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Spanish Empire
Spanish Empire | |
|---|---|
| 1492–1898 (1402–1976)[n. 1] | |
 Flag | |
| Motto: Plus Ultra | |
 Diachronic map of the Spanish Empire ■ Empire at its territorial peak (c. 1790). ■ Regions of influence (explored and/or claimed) or disputed or briefly controlled colonies. ■ Portuguese possessions governed by Spain between 1580 and 1640 through dynastic union. ■ Territories ceded in 1717 by the Treaty of Utrecht or later. ■ Spanish territories in Africa until the second half of the 20th century. | |
| Status | Empire |
| Capital | Toledo (1519–1561) Madrid (1561–1601) Valladolid (1601–1606) Madrid (from 1606) |
| Common languages | Spanish |
| Other languages | |
| Religion | Christian/Catholic Church |
| Government | Monarchy[n. 2] |
| King | |
• 1474–1516 | Catholic Monarchs |
• 1886–1931 | Alfonso XIII |
| Historical era | Age of Discovery, mercantilism, European expansion. |
| 1402–1496 | |
| 1492 1492 | |
| 1512 | |
| 1519–1521 | |
| 1532–1537 | |
| 1580 | |
| 1715 | |
| 1810–1833 | |
| 1898 1898 | |
| 1975 • 1976 | |
| Area | |
| 1580–1640 | 24,000,000 km2 (9,300,000 sq mi) |
| 1740 | 38,500,000 km2 (14,900,000 sq mi) |
| 1821–1898 | 934,000 km2 (361,000 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 1580–1640 | 31,000,000 |
• 1740 | 27,400,000 |
| Currency | Real, peseta |
The Spanish Empire was the set of territories governed by the various Spanish governments between the 16th and 20th centuries.
After the discovery of America in 1492, Spain explored and conquered large expanses of territory in America, from the present-day southwestern United States, Mexico and the Caribbean, to Central America, most of South America and the northwest coast of North America (present-day Alaska and British Columbia). All these territories were integrated into the Crown of Castile and later became kingdoms of the Spanish Crown. Initially they were organized into two Viceroyalties, the Viceroyalty of New Spain and the Viceroyalty of Peru.
With the discovery of, and settlement on, several archipelagos of the Pacific Ocean at the end of the 16th century, the Spanish East Indies were incorporated into the empire, made up of the Philippines, the Marianas (which included Guam) and the Carolines (which included Palau), all under the jurisdiction of New Spain. Later, the Viceroyalty of Peru was divided, with the Viceroyalty of New Granada being additionally created in 1717, and finally, in 1777, the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.
Although there is a widely repeated belief that the Spanish Empire reached a maximum extent of 20 million square kilometers at the end of the 18th century,[1][2] that figure does not take into account that almost three quarters of the present-day United States of America were formally under the Spanish colonial administration that depended on the Council of the Indies, the body of the Spanish monarchy that governed from the Peninsula the various viceroyalties that comprised it. The present-day states of California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Greater Louisiana, and a large part of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Mississippi, as well as parts of Canada and Alaska, were nominally under Spanish rule. Considering all those territories, and others in Africa, Oceania and Asia, the maximum extent of the Spanish Empire would have reached around 40 million km². Although it is true that in many places the Spanish presence was purely token, so too was, for example, that of the British in Canada, whose almost 10 million km² have been considered part of the British Empire, even though the British occupied barely 5% of that territory.
There are also historians, such as Raymond Carr, who point out that one of its moments of greatest expansion was the period between 1580 and 1640, during the reigns of Philip II, Philip III and Philip IV, the period in which the dynastic union with Portugal took place (considered a Spanish conquest by a large number of historians[3][4][5][6][7][8]).
Today, all the extra-peninsular territories that belong to the Kingdom of Spain are integrated under similar legal conditions within it, on the basis of its constitutional regime.
Origins
At the beginning of the 15th century, the different kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula pursued different objectives with their foreign policy. Navarre was soon confined by the expansion of the other two kingdoms, and its successive monarchs turned their gaze more toward France,[9] but the Treaty of Almizra set the limits for the reconquest of the other two crowns,[10] forcing them to undertake foreign policies that were similar, yet at the same time different:
Castile sought to complete the Reconquista and prevent new Muslim incursions by taking strongholds and islands in North Africa, even before reconquering the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada.[11] At the same time, it was going through difficult times because of the civil war fought between the supporters of the future Isabella the Catholic and those of Joanna la Beltraneja, in the struggle to succeed Henry IV.
Aragon, for its part, directed its expansionist policy toward the central and eastern Mediterranean.[11] Its crown also lacked a clear claimant to succeed Martin the Humane (who died in 1410), but this was resolved peacefully with the Compromise of Caspe. At the same time, this act laid the foundations for the future union with the Castilian Crown after the election of Ferdinand of Antequera, a member of the Trastámara dynasty reigning in Castile, thus opening the door to the later arrival of Ferdinand the Catholic and the consequent unification of the two kingdoms.[12]
Finally, Portugal had completed its reconquest by prevailing over the Castilian King Alfonso X the Wise in the taking of the Algarve, for which reason Henry the Navigator focused its expansion on the Atlantic, conquering Ceuta, taking control of Madeira in 1425 and the Azores islands in 1427, and continuing the expansion with the establishment of settlements on the African and Asian continents in order to open a trade route with India and China that would circumnavigate the Dark Continent.[13]
The Empire of the Catholic Monarchs (1492–1516)
The unification of Spain and the end of the Reconquista
The marriage of the Catholic Monarchs (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) produced the dynastic union of the two Crowns when, after defeating the supporters of Joanna "la Beltraneja" in the War of the Castilian Succession, Isabella ascended the throne. However, each kingdom maintained its own administration under the same monarchy. The formation of a unified state only materialized after centuries of union under the same rulers.[n. 3] The new monarchs introduced the modern absolutist state into their dominions, which they soon sought to enlarge.
Castile had been active in the Atlantic, in what was the beginning of its extra-peninsular empire, competing with Portugal for control of it since the end of the 14th century, when several Andalusian and Biscayan expeditions were sent to the Canary Islands. The effective conquest of that archipelago had begun during the reign of Henry III of Castile, when in 1402 Jean de Béthencourt requested permission for such an undertaking from the Castilian King in exchange for vassalage; meanwhile, throughout the 15th century, Portuguese explorers such as Gonçalo Velho Cabral would colonize the Azores, Cape Verde and Madeira. The Treaty of Alcáçovas of 1479, which brought peace in the War of the Castilian Succession, separated each country's zones of influence in Africa and the Atlantic, granting Castile sovereignty over the Canary Islands and Portugal the islands it already possessed, Guinea and, in general, "all that is found and shall be found, conquered or discovered within the said bounds." The conquest of the Kingdom of Fez was also reserved exclusively for the Kingdom of Portugal. The treaty was confirmed by the Pope in 1481 by means of the bull Aeterni regis. Meanwhile, the Catholic Monarchs began the last phase of the conquest of the Canaries, taking over that undertaking themselves in view of the inability of the feudal lords to subdue all the island natives in a series of long and hard campaigns. The Castilian armies seized Gran Canaria (1478–1483), La Palma (1492–1493) and finally Tenerife (1494–1496).
As a continuation of the Castilian Reconquista, in 1492 the Catholic Monarchs conquered the taifa kingdom of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom of al-Andalus, which had survived through the payment of tributes in gold to Castile and its policy of alliances with Aragon and North Africa.
The expansionist policy of the Catholic Monarchs also manifested itself in continental Africa. With the aim of ending the piracy that threatened the Andalusian coasts and the Catalan and Valencian merchant communications, campaigns were carried out in North Africa: Melilla was taken in 1497, Villa Cisneros in 1502, Mazalquivir in 1505, the Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera in 1508, Oran in 1509, and Algiers, Bugía and Tripoli in 1510. The idea of Isabella I, expressed in her will, was that the reconquest should continue through North Africa, in what the Romans called Nova Hispania.
European policy
The Catholic Monarchs also inherited the Mediterranean policy of the Crown of Aragon, and supported the Aragonese House of Naples against Charles VIII of France and, after its extinction, claimed the reintegration of Naples into the Crown. As ruler of Aragon, Ferdinand II had become involved in the dispute with France and Venice for control of the Italian Peninsula. These conflicts became the central axis of his foreign policy. In these battles, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (known as "the Great Captain") would create the coronelías (the basis of the future tercios) as the basic organization of the army, which meant a military revolution that would lead the Spaniards to their finest moments.
After the death of Queen Isabella, Ferdinand, as sole monarch, adopted a more aggressive policy than he had pursued as Isabella's husband, using Castilian wealth to expand the Aragonese zone of influence in Italy, against France, and fundamentally against the Kingdom of Navarre, which he conquered in 1512.
The Castilian throne was assumed by his daughter Joanna I "the Mad", who was declared unfit to reign, with her father retaining the regency (although in all official documents Joanna and Ferdinand appeared as monarchs, it was Ferdinand who exercised power).
King Ferdinand's first great challenge came in the war of the League of Cambrai against Venice, where the Spanish soldiers distinguished themselves alongside their French allies at the Battle of Agnadello (1509). Only a year later, Ferdinand became part of the Catholic League against France, seeing an opportunity to take Milan—a place over which he had a dynastic dispute—and Navarre. This war was not a success like the previous one against Venice and, in 1516, France accepted a truce that left Milan under its control and in effect ceded the Kingdom of Navarre to the Hispanic Monarch (Ferdinand united it to the Crown of Castile), since by withdrawing its support it left the Navarrese monarchs John III of Albret and Catherine of Foix isolated. This was temporary, as France would later again support the struggle of the Navarrese in 1521.
With the aim of isolating France, a marriage policy was adopted that led to the marriage of the daughters of the Catholic Monarchs to the ruling dynasties of England, Burgundy and Austria. After Ferdinand's death, the incapacitation of Joanna I meant that Charles of Austria, heir to Austria and Burgundy, was also heir to the Spanish thrones.
Charles had a still medieval political outlook, and he developed it by using the wealth of his peninsular kingdoms in the European policy of the Empire, instead of following the more far-sighted policy laid down by his grandmother Isabella in her will: to continue the Reconquista in North Africa. Although some Spanish advisers managed to get him to carry out some campaigns toward that objective (Oran, Tunis, Algeria), he nevertheless did not consider that aim as important as the endless religious-political disputes of his Central European inheritance and, since in addition much of the conquering impetus of the Castilians was directed toward the newly discovered lands of the West Indies, he did not collaborate decisively in the aggrandizement of his peninsular kingdoms, except as regards the Italian campaigns. This abandonment of the policy of conquest of North Africa would cause headaches for Mediterranean Europe until the 19th century.
The conquest of the New World
However, it would be Atlantic expansion that would bring the greatest successes. In order to reach the riches of the East, whose trade routes (especially for the spices of the Pacific islands) were blocked by the Ottomans or monopolized by the Genoese and Venetians, the Portuguese and the Spaniards competed to find a new route other than the traditional overland one through the Near East. The Portuguese, who had finished their Reconquista long before the Spaniards, had by then begun their expeditions, trying first to gain access to African riches and then to circumnavigate Africa, which would give them control of islands and coasts of the continent, in order to open a new route to the East Indies without depending on trade through the Ottoman Empire, monopolized by Genoa and Venice, planting the seed of the Portuguese Empire. Later, when Castile finished its reconquest, the Catholic Monarchs supported Christopher Columbus who, apparently convinced that the circumference of the Earth was smaller than it actually is, sought to reach Cipangu (Japan), Cathay (China), the Indies, the East, by sailing westward, with the same purpose as the Portuguese: to become independent of the Italian cities in order to obtain the goods of the East, chiefly spices and silk (finer than that produced in the Kingdom of Murcia since the Arab domination). Halfway there lay the American continent and, as is generally accepted, without knowing it, he discovered America for the rest of the world, which lived unaware of the existence of this continent, initiating the Spanish colonization of the continent.
The new lands were claimed by the Catholic Monarchs, with the opposition of Portugal. Finally Pope Alexander VI mediated, leading to the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the Spanish and Portuguese zones of influence at 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (the meridian located at 46º 37’ west longitude), the western zone corresponding to Spain and the eastern to Portugal. Thus, Spain theoretically became the owner of most of the continent with the exception of a small part, the eastern one—what is today the tip of Brazil—which corresponded to Portugal. Thereafter, this papal grant, together with the evangelizing responsibility over the discovered territories, was used by the Catholic Monarchs as legitimation for their colonial expansion. Shortly afterward, this "legitimation" was debated by the School of Salamanca.
The colonization of America continued in the meantime. In addition to the taking of Hispaniola, which was completed at the beginning of the 16th century, the settlers began to look for new settlements. The conviction that there were great territories to be colonized in the newly discovered lands produced the eagerness to seek new conquests. From there, Juan Ponce de León conquered Puerto Rico and Diego Velázquez Cuba. Alonso de Ojeda traveled along the Venezuelan and Central American coast, Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico, Diego de Nicuesa occupied what is today Nicaragua and Costa Rica, while Vasco Núñez de Balboa colonized Panama and reached the South Sea (the Pacific Ocean).
Years later, under Philip II, this "Castilian Empire" became a new source of wealth for the Spanish kingdoms and of their power in Europe, but it also contributed to raising inflation, which harmed peninsular industry. As always happens, the most powerful economy, the Spanish one, began to depend on the raw materials and manufactures of poorer countries with cheaper labor, which facilitated the economic and social revolution in France, England and other parts of Europe. The problems caused by the excess of precious metals were discussed by the School of Salamanca, which created a new way of understanding the economy that the other European countries took a long time to assimilate.
On the other hand, the enormous and fruitless expenses of the wars into which the European policy of Charles I dragged the country, inherited by his successor Philip II, led to their being financed with loans from bankers, both Spanish and from Genoa, Antwerp and southern Germany, which meant that the profits the Crown (the State, after all) was able to obtain were much smaller than those obtained later by other countries with colonial interests, such as the Netherlands and later England.
The Empire of the Habsburgs (1516–1700)
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The period between the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th is known as the Golden Age because of the flourishing of the arts and sciences that took place.
During the 16th century, Spain came to possess a veritable fortune in gold and silver extracted from "The Indies". In the economic study carried out by Earl J. Hamilton (1975), "American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1659", that fortune has specific figures. Hamilton describes that in the 16th and 17th centuries, from 1503 and over the following 160 years, during the period of greatest mining activity, 16,900 tons of silver and 181 tons of gold arrived from Spanish America. His accounts are meticulous: 16,886,815,303 grams of silver and 181,333,180 grams of gold.[n. 4]
It was said during the reign of Philip II that "the Sun never set on the Empire", since it was dispersed enough always to have some area in sunlight. This empire, impossible to manage, had its nerve center in Madrid, seat of the Court under Philip II, with Seville being the key point from which the overseas possessions were organized.
As a consequence of the political marriage of the Catholic Monarchs and of the strategic marriages of their children, their grandson Charles I inherited the Crown of Castile in the Iberian Peninsula and an incipient expansion in America (the inheritance of his grandmother Isabella); the possessions of the Crown of Aragon in the Italian and Iberian Mediterranean (from his grandfather Ferdinand); the lands of the Habsburgs in Austria, to which he added Bohemia and Silesia, managing to become, after a disputed election against Francis I of France, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire under the name of Charles V of Germany; in addition to the Netherlands, to which he added new provinces, and the Franche-Comté, the inheritance of his grandmother Mary of Burgundy; he personally conquered Tunis and, in a struggle with France, the region of Lombardy. It was an empire made up of a conglomerate of inherited, annexed or conquered territories.
