The French journal IDEAS. Idées d’Amériques published in October 2026 a special dossier titled Éclairages: 250e anniversaire de la Déclaration d’Indépendance, coordinated by American History professors Bertrand van Ruymbeke and Ghislain Potriquet, looking at the events from different regional perspectives (n. 28, 2026). My article, “Increasing Entanglements: The American Revolution and its impact in the Viceroyalty of New Spain,” argues against the common interpretation that revolutionary ideas spread successfully worldwide, fostering profound sympathies for the Patriots beyond the thirteen colonies in North America. A closer examination of the thinking and actions of Spanish policymakers suggests a more qualified interpretation, noting that the key elements of Spain’s 18th-century colonial reform agenda had already been implemented before 1776 and that the Spanish empire had its own interests, strategies, and inner functioning. The dossier and the article are freely accessible online.
Thomas Jefferson’s and José de Gálvez’s Vision on Imperial Expansion
Invitation to the forthcoming International Symposium Empires in Early American History organized by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies and the Lawrence Henry Gipson Institute in Philadelphia (April 2027).
This conference will bring together scholars to discuss: What, if anything, was distinctive about early modern American empires? In what ways have new emphases of empire’s significance altered older imperial frameworks? What exactly is new and imperial about neo-imperial historiography, and how should we understand the relationship between imperial approaches and the body of work most often described as Atlantic?
My contribution is titled “Empire as Contested Practice: Thomas Jefferson’s and José de Gálvez’s Vision on Imperial Expansion,” and interrogates the frameworks of early modern empires in North America through a comparative analysis of the ideas, pursuits, and strategies of two key imperial architects: José de Gálvez y Gallardo (1720-1787), the Spanish royal Visitador General in New Spain, and later Minister of the Indies in Madrid, and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the Virginian statesman and Founding Father.
David Center for the American Revolution International Fellowship
In May 2026, I was awarded the David Center for the American Revolution International Fellowship to conduct archival research in support of my project, Growing Entanglements: New Spain and the Challenge of U.S. Independence, 1769–1783.
My research at the David Center, located at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, examines how the political crisis in British North America reshaped imperial governance, diplomatic practices, and frontier policies in New Spain. From a Western perspective, it analyses how Spanish officials interpreted and responded to the rise of an independent United States. Although the Spanish Court’s strategic interest in supporting the Patriots as a means of countering the British Empire has been widely studied, the Pacific perspective on the American Revolution has not received sufficient attention.
Quisque iaculis facilisis lacinia. Mauris euismod pellentesque tellus sit amet mollis.