When Don Diego Gardoqui stepped onto Philadelphia’s docks in May 1785, he was a hero of the American Revolution. A merchant from Bilbao, Spain, Gardoqui, forty-nine, had early on in the war transformed his trade connections with Massachusetts into a pipeline for delivering the arms and supplies desperately needed by American troops. Following the war, […]
The Articles of Confederation described the first government of the new United States. As one may imagine from understanding the later debates on the Constitution in 1787, there were a number of points of contention on the Articles that were later re-argued for the Constitution. But there was one issue in the debate on the […]
At the beginning of March 1777, Arthur Lee, a delegate to the United States Congress, urgently requested to meet with the Marquis de Grimaldi, who until just a few weeks before had been the Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs of King Carlos III of Spain, and who was now on his way to take […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews retired US Army officer Willam V. Wenger on his research into the contributions of France, Spain, and other countries to the American war effort, from munitions and soldiers to diplomatic assistance and loans. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States […]
Historians have long appreciated that the colonies could not have won the American Revolutionary War against the most powerful nation in the world without significant foreign aid. What is not coherently presented in the historical record or documented in any meaningful depth is the quantification of that aide by France and her allies, primarily Spain. […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor George Kotlik on Texas’s contributions to the Patriot cause. Throughout the latter years of the conflict, the Spanish Empire utilized its colonial resources to aid the Americans in the their quest for independence from Britain. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free […]
Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era by Mike Bunn. (Montgomery, AL: NewSouth Books, 2020) In Fourteenth Colony, Mike Bunn sheds light on the forgotten British colony of West Florida. The book seeks to “put West Florida back on the map of our historical consciousness” (page xi). Comprising parts of […]
