the US Declaration of Independence, the Spanish and Latin Americans began their long, costly campaign to defeat the British – by helping the Americans to win the Revolutionary War.
[1] Schneider, Elena A., The Occupation of Havana: War, Trade, and Slavery in the Atlantic World. Williamsburg, VA: The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2018, p. 63
[2] Kamen, Henry, Empire: How Spain became a World Power: 1492-1763. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003, p. 181
[3] Schneider, op. cit., p. 17
[4] Rodriguez, Amalia, ed., Cinco diarios del sitio de la La Habana. Toma de La Habana por los ingleses en 1762. Biblioteca Nacional de José Martí, Departamento de Coleccion Cubana, La Habana, 1963, p. 106
[5] Kuethe, Allan J. “Guns, Subsidies, and Commercial Privilege: Some Historical Factors in the Emergence of the Cuban National Character, 1763–1815.” Cuban Studies 16 (1986): 123–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24485979.
[6] Halstead, Murat, The Story of Cuba Her Struggles for Liberty… The Cause, Crisis and Destiny of the Pearl of the Antilles. Akron: The Werner Company, 1897, p. 220
[7] Schneider, op. cit., pp. 114-119
[8] Johnson, Sherry, The Social Transformation of Eighteenth-Century Cuba. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2001, p. 41
[9] Schneider, op. cit., p. 131
[10] Parcero Torre, Celia María, La Pérdida de la Habana y Las reformas Borbónicos. Spain: Junta de Castilla y Léon Consejería y Cultura, p. 152
[11] Parcero Torre, Celia María, La Pérdida de la Habana y Las reformas Borbónicos en Cuba. Spain: Junta de Castilla y Léon Consejería y Cultura, p. 128-133
[12] Schneider, op. cit., p. 137
[13] Parcero Torre, La Pérdida de la Habana, op. cit., p. 132
[14] Parcero Torre, La Pérdida de la Habana, op. cit., p. 15
[15] Ferrer, Ada, Cuba: An American History. New York: Scribner 2021, p. 49
[16] Halstead, op. cit., p. 233
[17] Parcero Torre, La Pérdida de la Habana, op. cit., p. 152
[18] Halstead, op. cit., pp. 234-235
[19] Schneider, op. cit., p. 202
[20] Halstead, op. cit., pp. 234-235
[21] Parcero Torre, La Pérdida de la Habana, op. cit., p. 158
[22] Schneider, op. cit., pp. 202-207
[23] For Bridgerton fans, Queen Charlotte married King George III in 1761 before the invasion. Possibly, Charlotte was one of the happy customers when Cuban snuff shipments arrived in 1763.
[24] Parcero Torre, La Pérdida de la Habana, op. cit., p. 162
[25] Thomas, Hugh, Cuba or The Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971, p. 61
[26] Foard, Douglas W., Ph. D., “The Imperious Laird”: John Campbell Fourth Earl of Loudoun. Sterling, VA: Better Impressions, 2007, p. 29
[27] Stephenson, R. Scott, Clash of Empires: The British, French & Indian War 1754-1763. Pittsburgh: Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, 2005, p. 20
[28] Foard, op. cit., p. 66
[29] Kamen, op. cit., p. 209
[30] Dalrymple, William, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019
[31] Kamen, op. cit., p. 483
[32]* This calculation is based on the Economy Cost Comparator with the national gross domestic product (GDP) calculator. A Consumer Price Index (CPI) calculation is also available; based on my grocery bills over the past six months, I think that the CPI Index drastically underestimates the change in value. Please see Bonus Feature: Money, Money, Money for details.
[33] Castillero Calvo, Alfredo, Las Rutas de la Plata: La Primera Globalización. Madrid: Ediciones San Marcos, 2004
[34] Castillero Calvo, Alfredo, “La Globalización que fue” in Panorama de las Américas, July 2009, p. 123
[35] Kamen, op. cit., p. 481
[36] Ferrer, op. cit., p. 54
[37] Schneider, op. cit., p. 8
[38] Williams, Stephen, Cuba: The Land, The History, The People, The Culture. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1994, p. 23
[39] Schneider, op. cit., p. 220
[40] Ferrer, op. cit., p. 54
[41] Williams, op. cit., p. 23
[42] Kuethe, Allan J., Cuba, 1753-1815: Crown, Military, and Society. Knoxville: The University of
Tennessee Press, 1986, pp. 28-30
[43] Ibid., pp. 41-42
[44] Ferrer, op. cit., pp. 54-55
[45] Ibid., pp. 54-55
[46] Weber, David J., The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992, p. 6
[47] Petrie, Sir Charles, King Charles III of Spain: An Enlightened Despot. New York: The John Day Company, 1971, p. 228
[48] Ibid., p. 118
[49] Yes, the famed rapper Tupac Shakur was named for Túpac Amaru II.
[50] Ferreiro, Larrie D., Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain who Saved It. New York: Albert Knopf, 2016, pp. 339-340. This calculation uses the Economy Cost Comparator based on the national gross domestic product (GDP) calculator.
[51] Nash, Gary B., The Unknown American Revolution. New York: Viking, 2006, p. 45
[52] Garcia Melero, Luis Angel, La Independencia de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica a Traves de la Prensa Española. Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, 1977, p. 10
[53] Fernández y Fernández, Enrique, Spain’s Contribution to the independence of the United States. Embassy of Spain: United States of America, 1885, p. 4
The Silver Road: How Spain and Latin America Helped to Win the American Revolutionary War explores the often overlooked role Spain played in supporting the American colonies during their fight for independence. Pereira‑Amador examines the circumstances in the Americas leading up to the revolution and demonstrates how Spain and its colonies contributed economically and militarily, forcing Britain to divide its attention across multiple fronts rather than focusing its full strength on North America.
France’s contribution to American independence is widely known, but Spain is rarely part of the conversation. I found it fascinating how the book explains this difference: France’s efforts were highly visible with their armies working alongside colonial forces and offering open political support, while Spain operated largely behind the scenes until that was no longer feasible. Pereira‑Amador covers many angles of Spanish involvement, from political aid to the import of essential goods to loans of hard currency at a time when the colonies were suffering severe inflation and economic hardship. Her multi‑pronged approach keeps the narrative engaging rather than dry, with each chapter focusing on a different situation and set of key players pursuing their own goals. The research is impressively thorough, drawing on sources from Spain, France, Britain, and people from all walks of life in the colonies, creating a fuller and more nuanced picture of the American Revolution.
My main issue with the book is that the author occasionally frames the revolution as though the Continental Army contributed very little on the battlefield and independence was achieved almost entirely through Spanish and French efforts. I think this minimizes key factors such as the colonies’ own victories and the brilliant American leaders who stood against overwhelming odds. That said, Spain and France were undeniably integral to America’s success and deserve far more credit than they typically receive in history books.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in colonial Latin American or United States history. Pereira‑Amador does an excellent job integrating two political spheres that are often treated as separate, and it becomes clear that to fully understand the history of one, it’s crucial to understand the other, as their trajectories were deeply intertwined.