Introduction

This chapter assesses what aid Spain provided to the American cause and what that aid amounted to in the outcome of the American Revolution. Parallel to the evolution of Spain’s and the United States respective images, the increasing attention given to the role of Spain in the American Revolutionary War is also a product of the evolution in historiography towards the study of subjects. The war that is known as the American Revolutionary War or the War of American Independence was much more than what those names suggest, for North America was merely one theater in a global war. The American Revolution was lost neither in America nor in Britain itself, but rather in the breakdown of British diplomacy that preceded imperial dismemberment. The involvement of Spain in the American Revolution must be understood within the context of imperial reforms that prompted a reassessment of Spain’s foreign policy.