American Revolution financed by Cuban specie?
Dentuck
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I've been cataloguing part of my library at home. Tonight I found a book that I read a year or two ago. A passage raised some questions that I meant to follow up on, but never did.
The book is Cubans in America: A Vibrant History of a People in Exile, by Alex Antón and Roger E. Hernández (Kensington Books, 2002). There's a discussion of a crucial turning point in the financing of the American Revolution, which (according to the authors) hinged on specie from Cuba.
Anyone on the board have any information on this? What form would 1.2 million French livres have taken? Wouldn't that have been a considerable amount of gold and silver to absorb into America's wartime economy, even over several months? Where was the specie kept and how was it distributed?
The book's references aren't very formal or comprehensive, unfortunately.
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Relevant passage from the book:
After Gálvez’s victory, the American states faced a dire problem. While British troops under General Charles Cornwallis massed in Virginia, the Americans were nearly bankrupt. The Comte de Rochambeau—Washington’s French ally—calculated there was enough money to pay and supply the men for two months, and no more. Desperate, Washington dashed off an urgent request to American financier Robert Morris on August 27. “I must entreat you, if possible, to procure one month’s pay in specie for the detachment under my command. Part of the troops have not been paid for a long time and have upon several occasions shown marks of great discontent.” Morris replied the following day, stating that he could not honor the general’s request. Without salaries and sufficient supplies, and cut off by the British control of the sea, the Continental Army of the American Revolution was on the verge of disbanding.
Next, Rochambeau asked Admiral de Grasse—commanding a French fleet in the Caribbean assigned to sail north and provide Washington the sea power he needed—to help raise the money. The admiral first tried French authorities in Haiti, but the colonial treasury there could not meet his needs and local merchants were unwilling or unable to help. So he turned to the Marqués de Saavedra, a Spanish official in Santo Domingo (today’s Dominican Republic), the Spanish colony that shared the island of Hispaniola with French Haiti. Saavedra did not think he could raise the funds there, but he believed that in Cuba it was possible.
Arriving in Havana on August 15, 1781, aboard the frigate Aigrette, de Saavedra contacted the new governor of Cuba, Juan Manuel de Cagigal, the same military officer who had turned the tide at Pensacola. After learning of the grave situation facing the Americans, de Cagigal set to work. Historians do not agree about exactly what happened next. Some say it was all resolved in six hours, others say it took two days. There is also controversy about what percentage of the money came from the Havana municipal treasury as opposed to private funds. (One story has it that most of the capital was raised by Cuban women who pawned their jewelry.) But de Grasse got the money: 1,200,000 French livres, which historian Otto Rodríguez Viamonte has calculated amounts to some $300 million today [2002]—enough to support an army of 5,000 for four months. If de Grasse could safely join the American troops, Washington would have the money as well as the ships he needed.
Elated by having raised the funds, de Saavedra left Havana on the Aigrette and met de Grasse off Matanzas Bay. Together they raced north, evading the British Navy to reach Chesapeake Bay. There, they met and defeated a British fleet. De Grasse sent an urgent dispatch to George Washington with the good news: Cuban money and French ships were safe and awaiting his orders.
Meanwhile, Washington had been marching south from New York with his army, “distressed beyond expression to know what had become of de Grasse,” as he wrote in a letter. That distress eased considerably on September 5th, when a horseman bearing the good news found Washington three miles south of the American encampment at Chester, Pennsylvania, on the Delaware.
Rochambeau had sailed downriver from Philadelphia to meet him there, and as the ship approached, a figure in a blue and buff uniform waited at the dock. Historian Eduardo Tejera quotes the diary of Rochambeau’s aide-de-camp, M. Closen: “We saw in the distance, General Washington shaking his hat and a white handkerchief, and showing signs of joy. Rochambeau had scarcely landed when Washington, usually so cool and composed, fell into his arms. The great news had arrived; de Grasse had come.”
Financed by the Cuban war chest, Washington’s men marched on to Yorktown to defeat the Redcoats, the last great battle of the Revolutionary War. With Cornwallis’ capitulation, American independence was assured.
“The million that was supplied to pay the troops … may, with truth, be regarded as the ‘bottom dollars’ of the edifice upon which American independence was erected,” says historian Stephen Bonsal.
Help from Cuba arrived in great measure because Spain saw in the American Revolution a chance to strike at Great Britain and win back Florida. That certainly explains the Gálvez expeditions. But there may have been more. Could the Spanish crown’s geopolitical strategy alone account for the willingness of Cubans to risk their money to finance a foreign war? Perhaps there was lingering resentment over the British occupation seventeen years earlier. Perhaps among some Cubans there was sympathy for the first nation of the Americas fighting to throw off a European colonial power.
The vigorous young republic that Cubans had helped would serve as a base of operations in exiles’ struggle to free the island from Spanish rule. And it would cast a covetous eye on the island and its now rapidly growing, slave-based sugar economy.
