Wandering Lizard

Spain After the Reconquest

Ferdinand of Aragon - Machiavelli's Prince

The Americas were discovered by Columbus in 1492 during the reign of the "Catholic Sovereigns", Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. At that moment in history, political power in Spain was concentrated in the hands of Ferdinand (Machiavelli's perfect prince), the Spanish military was one of the most capable in existence at the time, and Spain was full of adventurous individuals. Ferdinand's conquest of Granada had completed the Catholic victory over the last of the Moslem kingdoms remaining on the Iberian peninsula and the Spanish people were eager to find new lands to conquer. The king involved his country in a series of European wars and simultaneously authorized a number of expeditions into North and South America.

Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

Ferdinand and Isabella's son and heir, John, died suddenly in 1497. Their daughter, Juana, married an Austrian Hapsburg prince, Philip the Handsome, and had a son, Charles. Following Isabella's death in 1504, Philip (Philip I of Castile) managed briefly to hold the crown of Castile and Ferdinand retired from the political scene. Philip died soon thereafter, however, and Ferdinand returned as Regent of Castile in 1506. Political power in Spain was again firmly in his hands. Ferdinand died in 1516 and Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros served as Regent until Charles came of age. Like his grandfather before him, Charles I ruled his kingdom with an iron hand. At the time, he was sovereign over an enormous kingdom that included territories in Europe, Africa and the Americas. In 1519, with the death of the Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian I, Charles I became Charles V, the ruler of the Hapsburg dominions in Austria and Bohemia and also Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It was one of most extensive empires in history and Spain was at its center.

Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs in Mexico in 1522 and Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas in Peru in 1534. Both events took place during the reign of Charles V. By the end of his reign in 1556, Spain ruled territories in the Americas that were infinitely larger than the mother country and which contributed incalculable wealth to mother Spain. This gold and silver funded the emperor's efforts to keep his empire in Europe together and made many individual Spaniards who went to the Americas wealthy. Religious leaders close to the emperor criticized the harsh exploitation of native inhabitants of the Americas and the Emperor charged Dominican Friar Pedro de Cordoba to do something about it. The communal mission settlement movement in what was then called New Spain was the result of this dialog and it set the stage for centuries of cooperation and disagreement between priest and soldier throughout New Spain. While both worked for the expansion of the empire, the one was primarily interested in religious conversion while the other was primarily interested in making money. The emperor supported both.

During his reign, the Emperor, Charles V, made war on virtually every nation in Europe and even attacked the Pope. Inside of Spain, Catholic religious leaders ensured that the Protestantism that was sweeping the rest of Europe, was kept out and in the process greatly stultified education within the country. All new ideas (religious or not) then circulating outside the country were deemed heretical and progress of all kinds in Spain began to lag behind the rest of the world. In 1556 Charles V abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Philip II. Philip had served as regent during his father's many absences from Spain and was throughly trained for the role of sovereign of the most powerful state in Europe. Immediately following Philip's assumption of the throne, Pope Paul IV, still smarting under Philip's father's attack on the Papacy, excommunicated both father and son, but Philip was able to negotiate an accommodation with Rome and continued to be the de-facto head of the Catholic Church in Spain. In 1561 he moved the capital to Madrid and from there continued to participate in widespread fighting to preserve what he could of a shrinking empire. These wars continued to bleed Spain of manpower and treasure.

Decline and Fall of the Empire and War of the Spanish Succession

In 1570 Don Juan de Austria led the Spanish fleet in its crushing defeat of the Turkish fleet in the Bay of Lepanto, near Corinth, but in 1588 Philip's effort to invade England was thwarted when the Spanish Armada was destroyed by the English. Spain's star was now clearly in decline. The empire in Europe was shrinking, the mother country was bankrupt, and Spanish society was starkly divided between rich and poor. Philip died in 1598 to be followed by Philip III (1598-1621), Philip IV (1621-1665) and Charles II (1665-1700). Philip III, Philip IV and Charles II presided over the decline and fall of the Spanish Empire that had started under Philip II. The strong centralized power of the monarch that had characterized Ferdinand, Charles V, and Philip II, began to slip away and the citizenry lost the vigor and zeal that had characterized it at the end of the Reconquest. Although the arts flourished inside Spain during this "Golden Age", political direction of Spain's far flung empire weakened and the American colonies suffered a lack of cogent direction as a result.