The Habsburg dynasty spent Castilian wealth and, already from the time of Charles V but to a greater extent from Philip II onward, American wealth, on wars throughout Europe with the fundamental aim of protecting the acquired territories, their interests, the Catholic cause and sometimes for merely dynastic interests. All this led to frequent defaults on debts contracted with bankers, first German and then Genoese, and left Spain bankrupt. The political objectives of the Crown were several:
- Access to American products (gold, silver) and Asian ones (porcelain, spices, silk).
- To undermine the power of France and stop it at its eastern borders.
- To maintain the Catholic hegemony of the Habsburgs in Germany, defending Catholicism against the Protestant Reformation.
- To defend Europe against Islam, above all by opposing the Ottoman Empire. In addition, it sought to neutralize the Barbary piracy that ravaged Spanish and Italian Mediterranean possessions.
Faced with the possibility that Charles I would decide to rest most of the burdens of his empire on the richest of his kingdoms, that of Castile, which did not please the Castilians, who did not wish to contribute gold, silver or horses to European wars they felt were foreign to them, and confronted with growing absolutism on the part of the King, an uprising began that is still commemorated every year, called the Comuneros, in which the rebels were defeated. Charles I of Spain and later V of Germany became the most powerful man in Europe, with a European empire that would only be comparable in size to that of Napoleon. The Emperor tried to suppress the Protestant Reformation at the Diet of Worms, but Luther refused to retract his heresy. A firm defender of Catholicity, his reign nevertheless saw what was called the Sack of Rome, when his troops, out of control, attacked the Holy See after Pope Clement VII joined the League of Cognac against him.
Although Charles I was Flemish and his mother tongue was French, he underwent a process of Hispanicization or, more specifically, of Castilianization. Thus, when he met with the Pope, he spoke to him in Spanish, and later, when he received the ambassador of France, a French Bishop complained that he had not understood the speech, to which the Emperor replied: "My Lord Bishop, understand me if you wish, and do not expect from me any words other than those of my Spanish language, which is so noble that it deserves to be known and understood by all Christian people."[15] This phrase has struck a chord with Spaniards and, centuries later, the saying "Que hable en cristiano" ("Speak in Christian") is still used when a Spaniard (or almost any other Spanish speaker) wants what has been said to be translated for him.
From the Battle of Pavia to the Peace of Augsburg (1521–1555)
From 1492, the colonization of the New World was led by a series of warrior-explorers known as conquistadors. For this undertaking they took advantage of the fact that some native peoples were at war with others, and many were willing to seal alliances with the Spaniards to defeat more powerful enemies such as the Aztecs or the Incas. The conquest, moreover, was facilitated by technological superiority, including logistics, and by the spread in America of diseases common in Europe (e.g., smallpox) but unknown in the New World, which decimated the original peoples of America.
The main conquistadors were Hernán Cortés, who between 1519 and 1521, with around 200,000 Amerindian allies, defeated the Aztec Empire at a time when it was being ravaged by smallpox,[n. 5] and entered Mexico, which would be the base of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which would extend rapidly southward thanks to the conquests of Pedro de Alvarado, Cortés's lieutenant, who between 1521 and 1525 incorporated the present-day republics of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador into the Spanish dominions; and Francisco Pizarro, who conquered the Inca Empire in 1531 when it was seriously disorganized by the effects of civil war and the smallpox epidemic of 1529.[n. 6] This conquest would become the Viceroyalty of Peru.
After the conquest of Mexico, the legends of "golden" cities (Cíbola in North America, El Dorado in South America) gave rise to numerous expeditions, but many of them returned without finding anything, and those that did find something came upon much less value than expected. In any case, the extraction of gold and silver was an important economic activity of the Spanish Empire in America, estimated at 850,000 kilograms of gold and more than a hundred times that amount in silver during the colonial period.[n. 7] No less important was the trade in other goods such as cochineal, vanilla, cocoa and sugar (sugarcane was taken to America, where it grew better than in the south of the Peninsula, where it had been introduced by the Arabs). The exploration of this new world, known as the West Indies, was intense, with feats being accomplished such as the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522 by Juan Sebastián Elcano (who replaced Ferdinand Magellan, promoter of the expedition, who died on the way).
In Europe, feeling surrounded by the Habsburg possessions, Francis I of France invaded the Spanish possessions in Italy in 1521 and began a new era of hostilities between France and Spain, supporting Henry II of Navarre to recover the kingdom taken by the Spaniards. An uprising of the Navarrese population together with the entry of 12,000 men under the command of General Asparrots, André de Foix, recovered the whole kingdom within a few days with few casualties. However, the imperial army was rapidly reconstituted, forming a well-equipped force of 30,000 men, among them many of the comuneros who had surrendered and sought to redeem their sentences. General Asparrots, instead of consolidating the kingdom, set out to besiege Logroño, as a result of which the Navarrese-Gascons suffered a severe defeat at the bloody Battle of Noáin, leaving control of Navarre in the hands of Spain.
On the other hand, the Italian war front was a disaster for France, which suffered major defeats at Bicocca (1522), Pavia (1525)—in which Francis I and Henry II were captured—and Landriano (1529) before Francis I gave in and left Milan in Spanish hands once more. The victory of Charles I at the Battle of Pavia, 1525, surprised many Italians and Germans, as it demonstrated his determination to achieve the greatest possible power. Pope Clement VII changed sides and joined forces with France and the emerging Italian states against the Emperor in the War of the League of Cognac. The Peace of Barcelona, signed between Charles I and the Pope in 1529, established a more cordial relationship between the two rulers and in effect named Spain as defender of the Catholic cause and recognized Charles as King of Lombardy in reward for the Spanish intervention against the rebellious Republic of Florence.
In 1528, the great admiral Andrea Doria allied himself with the Emperor to drive out France and restore Genoese independence. This opened up a new perspective: in that year the first loan from the Genoese banks to Charles I took place.
American colonization meanwhile continued unstoppably. After the conquest of Peru, the first originally Spanish city founded was Santiago de Quito (later, and in another location, Santiago de Guayaquil) by Sebastián de Benalcázar and Diego de Almagro, on the orders of Francisco Pizarro, on the plains of Tapi, Ecuador; meanwhile, further north, Santa Fe de Bogotá was founded during the 1530s on the ruins of Bacata, and Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires in 1536. In the 1540s, Francisco de Orellana explored the jungle and reached the Amazon. In 1541, Pedro de Valdivia continued the explorations of Diego de Almagro from Peru and established the Captaincy General of Chile. That same year, the conquest of the Muisca Confederation, which occupied the center of Colombia, was completed.
As a consequence of the defense of the natives made by the School of Salamanca and Bartolomé de las Casas, the Spanish Crown was relatively quick to enact laws to protect them in its American possessions. The Laws of Burgos of 1512 were replaced by the New Laws of the Indies of 1542. However, it was often very difficult to put these laws into practice, a pattern followed by other European nations.
In 1543, Francis I of France announced an unprecedented alliance with the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to occupy the city of Nice, under Spanish control. Henry VIII of England, who bore more resentment against France than against the Emperor, despite the latter's opposition to Henry's divorce from his aunt, joined the Emperor in his invasion of France. Although the imperial troops suffered some defeats, such as that of Cerisoles, the Emperor succeeded in getting France to accept his conditions. The Austrians, led by Emperor Charles's younger brother, continued fighting the Ottoman Empire in the east. Meanwhile, Charles I set about solving an old problem: the Schmalkaldic League.
The League had the French as allies, and efforts to undermine its influence in Germany had been rebuffed. The French defeat in 1544 broke their alliance with the Protestants, and Charles I took advantage of this opportunity. He first tried the path of negotiation at the Council of Trent in 1545, but the Protestant leaders, feeling betrayed by the position of the Catholics at the Council, went to war led by Maurice of Saxony. In response, Charles I invaded Germany at the head of a Hispano-Dutch army. He hoped to restore imperial authority. The troops, under the command of the Emperor in person, inflicted a decisive defeat on the Protestants at the historic Battle of Mühlberg in 1547. In 1555 he signed the Peace of Augsburg with the Protestant states, which restored stability in Germany under the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio ("Whoever holds the region imposes the religion"), a position unpopular among the Italian and Spanish clergy. Charles's commitment in Germany gave Spain the role of protector of the Habsburgs' Catholic cause in the Holy Roman Empire.
Meanwhile, the Mediterranean became a battlefield against the Turks, who encouraged pirates such as the Algerian Barbarossa. Charles I preferred to eliminate the Ottomans through maritime strategy, by means of attacks on their settlements in the Venetian territories of the eastern Mediterranean. Only in response to the attacks on the Spanish Levante coast did the Emperor become personally involved in offensives on the African continent, with expeditions against Tunis, Bona (1535) and Algiers (1541); in Southeast Asia, Spanish rule was being consolidated in the archipelago of the Philippines (named in honor of Philip II) and adjacent islands (Borneo, the Moluccas—the fortress of Tidore—forts on the island of Formosa, and annexes in the already Oceanic Palau, Marianas, Carolines and Ralicratac, etc.).
From St. Quentin to Lepanto (1556–1571)
Emperor Charles divided his possessions between his only legitimate son, Philip II, and his brother Ferdinand (to whom he left the Habsburg Empire). For Philip II, Castile was the base of his empire, but the population of Castile was never large enough to provide the soldiers needed to sustain the Empire. After the King's marriage to Mary Tudor, England and Spain were allies.
Spain did not manage to have peace when the aggressive Henry II of France came to the throne in 1547 and immediately resumed conflicts with Spain. Philip II pursued the war against France, crushing the French army at the Battle of St. Quentin, in Picardy, in 1558 and defeating Henry again at the Battle of Gravelines. The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, signed in 1559, definitively recognized the Spanish claims in Italy. During the celebrations that followed the Treaty, Henry II died of a wound caused by a piece of wood from a lance. France was struck during the following years by a civil war that deepened the differences between Catholics and Protestants, giving Spain occasion to intervene in favor of the Catholics and preventing France from competing with Spain and the House of Habsburg in the European power games. Freed from French opposition, Spain saw the apogee of its power and territorial extent in the period between 1559 and 1643.
The bankruptcy of 1557 marked the inauguration of the consortium of Genoese banks, which threw the German bankers into chaos and ended the preponderance of the Fuggers as financiers of the Spanish State. The Genoese bankers supplied the Habsburgs with fluid credit and regular income.
Meanwhile, overseas expansion continued: Florida was colonized in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés when he founded San Agustín, and quickly defeated an illegal attempt by the French Captain Jean Ribault and 150 men to establish a supply post in Spanish territory. San Agustín quickly became a strategic defensive base for the Spanish ships laden with gold and silver returning from the dominions of the Indies.
In Asia, on 27 April 1565, the first settlement in the Philippines was established by Miguel López de Legazpi, and the route of the Manila Galleons (Nao de la China) was set in motion. Manila was founded in 1572.
After Spain's triumph over France and the beginning of the French wars of religion, Philip II's ambition grew. In the Mediterranean, the Ottoman Empire had called Spanish hegemony into question, with the loss of Tripoli (1531) and Bugía (1554), while Barbary and Ottoman piracy intensified. In 1565, however, Spanish relief to the besieged Knights of St. John saved Malta, inflicting a severe defeat on the Turks.
The death of Suleiman the Magnificent and his succession by the less capable Selim II emboldened Philip II, and he declared war on the sultan himself. In 1571, the Holy League, formed by Philip II, Venice and Pope Pius V, confronted the Ottoman Empire with a joint fleet commanded by Don John of Austria, illegitimate son of Charles I, which annihilated the Turkish fleet at the decisive Battle of Lepanto.
The defeat ended the Turkish threat in the Mediterranean and began a period of decline for the Ottoman Empire. This battle increased respect for Spain and its sovereignty beyond its borders, and the King took on the burden of leading the Counter-Reformation.
The Realm in difficulties (1571–1598)
The time of rejoicing in Madrid was short-lived. In 1566, the Calvinists had begun a series of revolts in the Netherlands that prompted the King to send the Duke of Alba to the area. In 1568, William I of Orange-Nassau led a failed attempt to drive the Duke of Alba out of the country. These battles are considered the beginning of the Eighty Years' War, which concluded with the independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Philip II, who had received from his father the inheritance of the territories of the House of Burgundy (the Netherlands and the Franche-Comté) so that powerful Castile would defend the Empire against France, was forced to restore order and maintain his rule over these territories. In 1572, a group of rebel Dutch ships known as the watergeuzen took several coastal towns, proclaimed their support for William I and rejected Spanish rule.
For Spain, the war became an endless affair. In 1574, the Tercios of Flanders, under the command of Francisco de Valdés, were defeated at the Siege of Leiden after the Dutch broke the dikes, causing massive flooding.
In 1576, overwhelmed by the costs of maintaining an army of 80,000 men in the Netherlands and the immense fleet that had won at Lepanto, together with the growing threat of piracy in the Atlantic and especially the shipwrecks that reduced the arrivals of money from the American possessions, Philip II was forced to declare a suspension of payments (which was interpreted as bankruptcy).
The army mutinied not long afterward, sacking Antwerp and the south of the Netherlands, causing several cities that had until then remained loyal to join the rebellion. The Spaniards chose the path of negotiation and managed to pacify most of the southern provinces with the Union of Arras in 1579.
This agreement required all Spanish troops to leave those lands, which strengthened the position of Philip II when, in 1580, the last member of the royal family of Portugal, the cardinal king Henry I of Portugal, died without direct descendants. The King of Spain, son of Isabella of Portugal and therefore grandson of King Manuel I, asserted his claim to the Portuguese throne, and in June sent the Duke of Alba and his army to Lisbon to secure the succession. The other claimant, Don Antonio, withdrew to the Azores, where Philip's navy finished defeating him.
The temporary unification of the Iberian Peninsula placed the Portuguese Empire in the hands of Philip II, that is, most of the explored territories of the New World in addition to the trading colonies in Asia and Africa. In 1582, when the King moved the court back to Madrid from Lisbon, where it had been temporarily established to pacify his new kingdom, the decision was made to strengthen Spanish naval power.
Spain was still reeling from the bankruptcy of 1576. In 1584, William I of Orange-Nassau was assassinated by a French Catholic. It was hoped that the death of the popular leader of the resistance would mean the end of the war, but it did not.
In 1585, Queen Elizabeth I of England sent support to the Protestant causes in the Netherlands and France, and Sir Francis Drake launched attacks against Spanish ports and merchant ships in the Caribbean and the Pacific, in addition to an especially aggressive attack on the port of Cádiz. In 1588, hoping to put an end to Elizabeth I's meddling, Philip II sent the "Invincible Armada" to attack England. Contrary to what is commonly believed, the Spanish Armada was not defeated by the English ships;[16] rather, a series of strong storms, coordination problems between the armies involved and major logistical failures in the supplies the fleet was to take on in the Netherlands caused the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
Nevertheless, the defeat of the English counterattack against Spain, led by Drake and Norris in 1589, marked a turning point in the Anglo-Spanish War in favor of Spain. Despite the failure of the Spanish armada, the Spanish fleet remained the strongest in the seas of Europe until the 18th century, even though in 1639 it was defeated by the Dutch at the naval Battle of the Downs, when a visibly exhausted Spain was beginning to weaken. The Treaty of London was favorable to Spain, and the disaster of the English counter-armada left the Kingdom of England bankrupt, having assembled a fleet of 200 ships and 20,000 men (even larger than the Spanish Grand Armada of 1588) with the intention of raising Portugal in revolt and establishing a state hostile to Spain, which it did not achieve, and also with the desire to threaten the overseas territories of the Hispanic Monarchy.
