In 1810, the Atlantic World was in turmoil. Revolution, pirates, proxy wars and clandestine operations ran rampant. Napoleon had invaded Spain, Louisiana Territory was in crisis, and Americans were preparing to declare war against the British. Although the War of 1812 was the second Anglo-American contest for continental supremacy, it was merely one theater in a larger conflict stretchingf from Mexico City to Montreal. Beset at home, the Spanish struggled to maintain their colonial empire while U.S. officials and agents plotted their departure from Texas and Florida--an outcome forestalled until General Andrew Jackson's 1815 victory at New Orleans and British change in position regarding Spain's possessions after Napoleon's final defeat in Europe. Americans may have professed neutrality in Mexico's sanguinary civil war, but their actions proved otherwise.

This first work linking America with the Mexican struggle for independence examines guerrilla warfare and royalist reaction in Mexico, the common cause between Mexican and American "patriots" in ousting the Spanish, the secret efforts by Americans to convey insurgents and arms into their revolution, and how the outcome of the war and its aftermath altered the destiny of a continent.