Abstracts History

“Like thunder and lightning:” British force projection in the West Indies, 1739-1800

by Kristian Matthew Marks

In the 18th century, the Caribbean basin served as a near continuous battleground for the major European powers. While many historians tend to focus upon the North American conflict between the English and the French, they often overlook the very important Anglo-Spanish rivalry that occurred farther to the south. This latter struggle, in fact, eventually determined the balance of power in the West Indies. By the turn of the 19th century, England had emerged as the only true global power. When President Monroe declared the United States the protector of the Western Hemisphere in 1823, he did not do this with Spanish, French, or Portuguese approval, but with the tacit and unspoken consent of the British government. While Spanish peninsulares continued to rule most of Latin America, their hold remained tenuous; Britain's wars for Empire had buffeted Spanish rule and established the English as the dominant economic and military hegemon of the region. The struggle was not a preordained matter as some have argued. The Spanish retained an effective defense of their American possessions that proved difficult for the English to overcome. This study will examine both the Spanish methods of defense in the 18th century and the British struggle to overcome geographical and man-made barriers within Spain's Caribbean Empire. As part of a changing political mentality in Georgian England, the ministers of this island nation learned to expand their vision of economic and military power from a continental scale to a global one. A comparative study of the campaigns of Cartagena in 1741 and Havana in 1762 provides a model for examining the historical arguments stated above. This historical investigation concludes that the Spanish effectively utilized the techniques of siege warfare, so common in Europe at this time, and environmental factors inherent in the Caribbean to extract a terrible cost on other powers that attempted to usurp its imperial authority in America. Furthermore, this paper does not assume, as most historical studies do, that the British Royal Navy served as the sole factor in giving England an unmatched advantage over its rivals. Instead, the navy served as just one factor among many that pushed Britain to the forefront of worldwide expansion. The Royal Navy was part of the creation of an entire system of force projection. This capability of extending significant power around the world developed over two and a half centuries; while English power projection began with the privateers of the late 16th century, it only became true government policy in the 18th century.