Spain became involved in the French Wars of Religion after the death of Henry II of France. In 1589, Henry III of France, the last of the Valois line, died at the gates of Paris. His successor, Henry IV of France and III of Navarre, the first Bourbon King of France, was a very skillful man, achieving key victories against the Catholic League at Arques (1589) and at Ivry (1590). Committed to preventing Henry IV from taking possession of the French throne, the Spaniards divided their army in the Netherlands and invaded France in 1590. Engaged on multiple fronts, the Hispanic power was unable to impose its policy on the Gallic country, and an agreement was finally reached in the Peace of Vervins.
"God is Spanish" (1598–1626)
Although today we know that the Spanish economy was undermined and that its power was weakening, the Empire was still by far the strongest power. So much so that it could wage confrontations with England, France and the Netherlands at the same time. This power was confirmed by the other European peoples; thus the French Huguenot Duplessis-Mornay, for example, wrote after the assassination of William of Orange at the hands of Balthasar Gérard:
The ambition of the Spaniards, which has made them accumulate so many lands and seas, makes them think that nothing is inaccessible to them.
— Carnicer & Marcos (2006), p. 69
Several literary works, and especially films, have shown the distress caused by the continual piracy against its ships in the Atlantic and the consequent decrease in revenue from the gold of the Indies. However, more thorough research[17] indicates that this piracy actually consisted of several dozen ships and several hundred pirates, the former being of small tonnage, so that they could not confront the Spanish galleons and had to content themselves with small ships or those that might stray from the fleet. Second, there is the fact that during the 16th century no pirate or privateer managed to sink a single galleon; likewise, of some 600 fleets dispatched by Spain (two per year for some 300 years), only two fell into enemy hands, and both to navies of war, not to pirates or privateers.[17] The privateer attacks, in any case, among which Francis Drake stood out, caused serious security problems for both fleets and ports, which forced the establishment of a system of convoys as well as an exponential increase in defensive spending devoted to the training of militias and the construction of fortifications. However, it was bad weather that most seriously blocked all trade between America and Europe. More serious was Mediterranean piracy, perpetrated by Barbary corsairs, which had a volume ten or more times greater than that of the Atlantic and which ravaged the entire Mediterranean coast as well as the Canaries, often blocking communications with that Archipelago and with the possessions in Italy.
Despite all the income from America, Spain was forced to declare itself bankrupt in 1596.
Philip II's successor, Philip III, ascended the throne in 1598. He was a man uninterested in politics, preferring to let others make decisions rather than take command. His valido was the Duke of Lerma, who never took any interest in the affairs of his country's ally, Austria.
The Spaniards tried to free themselves from the numerous conflicts in which they were involved, first by signing the Peace of Vervins with France in 1598, recognizing Henry IV (a Catholic since 1593) as King of France, and restoring many of the conditions of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. With several consecutive defeats and an endless guerrilla war against the Catholics supported by Spain in Ireland, England agreed to negotiate in 1604, after the accession to the throne of the Stuart James I.
Peace with France and England meant that Spain could focus its attention and energies on restoring its rule over the Dutch provinces. The Dutch, led by Maurice of Nassau, the son of William I, succeeded in taking some border cities in 1590, including the fortress of Breda. To this were added the Dutch overseas victories that occupied the Portuguese (and therefore Spanish) colonies in the East, taking Ceylon (1605), as well as other Spice Islands (between 1605 and 1619), establishing Batavia as the center of their empire in the East.
After the peace with England, Ambrosio Spínola, as the new general in command of the Spanish forces, fought tenaciously against the Dutch. Spínola was a strategist of a capacity similar to that of Maurice, and only the new bankruptcy of 1607 prevented him from conquering the Netherlands. Tormented by ruinous finances, in 1609 the Twelve Years' Truce was signed between Spain and the United Provinces. The Pax Hispanica was a reality.
Spain made a remarkable recovery during the truce, putting its economy in order and striving to recover its prestige and stability before taking part in the last war in which it would act as a leading power. These advances were overshadowed by the expulsion of the Moriscos between 1611 and 1614, which seriously damaged the Crown of Aragon, depriving the empire of an important source of wealth. Although, as a counterpart to the expulsion, a group was banished that supported Spain's main piracy problem, Barbary piracy, which ravaged the coasts of the Levante, with Morisco rebellions occurring, and with the danger that support for Ottoman piracy might become support for an invasion of the Peninsula by the Ottoman Empire, this last being the reason for the expulsion of the Moriscos.
Today, the opinion of historians is almost unanimous regarding the error of becoming involved in European wars for the sole reason that the inherited kingdoms had to be passed on intact. However, this position also existed in those years. Thus a procurator in the Cortes wrote:
Will France, Flanders and England perchance be the better the poorer Spain is? For the remedy for the sins of Nineveh was not to increase the tribute in Palestine in order to go and conquer them, but to send the person who would go to convert them.
— Quoted by Gómez-Centurión (1987), p. 89
In 1618 the King replaced Spínola with Baltasar de Zúñiga, a veteran ambassador in Vienna. He believed that the key to holding back a resurgent France and eliminating the Dutch was a close alliance with the Austrian Habsburgs. That same year, beginning with the Defenestration of Prague, Austria and Emperor Ferdinand II embarked on a campaign against Bohemia and the Protestant Union. Zúñiga encouraged Philip III to join the Austrian Habsburgs in the war, and Ambrosio Spínola was sent at the head of the Tercios of Flanders to intervene. In this way, Spain entered the Thirty Years' War.
In 1621 the harmless and ineffective Philip III died and his son Philip IV ascended the throne. The following year, Zúñiga was replaced by Gaspar de Guzmán, better known by his title of Count-Duke of Olivares, an honest and capable man,[citation needed] who believed that the source of all Spain's misfortunes was the United Provinces. That same year, the war with the Netherlands resumed. The Bohemians were defeated at the Battle of White Mountain in 1621, and later at Stadtlohn in 1623.
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Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, Spinola took the fortress of Breda in 1625. The intervention of Christian IV of Denmark in the war worried many—Christian IV was one of the few European monarchs who had no economic problems—but the victories of the imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein over the Danes at the Battle of Dessau Bridge and again at Lutter, both in 1626, eliminated that threat.
There was hope in Madrid that the Netherlands could be reincorporated into the Empire, and after the defeat of the Danes, the Protestants in Germany seemed to be finished. France was once again embroiled in its own instabilities (the Siege of La Rochelle began in 1627) and Spain's superiority seemed irrefutable. The Count-Duke of Olivares declared, "God is Spanish and is on the side of the nation these days," and many of Spain's rivals seemed to agree, unhappily.
The road to Rocroi (1626–1643)
Olivares was a man ahead of his time, and he realized that Spain needed a reform that in turn required peace. The destruction of the United Provinces was added to his needs, since behind any attack on the Habsburgs there was Dutch money. Spinola and the Spanish army concentrated on the Netherlands, and the war seemed to go in Spain's favor, with Breda being retaken. Overseas, the Dutch fleet, which threatened the Spanish possessions, was also fought. Thus, the Dutch presence in Taiwan and its threat to the Philippines led to the occupation of the north of the island, with the founding of the City of Santísima Trinidad (present-day Keelung) in 1626 and Castillo (present-day Tamsui) in 1629.
The year 1627 brought the collapse of the Hispanic economy. The Spaniards had devalued their currency to pay for the war, and inflation exploded in Spain as it had earlier in Austria. Until 1631, in some parts of Castile trade was carried on by barter because of the monetary crisis, and the government was unable to collect taxes from the peasantry of the colonies. The Spanish armies in Germany chose to pay themselves. Olivares was blamed for a shameful and fruitless war in Italy. The Dutch had made their fleet a priority during the Twelve Years' Truce and threatened Spanish maritime trade, on which Spain was totally dependent after the economic crisis; in 1628 the Dutch cornered the Fleet of the Indies, causing the Disaster of Matanzas; the cargo of precious metals that was fundamental to sustaining the Empire's war effort was captured and the fleet transporting it totally destroyed, and with part of the riches obtained the Dutch began a successful invasion of Brazil.
The Thirty Years' War also worsened when, in 1630, Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden landed in Germany to relieve the port of Stralsund, the last continental bastion of the Germans fighting against the emperor. Gustavus II Adolphus marched south and won notable victories at Breitenfeld and Lützen, attracting considerable support for the Protestants wherever he went.
The situation for the Catholics improved with the death of Gustavus II Adolphus at Lützen itself in 1632 and the victory at the Battle of Nördlingen in 1634. From a position of strength, the emperor tried to make peace with the war-weary states in 1635. Many accepted, including the two most powerful: Brandenburg and Saxony. France then emerged as the greatest problem. At the same time, the War of the Mantuan Succession in Italy gave Spain a new victory, consolidating its presence in Italy.
Cardinal Richelieu had been a great ally of the Dutch and the Protestants since the beginning of the war, sending funds and equipment to try to fragment the strength of the Habsburgs in Europe. Richelieu decided that the recently signed Peace of Prague was contrary to France's interests and declared war on the Holy Roman Empire and on Spain within the established period of peace. The more experienced Spanish forces achieved initial successes: Olivares ordered a lightning campaign in northern France from the Spanish Netherlands, hoping to defeat the purpose of King Louis XIII and overthrow Richelieu.
In 1636, the Spanish forces advanced south as far as Corbie, threatening Paris and coming very close to ending the war in their favor. After 1636, Olivares feared provoking another bankruptcy and the Spanish army advanced no further. In the naval defeat of the Downs in 1639, the Spanish fleet was annihilated by the Dutch navy, and the Spaniards found themselves unable to supply their troops in the Netherlands.
In 1643 the army of Flanders, which constituted the best of the Spanish infantry, faced a French counterattack at Rocroi led by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé. Although nineteenth-century French sources, and above all the original sources, always reported that the Spaniards, led by Francisco de Melo, were by no means crushed, Gallic propaganda achieved notable success by exaggerating that victory.[18] The Spanish infantry was seriously damaged but not destroyed, with a thousand dead and two thousand wounded out of a total of six thousand soldiers of the tercios; the tercios withstood up to six combined attacks by the French infantry, artillery and cavalry without losing their integrity. With both sides exhausted, a surrender was eventually negotiated and the siege was lifted. The battle had few short-term repercussions, but a tremendous impact in terms of propaganda.
The great skill of Cardinal Mazarin in handling that victory succeeded in damaging the reputation of the Tercios of Flanders, creating false propaganda that still persists: that of a victory in which, to know the number of enemies they had faced, the French had only to "count the dead". Traditionally, historians point to the Battle of Rocroi as the end of Spanish dominance in Europe and the turning of the course of the Thirty Years' War in favor of France.
Internal uprisings (1640–1665)
During the reign of Philip IV, and specifically from 1640 onward, there were multiple secessions and uprisings in the various territories under his scepter. Among them were the War of the Separation of Portugal, the rebellion of Catalonia (both conflicts begun in 1640), the conspiracy of Andalusia (1641) and the various incidents that occurred in Navarre, Naples and Sicily at the end of the 1640s. To these events were added the various extra-peninsular fronts: the war in the Netherlands (resumed in 1621 after the expiry of the Twelve Years' Truce) and the Thirty Years' War. In turn, the confrontation with France in the latter (from 1635) became linked to the Catalan problem.
Portugal had rebelled in 1640 under the leadership of John of Braganza, a claimant to the throne. He had received general support from the Portuguese people, and the Spaniards, who had multiple open fronts, were unable to respond. Spaniards and Portuguese maintained a de facto state of peace between 1641 and 1657. When John IV died, the Spaniards tried to fight for Portugal against his son Afonso VI of Portugal, but were defeated at the Battle of Ameixial (1663), at the Battle of Castelo Rodrigo (1664) and at the Battle of Montes Claros (1665), which led Spain to recognize Portuguese independence in 1668.
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In 1648 the Spaniards made peace with the Dutch and recognized the independence of the United Provinces in the Peace of Westphalia, which at the same time ended the Eighty Years' War and the Thirty Years' War. This was followed by the expulsion from Taiwan and the loss of Tobago, Curaçao and other islands in the Caribbean Sea.
The war with France continued for eleven more years, since France wanted to finish off Spain completely and not give it the opportunity to recover. The Spanish economy was so weakened that the Empire was unable to face it. The uprising of Naples was suppressed in 1648 and that of Catalonia in 1652, and a victory was also obtained against the French at the Battle of Valenciennes (1656, the last of the Spanish victories), but the effective end of the war came at the Battle of the Dunes (or of Dunkirk) in 1658, in which the French army under the command of the Viscount of Turenne, with the help of a large English army, defeated the remnants of the Tercios of Flanders. Spain agreed to sign the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659, by which it ceded to France Roussillon, Cerdanya and some places in the Netherlands such as Artois. In addition, the marriage of a Spanish infanta to Louis XIV was agreed.
In the last years of the reign of Philip IV, with the great conflicts concluded, Philip IV was able to concentrate on the Portuguese front. However, it was already too late. Months before his death (which occurred in Madrid on 17 September 1665), the defeat at the Battle of Villaviciosa (17 June) foreshadowed the loss of Portugal. The situation in Spain was no more encouraging, and the human, material and social crisis deeply affected the regions of the interior.
Spain had an immense empire overseas (now reduced by the separation of Portugal and its empire, as well as by French and English attacks), but France was now the leading power in Europe.
The Empire under the last Habsburg (1665–1700)
On the death of Philip IV, his son Charles II was only four years old, so his mother Mariana of Austria governed as regent. She ended up handing over the tasks of government to a valido, Father Nithard, an Austrian Jesuit. The reign of Charles II can be divided into two parts. The first would span from 1665 to 1679 and would be characterized by economic lethargy and power struggles between the King's validos, Father Nithard and Fernando de Valenzuela, and the illegitimate son of Philip IV, Don John Joseph of Austria. The latter staged a coup d'état in 1677 that forced the monarch to expel Nithard and Valenzuela from the government.
The image that has always been held of Charles II and his reign is one of total decline and stagnation in Spain; while the rest of Europe embarked on tremendous changes in governments and societies—the Revolution of 1688 in England and the reign of the Sun King in France—Spain continued adrift. The bureaucracy that had been built up around Charles I and Philip II demanded a strong and hardworking monarch; the weakness and negligence of Philip III and Philip IV contributed to the Spanish decline. Charles II had few abilities, was impotent and died without an heir in 1700. However, modern historiography tends to be more lenient toward Charles II and his limitations, pointing out that the King, despite being at the limit of mental normality, was aware of the responsibility he bore, of the situation of greed his empire was experiencing and of the idea of majesty he always tried to uphold. He demonstrated this in his will which, according to the popular song, was his best work; in it he declared:
I declare as my successor (in the event that God takes me without leaving children) the Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin of France; and, as such, I call him to the succession of all my kingdoms and dominions without exception of any part of them.
