Spanish conquest

The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predecessor states between 1492 and 1976. One of the largest empires in history, it was, in conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, the first to usher the European Age of Discovery and achieve a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, territories in Western Europe], Africa, and various islands in Spanish East Indies, Asia and Oceania. It was one of the most powerful empires of the early modern period, becoming the first empire known as "the empire on which the sun never sets", and reached its maximum extent in the 18th century.

An important element in the formation of Spain's empire was the dynastic union between Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1469, known as the Catholic Monarchs, which initiated political, religious and social cohesion but not political unification. Castile (formed in 1230 from the Kingdom of Leon and the Kingdom of Asturias) became the dominant kingdom in Iberia because of its jurisdiction over the overseas empire in the Americas. The structure of the empire was further defined under the Spanish Habsburgs (1516–1700), and under the Spanish Bourbon monarchs, the empire was brought under greater crown control and increased its revenues from the Indies. The crown's authority in the Indies was enlarged by the papal grant of powers of patronage, giving it power in the religious sphere.

In the beginning, Portugal was the only serious threat to Spanish hegemony in the New World. To end the threat of Portuguese expansion, Spain invaded its Iberian neighbour in 1580, defeating Portuguese, French, and English forces. After the Spanish victory in the War of the Portuguese Succession, Philip II of Spain obtained the Portuguese crown in 1581, and Portugal and its overseas territories came under his rule with the so-called Iberian Union, considered by many historians as a Spanish conquest.Parker, Geoffrey. Philip II. The definitive biography. Planet. 2010. : "However, the rapid and complete conquest of all of Portugal is listed as one of the most impressive military feats of the 16th century." Page 728. "Ten days after learning of Enrique's death, Felipe took off his mask and signed orders for the mobilization of troops throughout Castile for the" Jornada de Portugal ". Page 721. "In May, Felipe traveled to Mérida (...) to review an impressive army of 20,000 Italian, German and Spanish infantrymen, 1,500 cavalrymen and 136 artillery pieces." Page 725. "The seventy-three-year-old Duke (of Alba) then fought one of the most successful campaigns of the sixteenth century." Page 726. «The viceroy of India proclaimed him king (Philip II) 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, Macao and Malacca, to India, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea, Tangier, and again to Madrid. The fifteen triumphal arches erected for the king's entry into Lisbon in June 1581 reflected this unprecedented concentration of power. ' Page 730.Thomas, Hugh. The lord of the world. Felipe II and his empire, 2013, Planeta, : «On June 13, Felipe realized that some military action might be necessary to win the Lisbon crown and mobilized an army of 20,000 infantrymen and 1,500 cavalry under the command of the now loaded but always ready Duke of Alba. In two weeks he ordered this force to enter Portugal. Despite his defeat in the Azores, Antonio de Crato had proclaimed himself king and, had Philip not intervened, he would certainly have ruled. The main cities of Setúbal, Santarém and even Lisbon had taken sides for him. He followed a military campaign of some importance. (...) The fight was greater than expected, but anyway it ended with the victory of the Duke of Alba. The battle of Alcántara culminated the rapid and triumphant military campaign. Then all Portugal passed to the dominion of Felipe, who was declared king on September 12, 1580. Don Antonio fled but was defeated again in Terceira, in the Azores ». Page 297.Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the time of Felipe II, Volume II, Edit. Fondo de Cultura Económica, second edition in Spanish, 1976, , pp. 713–716: «The war in Portugal, which was no more than a simple military walk, was developed according to plans. (...) It was the speed with which the Spaniards acted, and not the weakness attributed by some to the prior, that led to the failure of the suitor. For Portugal to be entirely occupied by the Spaniards, then, four months were enough. Upon receiving the news, the Portuguese Indies submitted in turn, without combat. The only serious difficulties arose in the Azores. (...) the Azores affair in the years 1582 and 1583, where the archipelago was saved and where, at the same time, with the Strozzi disaster, the dream of a French Brazil was dispelled; (...) ». The resistance in the Azores was put down by Álvaro de Bazán and his fleet. Phillip respected a certain degree of autonomy in its Iberian territories and, together with the other peninsular councils, established the Council of Portugal, which oversaw Portugal and its empire and "preserv dits own laws, institutions, and monetary system, and united only in sharing a common sovereign." In 1640, while Spain was fighting in Catalonia, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, Portugal revolted and re-established its independence under the House of Braganza. Iberian kingdoms retained their political identities, with particular administration and juridical configurations. Although the power of the Spanish sovereign as monarch varied from one territory to another, the monarch acted as such in a unitary manner over all the ruler's territories through a system of councils: the unity did not mean uniformity.

The Spanish empire also included European territories, of which the Spanish Netherlands were the richest. Following the Italian Wars against France, which concluded in 1559, Spain gained control over half of Italy (Kingdom of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Duchy of Milan) with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. These territories remained under Spanish rule until the War of the Spanish Succession.

The Spanish empire in the Americas was formed after conquering indigenous people and claiming large stretches of land, beginning with Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean Islands. In the 16th century, the Spanish empire conquered and incorporated the Aztec and Inca empires, retaining indigenous elites loyal to the Spanish crown and converts to Christianity as intermediaries between their communities and royal government. After a short period of delegation of authority by the crown in the Americas, the crown asserted control over those territories and established the Council of the Indies to oversee rule there. The crown then established viceroyalties in the two main areas of settlement, New Spain and Peru, both regions of dense indigenous populations and mineral wealth. The Mayans were finally conquered in 1697. The Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation—the first circumnavigation of the Earth—laid the foundation for the Pacific Oceanic empire of Spain and for Spanish control over the East Indies.