The book is Cubans in America: A Vibrant History of a People in Exile, by Alex Antón and Roger E. Hernández (Kensington Books, 2002). There's a discussion of a crucial turning point in the financing of the American Revolution, which (according to the authors) hinged on specie from Cuba.
Anyone on the board have any information on this? What form would 1.2 million French livres have taken? Wouldn't that have been a considerable amount of gold and silver to absorb into America's wartime economy, even over several months? Where was the specie kept and how was it distributed?
The book's references aren't very formal or comprehensive, unfortunately.
========
Relevant passage from the book:
After Gálvez’s victory, the American states faced a dire problem. While British troops under General Charles Cornwallis massed in Virginia, the Americans were nearly bankrupt. The Comte de Rochambeau—Washington’s French ally—calculated there was enough money to pay and supply the men for two months, and no more. Desperate, Washington dashed off an urgent request to American financier Robert Morris on August 27. “I must entreat you, if possible, to procure one month’s pay in specie for the detachment under my command. Part of the troops have not been paid for a long time and have upon several occasions shown marks of great discontent.” Morris replied the following day, stating that he could not honor the general’s request. Without salaries and sufficient supplies, and cut off by the British control of the sea, the Continental Army of the American Revolution was on the verge of disbanding.
Next, Rochambeau asked Admiral de Grasse—commanding a French fleet in the Caribbean assigned to sail north and provide Washington the sea power he needed—to help raise the money. The admiral first tried French authorities in Haiti, but the colonial treasury there could not meet his needs and local merchants were unwilling or unable to help. So he turned to the Marqués de Saavedra, a Spanish official in Santo Domingo (today’s Dominican Republic), the Spanish colony that shared the island of Hispaniola with French Haiti. Saavedra did not think he could raise the funds there, but he believed that in Cuba it was possible.
Arriving in Havana on August 15, 1781, aboard the frigate Aigrette, de Saavedra contacted the new governor of Cuba, Juan Manuel de Cagigal, the same military officer who had turned the tide at Pensacola. After learning of the grave situation facing the Americans, de Cagigal set to work. Historians do not agree about exactly what happened next. Some say it was all resolved in six hours, others say it took two days. There is also controversy about what percentage of the money came from the Havana municipal treasury as opposed to private funds. (One story has it that most of the capital was raised by Cuban women who pawned their jewelry.) But de Grasse got the money: 1,200,000 French livres, which historian Otto Rodríguez Viamonte has calculated amounts to some $300 million today [2002]—enough to support an army of 5,000 for four months. If de Grasse could safely join the American troops, Washington would have the money as well as the ships he needed.
Elated by having raised the funds, de Saavedra left Havana on the Aigrette and met de Grasse off Matanzas Bay. Together they raced north, evading the British Navy to reach Chesapeake Bay. There, they met and defeated a British fleet. De Grasse sent an urgent dispatch to George Washington with the good news: Cuban money and French ships were safe and awaiting his orders.
Meanwhile, Washington had been marching south from New York with his army, “distressed beyond expression to know what had become of de Grasse,” as he wrote in a letter. That distress eased considerably on September 5th, when a horseman bearing the good news found Washington three miles south of the American encampment at Chester, Pennsylvania, on the Delaware.
Rochambeau had sailed downriver from Philadelphia to meet him there, and as the ship approached, a figure in a blue and buff uniform waited at the dock. Historian Eduardo Tejera quotes the diary of Rochambeau’s aide-de-camp, M. Closen: “We saw in the distance, General Washington shaking his hat and a white handkerchief, and showing signs of joy. Rochambeau had scarcely landed when Washington, usually so cool and composed, fell into his arms. The great news had arrived; de Grasse had come.”
Financed by the Cuban war chest, Washington’s men marched on to Yorktown to defeat the Redcoats, the last great battle of the Revolutionary War. With Cornwallis’ capitulation, American independence was assured.
“The million that was supplied to pay the troops … may, with truth, be regarded as the ‘bottom dollars’ of the edifice upon which American independence was erected,” says historian Stephen Bonsal.
Help from Cuba arrived in great measure because Spain saw in the American Revolution a chance to strike at Great Britain and win back Florida. That certainly explains the Gálvez expeditions. But there may have been more. Could the Spanish crown’s geopolitical strategy alone account for the willingness of Cubans to risk their money to finance a foreign war? Perhaps there was lingering resentment over the British occupation seventeen years earlier. Perhaps among some Cubans there was sympathy for the first nation of the Americas fighting to throw off a European colonial power.
The vigorous young republic that Cubans had helped would serve as a base of operations in exiles’ struggle to free the island from Spanish rule. And it would cast a covetous eye on the island and its now rapidly growing, slave-based sugar economy.
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Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
If I recall correctly, an ecu (a silver-dollar size coin) was worth 6 lives, so that would imply a sum of about 200,000 8-reales pieces.
If its purpose was to pay Washington's army, then it probably would have been in the form of Spanish colonial silver coins - 8 Reales and smaller.
I have no idea if Washington's army was ever paid in specie, though.
Check out the Southern Gold Society