Spain, America’s Undeclared Ally in the American Revolution
Even before America’s declaration of independence, Spain began to secretly supply the colonists with war materials. Soon after France and the United States signed its Treaty of Alliance, Spain declared war on England to support her French cousins, thus indirectly becoming America’s ally. Spain stretched British war-fighting capacity beyond the breaking point, turning a regional war into a costly conflict between the world’s two greatest colonial empires.
Tom Hand, creator and publisher of Americana Corner, explores how Spain became America’s undeclared ally during the American Revolution, and why it still matters today.
Images courtesy of Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alamy, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, The New York Public Library, Naval History and Heritage Command, Yale University Art Gallery, Wikipedia.
Because of Spain’s numerous possessions along the Gulf Coast and in Central America, France and Spain jointly decided to have Spain fight the British throughout the southern theater and in the Mediterranean, while France would send their soldiers and navy to help the thirteen American colonies. It is the reason why the French were at Newport, Savannah, and Yorktown while Spanish soldiers were not, leaving the mistaken impression in most American’s minds that France was our only ally in the American Revolution.