— Quoted by Alonso Mola & Martínez Shaw (2000), p. 45
The second part of his reign would begin in 1680 with the assumption of power by the Duke of Medinaceli as valido, who took up again the measures adopted by Don John Joseph of Austria to carry out the King's economic project to stabilize the economy. The valido achieved one of the greatest deflations in history, if not the greatest, which harmed the coffers of the monarchy but brought a considerable increase in the purchasing power of the citizens.[19]
In 1685, the office was taken up by Manuel Joaquín Álvarez de Toledo, Count of Oropesa, upon the resignation of Medinaceli. Álvarez de Toledo proposed a fixed budget for the expenses of the Court as a means of avoiding new bankruptcies, reducing taxes, forgiving debts of several municipalities, reforming the land registry and placing experts instead of nobles in key posts.[19]
Throughout his reign the wars against France came to an end, especially after the Treaty of Ryswick, by which the island of Hispaniola was partitioned between France and Spain. After it, Charles II's project for his kingdoms was achieved: he kept the dominions of America and Europe under his power, in addition to making possible an economic recovery that his successor would later enjoy.[19]
The Empire of the Bourbons (1700-1806)
The change of dynasty
The new King was not especially well received in Spain. Besides the delays in his entry into Madrid caused by bad weather and the constant receptions, the courtiers began to see that he was apathetic, chaste, pious, very compliant with the wishes of his confessor, and melancholic, and they composed a little ditty about him:
Go on, boy, go on,
Because the cardinal commands it.
— Quoted by Alonso Mola 2000, p. 49
But Philip V had no intention of monopolizing Spain for himself and his circle, as Philip the Handsome had tried to do. He wanted to be a good monarch despite the many differences he had with his new people. So much so that, after the famous speech delivered by the Marquis of Castelldosrius, Spain's ambassador to France, Philip understood nothing, not even the famous phrase "There are no more Pyrenees", because he did not know Spanish, and his grandfather Louis XIV had to speak for him. At the end of his reply to the ambassador, however, the Sun King told the future King, "Be a good Spaniard." That seventeen-year-old youth fulfilled this command for the rest of his life.[20]
The other powers' designs on Spain and its possessions could not be settled by the royal will. Conflict was therefore almost inevitable: Archduke Charles of Austria did not resign himself, which led to the War of Succession (1702-1713).
This war and the negligence committed during it led to new defeats for Spanish arms, which even reached the peninsular territory itself. Thus Oran, Menorca and, most painfully and enduringly, Gibraltar were lost; at Gibraltar there were only fifty Spanish soldiers defending it against the Anglo-Dutch fleet.
Philip V was not prepared to rule the largest empire of the time, and he knew it; but he also knew how to surround himself with the best-prepared people of his age.[21] Thus the Bourbon monarchs and the men who came with them brought a project for the Spanish Empire and a desire to become one with it. For example, Alessandro Malaspina said that he felt like "an Italian in Spain and a Spaniard in Italy"; Charles III of Spain ordered statues carved of all the Spanish kings and dignitaries since the Visigoths, of whom he felt himself the heir; the Marquis of Esquilache was annoyed when Spanish nobles did not address him with the familiar tú, as was the custom, and in the afternoons he took chocolate, a tradition that distinguished the Spanish court from other European ones. But perhaps the clearest case was Philip V before his grandfather Louis XIV, when he faced a possible future return to France as king of a rising country instead of another in decline, as Spain was; he is said to have replied:
My choice is made, and there is nothing on earth capable of moving me to renounce the crown that God has given me; nothing in the world will make me part from Spain and the Spaniards.
— Quoted by Martínez Shaw 2000, p. 54
In the Treaty of Utrecht (April 11, 1713), the European powers decided what Spain's future would be with respect to the balance of power. The new King of the House of Bourbon, Philip V, retained the overseas empire, but ceded Sicily and part of the Milanese to Savoy, Gibraltar and Menorca to Great Britain, and the other continental territories to Austria (the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan and Sardinia). It also meant the definitive separation of the crowns of France and Spain, and Philip V's renunciation of his rights to the French throne. With this, the Empire turned its back on the European territories. Great Britain was also guaranteed the slave trade for thirty years (the "asiento de negros").
The reform of the Empire
Under the Bourbon monarch the entire territorial organization of the State was modified through a series of decrees called the Nueva Planta decrees, which abolished the fueros and privileges of the old peninsular kingdoms and unified the whole Spanish State by dividing it into provinces called Captaincies General, each in the charge of an officer and almost all of them governed by the same laws; in this way the Spanish State was homogenized and centralized using the territorial model of France.
In addition, Philip V brought French mercantilist ideas based on a centralized monarchy, which were slowly put into practice in America. His main concerns were to break the power of the criollo aristocracy and also to weaken the territorial control of the Society of Jesus: the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish America in 1767. In addition to the already established consulates of Mexico City and Lima, that of Vera Cruz was established.
Between 1717 and 1718 the institutions for the government of the Indies, the Council of the Indies and the Casa de Contratación, were moved from Seville to Cádiz, which became the sole port for trade with the Americas.
The executive bodies were reformed by creating the secretariats of state, which would be the embryo of the ministries. The customs and tariff system and the tax system were reformed; the cadastre was created (although tax policy was never fully reformed); the Army was restructured into regiments instead of tercios...; but perhaps the great achievement was the unification of the various fleets and arsenals into the Navy. Men such as José Patiño, José Campillo and Zenón de Somodevilla devoted themselves to these reforms; they were examples of meritocracy and some of the foremost experts in naval matters of their time.[22]
These reforms were followed by a new expansionist policy that sought to recover the lost positions. Thus, in 1717 the Spanish navy recovered Sardinia and Sicily, which it soon had to abandon in the face of the coalition of Austria, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands, which won at Cape Passaro. Nevertheless, Spanish diplomacy, supported by the Family Compacts with its French relatives, would succeed in having the crown of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies pass to the second son of the Spanish King. The new dynastic branch would later be known as the Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
The colonial wars during the 18th century
One of the most important Spanish victories of the entire colonial period in America, and without doubt the most momentous of the 18th century, was the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1741 (see War of Jenkins' Ear), in which a colossal fleet of 186 English ships with 23,600 men aboard attacked the Spanish port of Cartagena de Indias (today in Colombia). This naval action was the largest in the history of the English navy, and the second largest of all time after the Battle of Normandy. After two months of intense cannon fire between the English ships and the defensive batteries of the bay of Cartagena and of the Fort of San Felipe de Barajas, the attackers retreated after losing 50 ships and 18,000 men. The sound strategy of the great Spanish admiral Blas de Lezo was decisive in containing the English attack and achieving a victory that prolonged Spanish naval supremacy until the early 19th century. After the defeat, the English prohibited the spread of the news, and the censorship was so strict that few English history books contain references to this momentous naval contest. Even today little is known of this great battle, compared with the very well-known episode of Trafalgar or even that of the Invincible Armada.
Spain also clashed with Portugal over Colonia del Sacramento in present-day Uruguay, which was the base for British smuggling through the Río de la Plata. In 1750 Portugal ceded the colony to Spain in exchange for seven of the thirty Guaraní reductions of the Jesuits on the border with Brazil. The Spanish had to expel the Jesuits, provoking a conflict with the Guaraní that lasted eleven years.
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The development of naval trade promoted by the Bourbons in America was interrupted by the British fleet during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), in which Spain and France fought Great Britain and Portugal over colonial conflicts. Spanish successes in northern Portugal were overshadowed by the English capture of Havana and Manila. Finally, the Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the war. With this peace, Spain recovered Manila and Havana, although it had to return Sacramento. In addition, France handed over to Spain Louisiana west of the Mississippi, including its capital, New Orleans, and Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain.
In any case, the 18th century was a period of prosperity in the overseas empire thanks to the steady growth of trade, above all in the second half of the century owing to the Bourbon reforms. Single-ship routes at regular intervals slowly replaced the old practice of sending the Indies fleets, and by the 1760s there were regular routes between Cádiz, Havana and Puerto Rico, and at longer intervals with the Río de la Plata, where a new viceroyalty had been created, the so-called Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, in 1776. Smuggling, which had been the cancer of the Habsburg empire, declined when the register ships were put into operation.
In 1777 a new war with Portugal ended with the Treaty of San Ildefonso, by which Spain recovered Sacramento and gained the islands of Annobón and Fernando Poo, in Guinean waters, in exchange for withdrawing from its new conquests in Brazil.
Later, two events of minor importance occurred in Spanish America and at the same time demonstrated the elasticity and resilience of the new reformed system: the uprising of Túpac Amaru in Peru in 1780 and the rebellion in Venezuela. Both were, in part, reactions to the greater centralism of the Bourbon administration. In general, the three centuries of the Spanish empire in America were very peaceful.[23]
In the 1780s internal trade within the Empire grew again, and its fleet became much larger and more profitable. The end of the Cádiz monopoly on American trade brought about the revival of Spanish manufacturing. Most notable was the rapid growth of the textile industry in Catalonia, which by the end of the century showed signs of industrialization, with a surprisingly rapid adoption of mechanical spinning machines, becoming the most important textile industry in the Mediterranean. This led to the emergence of a small but politically active bourgeoisie in Barcelona. Agricultural productivity remained low despite efforts to introduce new machinery for a heavily exploited and landless peasant class.
The gradual recovery from the wars was interrupted once again by Spanish participation in the American Revolutionary War (1779-1783), in support of the rebel States, and the resulting clashes with Great Britain. The Treaty of Versailles of 1783 brought peace once more and the recovery of Florida and Menorca (consolidating the situation, since they had previously been recovered by Spain), as well as the British abandonment of Campeche and the Mosquito Coast in the Caribbean. However, Spain failed in its attempt to recover Gibraltar after a long and persistent siege, and had to recognize British sovereignty over the Bahamas, where numerous supporters of the English King, or Loyalists, from the lost colonies had settled, and over the archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia, claimed by Spain but which it had been unable to control.
Meanwhile, with the Nootka Convention (1791), the dispute between Spain and Great Britain over British and Spanish settlements on the Pacific coast was resolved, thus delimiting the border between the two countries. Also in that year the King of Spain ordered Alessandro Malaspina to search for the Northwest Passage (Malaspina Expedition).
Spain around 1800
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The economic and institutional reforms bore fruit, militarily speaking, when the English were defeated during the War of Jenkins' Ear in their attempt to conquer the strategic stronghold of Cartagena de Indias, with an outstanding performance by Admiral Blas de Lezo.
As a result, 18th-century Spain was a middle-ranking power in the games of power, without its former status as a superpower. Its vast empire in the Indies gave it considerable importance and, although in Europe the importance of France, England or Austria was greater, it still maintained the most important fleet in the world and its currency was the strongest.
Although the Spanish Empire had not recovered its former splendor, it had recovered considerably from the dark days at the beginning of the century, when it had been at the mercy of other powers. The fact that it was a mainly peaceful century under the new monarchy made it possible to rebuild and to begin a long process of modernizing the institutions and the economy. The demographic decline of the 17th century had been reversed, although it was necessary to encourage immigration from other European countries, mainly Germans and Swiss. But everything was about to be overshadowed by the turmoil that would engulf Europe at the turn of the century: the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
The end of the global empire (1808-1898)
The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars
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After the French Revolution of 1789, Spain joined the countries that allied to combat the revolution. An army led by General Ricardos reconquered Roussillon, but only a few years later, in 1794, French troops expelled them and invaded Spanish territory. The rise of Godoy to prime minister meant a policy of appeasement with France: with the Peace of Basel of 1795, a French withdrawal was obtained in exchange for half of Hispaniola (what is today the Dominican Republic).
In 1796 the Treaty of San Ildefonso established the alliance with Napoleonic France against Great Britain, which meant the union of their respective armed forces. The naval battle of Cape St. Vincent was a relative victory for the British, which they failed to exploit, although at Cádiz and Santa Cruz de Tenerife the British fleet suffered failures. Most noteworthy was the loss of Trinidad Island (1797) and Menorca. In 1802 the Peace of Amiens was signed, a truce that allowed Spain to recover Menorca.
Hostilities soon resumed, with the development of the Napoleonic plan for an invasion across the English Channel. However, the destruction of the allied Franco-Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) ruined the plan and undermined Spain's ability to defend and maintain its empire. After the defeat at Trafalgar, Spain found itself without a navy capable of facing the English one, and effective communication with the overseas territories was cut off.
While the successive coalitions were defeated time and again by Napoleon Bonaparte on the continent, Spain waged a minor war against Portugal (the War of the Oranges) that allowed it to annex Olivenza. In 1800 France recovered Louisiana. When Napoleon decreed the Continental Blockade, Spain collaborated with France in the occupation of Portugal, a country that had disobeyed the blockade. Thus French troops entered the country, with units quartered in garrisons along the border.
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In 1808 Napoleon took advantage of the disputes between the Spanish King Charles IV and his son, the future Ferdinand VII, and got them to cede the throne to him, so that Spain was taken by Napoleon without firing a single shot.
Then came the popular uprising of May 2, 1808. The Spaniards in rebellion against Napoleon moved to the south of Spain and began what is known as the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain, which would have a moment of optimism and a ferocity never seen in Europe with the defeat of the French armies at the Battle of Bailén under the command of General Castaños (the first defeat of the Napoleonic Army on a European battlefield). The campaigns of Napoleon's marshals could not overcome the ferocity of the Spanish people until the later French counterattack led by Napoleon and his Grande Armée, which restored the authority of his brother Joseph I of Spain, whom he had named King. The fighting continued, now with the appearance of "guerrilla warfare", with the French armies suffering a considerable and constant number of casualties. English aid to Spain helped expel the French together with the Portuguese and Spanish armies, and after the Battle of Waterloo, Ferdinand VII recovered the throne and had to confront the independence of the viceroyalties.
The independence of the continental American possessions
Territories governed by authorities loyal to Ferdinand VII.
Territories under the authority of the Supreme Central Junta or of the authorities of the Liberal Triennium.
Territories under the authority of autonomous Juntas of Government, nominally loyal to the King.
Territories with States that have proclaimed their independence from Spain.
Spain under the Cortes of Cádiz.
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After successive but unconnected insurrections throughout the colonial era, Spanish projects for the independence of America were formulated from within the monarchy itself. However, Hispanic American independence began to be unleashed when the disputes over the throne arose between the Spanish King Charles IV and his son, the future Ferdinand VII, which were exploited by Napoleon to intervene and impose the so-called "Abdications of Bayonne" of 1808, by which both successively renounced the throne of Spain, ultimately in favor of Joseph Bonaparte, after which Ferdinand was held captive. Thus the French intervention triggered a popular uprising, known as the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain (1808-1814), which resulted in the creation of a liberal state and brought uncertainty about which authority effectively governed Spain.
In the absence of a definite authority in Spain, and with Ferdinand VII in captivity, the Hispanic American peoples, often under the leadership of the criollos, began a series of insurrections, disregarding the colonial authorities, which under the previous reforms had been reduced to mere agents of a government now called into question. There followed the formation of Juntas of Government in America, which still recognized the Spanish Supreme Central Junta. But the dissolution of the Central Junta in 1810, having taken refuge in Cádiz, besieged by Napoleon, marked a breaking point between Spain and America. It was followed by the installation of the Regency and the Cortes of Cádiz, and then by the return of King Ferdinand VII, who recovered the Spanish Crown in 1814; these denied legitimacy to the American juntas, declaring them in rebellion. Viceroy Fernando de Abascal and Pablo Morillo, head of the pacifying expedition, were the main organizers of the defense of the Spanish monarchy in America.
