spanish empire essay

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The Spanish Empire The Good and the Bad

Life in the Spanish Colonies

Written by: Mark Christensen, Assumption College

By the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain causes of the Columbian Exchange and its effect on Europe and the Americas during the period after 1492
• Explain how the growth of the Spanish Empire in North America shaped the development of social and economic structures over time
• Explain how and why European and Native American perspectives of others developed and changed in the period

Suggested Sequencing

This Narrative should be assigned to students after the First Contacts Narrative. Connections can be drawn between this Narrative and the Las Casas on the Destruction of the Indies, 1552 Primary Source.

The reliance of Spain on the cooperation, tribute, and labor of Native Americans and Africans drastically shaped life in colonial Spanish America. Daily life was a complex combination of compliance and rebellion, order and disorder, affluence and poverty. On the one hand, Spaniards relied on Native Americans for labor, tribute, and assistance in governing the many Native American towns. On the other hand, many Native Americans realized the benefits of accommodating the Spaniards to maintain traditional ways of life. In short, cooperation served the interests of both parties, although it was negotiated daily.

Upon their arrival in the New World, Spaniards constructed their colonies and cities upon or alongside established Native American communities such as the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, on the site that later became Mexico City. To establish political and economic control over their new colonies, the Spaniards created two “republics”: the República de Españoles and the República de Indios . They and their enslaved Africans (and even free Africans) were in the first, and Native Americans were in the second. Although both republics fell under the purview of Spanish law, they operated semi-autonomously, with each established town having its own town council. For example, Mexico City had both a Spanish and a Native American town council.

At its height, Tenochtitlan was one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of up to 200,000. After the conquest of the Aztec empire, the Spanish appropriated this floating city as their capital. Note the flag of Imperial Spain at the top left of the island city.

The town councils governed the daily affairs of each town and its inhabitants in each respective republic. Councils in Native American towns were run by Native American officers, often those who already held positions of power. For example, the Maya ruler in most preexisting Maya towns became the governor of the colonial town council. The Native American nobility in each town filled other local government positions. In short, the establishment of the republics, their towns, and their respective town councils allowed the Native Americans a great deal of autonomy and gave the original Native American elite a way to maintain their positions of authority in daily life. The Spanish relied heavily on these Native American elites not only to maintain order in the towns but also to redirect their systems of tribute into the hands of the Spaniards and assist in the establishment of Catholicism in their towns.

As subjects of Spain, Native Americans had various daily responsibilities. As Christians, they were to attend services and send their children to daily catechism classes. They also paid various religious fees and taxes designed to support the Church in the Spanish colonies. Local priests and officers of the Inquisition (a Roman Catholic tribunal established to investigate and suppress heresy) maintained spiritual order and orthodoxy among all inhabitants of the colonies. In addition, Native Americans had labor and tribute quotas to fill. Such duties provided many opportunities for confrontation and discontent, and the local Native American elite adjudicated many such situations through the town council. Indeed, the archives are full of petitions by Native American councils against corrupt priests and Spanish officials and complaints against excessive tribute quotas. Yet the council likewise mediated local affairs, including land disputes, bills of sale, and the filling of town positions. It even meted out punishments for wrongdoing. In many ways, the town councils in the República de Indios allowed Native Americans to continue governing Native Americans.

To govern and tax the Native Americans in the early decades of colonization, the Spanish relied on the encomienda , a grant of native labor and tribute given to Spanish conquistadors and settlers. Abuse and distrust of the system led to its gradual and sometimes incomplete phasing out, with control over Native American tribute and labor reverting to the crown, which tried to control corrupt colonial officials.

Tribute varied according to region and era but included mainly goods Spaniards could ship back to Spain for profit or sell on the local or regional market. Products presented as tribute included maize from Culhuacan, silk from the Mixteca Alta region, honey from Yucatan, pearls from the Caribbean, gold from Columbia, and even cattle from Argentina. After the initial years of colonization, Spaniards in central Mexico organized Native American labor around the repartimiento , or “allotment,” system. The repartimiento required those between the ages of eighteen and fifty years to give service in a variety of projects, from laboring in a Spaniard’s field to participating in large construction projects. The Native Americans were to receive payment for their labors, but it was often insufficient or withheld. In South America, labor was organized through the mita, an Incan system in which adult Native Americans were drafted for extended periods. For example, the silver mines of Potosí required the labor of thousands of Andean laborers, who were drafted from towns hundreds of miles away and required to serve one year of every seven. Eventually, the decline in the Native American population and difficulties with the forced-labor system led to the development of wage labor.

