From the Spanish-supplied muskets fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775 to the last-minute collection of silver pesos in Havana that funded the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, Spain and Latin America played a decisive role in the American Revolution.
The Spanish smuggled the critical military supplies that the colonies could not produce. Latin American silver provided both the hard currency and the financing for the fledgling colonial economy. In 1779, Spain declared war on Britain, forcing the British to divert manpower and firepower from the Continental Army to battlefronts that stretched from Nicaragua to Florida to Gibraltar to England itself.
By 1781, Yorktown had become the Americans’ last chance. As the British scrambled to rescue their trapped army, Spain and Latin America supported the French navy and funded the victorious American and French armies on land. The Silver Road tells the story that Americans are rarely told: how the Revolutionary War was actually won.