The popular movements in the Spanish colonies deepened the insurrections to openly confront the Spanish King, in a war of continental scope, with the aim of establishing independent states, which generally became republican regimes. In 1820 the short-lived government of the Liberal Triennium ordered a Spanish ceasefire. This put an end to the dispatch of peninsular troops and seriously weakened the Spanish military position, but it did not agree to a peace treaty or recognize the independences. In the Hispanic American Wars of Independence, Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín stood out, called Liberators, who led the pro-independence armies that finally defeated the troops loyal to the Spanish monarchy, called Royalists. The last holdouts in coastal fortifications, the surviving guerrillas of the interior, and the naval war in the Caribbean encouraged Spanish projects of reconquest that came to an end with the death of King Ferdinand VII in 1833.[n. 8][n. 9]
Finally, in 1836 the Cortes of Spain authorized the Government to renounce all territorial rights or sovereignty and to recognize independence in successive treaties of peace and friendship. Subsequently, throughout the 19th century, and after complex political processes, the Spanish possessions in America formed the present-day Hispanic American states. United States expansionism made itself felt both over the last remnants of the Spanish Empire, forcing the purchase of Florida for five million dollars in 1821,[24] and later acquiring the rights to the Spanish claims in Oregon, and over the new American countries (through economic and political influence and with the annexation of Texas and the north of the new Mexican state: New Mexico, Utah, California and Nevada).
The Disaster of '98 and the loss of the Caribbean islands and the Philippines
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In what remained of the Empire, the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain was followed by an absolute monarchy (the Ominous Decade), dynastic conflicts, absolutist uprisings, liberal pronunciamientos and power struggles between liberal factions, which allowed only certain periods stable enough for the development of an active foreign policy. Notable among these was the government of Leopoldo O'Donnell (1856-1863), which, after harsh repression of dissent, was able to intervene actively on the international scene once again: a war was won against Morocco with the victories of Tetuán and Wad-Ras, which made it possible to enlarge Ceuta and recover the stronghold of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña on the Atlantic coast; an attempt was made to pacify the Philippines; the Emperor of Mexico, supported by the colonial powers, was backed; and, together with the French, a punitive expedition was sent to Cochinchina, where several missionaries had been murdered. At the same time, Pedro Santana, at the head of a certain Dominican faction, returned what is today the Dominican Republic to colonial status, only for the vicissitudes of the island's internal politics and Haitian support to cause it to be lost for good in 1865.
The economic crisis resulting from the rise in the price of cotton due to the American Civil War, poor harvests, and the poor results of the attempts to modernize agriculture (disentailment) and infrastructure (railway) brought an end to O'Donnell's regime and its imperialist experiment. Wars and disputes among progressives, liberals and conservatives, who refused to accept that the country had low international standing, became frequent. Growing discontent over instability and the perennial economic crisis led to the outbreak of a revolution that gave way to political experiments and the First Spanish Republic. The subsequent monarchical restoration of 1875 marked a new, more favorable period, when Alfonso XII and his ministers had some success in restoring the vigor of Spanish policy and prestige, partly by accepting the reality of Spain's circumstances and working intelligently.
Despite these ups and downs, Spain had maintained control of the last fragments of its empire until the rise in nationalism and anticolonial uprisings in several areas, which broke out during the 1870s. This conflict would become international as a result of the involvement of the United States, leading to the Spanish–American War of 1898, when a weak Spain faced a much stronger United States that needed new markets to keep expanding its already strong economy.
The trigger of this war was the sinking of the battleship Maine, for which Spain was blamed (after an aggressive press campaign by William Randolph Hearst). The latest investigations have not managed to prove anything conclusively: neither whether it was an accident or external sabotage, nor who would be responsible; even so, there is a theory that it was the Americans themselves who set the fire on the Maine in order to sink it, blame Spain, and provoke a war to seize the Spanish colonies, styling themselves defenders of the Cubans against Spanish tyranny. This war ended in a humiliating Spanish defeat and the independence of Cuba. In the Philippines, the pro-independence forces also had American support. Spain was forced to request an armistice, and the Treaty of Paris was signed, by which Cuba was definitively renounced and the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded to the U.S. This series of events is known as the "Disaster of '98". The last Spanish territories in Oceania were finally sold to Germany in the German–Spanish Treaty of 1899.
The last territories, Africa (1885-1975)
Since 1778, with the Treaty of El Pardo, by which the Portuguese ceded to Spain, in exchange for territories in South America, the island of Bioko and its nearby islets, as well as trading rights over the territory between the Niger and Ogooué rivers, Spain had maintained a presence in the Gulf of Guinea. In the 19th century, some explorers, such as Manuel Iradier, crossed this boundary.
Meanwhile, the conflicts in the Mediterranean had continued, and Spanish positions in North Africa had been lost. In 1848, however, Spanish troops conquered the Chafarinas Islands.
The loss of most of the American Empire led Spain to turn increasingly to its dominions in Africa, especially after the defeat against the United States in 1898.
In 1860, after the war against Morocco, that country ceded the territory of Sidi Ifni by the Treaty of Wad-Ras. The following decades of Franco-Spanish collaboration involved the establishment and extension of Spanish protectorates south of the city. Spain also claimed a protectorate on the western coast from the mouth of the Draa River southward, including the territory of the Sahara from Cape Bojador to Cape Blanco; Spanish sovereignty was recognized at the Berlin Conference of 1884: Spain administered Sidi Ifni and Western Sahara jointly, and at that time Spain even claimed Adrar (now part of Mauritania), although France later occupied that territory.
As for the territory of the coasts of Guinea in western Equatorial Africa, Spain had coastal possessions, called Spanish Guinea, and claimed a coastal territory that extended vaguely between the mouth of the Niger River in the north and the Ogooué River in the south;[25] however, these claims were gradually restricted to the coasts and islands of present-day Equatorial Guinea, although as late as the end of the 19th century Spain still maintained claims to the hinterland almost as far as the left banks of the Congo River.[26] The conflicting claims over Guinea were resolved in the Treaty of Paris of 1900; Río Muni became a protectorate in 1885 and a colony in 1900.
In 1911, Morocco was divided between the French and the Spanish. Ten years later Spain lost control of much of its protectorate in Morocco after the Disaster of Annual, a serious defeat at the hands of the Riffians who opposed Spanish administration. Spain did not manage to regain control of its protectorate until 1926, during the campaign that began with the Alhucemas landing (1925).
Between 1926 and 1959, Bioko and Río Muni were united under the name of Spanish Guinea.
Spain lost interest in developing an extensive economic structure in the African colonies during the first part of the 20th century. However, it developed extensive cocoa plantations, for which thousands of Nigerians were brought in as workers. The Spanish also helped Equatorial Guinea achieve one of the highest literacy rates on the continent and develop a network of health facilities.
In 1956, when the French protectorate in Morocco became independent, Spain handed over its own to the newly independent Morocco, but retained control over Sidi Ifni, the region of Tarfaya and Western Sahara. The King of Morocco, Mohammed V, was interested in the Spanish territories and unleashed the invasion of the Spanish Sahara by the Moroccan Army in 1958. This war was known as the Ifni War or the Forgotten War. That same year, Spain ceded Tarfaya to Mohammed V and annexed Saguia el-Hamra (in the north) and Río de Oro (in the south) to the territory of the Spanish Sahara.
In 1959, the Spanish territory of the Gulf of Guinea was granted the status of an overseas Spanish province. As the Spanish Equatorial Region, it was ruled by a Governor General who exercised military and civil powers. The first local elections were held in 1960, and the first Equatoguinean procuradores in the Cortes were elected. Through the Basic Law of December 1963, the two provinces were reunified as Equatorial Guinea and given limited autonomy, with bodies common to the whole territory (including a legislative body) and bodies specific to each province. Although the commissioner general appointed by the Spanish government had broad powers, the General Assembly of Equatorial Guinea had considerable initiative in formulating laws and regulations.
In March 1968, under pressure from Equatoguinean nationalists and the United Nations, Spain announced that it would grant independence. Once independent in 1968, Equatorial Guinea had one of the highest per capita incomes in all of Africa. In 1969, owing to international pressure, Spain handed Sidi Ifni over to Morocco. Spanish rule in Western Sahara lasted until the Green March forced the Spanish withdrawal in 1975. The future of the former Spanish province remains uncertain.
Territories of the Spanish Empire
There is no unanimous position among historians on the specific territories of Spain because, at times, it is difficult to determine whether a given place was part of Spain or formed part of the possessions of the King of Spain, or whether the territory was an effective or a legal possession, over periods spanning centuries, incorporated through inheritance or conquest, and in which the difference between the possessions of the King and those of the nation was not clearly defined, nor were public finance, inheritance or international law. Nevertheless, the fact that the Hispanic Monarchy was an authoritarian, almost absolutist monarchy makes the most logical thesis that all the possessions of the King were possessions of the nation. In fact, one cannot speak of a separation between the national coat of arms and the royal coat of arms until well into the 19th century, which shows that the King of Spain was practically the same as the State, in keeping with the boundaries of the polysynodial regime by which the Spanish Empire was governed.
Europe
- Peninsular Spain and the Balearic Islands.
- Lower Navarre: trans-Pyrenean territory definitively abandoned in 1521 because it was difficult to defend against the French.
- Roussillon: trans-Pyrenean territory ceded to France after the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) and the Treaty of Llívia (1660). The town of Llívia remained under Spanish sovereignty.
- Gibraltar: fortress located on the strait of the same name, ceded to Great Britain after the Peace of Utrecht (1713).
- Kingdom of Portugal (1580-1640): made up of present-day Portugal (with the exception of the municipalities of Olivenza and Hermisende) and all the territories of the Portuguese Empire (although the Azores Islands were not subjugated until 1583). It became part of the Spanish Monarchy during the period of the Iberian Union.
- Spanish Netherlands (until 1714): the present-day countries of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and part of the territories of present-day northern France, such as Artois, Ardennes, Moselle and Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and the western part of Germany, such as Bitburg-Prüm. The Netherlands are traditionally considered part of the Spanish Empire[27][28] (the majority thesis in Spain and the Netherlands, among others); but there are authors such as Henry Kamen[29] for whom these territories were never integrated into the Spanish Empire, but rather into the personal possessions of the Habsburgs. In 1581 the Protestant northern half of the Netherlands annulled its relationship of vassalage with Philip II and proclaimed independence as the United Provinces, while the Catholic south remained in Spanish hands until 1714.
- Franche-Comté (until 1678): territory located in the east-central area of France, ceded to France after the Peace of Nijmegen.
- Charolais (until 1684): territory located in the east-central area of France, seized in favor of the Prince of Condé.
- Spanish Italy.
- Kingdom of Naples (until 1714): located in Southern Italy.
- Kingdom of Sicily (until 1714): consisting of the islands of Sicily and Malta (the latter donated to the Knights Hospitaller in 1530).
- Kingdom of Sardinia (until 1714; 1717-1718 de facto): made up of the island of Sardinia.
- Duchy of Milan (1535 de facto/1559 de jure-1715): also known as the Milanese, it was located in northern Italy, in Lombardy.
- Marquisate of Montferrat (1533-1536): in northwestern Italy, under Spanish military occupation.
- Marquisate of Finale (1602-1707): located in Liguria, northern Italy. Philip II acquired the feudal rights to the territory.
- Republic of Siena (1555-1557): on the northwestern coast of Italy. Militarily occupied before being ceded to the Medici of Florence as payment for debts contracted by the Spanish Crown.
- State of the Presidi (1557-1707): on the northwestern coast of Italy, it depended directly on the Viceroy of Naples.
America
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- Viceroyalty of the Indies (1492-1535): the first territorial entity formed after the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, it was made up of all the territories discovered, explored, claimed and controlled by the Spanish in the New World, mainly the Antilles and Castilla de Oro (Panama). It was succeeded by the Viceroyalty of New Spain after the conquest of the Aztec Empire.
- Viceroyalty of New Spain (1535-1821): made up of the present-day countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Florida and the southwestern states of the United States (California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Florida, Utah, Louisiana and part of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma) and the Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Saint Martin, Anguilla, Bonaire, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Curaçao, Aruba, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, Barbados, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Saint Lucia and the Cayman Islands), most of these being lost in the 17th century with the exception of Trinidad (ceded to the United Kingdom in 1797), Hispaniola, Cuba and Puerto Rico, in addition to the Philippine Islands in Asia and the Mariana Islands and the Carolines in Oceania. It also included claims to the east coast of the modern United States. Spain kept these territories under its control until 1821, the year in which it became independent, although in several of the states of the Great Plains and the Lesser Antilles there was no stable Spanish presence
- Captaincy General of Santo Domingo (1535-1795; 1809-1821; 1861-1865): the first Spanish province in the New World, it comprised the entire island of Hispaniola, whose eastern part later became the Dominican Republic, while the western part became in 1697 the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which would eventually become independent as Haiti.
- Captaincy General of Cuba (1777-1898): a governorate of New Spain during the two previous centuries, it was made up of the island of Cuba and adjacent islands, as well as Florida and Louisiana.
- Governorate of Louisiana (1764-1803): ceded by France, it incorporated territories of the present-day Midwestern states of the United States (Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Minnesota and Iowa).
- Captaincy General of Guatemala (1542-1809; 1814-1821): also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala, it was made up of the territories of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica and the Mexican state of Chiapas. It declared its independence in 1821 in order to join the First Mexican Empire, from which it separated (except for Chiapas) on July 1, 1823.
- Captaincy General of Puerto Rico (1582-1898), later a province: it covered the island of Puerto Rico and other smaller islands adjacent to it.
- Captaincy General of Yucatán (1565-1821): it comprised the present-day Mexican states of Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo and eastern Tabasco. The inclusion of Belize and El Petén is a matter of controversy among some historians.[30]
- Commandancy General of the Internal Provinces (1776-1821): it was created by King Charles III through a royal decree of August 22, 1776, giving the Commandant General, over these previously established provinces, powers comparable to those of the Viceroy of New Spain; it comprised the present-day territories of Sonora y Sinaloa, the Californias, Coahuila, the New Kingdom of León, Nuevo Santander, Texas, New Biscay and New Mexico. Between 1787 and 1790 and between 1813 and 1821 it was divided into two Commandancies General: East and West.
- Nutca Territory (1789-1794): it was ceded to Great Britain in 1795. It included the territories of the present-day northwestern states of the United States (Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Washington), as well as the southwest of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the territory of Yukon and the present-day U.S. state of Alaska up to the 61st parallel north. A large part of the region formed the so-called Orejón territory. The Spanish presence was limited to the forts of San Miguel de Nutca and Nuñez Gaona.
- Viceroyalty of Peru (1542-1824): at its greatest extent it covered the present-day countries of Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, territories in Brazil, The Guianas, the southern part of present-day Venezuela and the Galápagos Islands. It included some claims in Oceania and the Amazon.
- Captaincy General of Chile (1541-1818): also called the Kingdom of Chile, it comprised present-day Chile and the region of Patagonia until the eastern part of the latter passed to the Governorate of Buenos Aires in 1570.
- Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717-1723; 1739-1822): it comprised the present-day countries of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, northern Brazil, western Guyana and the Galápagos Islands.
- Captaincy General of Venezuela (1777-1823): created by Charles III of Spain, civilly and militarily autonomous from the Viceroyalty of New Granada. It corresponded to the present-day territory of Venezuela, western Guyana and the island of Trinidad.
- Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (1776-1818): it comprised the present-day countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and part of Brazil. It included the Malvinas Islands (until 1810) and territories in the Gulf of Guinea, Africa. It should be mentioned that control of the far south (Patagonia) was not effectively exercised by the Argentine State until after the independence of Argentina. However, Spanish dominion over Patagonia as a result of its discoveries was not disputed with Spain.
Portuguese territories
During the Iberian Union (1580-1640), the territories of the Portuguese Empire in America also came under the rule of the House of Habsburg:
- Estado do Brasil (1580-1608; 1612-1640): formed along the coast of Brazil. Between 1608 and 1612 it was divided into two General Governments, one with its capital in Bahia and the other in Rio de Janeiro.