The structure of governance of its overseas empire was significantly reformed in the late 18th century by the Bourbon monarchs. Although the crown attempted to keep its empire a closed economic system under Habsburg rule, Spain was unable to supply the Indies with sufficient consumer goods to meet demand. This allowed foreign merchants from Genoa, France, England, Germany, and the Netherlands to take advantage of the trade, with silver from the mines of Peru and Mexico flowing to other parts of Europe. The merchant guild of Seville (later Cadiz) served as middlemen in the trade. The crown's trade monopoly was broken early in the 17th century, with the crown colluding with the merchant guild for fiscal reasons in circumventing the supposedly closed system.Lynch, ''Bourbon Spain'', pp. 10–11. Spain was largely able to defend its territories in the Americas, with the Dutch, English, and French taking only small Caribbean islands and outposts, using them to engage in contraband trade with the Spanish populace in the Indies.

Spain experienced its greatest territorial losses during the early 19th century, when its colonies in the Americas began fighting their wars of independence. By 1900, Spain had also lost its colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific, and it was left with only its African possessions. In Spanish America among the legacies of its relationship with Iberia, Spanish is the dominant language, Catholicism the main religion, and political traditions of representative government can be traced to the Spanish Constitution of 1812.

Catholic Monarchs and origins of the empire

With the marriage of the heirs apparent to their respective thrones Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile created a personal union that most scholars view as the foundation of the Spanish monarchy. The union of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon joined the economic and military power of Iberia under one dynasty, the House of Trastamara. Their dynastic alliance was important for a number of reasons, ruling jointly over a number of kingdoms and other territories, mostly in the eastern mediterranean region, under their respective legal and administrative status. They successfully pursued expansion in Iberia in the Christian conquest of the Muslim Emirate of Granada, completed in 1492, for which Valencia-born Pope Alexander VI gave them the title of the Catholic Monarchs. Ferdinand of Aragon was particularly concerned with expansion in France and Italy, as well as conquests in North Africa.

The concept of 'Early Modern Spain' as a subject of study is muddled. The composite monarchy of the Hapsburgs had no official name. In the Early Modern period, as a geographical (non-political) concept and following the medieval tradition, the term 'Spain' could refer to the entire Iberian Peninsula. The term 'Catholic Monarchy' (Spanish: ''Monarquía Católica'', already mentioned in a 1494 papal bull) was common during the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, insofar as the regime strived towards the realization of the idea of universal (that is, ''Catholic'') monarchy. Later in time, other denominations such as 'Spanish Monarchy' (Spanish: ''Monarquía Española'') or 'Monarchy of Spain' (Spanish: ''Monarquía de España'', already mentioned in 1597) would also become common to refer to the composite monarchy. The official intitulation of the monarchs made no mention to monarchies nor crowns, but focused on the inherited kingdoms and other possessions.

With the Ottoman Turks controlling the choke points of the overland trade from Asia and the Middle East, both Spain and Portugal sought alternative routes. The Kingdom of Portugal had an advantage over the Crown of Castile, having earlier retaken territory from the Muslims. Following Portugal's earlier completion of the reconquest and its establishment of settled boundaries, it began to seek overseas expansion, first to the port of Ceuta (1415) and then by colonizing the Atlantic islands of Madeira (1418) and the Azores (1427–1452); it also began voyages down the west coast of Africa in the fifteenth century. Its rival Castile laid claim to the Canary Islands (1402) and retook territory from the Moors in 1462. The Christian rivals Castile and Portugal came to formal agreements over the division of new territories in the Treaty of Alcaçovas (1479), as well as securing the crown of Castile for Isabella whose accession was challenged militarily by Portugal.

Following the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and first major settlement in the New World in 1493, Portugal and Castile divided the world by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), which gave Portugal Africa and Asia and the Western Hemisphere to Spain.Burkholder, Mark A. "Spanish Empire" in The voyage of Columbus, a Genoese mariner, obtained the support of Isabella of Castile, sailing west in 1492, seeking a route to the Indies. Columbus unexpectedly encountered the western hemisphere, populated by peoples he named "Indians". Subsequent voyages and full-scale settlements of Spaniards followed, with gold beginning to flow into Castile's coffers. Managing the expanding empire became an administrative issue. The reign of Ferdinand and Isabella began the professionalization of the apparatus of government in Spain, which led to a demand for men of letters (''letrados'') who were university graduates (''licenciados''), of Salamanca, Valladolid, Complutense and Alcalá. These lawyer-bureaucrats staffed the various councils of state, eventually including the Council of the Indies and Casa de Contratación, the two highest bodies in metropolitan Spain for the government of the empire in the New World, as well as royal government in The Indies.

Early expansion

Fall of Granada

During the last 250 years of the Reconquista era, the Castilian monarchy tolerated the small Moorish ''taifa'' client-kingdom of Granada in the south-east by exacting tributes of gold—the ''parias.'' In so doing, they ensured that gold from the Niger

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases