Stepping Out from the Shadow of Lord Sheffield: Spanish Imperial Appraisals of the Commercial Capacities of the United States, 1783-1807

In the 1790s and early 1800s, U.S. commercial performance effectively repudiated Lord Sheffield\u27s dire predictions. Yet the latter continue to determine how early Americanists portray the economic prospects of the new nation. The observations of Spanish diplomats stationed in Philadelphia offer fresh insights into the exceptional material circumstances under which the United States was born. For American traders, Cuba quickly emerged as a dynamic, substitute market for the British and French West Indies. The divergent legacies of British and Spanish colonialism allowed the early republic to exploit in a most timely manner the unprecedented opportunities of the Napoleonic era