- Estado do Maranhão (1621-1640): formed by the Captaincies of Maranhão, Grão-Pará and Ceará when the State of Brazil was divided.
Asia and Oceania
- Captaincy General of the Philippines (1565-1898): also known as the Spanish East Indies, it was part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain until the independence of Mexico in 1821. It was made up of the archipelago of the Philippines, including the islands of Mindanao and Joló, even though these were not subjugated until the 19th century, and in Oceania of the Caroline Islands and the Marianas (mainly Guam). It also included claims to Sabah, in northern Borneo, until 1885. Multiple territories temporarily occupied by Spain (such as Brunei for seventy-two days in 1578) also formed part of the Captaincy General of the Philippines.
- Protectorate over Cambodia (1597-1599): briefly controlled when a group of Spanish and Portuguese adventurers placed King Barom Reachea II on the throne and made him accept a Spanish protectorate, but both the Monarch and his foreign supporters were killed by Malay Muslims two years later.
- Governorate of the Moluccas (1606-1663): consisting of a protectorate over the Sultanate of Tidore (1526-1545; 1580-1663) and half of the island of Ternate (1606-1663), in addition to some minor settlements in the rest of the Molucca Islands, the coast of Papua and northern Celebes, in Indonesia.
- Governorate of Formosa (1626-1642): located in the north of the island of Taiwan for the purpose of trading with China.
- Santa Cruz (1595): the only, short-lived settlement in the Solomon Islands.[31][32][33][34][35]
- Nueva Jerusalén (1606): brief establishment of a colony in Vanuatu.
- Amat Island (1772-1775): brief occupation of Tahiti by the Viceroyalty of Peru.[36][37][38]
Portuguese territories
During the Iberian Union (1580-1640), Spain also came to encompass the settlements of the Portuguese Empire in Asia:
- Estado da Índia (1580-1640): despite its name and the fact that its capital was the Indian city of Goa, it was made up of all the Portuguese possessions in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific from Mozambique to Japan and Indonesia.
- Persian Gulf and Red Sea: several fortresses, ports and cities occupied by the Portuguese, from which they controlled trade in the Middle East. In addition, the island kingdoms of Hormuz and Qeshm were vassals of Portugal.
- India: Portugal established and conquered multiple cities and trading posts in the modern States of India and Bangladesh.
- Diu (1580-1640), Surate (1580-1612), Damão (1580-1640), Baçaím (1580-1640), Salsette (1580-1640), Bom Bahia (1580-1640), Chaul (1580-1640), Goa (1580-1640), Honnavar (1580-1640), Barcelore (1580-1640), Mangalore (1580-1640), Cannanore (1580-1636), Cranganore (1580-1640), Cochin (1580-1640), Coulão (1580-1640), Tuticorin (1580-1640), Negapatam (1580-1640), São Tomé de Meliapore (1580-1640), Paliacate (1580-1610), Masulipatão (1598-1610), Calicut (1580-1640), Hugli e Bandel (1580-1632) and Chittagong (1580-1640).
- Ceilão (1580-1640): most of the island of Sri Lanka came under Portuguese control.
- Sirião (1603-1613): coastal city in Burma conquered by the Portuguese mercenary Filipe de Brito e Nicote, who offered it to the colonial authorities of India in exchange for being named ruler of the city; it was reconquered by the Burmese ten years later.
- Macau (1581-1640): trading post in China open to foreign trade. It took a year to accept Spanish rule, until the continuation of its trade monopoly was confirmed. Its captain-major was in charge of the Portuguese fleets and emporia from Malacca to Japan.
- Malacca (1580-1640): strategic trading city on the strait of the same name.
- Nagasaki (1580-1587) and Dejima (1634-1639): trading posts in Japan open to European trade.
- Spice Islands: Portugal kept under its control several small islands from which to control the spice trade, in present-day Indonesia.
Africa
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- Canary Islands (since 1479/1496): the first territory conquered by the Crown of Castile overseas, today a Spanish autonomous community.
- North African presidios (1479-late 19th century): settlements taken by Castile on the coast of North Africa to expand and attempt to control Barbary piracy. After the Capitulation of Sintra in 1509 it was established that the Spanish area of influence covered present-day Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, while Portugal received the Atlantic coast of Africa.
- Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña (1479-1524), Melilla (since 1497, today a Spanish autonomous city), Cazaza (1505-1532), Mazalquivir (1505-1708; 1732-1792), the Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1508-1522; since 1564, today a Spanish plaza de soberanía), Oran (1509-1708; 1732-1792), Bugía (1510-1555), the Peñón of Algiers (1510-1529), Tripoli (1510-1523), Yerba (1521-1524; 1551-1560), Honaine (1531-1535), Bizerte (1535-1573), La Goleta (1535-1574), Tunis (1535-1574), Bona (1535-1540), Monastir (1541-1550), Susa (1541-1550), Mahdia (1550-1553), the Alhucemas Islands (since 1559, today a Spanish plaza de soberanía), La Mamora (1614-1681)[39], Larache (1610-1689)[n. 10], Ceuta (since 1640, previously Portuguese, today a Spanish autonomous city) and the Chafarinas Islands (since 1848, today a Spanish plaza de soberanía).
- Spanish Guinea (1777 de jure/1843 de facto-1968): officially ceded by Portugal by the treaties of San Ildefonso and El Pardo, it initially consisted of the islands of Fernando Poo (present-day Bioko) and Annobón and formed part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, but it would not be effectively occupied until the mid-19th century, with the mainland area of Río Muni being added in 1885.
- Spanish Sahara (1884-1975 de facto/currently de jure): Spanish presence in several coastal trading posts from 1885. The Polisario Front proclaimed independence in 1975, and the territory was invaded by Morocco. The UN considers that Spain continues to administer the territory de jure. It was made up of the provinces of Río de Oro and Saguia el-Hamra, in present-day Western Sahara.
- Spanish protectorate in Morocco (1912-1956/1958): established in the Mediterranean coastal zone of northern Morocco, mainly in the Rif region, but also the desert zone of Cape Juby in the south of the country after negotiations with France. The northern zone would not be effectively occupied until 1927 owing to native resistance and would achieve independence in 1956, three months after French Morocco, while Cape Juby was occupied in 1916 and returned to Morocco in 1958.
- Ifni (1860 de jure/1934 de facto-1969): territory formed by the city of Sidi Ifni and its hinterland. Ceded by Morocco in 1860 by the Treaty of Wad-Ras, effectively occupied in 1934 and returned to Morocco in 1969.
- Tangier International Zone (1923-1940; 1945-1956): condominium of the city of Tangier; (1940-1945): annexed to Spanish Morocco during the Second World War.
Portuguese territories
Portugal controlled multiple colonies on the African coasts, generally little more than fortified trading posts or feitorias devoted to the trade in slaves or other luxury goods, which came under the control of the House of Habsburg:
- Madeira (1580-1640): archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean settled by Portuguese colonists in the same way as the Azores. It was Portugal's first colony.
- Algarve do Além (1580-1640): after the end of its reconquest, Portugal began to expand along the Atlantic coast of Africa, taking multiple cities in present-day Morocco. After the Capitulation of Sintra in 1509 it was established that the Spanish area of influence covered present-day Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, while Portugal's dominion over the Atlantic coast of Africa was confirmed.
- Ceuta (1580-1640; it would remain loyal to Philip IV during the Portuguese Restoration War, today a Spanish autonomous city), Casablanca (1580-1640), Mazagão (1580-1640), Tangier (1580-1640), Anguim (1580-1633) and Arcila (1580-1589).
- Cacheu (1588-1640): Portuguese trading post for the slave trade on the banks of the river of the same name, in Guinea-Bissau.
- Cape Verde (1580-1640): Atlantic archipelago off the coast of modern Senegal, colonized by Portugal, which served as one of the main bases of the African slave trade.
- Costa do Ouro (1580-1640): several forts on the Gold Coast, in the modern country of Ghana, from which ivory, gold and slaves were traded.
- Saõ Tomé, Príncipe, Ano Bón and Fernando Poo (1580-1640): islands in the Gulf of Guinea that constituted several of the main bases of the Portuguese African slave trade.
- Capitania da Angola (1580-1640): made up of small settlements and territories under Portuguese control on the coast and along the Cuanza River (mainly Luanda and later also Benguela) in modern Angola.
- Mozambique (1580-1640): it was part of the State of India and was made up of Portuguese posts on the coast of modern Mozambique, as well as territories in the interior of the country, in the region of Zambezia, and several forts in eastern Zimbabwe. In 1609 it became a Captaincy independent of the Viceroy of Goa.
- Somalia (1580-1640).
Administration of the Empire
The marriage of the Catholic Monarchs (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) brought a single direction of both kingdoms under a single higher administration, the Royal Council. Public finance (but not taxes), domestic and foreign policy, the army, the military orders and the Inquisition were unified, and in matters not affecting these, each kingdom kept its own administration, currency, legal norms, etc.
In this way, the formation of a unified state in the style of the Nation-States never became a reality in Spain. The Catholic Monarchs introduced a modern absolutist state in their dominions, restricting the power of the nobility, organizing their government around the Councils and dividing the country into Reales Audiencias as the highest judicial bodies, while maintaining the fueros and traditions of their peoples.
The administrative organization of the new conquests in America began with the incorporation of the Indies into the Castilian crown by title of "discovery" (res nullius), supported by the papal donation. Isabella the Catholic, in her will, reinforced their belonging to this crown. However, it would be the Council of the Indies and not the Council of Castile that would advise the King on the new lands. This Council became the highest administrative body over the American possessions. Trade with America was centralized through the Casa de Contratación, based in Seville, to which commercial rights over the New World were restricted, which gave a demographic boost to Seville by obliging Spanish and foreign merchants to settle in that city. On the death of the Catholic Monarchs, Charles I of Spain, while formally keeping his mother as queen, came to govern the new lands. The Indies were definitively incorporated into the Crown of Castile in 1519.
The situation remained similar during the reign of Philip II, who inherited from his father the Crown of Spain, but not that of the Holy Roman Empire and the possessions of the Habsburgs. Under his reign, Portugal and its empire were annexed to the Hispanic Monarchy, though not to the Crown of Castile, with Portugal maintaining a position similar to that of the Crown of Aragon. Under the so-called Minor Habsburgs (Philip III, Philip IV and Charles II), the United Provinces achieved de facto independence, which would be recognized in 1648.
On the death of Charles II, Philip V succeeded him. Two years after he took possession, a new claimant appeared, Charles of Austria, supported by England and Austria, and this provoked the War of the Spanish Succession, which brought the loss of the Italian kingdoms and of what remained of the Spanish Netherlands.
After the defeat of the Austrian claimant to the succession to the throne, the new King, Philip V of Spain, issued the Nueva Planta decrees, different for Aragon and Valencia (1707), Aragon (1711), the Balearics (1715) and Catalonia (1716). In them, as punishment for their rebellion, he repealed part of the fueros and rights of the territories of the Crown of Aragon, over which he considered he had the right of conquest. The decrees had different nuances and effects depending on the historical territory and did not affect the Val d'Aran, Navarre or the Basque Provinces, which kept all their fueros for having been loyal to Philip of Anjou. For example, Catalonia kept its civil law and part of its fueros and institutions, while Valencia did not.
America and the Philippines
In the Indies, given their distance from the metropolis, an administrative organization gradually developed, which rested on a series of territorial bodies or authorities (viceroys, governors, royal audiencias, corregidors, etc.), subject to the central bodies (the King and the Council of the Indies).
Council of the Indies
The Council of the Indies, from its founding in 1524, was the highest administrative body with regard to the Indies. Among its functions were:
- In Temporal Government: all governmental administration fell to the Council of the Indies:
- Planning and proposing to the King the policies relating to the New World (settlement, relations with the natives, trade, etc.).
- Administrative organization of the Indies, whether through the creation of new Viceroyalties, new Governorates, etc., and their autonomy with respect to the metropolis.
- Proposing to the King the appointments of major American authorities (Viceroys, Governors, Oidores, etc.).
- Overseeing the proper functioning of the authorities, issuing measures of administrative probity and appointing a Judge of Residence to carry out the respective juicio de residencia.
- Daily review of the correspondence coming from America and other possessions. Likewise, authorization of the export or import of books to America.
- From 1614, authorization of the application of Castilian legislation in the Indies.
- Approval or rejection of legislation originating in America.
- Drafting of the norms that would govern the Indies and that were issued by the King as Reales Cédulas or Reales Provisiones (similar to the Reales Cédulas but more solemn).
- In Spiritual Government: attention to matters of a spiritual order, examining the rights granted by the Holy See, for example:
- Exercise of the right of presentation.
- Division of the Bishoprics.
- Review of papal bulls; if in conformity, they were given the Exequatur or Pase Regio; without it the bulls were not enforced.
- Examination of the provisions of the Church in America and of the Synods; these were not enforced without the approval of the Council of the Indies.
- In military matters:
- In 1600 the War Board of the Indies was created within the Council, a committee of "ministers of cape and sword" (military men) charged with coordinating military strategies with the Supreme Council of War.
- In Finance:
- Examination of the accounts of the royal officials.
- In Justice:
- It was the highest court for America and, for the purposes of administering justice, the council met in a chamber of justice made up of lettered ministers. In this matter, the Council was completely independent, even of the King.
- Hearing of certain criminal matters (crimes committed on the "carrera de Indias", tax evasion, crimes of forfeiture for smuggling).
- Hearing of civil appeals from cases heard by the Casa de Contratación when the sum in dispute exceeded 40,000 maravedís.
- Hearing of appeals from the juicios de residencia.
- Hearing of the appeal of second supplication.
- Exceptionally, in the chamber of government: hearing of the appeal of notorious injustice.
Casa de Contratación de Indias
It became responsible for the economic exploitation of the American colonies. Among its responsibilities was the collection of taxes on trade with America (among them the famous Quinto Real), and it had powers in matters of population policy.
Established first in Seville and then in Cádiz, these were the mandatory ports of departure and entry for the Indies trade. The prohibition on trading with America imposed on the other Spanish ports was the basis of the growth and prosperity first of Seville and then of Cádiz, since it obliged Spanish and foreign merchants to settle in the home port of the Casa de Contratación if they wished to trade with America. This made the outside communities (Castilians, Basques, Catalans, Galicians, Valencians, etc.) and foreign ones (Genoese, French, etc.) important in Seville and Cádiz.[40]
Crown of Aragon
The integration of the territories of the Crown into the new monarchy was marked by the hegemonic power of Castile. As in all the territories not incorporated into the Castilian structure (Flanders, the Indies, Naples, Sicily, Navarre, Biscay, etc.), the Council of Aragon and the viceroy became the center of administration. The Supreme Council of Aragon was a consultative body of the crown created in 1494, as a result of a reform of the royal chancery carried out by Ferdinand the Catholic, which from 1522 would be composed of a vice-chancellor and six regents, two for the Kingdom of Aragon, two for the Kingdom of Valencia and two for Catalonia, Majorca and Sardinia. For their part, the viceroys assumed military, administrative, judicial and financial functions.
Conflicts between local institutions and the absolutist kings followed one another throughout the early modern centuries, up to the War of Succession. In 1521 the Germanías took place, a movement that arose in Valencia among the incipient bourgeoisie against its aristocracy, which lasted until 1523. In Majorca another similar movement took place in the same years, led by Joanot Colom. The final defeat of the agermanados brought harsh repression and the reaffirmation of seigneurial dominion. Likewise, in 1569, all the deputies of the Generalitat of Catalonia were imprisoned on charges of heresy, in the context of the dispute over the payment of the excusado tax.
