Atlas of Hispanic-American History

Spain. Captain Eugenio Pourré marched

from the Spanish outpost of St. Louis (in

what is now Missouri) and in February

1781 captured St. Joseph, a British trading

post (in what is now Michigan); he then

claimed that region for Spain. The British

fought back, attacking Arkansas Post in

1783, but failed to capture it.

Spanish designs on the eastern

Mississippi Valley were short-lived.

During the American Revolution,

American soldier George Rogers Clark

(1752–1818) captured British forts in

Illinois and Indiana and defeated the

Shawnee, British allies, in Ohio. In the

negotiations that followed the war,

Clark’s victories allowed the United

States to claim the region that constitutes

present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,

Michigan, Wisconsin, and eastern

Minnesota, which was ceded from Britain

to the United States in 1783 and became

known as the Northwest Territory.

In the peace that ended the war and

brought British recognition of American

independence, Spain achieved only some

of its war aims. It did not win back

Gibraltar, obtain recognition of its claims

to the eastern Mississippi Valley, or drive

the British out of Central America. But it

did win East and West Florida and

Minorca. In the long run, however, Spain

did itself no favors. The new United

States would soon bargain itself into pos-

session of Florida and Louisiana, while

the example set by the American

Revolution would bring an end to Spain’s

American empire.

INDEPENDENCE

FROM SPAIN

When the American Revolution ended,

Spain’s empire was larger than ever, with

the Floridas now added to its previous

holdings. Yet Spain’s weakness relative to

other powers had not changed, as the

coming years were to show. As the 18th

century ended and the 19th century

began, Spain was forced to cede parts of

its American empire to other nations.

Finally, in the 1820s it was forced to rec-

ognize the independence of nearly all of

its American colonies.

Losses to France and

the United States

The enlightened Spanish monarch

Charles III had adroitly steered his coun-

try to victory in the American Revolution,

but he was succeeded by his incompetent

son Charles IV (1748–1819; reigned

1788–1808), who largely ceded power to

his chief minister Manuel de Godoy

(1767–1851) and proved unable to cope

with the challenges raised by the French

68 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY

Ferdinand VII of Spain (Library of

Congress)

George Rogers Clark (Library of Congress)