The Saavedra Foundation in Granada maintains a number of documents concerning the funding in Havana for the de Grasse mission in the Chesapeake Bay. Saavedra wrote an additional report for the Spanish Crown of his assistance to de Grasse,[1] and also documents a request to Ignacio Pealver, the Treasurer at Havana, for the 500,000 pesos to support the military operations of the French squadron.[2] In his journal, Saavedra writes that on August 16, "the announcement was promulgated among the citizens, and it was proclaimed that anyone who wished to contribute towards aiding the French fleet with his money should send it immediately to the treasury. Two French officers went to collect the funds, and in six hours the requisite amount was gathered."[3]

     The collection of gold and silver from Havana is referenced in a number of journals and letters from the time period, including an entertaining anecdote by the harried French Commissary, Claude Blanchard.  Blanchards task was to provision the French and Continental Army forces at Yorktown, and he set to work to procure food, wagons, and other supplies purchased with the specie raised in Havana. Blanchard wrote in his journal that he was woken abruptly from his exhausted sleep during that September 1781night in Virginia by a shattering sound from the adjoining room. The gold and silver coins were too heavy for the wooden flooring, and had crashed through the floorboards into the cellar beneath, one of his staff falling with the cascading coins. Fortunately for the understaffed Blanchard, the man was safe.[4]

Diamond Ladies

     How then, was this important contribution overlooked or so completely enveloped in urban myth that it lost all credibility?  This question is part of a more comprehensive topic as to why the roles of the Spanish and Hispanic Americans are ignored or obfuscated in our 21st century perception of the American Revolution. However, there are specific references that can be examined to understand how the particular incident of the silver and gold from Havana has been viewed. 

          In The First Salute, Barbara Tuchman writes that, "By popular subscription, the money for de Grasse is said to have been raised in less than 48 hours, with the help of Cuban ladies who contributed their diamonds."  In weighing this version, Tuchman relied on the account of a Swedish lieutenant in de Grasses fleet, Karl Gustaf Tornquist, and concluded, "Less romantically, Tornquist states that Cuba issued a cash order for 700,000 piastres, which was delivered in cash in five hours."[5] 

          The Tornquist account relies on third party information concerning the incident of fund-raising, and Tornquist was not considered a diplomat or confidante within the circles of French and Spanish missions. Tornquist was not aware of the importance of Saavedras charter by King Carlos, and refers to Saavedra as "a Spanish director general of the customs who was sojourning at Cap [Santo Domingo], made no difficulties in giving a draft on a far great sum in Havana without guarantee."[6]

          A story of the diamonds donated by the women of Havana became a historical fixture that would now be considered an urban myth. Several accounts of the fundraising refer to the donation of diamonds. Charles Lee Lewis, formerly a professor at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, writes in his book, "The public treasury [in Havana] was assisted by individuals, ladies even offering their diamonds. Five hours after the arrival of the frigate Aigrette, sent by de Grasse, the sum of 1,200,000 livres was delivered on board."[7]  Professor Lewis also misspells Saavedras name as Salavedra, and reports that he is the Director of Customs who had to be persuaded to assist de Grasse. Professor Lewis relies on the reports by Tornquist and Georges Lacour-Gayet, neither of which contains references to diamonds or jewels.[8]  But the rumors of ladies with diamonds have persisted, and reappear as late as 2004 in Robert Ketchums Victory at Yorktown. According to Mr. Ketchum, "[de Grasse] was unable to acquire sufficient funds locally and sent a frigate to Havana, where the commander of the port informed the principal inhabitants of the Americans need and succeeded in collecting some 2.5 million livres, chiefly from the women, who produced cash as well as their jewelry as collateral."[9]

     One French historian, Jean-Jacques Antier, wrote that the French American women of the French Cape and Port-au-Prince offered their jewels for la cause amricaine. The Admiral, he reports, while appreciating the gesture of the women but probably perceiving that there would not be a ready exchange market for jewels in the war ravaged colonial market, declined the offer.[10] This incident may have provided the impetus for the urban legend of a donation of diamonds by the women of Havana.

The "Citizens of Havana", and many, many more

          Who then, were, these citizens of Havana and what were their motives to respond so immediately and with such generosity? The stated goals were to support their King and alliance with the French, perhaps abetted by an animosity exacerbated by the British occupation of Havana in 1762. But what unspoken motivations existed, what unrecorded thoughts and sentiments were provoked by the North American rebellion within the hearts and minds of the citizens of Havana, echoing silently as word swept through the elegant bustling city on that warm August day, a call not to arms but to financing? While the discussions of formation of national and ethnic identities among the Hispanic Americans are far beyond the scope of this article, scholarship indicates a strong sense of identity as Americans had formed by the eighteenth century. After the Seven Years War, as George Washington served with the British Army, observers of Spanish American creoles in the 1760s described their "consciencia de s as a proud boast: I am not a Spaniard, I am an American."[11] Regional identities emerged, and by the end of the eighteenth-century, "these Spanish Americans increasingly see themselves as Mexicans, as Peruvians, as Venezuelans, and not simply as Spaniards."[12]  Were these profound thoughts then, sent to the battlefields of North America, silent offerings in the shipments of blankets, gunpowder, armaments and silver? 

          The citizens of Havana were not the only Hispanic American participants in the American Revolution. Many Spanish and Hispanic Americans throughout the Americas, North and South, were very much involved in or an active part of the North American Revolutionary War, from the Mexicans who mined the silver specie to supply Havana, to the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans who also raised funds for de Grasse, to the victorious Hispanic American troops who defeated the British at Pensacola, adding another decisive blow in time for Yorktown. In his well-researched and widely overlooked book of Spain and the Independence of the United States, Thomas E. Chvez presents comprehensive primary research from Archives in Spain on the Spanish contribution throughout the Americas, including in regions that are now the states of New Mexico and California and brutal campaigns against the British in Central America.[13] 

     As well as Yorktown, there are many more stories of courage and decisive action to tell and truths to reveal from dusty archives and yellow-paged documents. In our 21st century, as the citizens of United States of America look towards a future that will be decidedly in partnership with Hispanic Americans, it is also time to revisit the eighteenth century, in which the Spanish and Hispanic Americans were such vital and contributing partners during our most desperate hours.