In 1591 the "Alterations of Aragon" took place, provoked when the Justicia of Aragon refused to hand over to Philip II the King's former secretary, Antonio Pérez, condemned for the death of the secretary of Don John of Austria, who had taken refuge in Aragon. The monarch violated all the Aragonese privileges to capture him and even had the Justicia Mayor of Aragon, Juan de Lanuza, executed.
During the 17th century, tensions were considerably greater. The financial needs of the monarchs led them to try by every means to increase the tax burden on the territories of the Crown of Aragon, seeking to equalize taxes throughout Spain. But the fueros guaranteed important protections against royal pretensions. Olivares's projects for the Union of Arms, which sought to have the other kingdoms share Castile's war burdens, are an example of this.
After the crown went to war with France in 1635, the deployment of the tercios and the murder of the Viceroy of Catalonia, Dalmau de Queralt, generated serious conflicts, which triggered the Reapers' War in 1640. The Generalitat of Catalonia, in an attempt to counter the military offensive, named Louis XIII of France Count of Barcelona, thereby becoming subjects of the King of France. The conflict ended with the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), by which the County of Roussillon and the northern half of the County of Cerdanya passed forever to French rule, and France returned to Spain the territories south of the Pyrenees. At the end of the century, in 1693, the Second Germania also broke out in Valencia, a peasant and anti-seigneurial uprising over the division of harvests.
After the reign of Charles II, the War of the Spanish Succession divided the country. The former Crown of Aragon supported Archduke Charles of Austria, whose defeat would bring about the suppression of a large part of its institutions and fueros and the unification of the administrative organization under the model of the Kingdom of Castile through the Nueva Planta decrees.
Population and legal system in America and the Philippines
The society of the Spanish Empire in America was governed by entirely new statutes, though inspired by the Castilian legal codes, which distinguished various types of subjects and assigned them to different legal systems: the Republics of Spaniards and the Republics of Indians. The population of the new territories belonged to several legal categories:
Spaniards
Those subjects of European origin, born in America (criollos) or in the metropolis (peninsulares). Spaniards were never the majority in any of the territories of the empire, except in the metropolis and some others such as Cuba, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rico and the New Kingdom of León (Northeast Mexico).[41][42][43] The demographic cost for Spain, especially for the Crown of Castile, was negligible, so that population growth was barely affected by emigration to America.[n. 11][44][45][46][47]
Indigenous peoples
The indigenous population declined dramatically after the arrival of the European colonizers, with no consensus on the initial figures or on the extent of its decline. The causes are also debated, although the evidence indicates that it was mainly due to the numerous epidemics that occurred after the arrival of the Europeans, against which the indigenous Americans lacked natural defenses.
Although at first some Indians were taken as slaves and sent to the Peninsula by Christopher Columbus[48], through the Royal Decree of June 20, 1500, Queen Isabella the Catholic ordered the release of all the indigenous Americans who had been sold in Spain up to that time and decreed their return to America in the fleet of Francisco de Bobadilla. Bobadilla himself was the one who, on behalf of the monarchs, arrested and tried Christopher Columbus, and then sent him in shackles to Spain.
The defense of the rights of the indigenous peoples had its foremost exponents in the School of Salamanca and in Bartolomé de las Casas. At the Junta de Valladolid of 1550, and despite the opposition of Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, it was ruled that the indigenous peoples had souls. Previously, the will of Queen Isabella the Catholic had declared the Amerindians subjects of the Crown of Castile, and therefore not liable to slavery. "Let Spanish men marry Indian women and Indian men marry Spanish women," the Queen thus declared.
From the 17th century onward, Spanish Florida came to be the promise of freedom for the slaves subjected to the cruel exploitation of the British plantations.[49]
It was in the oldest city of the United States, St. Augustine (Florida), that the first settlement of free blacks was established; the emancipation proclamation was read, and civil rights activists demonstrated. Spanish law and custom guaranteed slaves a moral and legal personality, as well as certain rights and protections not found in other systems of slavery. Thus, they had the right to personal security and legal mechanisms by which to "escape a cruel master," and they were even allowed to own and transfer property and to bring legal proceedings, which would lead to the "right of self-purchase, which made possible the existence of a significant free black class.
Both free and enslaved Africans also took part from the first decades in the conquest and in the subsequent military defense of the colony, forming units normally made up of free blacks who worked as artisans and in other skilled trades. Famous black Spanish conquistadors were, for example, Juan Garrido and Sebastián Toral in Mexico, Juan Bardales in Honduras and Panama, Juan García in Peru, or Juan Valiente and Juan Beltrán in Chile.
Over time, Spanish Florida came to be the hope of freedom for the slaves of the southern British colonies. In 1693, Charles II guaranteed all slaves that they would be free men if they converted to Catholicism. In return, the freedmen promised to shed their last drop of blood in defense of the Crown and the Faith.[50]
From then on, the number of blacks escaping from slavery on the British plantations to Florida began to increase. In 1738 the growing flow of fugitives led the governor, Manuel de Montiano, to create the settlement of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first self-governing community of free blacks and Native Americans with the backing of the Spanish authorities in the territory of what is now the United States. In this community, located three kilometers from St. Augustine and better known as Fort Mose, lived men, women and children of various ethnic groups, and all the males took part in the militia, which was captained by a Mandinka African named Francisco Menéndez.[51]
The socio-economic institution of the encomienda, which imposed on the encomendero the duty to protect and evangelize the indigenous peoples in exchange for receiving the tributes required of them, led in some cases to exploitation by taking advantage of the legal loopholes of the mita system)[52], although because of the denunciations by missionaries and indigenous people, and the feared residency trials, both encomenderos and authorities took care not to commit acts that could be perceived as abuses against the indigenous population and that would bring them heavy fines and even prison sentences, as was the case of Cristóbal Vaca de Castro, Francisco de Garay, Nuño de Guzmán, Diego de los Cobos y Luna, Fernando de Valenzuela, José de Gálvez y Gallardo, or Antonio de Arriaga, among others.
In the 17th century, the Jesuits established missions or "reductions" in the border area between Portuguese Brazil and Spanish America for the purpose of evangelizing the region. These reductions enjoyed great autonomy, inspired by the liberties and fueros of the cities, though adapted to the indigenous way of life. Their existence was not well regarded by the colonists, especially the Portuguese of Brazil, and was a source of tension in the region. After the expulsion of the Jesuits under Charles III, they were dismantled.
Mestizos
Hispanic American society had a strong mestizo component that was not found in the French, British or Dutch colonies. Mestizaje was carried out almost entirely by Spanish men. From the first years of the conquest, marriage with baptized indigenous women was authorized by Spanish law. Thus, by the Royal Decree of Ferdinand the Catholic of January 14, 1514, marriages between Spaniards and indigenous Americans were authorized. One of those marriages became emblematic: that of Isabel Moctezuma (Tecuichpo Ixcazochtzin before her baptism, daughter of Moctezuma II and last Empress of the Aztecs) with Juan Cano from Extremadura, from which 5 children would be born who would begin the lineage of the Dukes of Miravalle, a title that still exists today.
The German historian Enrique Otte includes on page 61 of his book Cartas Privadas de emigrantes a Indias: 1540-1616 (FCE 1993) a letter from a colonist named Andrés García, dated February 10, 1571, addressed to his nephew Pedro Guiñón in Colmenar Viejo, in which he informs him of his marriage to an indigenous American woman:
I married in this land a woman very much to my liking. And although over there it will seem to you a hard thing that I have married an Indian woman, here no honor whatsoever is lost, because the nation of the Indians is held in high esteem.
From the beginning of the conquest, the Crown encouraged marriages between its subjects and the indigenous peoples. In 1503, Queen Isabella called on Governor Nicolás Ovando, a key figure in the first years of the European presence in America, to promote mixed marriages, 'which are legitimate and advisable because the Indians are free vassals of the Spanish Crown'".
It is interesting to note how this process of mestizaje was not limited to marriages between Spanish men and indigenous women, but was extended and approved so that Spanish women could also marry Indian men. Although there are not many documented cases of Christian women married to Indians, these unions did exist, even among women of "well-known" families, as is the case of María Amarilla de Esquivel, of a distinguished family from Extremadura, who married Carlos Inca Yupanqui, grandson of Huayna Cápac.
The scarcity of European women during the first years of the conquest led many of the Spanish conquistadors to marry the native Indian women of each area, where they produced a new mestizo population.[53] At times a custom present in Spain since the Middle Ages was put into practice, barraganía, by which the man made himself responsible for the barragana and for the children he had with her, but the woman could not enjoy the rights proper to a wife (such as that of inheritance).[54][55]
Customs were more relaxed than in Europe, polygamy was tolerated, and each Spaniard could have several concubines (barraganas). The writer and chronicler of the Indies Bernal Díaz del Castillo tells of a certain Álvarez who had fathered thirty children in only three years.[56]
The mestizos, although a minority in the first period of the empire, were destined to form the majority of the population in almost all of its territories.
Cultural legacy of the Empire
Owing to the great extent of the Spanish Empire throughout the world, its cultural legacy is great and strong (and this without counting current migratory flows). From the present-day West and South of the United States down to and including Argentina and Chile in America, the Philippines in Asia or Equatorial Guinea in Africa, the legacy of that viceregal and later colonial Empire can be found.
The Spanish language is, after Mandarin Chinese, the second most spoken language in the world by number of speakers who have it as their mother tongue. According to 2024 data, around 600 million people speak it as a first and second language, and it may be the third most spoken language when counting those who speak it as a first and second language. Moreover, Spanish is the second most studied language in the world after English, with at least 17.8 million students, although other sources indicate that there are more than 46 million students spread across 90 countries. The use of Spanish on the Internet is 8%, which makes it the third most used language after English and Chinese. It is also an official language in several of the main international political and economic organizations (the UN, the EU, the African Union, the OAS, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, the FTAA, UNASUR, the CAN and the Ibero-American General Secretariat, among others). The Association of Academies of the Spanish Language contributes to the regulation of the Spanish language as a supranational entity.
See also
- History of Spain
- History of the Americas
- Spanish colonial city
- Charles I of Spain
- Philip II of Spain
- Viceroyalty of New Spain
- Viceroyalty of Peru
- Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
- Viceroyalty of New Granada
- Imperialism
- Spanish colonization of the Americas
- European colonization of the Americas
- Spanish Empire in Asia and Oceania
- Golden Age
- Portugal under the House of Austria
- Granada War
- Conquest of Navarre
- Pan-Hispanism
- Spanish expeditions
- Spanish Black Legend
- Hispanidad
- Hispanism
Notes
- ↑ In 1402, the conquest of the Canary Islands began, the first Castilian territorial expansion overseas and a forerunner of the Spanish Atlantic explorations. With the discovery of America in 1492, the process of conquest of these new territories would begin.
Because it was the year in which Spain lost its last possessions in America (Cuba and Puerto Rico) and Asia (the Philippines), 1898 is the date traditionally associated with the end of the empire. However, Spain would retain several archipelagos in Oceania (the Mariana, Caroline and Palau Islands) until their sale to Germany in 1899. It also maintained and incorporated several colonial dominions in Africa, which it kept until the second half of the 20th century: the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco (independent in 1956), Spanish Guinea (emancipated in 1968), Ifni (handed over to independent Morocco in 1969) and the Spanish Sahara (annexed by Morocco in 1976). - ↑ Between 1873 and 1874, the political regime in force was a republic, as it was between 1931 and 1936. Between 1939 and 1975, the form of government was a dictatorship.
- ↑ As Henry Kamen would later remark, Spain was created by the Empire, and not the Empire by Spain.
- ↑ Today these figures are equivalent to the industrial extraction of silver over a little more than two years (26 months) and of gold over half a year. And although Hamilton's study does not cover the almost 150 years until 1808, at the same rate, from the Conquest until the year 1808 the equivalent of four years of silver extraction and one year of gold is not exceeded. The contraband estimated by Hamilton may have been closer to 10% than to an impossible 50%. The equivalent calculations are based on current extraction data taken from Gold Fields Mineral Services Ltd (GFMS) and the International Copper Study Group, and reproduced by mining publications, which describe how the Republic of Peru alone, during the year 2007, had an industrial extraction of 170 tons of gold, relative to world gold production (2008) [1]
- ↑ For the American historian Charles Mann (2006, pp. 179–180), Spain "would not have defeated the (Aztec) Empire if, while Cortés was building the boats, Tenochtitlan had not been ravaged by smallpox in the same pandemic that later devastated Tawantinsuyu... The great city lost at least a third of its population as a result of the epidemic, including Caitlahuac".
- ↑ According to Mann (2006, p. 133), the Inca Empire suffered the first epidemic wave in 1529, which killed among others the Emperor Huayna Capac, father of Atahualpa. New epidemics broke out in 1533, 1535, 1558 and 1565, as well as typhus in 1546, influenza in 1558, diphtheria in 1614 and measles in 1618. Dobyns estimated that 90% of the population of the Inca Empire died in those epidemics.
- ↑ According to the research of the economist Earl S. Hamilton (1934, Chapter IV), who studied the records of the Casa de Contratación of Seville, in the period of splendor of metal exports between 1503 and 1660, 185,000 kilos of gold and 16,886,000 kilos of silver arrived in Seville. On the basis of that research, Luis Vitale (1992) has estimated that, to establish the total gold extracted by Spain during the colonial era, 700,000 kg had to be added.
- ↑
However, it was not the failure of the Barradas expedition in 1829 that drew Ferdinand VII back from the reconquest, but once again European events—now the revolution of 1830—that would bring the peninsular situation and the financial collapse to the forefront. Only for that reason, Ballesteros will recall, did the King at last give his ministers freedom to deal, now without any kind of restriction, with the liquidation of the problem of America.
— Guerra 1995, p. 87
- ↑
Nevertheless, projects of reconquest, official or private, were not lacking until 1833, the date of Ferdinand VII's death.
— Delgado 1960, p. 113
- ↑ It was part of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco between 1912 and 1956
- ↑ Vicens Vives puts the population of Castile, at the end of the 16th century, at 6,910,000 people. Cf. Historia de España y América, p. 6.
References
- ↑ "The 10 Biggest Empires in Human History".
- ↑ "The 10 Greatest Empires In The History Of The World".
- ↑ Parker, Geoffrey. Felipe II. La biografía definitiva. Planeta. 2010. ISBN 978-84-08-09484-5: "Nevertheless, the swift and complete conquest of all of mainland Portugal stands as one of the most impressive military feats of the 16th century." p. 728. "Ten days after learning of Henry's death, Philip took off the mask and signed orders for the mobilization of troops throughout Castile for the 'Portugal Campaign'." p. 721. "In May, Philip moved to Mérida (…) to review an impressive army of 20,000 Italian, German and Spanish infantry soldiers, 1,500 cavalry soldiers and 136 pieces of artillery." p. 725. "The duke (of Alba), seventy-three years of age, then waged one of the most successful campaigns of the 16th century." p. 726. "The Viceroy of India proclaimed him (Philip II) King in Goa in September 1581, followed by other outposts of the Portuguese empire, creating the first global empire in History: from Madrid and through Lisbon, Madeira, Mexico, Manila, Macau and Malacca, toward India, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea, Tangier, and back again to Madrid. The fifteen triumphal arches erected for the King's entry into Lisbon in June 1581 reflected this unprecedented concentration of power." p. 730.
