Myriam Marquez. Jul 2, 2001.
Orlando Sentinel. Published July
4, 2001
In this land of the free, it's all about money. That ought to be a source
of pride on this Independence Day.
Americans should recognize the sacrifices made to build a nation that values
freedom. Money, blood, tears and hard work got this nation to where it is today.
The Founding Fathers might not have pulled it off, though, if not for the
help of other nations and many foreigners who supplied George Washington's
rag-tag army with the money -- and sometimes, the men -- needed to fight the
British crown.
France's prominent role in helping the colonists is well known, but few
Americans know about the Cuban connection to American independence.
A decade ago, I wrote about the ladies of Havana and their critical role in
the battle that led to the end of the Revolutionary War -- the Yorktown
campaign. In May, I was reminded of the Cuban ladies' efforts by a
Cuban-American reporter in Washington.
We were both covering a White House reception for Cuban exiles, and, as
President George W. Bush pledged to encourage democratic reforms in Cuba, our
thoughts turned to 1781.
The Continental Army was a sorry mess. Washington feared a mutiny as his
soldiers, many of them barefoot and lacking supplies, grew hungry. Several
battles lost, Washington had a plan, devised with the help of the French navy
under Jean Baptiste Rochambeau. They would take back Virginia from British Gen.
Charles Cornwallis.
But, first, they needed money.
Rochambeau sent an urgent missive to Adm. Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse,
who commanded a French fleet of 23 frigates and was on his way from the
Caribbean Antilles to the Chesapeake Bay to fight Cornwallis.
"I must not conceal from you, Monsieur," Rochambeau wrote de
Grasse June 11, 1781, "that the Americans are at the end of their
resources, that Washington will not have half the troops he is reckoned to have
to defend Virginia."
On July 28, 1781, de Grasse, who already had recruited some 3,000 men for
the Continental Army -- many of them blacks from Saint-Domingue Colony, now
known as Haiti -- wrote Rochambeau: "The Saint-Domingue Colony has no
money, but I will send a frigate to Havana in quest of it, and you may depend
upon receiving this amount: one million, two-hundred thousand livres."
Cuba, then a rich center of trade for the Spanish, delivered for the
Americans.
The Cuban women, mostly well-to-do ladies who belonged to cultural patriotic
associations, joined with Cuban merchants to raise the money.
The merchants despised Spain's restrictions on trade with the American
colonies. They were hoping that a victory in North America would quickly lead to
Cuba's freedom from Spain.
The Cubans donated jewelry, diamonds and about 1.2 million pounds sterling
-- just what Rochambeau said was needed.
"The million that was supplied by the ladies of Havana, may, with
truth, be regarded as the 'bottom dollars' upon which the edifice of American
independence was erected," American historian Stephen Bonsal wrote in When
the French Were Here (published by Doubleday, Doran and Co. in 1945).
The Cuban Creoles had much in common with the American colonists. They, like
the colonists, felt more allegiance to their New World than to a crown in
Europe.
It didn't hurt that the Cubans hated the British, too.
The British military occupation of Havana in 1762, in which soldiers looted
many businesses, left Cubans with ill will toward the Brits.
And so it was that the Cuban Creoles, no longer feeling an allegiance to
Spain and hating all things British, would do their part for the American
Revolution and most likely played a pivotal role at a crucial moment.
It was partly self-interest, but there also were selfless reasons -- the
understanding that people have a right to chart their own destiny.
Two hundred and 25 years after the Founding Fathers declared a new nation's
independence from the tyranny of Great Britain, those of us who weren't born
here but chose to become American citizens know all too well what it takes to be
free.
Myriam Marquez can be reached at mmarquez@orlandosentinel.com or
407-420-5399.
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