The war of 1812 minimized the U. S. ability to play a role in the Latin American independence struggles. Combat at home and British control of the seas left the United States with little influence over Spanish America. During the war, the British had an almost entirely free hand in consolidating their political and economic influence throughout Latin America. British diplomacy effectively headed off Spanish attempts to secure the intervention of other European powers to prevent the loss of Spanish sovereignty and the increase of British influence in the Americas.175
While the independence struggle was being waged in Mexico, the United States and Spain negotiated a border treaty known as the Adams—Onis Treaty. The treaty, signed in 1819, recognized the Spanish claim to Texas in exchange for Spain’s ceding to the United States its claim to Florida, which it obviously could not defend. The newly delineated boundary separating New Spain and the United States ran along the present east boundary of Texas, up the Red River, and then north along the one-hundredth meridian (the present east boundary of the Texas panhandle) to the Arkansas River. It followed the Arkansas to its headwaters and then ran to the forty-second parallel and then west along that parallel (the present northern boundary of California) to the Pacific. Since no one knew if the Arkansas originated north or south of that line, the treaty stipulated the boundary would run either north or south from the headwaters of the Arkansas to the forty-second parallel.
The treaty pleased both the Spanish and U. S. governments. Spain secured its claim to Texas and lost only Florida, which it had in fact already ceased to control. The United States obtained not only title to Florida but its first solid claim extending to the Pacific. Previously Spain had claimed territory north of the forty-second parallel. Since the treaty gave the United States access to the Pacific, it is also referred to as the Transcontinental Treaty.
Other European powers lost out as their prospects for acquiring territory on the Pacific Coast dimmed. Of course, the area’s indigenous population suffered the biggest loss. Without even their knowledge, much less their consent, those of European descent divided their land among themselves.
The unwillingness to jeopardize the delicate negotiations that led to the Adams—Onis Treaty shaped the U. S. response to the Spanish American independence struggle. The two-year delay between the 1819 signing of the treaty and its ratification by Spain ensured that the United States would not openly support pro-independence forces. Also, after 1776 Cuba’s trade with the United States surpassed Cuba’s trade with Spain. The United States was unwilling to risk being excluded from the Cuban market by supporting independence struggles in other Spanish colonies. By 1821, U. S. exports to Spanish America had reached $8 million a year, or 13 percent of all U. S. exports.176
Officially, the United States remained neutral during the struggle for Spanish American independence. However, by allowing roughly thirty-seven insurgent-flagged privateers to operate from U. S. ports and prey on Spanish commerce, President James Monroe virtually recognized the rebels’ belligerency. Spain urged that these rebel ships be considered as pirate ships, just as many Americans during the U. S. Civil War felt Confederate cruisers should be treated as pirates.177
In 1817, the United States ignored the organization of an invasion force assembled on U. S. territory. In New Orleans, Francisco Javier Mina, a Spanish liberal, openly recruited for an invasion force to wrest Mexico from Spanish rule. He had fought against the French in his home country and then turned against the Crown after Fernando reimposed absolutism and the Inquisition. In violation of U. S. neutrality laws, Mina obtained recruits, boats, military supplies, and financing from merchants seeking access to Mexican markets. Mina’s force sailed for Mexico with seven ships and 300 men. He landed on the Gulf Coast and reached the Bajio. In response to his force, the royalists launched a 6,000-man offensive. Rebels provided little support for Mina since they resented his having assumed command and did not trust a Spanish military man to free them from Spain. Royalists eventually dispersed Mina’s force, captured him, and ordered him shot in the back as a traitor.178
Despite the U. S. government’s declared neutrality, American citizens generally sympathized with the cause of Spanish American independence. They sold weapons to insurgents and sent propaganda and copies of the U. S. Constitution south. Roughly 90 percent of the captains who carried letters of marque for the government of Buenos Aires were U. S. citizens. Henry Clay described the Spanish American independence movement as a “glorious spectacle of eighteen millions of people, struggling to burst their chains and be free.”179
Since the United States and Britain both sought to control Spanish American markets and keep the French out, they maintained very similar policies toward independence movements. The British and the Americans largely formulated policy for the Spanish empire as a whole and only rarely designed measures directed specifically at Mexico. Since both the United States and Great Britain were formally allied with Spain, they sought to maintain at least the appearance of neutrality. The British enacted laws making it almost impossible for British subjects to render any assistance to Spanish American rebels, then demurely ignored the systematic violation of these laws. In 1818 alone, six expeditionary forces illegally departed from Britain to South America’s north coast. The Mina expedition also obtained a shipload of arms in Britain before stopping in New Orleans to recruit.180
World History
