[Granville-Hough] 23 Nov 2009 - Historian Prejudice

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:23:42 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Historian Prejudice, 23 Nov 2009

  I send this because it illustrates the feeling of many Anglos after
the Spanish-American War. However, this Perkins fellow was one of the
most quoted of American historians in his day and is still considered an 
authority. It is most unfortunate.

  PREJUDICE AND IGNORANCE AMONG AMERICAN HISTORIANS.

Robert Thonhoff in the May issue of ôSomos Primosö
(http://www.somosprimos.com/sp2003/spmay03.htm) gave us insights into
the prejudices of current commentators and editorial writers about
Spanish participation in the Revolutionary War. When you hear these
commentators or read their work, you ask yourself how they could be so
ignorant. The answer is that they are merely repeating what they learned
in school or what they learned from writers of American history. I want
to illustrate the historian ignorance with one example.

James Breck Perkins was a Francophile who wrote in the 1900 era, and he
had great influence on subsequent historians who studied European aid to
the American Revolutionists. In his concluding statements in his 1910
final book, France in the American Revolution, Perkins says: ôI have
endeavored to give some account of the aid furnished by France to our
ancestors in the war for national existence. à At all events, the new
nation owed a heavy debt of gratitude to France for assistance in the
hour of needà.ö (Endnote 1)

Perkins was also quite clear about his understanding of Spanish
participation. He shows this in a response to the French historian Henri
DoniolÆs statement that the early and unexpected preliminary peace
agreement between the United States and Britain upset negotiations by
which Spain was to regain Gibraltar in exchange for West Indies sugar
islands or other valuable property. He stated : ôIf Jay and Adams
(negotiators of the peace agreement) saved Guadeloupe and Dominica for
France, they did her a friendly turn, and certainly there was no reason
that the Americans should have sacrificed anything to assist Spain.
Spain had no claims on the United States, she had wished ill to the
cause of American independence and had done nothing to further it; her
policy had been selfish and she could not ask for generosity; there was
no reason the the people of the United States should sacrifice one cod
on the Newfoundland Banks or one acre of land in the Western (domain) to
obtain Gibraltar for Spainà.ö (Endnote 2)

So here you have a historic and influential American historianÆs view on
the participation of France and Spain in the American Revolutionary War,
and he is still quoted as an authority. Perkins certainly did not know
that much of the aid he listed from France was actually paid for 50/50
by Spain; he apparently never heard of the April and June 1777 loans
made through Arthur Lee; or of Juan de Miralles, close friend and
supporter of George Washington; or of Francisco de Saavedra, who
negotiated the DeGrasse-Saavedra accord for French/Spanish conduct of
the war against Britain in the Western Hemisphere; and of SaavedraÆs
role in providing the major Spanish funding for the Chesapeake Bay
Expedition, which we know as Yorktown; or of Diego de GardequiÆs support
of American merchants and privateers in moving critical supplies to
America; or of the secret French/Spanish aid provided through
Beaumarchais and the Dutch; or of the direct and indirect support of
Spanish minister of war Jos‰ de Gßlvez and his nephew Governor of
Louisiana, General Bernardo de Gßlvez; or of the role of the Mexican
mint and powder factories in the aid picture. (Endnote 3)

Endnotes: 1. P 522, Perkins, James Breck, France in the American
Revolution, Boston, Houghton-Mifflin Comp., 1911, republished 1970 in
New York by Burt Franklin: Research & Source Works Series #504, American
Classics in History and Social Sciences, #133, and separately
republished in 1970 at Williamstown, MA by Corner House Publications.

2. op cit, p 518.

3. Fernandez, Enrique, ôSpainÆs Contribution to the Independence of the
United States,ö Revista/Review Interamericana, Vol X, #3, (Fall, 1980),
pp 290-304, discusses the aid through Arthur Lee and through Governor
Gßlvez, among others. Revista/Review Interamericana was published by the
Inter American University of Puerto Rico. This particular article was
republished in 1985 by the Embassy of Spain, USA.