The Massachusetts Historical Society has announced “Underrepresented Voices of the American Revolution,” a conference set for July 14th through 16th.
In recent decades, scholars have unearthed and revived stories of a diverse cast of characters who lived through America’s political formation. The approach of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence offers an opportunity to highlight and share the latest scholarship on the underrepresented voices of the American Revolution whether that be from the perspective of Native Americans, African Americans, women, loyalists, ethnic and religious minorities, children, or neutrals in a global war that put the question of representation at Revolution’s core.
This conference brings together scholars to explore broad themes associated with historic individuals and groups not traditionally taken into consideration when discussing the American Revolutionary Era.
A full conference schedule can be found online. For more information or to register, click here.
Photo provided.
Hard to tell from the “Underrepresented Voices of the American Revolution,” conference blurb but it looks like there is no discussion on the significant contributions that Spain made to the independence of the US. Spain’s intervention, in the American War of Independence deserves to be reevaluated since there is abundant historical evidence that could prove or disprove the traditional view of some historians that Spain’s participation was of little or no value to American Independence.
Despite the work of a few “Hispanist” historians such as William A. Prescott, Gabriel Jackson and Herbert Bolton, Spain has continued to be as unfavorably portrayed and to paraphrase comedian Henny Youngman, she “got no respect” in American historiography since many of its principal historians either ignore or reject Spain’s importance to the result of the American Revolution. This is the central concern of Professor Thomas E. Chávez’s book, Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift. He posits that there is [an]”inadequacy of the scholarship pertaining to Spain’s role in the American Revolution.” offers that: “many historical explanations for Spain’s actions [and] have weaknesses in both logic and evidence and betray a superficial understanding of Charles III and his ministers.” Thomas Chávez concluded that with regard to the subject of American independence, the “documentary material is so plentiful in Spain that there is enough work to last many historians a lifetime.” This is also the assessment of historian José Antonio Vaca de Osma, who wrote that: “The Spanish intervention in the War of Independence of the United States has not been sufficiently studied by most historians of the period, when the abundant and crystal-clear correspondence of the Spanish ministers—Aranda, Floridablanca, and Grimaldi—would provide so much information, which they chose to ignore.” Additionally, a careful review of “Spanish Correspondence Concerning the American Revolution” by James A. Robertson in the The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Aug., 1918), pp. 299-316 would dispel any doubt that Spain was committed to the cause of American independence.