- ↑ Thomas, Hugh. El señor del mundo. Felipe II y su imperio, 2013, Planeta, ISBN 978-84-08-11849-7: "On 13 June Philip realized that some military action might be necessary to win the crown of Lisbon and mobilized an army of 20,000 infantry soldiers and 1,500 cavalry under the command of the now aged but ever willing Duke of Alba. Within two weeks he ordered this force to enter Portugal. Despite his defeat in the Azores, Antonio of Crato had proclaimed himself king and, had Philip not intervened, would undoubtedly have ruled. The main cities of Setúbal, Santarém and even Lisbon had taken his side. A military campaign of some importance followed. (…) The fighting was greater than expected, but in any case it ended with the victory of the Duke of Alba. The battle of Alcántara crowned the swift and triumphant military campaign. All of Portugal then passed into the dominion of Philip, who was declared king on 12 September 1580. Don Antonio fled but was defeated again on Terceira, in the Azores." p. 297.
- ↑ Schneider, Reinhold. El rey de Dios, 2002, page 148, Edit. Cifra. ISBN 84-95894-04-1: "There was never a high point of any nation as brilliant as Philip's conquest of Portugal (…) When Philip had realized, both by diplomatic means and by war, his claims, which were at least as well-founded as those of the other claimants and which, moreover, represented the right, independently of documents, of the most capable, the circle of Spanish power around the earth was in fact closed. (…) It was for Philip, and not for his father, that the saying was coined that the sun never set on his dominions: his colonial empire is the most gigantic that any European prince had possessed until then."
- ↑ Manuel Fernández Álvarez, "Felipe II y su tiempo" Edit. Espasa Calpe, 1998, p. 537, ISBN 84-239-9736-7: "Definitively, under the reign of Philip II, Portugal became a province."
- ↑ John Lynch, Los Austrias (1516-1598) (1993), Edit. CRITICA, ISBN 84-7423-565-0, p. 370: "In the first months of 1580, and encouraged by the government, the Castilian nobles began to recruit forces, bearing the expenses themselves, while the cities contributed troops, ships and money in a national effort that made Portuguese inaction stand out even more. (...) Philip II boasted, saying: 'I inherited it, I bought it, I conquered it'."
- ↑ Braudel, Fernand. El Mediterráneo y el mundo mediterráneo en la época de Felipe II, Volume II, Edit. Fondo de Cultura Económica, second Spanish edition, 1976, ISBN 84-375-0097-4, pp. 713–716: "The war of Portugal, which was, moreover, no more than a simple military stroll, unfolded according to the planned schemes. (...) It was the speed with which the Spaniards acted, and not the faintheartedness that some attribute to the prior, that led to the failure of the claimant. For Portugal to be entirely occupied by the Spaniards, then, four months sufficed. On receiving the news, the Portuguese Indies submitted in turn, without combat. The only serious difficulties arose in the Azores. (...) the affair of the Azores in the years 1582 and 1583, where the archipelago was saved and where, at the same time, with Strozzi's disaster, the dream of a French Brazil vanished; (...)". The resistance in the Azores was suppressed by Álvaro de Bazán and his fleet.
- ↑ Martorell 2012, p. 62 ff..
- ↑ Masià i de Ros 1994, p. 34.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Feijoo 2005, p. 80 ff..
- ↑ Claramunt 2012, p. 55 ff..
- ↑ Love 2006, p. 10.
- ↑ Flags of the World (ed.). "Historical Flags 1506-1700 (Spain)". Retrieved 2 August 2012. "The history of Spanish ensigns is difficult to follow, from the formation of Spain as a nation in the 15th century until the establishment of the red-gold-red ensign by Royal Decree of 28 May 1785. As far as I know, from Charles I (1518) to Charles II (1665), the main symbol of Spanish ships, in different designs, was the red cross of Burgundy on a field of different colors, most often white [although also in blue]. Only a few times were royal standards or standards with religious symbols seen, on red and purple fields. The only documented ensign apart from those is one used by Spanish galleons." — José Carlos Alegría
- ↑ Vaquero, Carmen (30 October 2014). "El mundo de Garcilaso" (audio). Ciclo: Garcilaso de la Vega: su vida, su obra, su tiempo (in español). Madrid: Juan March Foundation. 1 hour 1 minute. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
- ↑ Esparza, José Javier (2007). La gesta española: historia de España en 48 estampas, para quienes han olvidado cuál es su nación (in español) (1a. ed ed.). Áltera. ISBN 9788496840140. OCLC 433927896.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help) - ↑ 17.0 17.1 González-Arnao 2003, pp. 90 ff..
- ↑ Quesada Sanz 2006, p. 60 ff..
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Herán Pérez, Jaime (11 January 2015). "La decadencia española del s XVII y la gran recesión de 2007" (in español). Madrid: Instituto Juan de Mariana. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
- ↑ Alonso Mola 2000, p. 49.
- ↑ Martínez Shaw 2000, p. 54.
- ↑ Gómez Urdáñez 2002, pp. 55 ff..
- ↑ Elvira,, Roca Barea, María (2016). Imperiofobia y leyenda negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español (in español). Siruela. ISBN 9788416854233. OCLC 967731332.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Suárez Fernández et al. 1989, p. 167.
- ↑ Cárdenas 1969.
- ↑ "Consulado Honorario de Guinea Ecuatorial en Rumania" (in español). Archived from the original on February 18, 2008.
- ↑ Alcalá-Zamora 2005, p. 137 ff..
- ↑ Elliott 2002, p. 70.
- ↑ Kamen 2005, p. 46.
- ↑ Orosa Díaz 1985.
- ↑ Javier Galván Guijo, Las Islas del Pacífico: el legado español.
- ↑ Luis Pancorbo, Las islas del rey Salomón.
- ↑ Amancio Landín Carrasco, Los hallazgos españoles en el Pacífico.
- ↑ Oskar Hermann Khristian Spate, The Spanish Lake.
- ↑ Islas de Salomón, Instituto de Historia y Cultura Naval
- ↑ Exploraciones y descubrimientos geográficos efectuados por el capitán de fragata D. Domingo de Bonechea en 1772 y 73
- ↑ Saúl Fernández (2013): La orilla española de los mares del Sur, La Nueva España.
- ↑ Francisco Mellén Blanco, Las expediciones maritimas del virrey Amat a la isla de Tahití 1772-1775.
- ↑ Morgado García, Arturo Jesús (1998–1999). "Las relaciones entre Cádiz y el norte de África en el siglo XVII". Trocadero: Revista de historia moderna y contemporánea (in español). 10–11: 75. ISSN 0214-4212.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link) - ↑ Bustos Rodríguez 1990.
- ↑ von Humboldt (1993), p. 28.
- ↑ Peña Guajardo (2006), p. 41.
- ↑ Malvido (2006), p. 128.
- ↑ Lynch, John (1993). "Los Austrias (1516-1598)" (in español). Editorial Crítica: 122 y 124.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ↑ Vicens Vives, Jaime (1971). Historia de España y América (in español). Vol. III. Vicens Vives. p. 7.
Por lo que se refiere al proceso de la población hispánica durante la época de los tres primeros Austrias (1517-1621), parece ser que se verificó un notable incremento, que Hamilton ha evaluado en un 15 por 100
- ↑ Elliot, John (1965). La España Imperial (in español). Vicens Vives.
...hacia 1570, debía haber unos 118 000 colonos en el Nuevo Mundo
- ↑ Elliot, John (2010). España, Europa y el Mundo de Ultramar (1500-1800) (in español). Taurus. p. 181.
probablemente se embarcaron por año hacia las Indias 1500 en el siglo XVI y 4000 en la primera mitad del siglo XVII
- ↑ Reséndez, Andrés (2016). The other slavery : the uncovered story of Indian enslavement in America. Boston; Nueva York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547640983. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
- ↑ R. Colburn, David; Jane., Landers,; Congress), Jay I. Kislak Reference Collection (Library of (1995). The African American heritage of Florida. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0813014123. OCLC 31517969.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Jane, Landers (1999). Black society in Spanish Florida. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252067532. OCLC 39546437.
- ↑ "La desconocida historia de los negros libres en la Norteamérica española". ABC (in español). January 26, 2014. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
- ↑ Salinas, María Laura. "Encomienda, trabajo y servidumbre indígena en Corrientes. Siglos XVII-XVIII" (PDF) (in español). Universidad Internacional de Andalucía: 14, 18–19. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ↑ Pastor (2000), p. 555.
- ↑ Londoño (1997).
- ↑ Esteva Fabregat, Claudio (2013 [1968]). "El mestizaje en América". Tiempo y espacio (in español) (30). Chillán: Universidad del Bio-bío: 204–205. ISSN 0719-0867. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|year=(help)CS1 maint: year (link) - ↑ Salas (2000), p. 563.
Bibliography
Books cited
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- Juderias, Julian (1914). La leyenda negra (in español). Madrid.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Bustos Rodríguez, Manuel (1990). Historia de Cádiz, Vol. II (Los siglos decisivos) (in español). Madrid: Sílex. ISBN 84-7737-031-1.
- Cárdenas, Eduardo (1969). Diccionario Geográfico. Almanaque Mundial (in español). 122 E. 42 Street. Nueva York 10017, Estados Unidos: Editora Moderna, Inc.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - Delgado, Jaime (1960). La independencia hispanoamericana (in español). Nuevo Mundo.
- Elliott, John Huxtable (2002). España en Europa: Estudios de historia comparada (in español). Universidad de València Servicio de Publicaciones. ISBN 84-370-5493-1.
- Gómez-Centurión, Carlos (1987). La Armada Invencible (in español). Madrid: Anaya. ISBN 84-2073-813-1.
- Guerra, François-Xavier (1995). Editorial Complutense (ed.). Las revoluciones hispánicas: independencias americanas y liberalismo español (in español). ISBN 8489365253, 9788489365254.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help) - Hamilton, Earl (1934). American Treassure and the Price Revolution Spain. Harvard Press.
- Hamilton, Earl (1934). El Tesoro Americano y la revolución de los precios en España, 1501-1650 (in español) (1975 ed.). Madrid: Ariel. ISBN 843446506X.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - Hernández, Isabel (2003). Autonomía o ciudadanía incompleta: el pueblo mapuche en Chile y Argentina (in español). Santiago: Pehuén editores. ISSN 1680-8991.
- von Humboldt, Alexander (1993). Tablas geográfico políticas del Reino de Nueva España (in español). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ISBN 9683628753, 9789683628756.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help) - Irarrázaval, José Miguel (1966). La Patagonia: Errores geográficos y diplomáticos (in español). Santiago de Chile: Andrés Bello.
- Londoño, Jenny (1997). Entre la sumisión y la resistencia. Las mujeres en la Audiencia de Quito (in español). Quito: Abya Yala. ISBN 9978-04-336-5.
- Love, Ronald S. (2006). Maritime Exploration in the Age of Discovery: 1415-1800. Westport: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32043-8.
- Malvido, Elsa (2006). La población, siglos XVI al XX (in español). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ISBN 9707772336, 9789707772335.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help) - Mann, Charles (2006). 1491 (in español). Madrid: Taurus.
- Masià i de Ros, Ángeles (1994). Relación castellano-aragonesa desde Jaime II a Pedro el Ceremonioso, Volumen 1 (in español). Barcelona: CSIC. ISBN 84-00-07447-5.
- Orosa Díaz, Jaime (1985). Historia de Yucatán (in español). Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. ISBN 968-6160-00-0.
- Pastor, Reyna (2000). "Mujeres en España y en Hispanoamérica". Historia de las mujeres (in español). Vol. III. Madrid: Santillana. ISBN 84-306-0390-5.
- Ruiz Martín, Felipe (2003). La monarquía de Felipe II (in español). Santiago de Chile: Pehuen editorores. ISBN 978-84-95983-30-5. ISSN 1680-8991.
- Salas, Alberto M. (2000). "El mestizaje en la conquista de América". Historia de las mujeres, tomo III, Del Renacimiento a la Edad Moderna (in español). Santillana. ISBN 84-306-0390-5.
- Suárez Fernández, Luis; Ramos Pérez, Demetrio; Comellas, José Luis; Andrés-Gallego, José (1989). Historia general de España y América (in español). Vol. 15. Madrid. ISBN 84-321-2112-6.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Vitale, Luis (1992). Modos de producción y formaciones sociales en América Latina (in español). Buenos Aires: Planeta.
- Díaz del Castillo, Bernal (1632). Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (in español). Madrid.
Publications cited
- Alonso Mola, María; Martínez Shaw, Carlos (2000). "Dignidad real". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 2 (24). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones]. ISSN 1579-427X.
- Alonso Mola, María (2000). "El rey melancólico". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 2 (25). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones]. ISSN 1579-427X.
- Carnicer, Carlos; Marcos, Javier (2006). "Felipe II instó el asesinato de Guillermo de Orange". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 8 (89). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones. ISSN 1579-427X.
- Feijoo, Ramiro (2005). "España pone pie en Berberia, Mazarquivir". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 7 (83). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones. ISSN 1579-427X.
- Gómez Urdáñez, José Luis (2002). "Ensenada, la meritocracia al poder". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 4 (43). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones. ISSN 1579-427X.
- González-Arnao, Mariano (2003). "A prueba de piratas". La aventura de la Historia (in español) (61). Arlanza Ediciones. ISSN 1579-427X.
- Kamen, Henry (2005). "El Duque de Alba, un gran personaje olvidado". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 6 (76). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones. ISSN 1579-427X.
- Martínez Shaw, Carlos (2000). "El primer monarca ilustrado". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 2 (25). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones. ISSN 1579-427X.
- Martorell, Manuel (2012). "500 años de la anexión de Navarra". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 13 (162). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones. ISSN 1579-427X.
- Peña Guajardo, Antonio (2006). La economía novohispana y la élite local del Nuevo Reyno de León en la primera mitad del siglo XVIII (in español). Fondo estatal para la cultura y las artes de Nuevo León. ISBN 968-5724-42-3.
- Quesada Sanz, Fernando (2006). "Los mitos de Rocroi". La aventura de la Historia (in español). 8 (97). Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones. ISSN 1579-427X.
Further reading
- Balfour, Sebastian (1997). El fin del Imperio español (1898-1923) (in español). Barcelona: Crítica. ISBN 84-7423-815-3.
- Carnicer García, Carlos J.; Marcos Rivas, Javier (2005). Espías de Felipe II: Los servicios secretos del imperio español (in español). Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros. ISBN 84-9734-278-X.
- Kamen, Henry (2003). Imperio (in español). Madrid: Santillana. ISBN 84-03-09316-0.
- Klein, Herbert S. (1994). Las finanzas americanas del imperio español, 1680-1809 (in español) (1999 ed.). Instituto Mora y UAM-Iztapalapa. ISBN 968-6914-23-4.
- Thomas, Hugh (2003). El imperio español: de Colón a Magallanes (in español). Planeta. ISBN 84-08-04951-8.
- de la Fuente Merás, Manuel (2018). La Filosofía Política en la España Imperial. KDP. 386 pages. ISBN: 978-1730871139.
External links
Spanish Fortresses of the Americas- Stanley G. Payne's Online Library of Iberian Resources, A History of Spain and Portugal, Vol. 1 Ch. 13: "The Spanish Empire" (in English).
- El Imperio más grande del mundo. ¿El británico o el español? (in Spanish).
- El Imperio Ibérico, "donde nunca se ponía el sol" (video, in Spanish).
- Mapa ilustrado de los territorios que alguna vez pertenecieron a la Corona Española (in Spanish).
