She applied the "Page 99 Test" to her new book, Spanish Louisiana: Contest for Borderlands, 1763–1803, and reported the following:
If you open my book to page 99, you will find yourself at the very beginning of Chapter 4: Louisiana in the American Revolution. The Page 99 Test works fairly well with my book. Chapter 4 opens in August of 1779 with acting governor Bernardo de Galvez receiving news of his appointment as governor of Louisiana and news of Spain's declaration of war against Great Britain, which signaled Spain's entry into the larger conflict of the American Revolution. This is actually a pivotal moment in the book because it is the most important moment in which Spain tests the loyalty of Louisiana's inhabitants. The first three chapters lead up to Spain's declaration of war against Britain and offer the looming question of whether Louisiana's colonists and Indian allies will be loyal when it really matters for Spain. The answer is a resounding yes, which is the argument of Chapter 4: "During the American Revolution, the interests of Spain overlapped most closely with those of the borderland population"(99). The fallout of the American Revolution on the Gulf Coast influences Louisiana history for the rest of the Spanish period.Learn more about Spanish Louisiana at the LSU Press website.
Page 99 also highlights a good deal of what Bernardo de Galvez has done on behalf of Spain in Louisiana to prepare for war, including to build up its diverse militia, which was multilingual, multi-ethnic, and included both white and free black colonists.
Louisiana was a crazy place with all sorts of people moving about in it in the decades following the Seven Years War, a space that saw the arrival of new colonists including Acadians, Canary Islanders, British merchants, among others, as well as a growing number of enslaved people from Africa and the Caribbean especially. Additionally, the smaller Indian nations of the Gulf Coast migrated a good deal in this season and competed with Indians and colonists already in Louisiana for land and resources. Spain had a big project to try to navigate the various factions and interest groups operating in the post 1763 Mississippi Valley especially when many individuals and groups found it in their own interests to pursue survival, profit, and personal gain through networks and practices that defied Spanish policy.
Ultimately, the book offers the first stab at a comprehensive history of Spanish Louisiana, 1763 to 1803, an underappreciated time a place. It was both an era of transition and tumult—every chapter of the book includes some sort of revolt or rebellion except for Chapter 2. In such a space, it is no wonder that the inhabitants felt uneasy about the future of their imperial belonging and even tried to effect it from time to time. During the American Revolution, they held on tightly to the Spanish Empire.
--Marshal Zeringue
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