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On Cinco de Mayo . . . New Mexico historian unearths Spain's role in the American Revolution

France may have sent the dignified presence of the Marquis de Lafayette and the first foreign aid in support of America's colonial army, but it was Spain that played a major role in the war that won the United States its independence from Britain, a noted New Mexico historian told a Laboratory audience Monday.

In fact, said Tom Chavez, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, the American Revolution was a world war with Spain developing the principal strategies that led to the ultimate defeat of the British.

Based on extensive research Chavez conducted in Spain, his book "Spain and the Independence of the United States," chronicles a history rarely if ever discussed or written about in the United States.

Explaining how his interest in the subject began, Chavez said he was curious about three Spanish banners hanging in the Palace of the Governors when he was the Palace Museum's director. His inquiries to Spain revealed the banners belonged to three of more than a dozen Spanish regiments that fielded troops throughout the South, from New Orleans to Pensacola, Fla., and even as far north as Michigan in one raid, during the Revolution.

A series of events took Chavez on a 10-month Fulbright scholarship program, allowing him to study at several archives in Spain, most notably the Archives of the Indies in Seville.

There, he discovered, the Spanish have as much archival material about the American Revolution as does the United States. Amid a mountain of history, he said he found the ultimate tributes to Spain's contribution to winning the war; tributes written by George Washington, Patrick Henry and others who were close enough to the strategies to know. "Without Spain, this nation would not have been successful," he quoted one letter as saying.

Chavez's anecdotes are revealing. Among them is the evidence that Spain and its colonies contributed more money to the American cause than France, with most of it "laundered" through France. As for money, he said colonial troops would not have been able to get to Yorktown for the final showdown without Spain's financial support. They were flat-out broke, said Chavez.

Spain was drawn into the Revolution when it recognized Great Britain was endangering its own Atlantic trade routes, and when efforts by France to mount early support began to fail. Related to each other, the kings of France and Spain worked out an agreement to jointly take on the British. Spain's leaders, however, wanted to play the lead role.

The lead role meant that the overall strategy was to be developed by Spain in return for its support, Chavez said. Scholarly evidence shows that George Washington agreed to the plan.

The size of its naval fleets apparently overlooked by Britain, Spain was to create a series of diversionary tactics over the years of its involvement that would draw British resources from the Americas to protect other interests.

The final diversion led to the British defeat at Yorktown, Chavez said. On hearing of a Spanish-French plan to invade the British Isles, Britain quickly called back the fleet that was in place at Yorktown to support Gen. Cornwallis. With Cornwallis "high and dry," and the Revolutionists primed with freshly contributed money, George Washington was positioned to prevail – and he did. The Spanish strategy worked.

Of course, Spain's motives were not exactly altruistic, Chavez noted. In the end, it got virtually everything it wanted. It retained important trading ports in the Indies and it stopped major British incursions into Central America.

France went broke in the war's aftermath, and the French Revolution was not far off.

As for the United States, Spain's contribution seems to have been forgotten. Few school children can read about it in textbooks, said Chavez. Only the symbol for the American dollar remains as a reminder, he said, and only for those who know it is a derivation of nomenclature signifying the Spanish peso.

Chavez's talk was sponsored by the Hispanic Diversity Working Group and the Lab's Diversity (DVO) Office in recognition of Cinco de Mayo, a national holiday in Mexico that signifies the anniversary of the May 5, 1862 battle of La Puebla, in which Mexican troops defeated Napoleon's III.

--Bill Dupuy

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