Anglo-Spanish rivalry in North America
J. Leitch Wright (Author)
"The rivalry of Spain and England in North America began not long after Columbus claimed Hispaniola for Spain, and it continued into the nineteenth century. Anglo-Spanish Rivalry in North America is a study of Spain's response to England's intrusions into an area Spain held to be her own. The heart of the Spanish empire in the Americas was in Mexico. and Peru, where conquistadors had encountered highly developed Indian cultures and untold wealth. As Spain extended her empire north from the Rio Grande, her settlements were placed at strategic points, intended primarily to keep the areas out of foreign hands. Spanish frontier provinces in North America- Florida, California, Texas, and Louisiana- were buffer colonies designed to protect Mexico and to safeguard strategic sailing routes. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Spain attempted to make Florida and other frontier colonies self-sufficient, but she failed, and the colonies remained thinly settled and were a drain on the Spanish economy. A century after the Spanish flag first was set on Hispaniola, England became active in the New World, occupying small Caribbean islands and points on the North American coastline which Spain claimed but had bypassed. Here there were no populous, wealthy Indian civilizations, and the English were forced to colonize not only to make good their title but also to exploit the resources of these areas. Gradually, through "effective occupation" by her colonists, England pushed Spain from the Atlantic sea- board-Newfoundland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and finally, in 1763, the Florida peninsula. The era of the American Revolution saw a dramatic alteration in the nature of Anglo- Spanish rivalry, with Britain assuming France's former role in North America: she controlled the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes-Hudson Bay waterways and was attempting to keep the Americans from expanding west of the Appalachians. Since Spain occupied both Louisiana west of the Mississippi and New Orleans and the two Floridas to the cast, it was only natural that Anglo-Spanish rivalry continued after 1783, but with new dimensions. The dynamics of the French Revolution com- plicated matters further, and England and Spain alternated between vying for control of the interior of North America and cooperating to stamp out the spread of Jacobinism in the heart of America. Indeed, in the final ironic episode of this rivalry around 1820, Spain vainly pleaded with Britain to renew their alliance of the Napoleonic period and help keep the dangerous Americans out of Florida. J. Leitch Wright, Jr., is associate professor of history at Florida State University. He was educated at Virginia Military Institute and the University of Virginia, and he taught at VMI and Randolph-Macon College before joining the faculty at Florida State University in 1968. Mr. Wright's articles have appeared in various historical journals, and his William Augustus Bowles: Director General of the Creek Nation was published by the University of Georgia Press in 1967."--Publisher
Print Book, English, 1971
University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1971