Charles II died in 1700 and left no heir. On his death bed, at the Pope's insistence, he named a French Bourbon, Philip V, to succeed him as King of Spain. Philip V was the grandson of Louis the XIV, and was opposed by many inside and outside of Spain. The result was the War of the Spanish Succession. The peace of Utrecht which ended that war confirmed Philip V as King of Spain and deeded Gibraltar to England. Philip V and his Bourbon successors Philip V, Ferdinand VI, and Charles III, did much to introduce new thinking into Spanish institutions, but were never entirely accepted by the Spanish people as their rightful rulers. In 1727 the Masons entered Spain from Gibraltar and established their presence throughout the country. Their beliefs drew on the French thinking of the Enlightenment and were ardently opposed by the traditionalist thinking of the Spanish Catholic Church. In 1767, angered by their political intrigues and jealous of their economic wealth, Charles III ordered the disbandment of the Society of Jesus. This had a profound impact on the Catholic Church in New Spain where overnight Jesuit priests were replaced by Dominicans and Franciscans.

The French Revolution and the Peninsula War

Charles III died in 1788, one year before the violent outbreak of the French Revolution. He was succeeded by Charles IV. Charles IV was an ineffective leader fearful that revolutionary thought would spread to Spain and he clamped down hard on all liberal thinking. His queen, Maria Luisa, kept a paramour named Manuel Godoy who rose quickly in power and became Prime Minister. The monarch's son and heir, Ferdinand, disliked Godoy and plotted to overthrow his father and assume the throne himself. The parents jailed the son and sparked a popular uprising that forced Charles to abdicate in favor of Ferdinand. Ferdinand VII and his father Charles IV (together with Maria Luisa) then traveled to southern France where they met with Napoleon Bonaparte and requested that he back one of them to be King of Spain. Napoleon decided instead to put his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. Joseph Bonaparte ascended the Spanish throne in 1808. Joseph was never accepted by the Spanish people and a spontaneous uprising took place immediately. French troops put it down ruthlessly and further antagonized the populace.

England, already at war with Napoleon invaded Spain. This "Peninsula War" was long and bloody, but in 1814 ended with Joseph being ejected from the country and Ferdinand VII being restored to the throne. It was during this period of instability within Spain that Spanish colonies in the New World began to declare their independence of Spain. Spain was so weakened internally that it could do nothing to stop the process. (By 1826 all of those colonies would be fully independent.) In 1820 a military revolt led by General Riego deposed Ferdinand VII and established a short lived constitutional government with liberal ideals. In 1823 French troops returned to Spain and returned Ferdinand VII to the throne. He continued as king until his death in 1833. He was succeeded by his daughter Isabel II. Isabel's reign lasted thirty five years until a military coup d'etat led by General Prim deposed her in 1868. Prim placed Amadeo I on the throne and he lasted a couple of years before being replaced by the First Spanish Republic in 1873. The Republic lasted till 1875 when Isabel II's son, the sixteen year old Alphonso XII, was asked to become a constitutional monarch. Spain since Alphonso has endured many changes in government and even civil war to finally emerge as a strong constitutional democracy today.

Conclusion

With Napoleon's entry onto the Spanish political stage, Spanish political influence in the New World, which had been steadily declining for years, was completely extinguished. An abortive Spanish invasion of Mexico in 1829 was to be the last direct involvement of Spain in the political affairs of what had been New Spain. Today Spain retains strong cultural ties with all of its former colonies in the New World and with those areas of the American West that were formally part of New Spain. In addition, citizens identifying themselves as "Hispanic" make up the fastest growing segment of the population of the United States. The largest concentration of Hispanic peoples in the United States is to be found in the western states. An understanding of Spanish history is obviously relevant to an understanding of the American West.