The commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence to be celebrated in 2026 could be a good opportunity for Spain to highlight and disseminate the importance of the assistance of Charles III’s government to the rebellious colonies that has not been sufficiently known or recognized either by historiography or by public opinion in the United States.
Eduardo Garrigues / Instituto Franklin-UAH
I
t is necessary to recognize that without the intervention of Spain in favor of the rebellious colonies in their war against the metropolis, those would not have obtained a favorable outcome for the independence nor would it have been obtained in the dates in which it was obtained; although it is possible that the independence would have been achieved in other circumstances. The secret aid that Spain gave to George Washington’s army, before formally declaring war in 1789, and the campaigns of Bernardo de Gálvez in the Mississippi and in the Gulf of Mexico, by conquering the British places of Mobilia and Pensacola, blocked the presence of the British Navy in the Gulf and the Bahamas Channel, thus preventing the English army and its navy from attacking the rebel army, forming a pincer to the north and south.
The lack of recognition of Spain’s contribution on the part of the United States -which instead valued the contribution of France and the support of the Marquis de Lafayette to General Washington- may be due to both objective and subjective reasons, which we could call psychological.
Among the latter, it is evident the persistence of prejudices and negative stereotypes about the legacy of Spain in America that had been largely assumed by the leaders of the rebellious colonies themselves, even though they had rejected the political domination of the metropolis where they had originated.
As an objective factor in this lack of recognition, it can be pointed out that – unlike France, which in the previous war had lost almost all its possessions in North America – Spain retained a large part of its extensive domains on the continent. Thus, the Spanish presence constituted an obstacle to the desired westward expansion of the new state; and from a necessary ally to win the war against England, Spain became a rival and powerful neighbor.
When a diplomatic delegation from Congress led by Benjamin Franklin met in late 1776 with Spain’s ambassador to the court of Louis XVI, Pedro Pablo Abarca y Bolea, Count of Aranda, the Aragonese aristocrat harbored no sympathy for vassals who were rebelling against their legitimate king. But, overcoming his pro-monarchist scruples, Aranda recommended to the government of Charles III to immediately and clearly help the rebellion, declaring war on England when the new state had not yet “got out of its predicament”.
But the government did not follow the advice of the far-sighted ambassador, and did not dare to provoke England with an explicit agreement with the rebels, opting for a Solomonic decision: it would help Washington’s army with arms, ammunition and supplies, as well as financial aid, but all with the utmost secrecy.
This ambivalent strategy would have the consequence that, although the amounts of secret aid to the rebel army through the port of New Orleans and Havana were significant, the recipients of the aid were sometimes unaware that it came from Spain.
Apart from the negative consequences of this ambiguous policy, there were serious rebuffs by the Spanish Court to the representatives of the United States Congress. Even once war had been declared against England, Secretary of State Floridablanca maintained a reserved attitude towards the congressionally mandated representative, John Jay, who was not received even once by King Carlos III during the two years he was in Madrid. And when the American diplomat joined the American delegation negotiating peace in Paris, John Jay traveled to London and, behind the backs of the two main allies of the United States, France and Spain, concluded a preliminary peace treaty with Great Britain. In this treaty, England made generous concessions of territories that were no longer theirs, since they were those that Bernardo de Gálvez had conquered for Spain. And it also recognized the right of free navigation in the Mississippi River, repeating what had been agreed in the treaty of 1763 under completely different circumstances.
In order not to hinder the signing of the peace treaty in Paris in 1783, Minister of State Floridablanca instructed the Count of Aranda not to demand in the agreement the fixing of the northern boundary and the exclusivity of navigation on the Mississippi, trusting that these differences could be ironed out in a future treaty between Spain and the new nation.
And, when in 1785 Floridablanca sent as Spain’s first ambassador to the U.S. Congress Diego María Gardoqui – a Basque merchant who had befriended John Jay while stationed in Spain – Gardoqui failed in his mission to conclude a treaty with congressional representatives that included the terms that had not been included in the Paris agreement. In 1787, the legislative body decreed a recess to elaborate a new constitution through the Philadelphia Convention, so the negotiations with the Spanish ambassador were interrupted.
The failure of Spanish diplomacy to get the new state to recognize Spain’s aid to independence in concrete concessions would have its culmination when on October 27, 1795, the Prince of Peace, Don Manuel Godoy and Thomas Pickney, as representative of the new state, signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Limits between the United States of America and His Majesty Charles IV.
In this treaty, Spain ceded the exclusive right of navigation for which it had fought so hard and reduced the Spanish dominions to the borders that had been agreed upon in the spurious treaty of 1782 between John Jay and the representative of the English government, which meant reducing the Spanish territory in Louisiana to a thin strip on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Eduardo Garrigues
Ambassador of Spain
An award-winning novelist and writer, Eduardo Garrigues has combined his literary vocation with a diplomatic career, in which he has held the posts of counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Kenya (1973), delegate to the Fourth Committee and advisor to the UN Security Council (1978-1983), cultural counselor at the Embassy of Spain in London and director of the Spanish Institute (1986-1989), consul general in Los Angeles (1989-1993), director general of Casa de America, Madrid (1994-1997), ambassador of Spain to Namibia and Botswana (1998-2000), ambassador of Spain to Norway and Iceland (2000-2004), consul general in Puerto Rico, and ambassador of Spain (R. D. 28/12/14). He was also a founding member and secretary general of the Spain-USA Council Foundation, of whose Board of Trustees he continues to be an honorary member.
In addition to several award-winning literary works, he has published several volumes on the Spanish legacy in the United States, such as The Exposition in the Province of New Mexico, 1812 by Don Pedro Baptista Pino (University of New Mexico Press, 1995), The Spanish Enlightenment in the Independence of the United States: Benjamin Franklin (Marcial Pons, 2007), and Norteamérica a finales del siglo XVIII: España y Estados Unidos (Marcial Pons, 2008). He has also published numerous articles in the newspapers and magazines ABC, El Mundo, Diario 16, Los Angeles Times, La Opinión, Nuestro Tiempo, Revista de Occidente, and El Nuevo Día.
