ABSTRACT

This article explores how the involvement of US citizens in projects of political revolution across the Caribbean threatened the geostrategic and economic interests of the United States in the region. In 1822, a revolutionary expedition led by a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, Henri Louis Villaume de Ducoudray-Holstein, departed from the Atlantic seaboard to overthrow Spanish rule in Puerto Rico and to establish the so-called Republic of Boricua. The republican utopia nonetheless collapsed after Curaçao’s Dutch authorities arrested the expedition’s leaders. This article assesses the expedition’s geopolitical ramifications, highlighting how it exacerbated tensions between the US and the Spanish Empire. It also underscores the predicament of US officials, both in Washington and across the Caribbean, who sought to defend US geostrategic goals and the Union’s maritime trade, even while policing US participation to illicit activities in the Revolutionary Caribbean.

摘要

本文探讨了美国公民参与加勒比地区的政治革命项目如何威胁到美国在该地区的地缘战略和经济利益。1822 年，由拿破仑战争的老兵亨利·路易斯·维卢姆·德·杜库德雷-荷尔斯泰因率领的革命远征队从大西洋沿岸出发，推翻西班牙对波多黎各的统治，并建立所谓的博里夸共和国。尽管如此，在库拉索岛的荷兰当局逮捕了远征队的领导人后，共和乌托邦还是土崩瓦解了。本文评估了这次远征的地缘政治后果，强调了它如何加剧了美国与西班牙帝国之间的紧张关系。它还强调了美国官员在华盛顿和整个加勒比地区的困境，