The rich silver deposits of the Cerro Rico mountain in Potosi, in present-day Bolivia, supplied Spain with immense wealth in the sixteenth century. The Spanish appropriated the Incan system of labor tribute known as the mita to ensure a constant source of labor in the mines.

Although Native American tribute and labor served as the linchpin of colonial society, Africans also contributed to the daily life of the Spanish colonies. In general, Spaniards employed native labor whenever possible. However, where the supply was insufficient, they purchased African slaves to work in the more profitable industries such as mining and sugar. For example, after the decimation of the native population in the Caribbean, Spaniards brought thousands of enslaved people from West Africa to work the islands’ sugarcane fields. This drastically altered the Caribbean’s population demographics. Not all enslaved Africans worked in the mines or sugar plantations. In the cities and large towns, they were rented out and served in other domestic roles, including as wet nurses and maids. Africans also learned the skilled trades of their owners and became proficient tailors, blacksmiths, and artisans.

Because Spanish law allowed an enslaved person to purchase his or her own freedom, Spain’s colonies boasted a sizeable portion of free blacks who engaged in myriad trades; freed slaves became sailors, merchants, and even slave owners. Many joined militias and defended thousands of miles of coastline along the Spanish colonies against pirates – another common element of life in the colonies. They served in return for a salary, social advancement, and tax exemption. Moreover, free Africans formed their own Catholic brotherhoods – common among Spaniards and Native Americans – that supported an African-Christian worldview while providing monetary support for members by funding funerals and celebrations and even serving as banks.

Spanish cities and the activities within them modeled those found in Europe. Like their counterparts in Spain, the capitals of Mexico City and Lima housed universities, cathedrals, exquisite homes, central courthouses, and exclusive shopping. Cards, music, books, plays, bullfights, and parties occupied the time of the elite. Poorer citizens also partook in such activities but on a smaller scale, enjoying local ballads, cockfights, and town gatherings on feast days. The elite dined on wheat bread, olive oil, cured meats, and wine, while commoners ate maize tortillas, manioc, chilies, turkeys, and small dogs, and drank the local indigenous intoxicant. Cities boasted the most refinement and Spanish influence, whereas the countryside was denigrated for its overwhelming “Indian” feel.

Throughout the colonial period, sexual relations between different people from the Americas, Europe, and Africa created a growing mixed-race population known as the castas . Disregarded as a minor inconvenience at first, the castas eventually threatened the social hierarchy. The Spanish sought to maintain themselves at the top and keep Native Americans and Africans at the bottom, whereas the castas were allowed a place somewhere in the middle. In daily life, however, people were often racially categorized by how well they spoke Spanish, how they dressed, what food they ate, or their social circle of acquaintances. As a result, in practice, the hierarchy allowed for some flexibility.

Castas paintings from the mid-1700s document the cultural blending seen in Spanish colonies. Do these images support the assertion that there was a degree of social mobility in the Spanish colonies? Why or why not?

Perhaps this flexibility best reflects life in the Spanish colonies. It consisted of specific obligations, religious institutions, and social hierarchies, to be sure. Yet Native Americans, Africans, and Spaniards negotiated their own experiences, from conformity to resistance, within these limits. Most lived somewhere between the two extremes, doing their best to adapt their traditional ways of life to a diverse colonial world.

Review Questions

1. Why did the Spanish build their colonies alongside Native American communities such as the Tenochtitlan?

• To capitalize on preexisting cities and power structures
• To show respect for the Native American towns and villages
• As a way to collaborate with the Native Americans and the African slaves
• As a means to extract even more natural resources from the Native Americans

2. Under Spanish law, Native Americans were required to

• attend church services and pay religious fees and taxes to support their conversion
• share their Native American culture with the Spanish to create a coherent community
• move their homes to Spanish-approved communities
• marry Spaniards and support their families by working

3. The Native Americans were required to submit to Spanish law, but

• many were able to preserve their culture while accommodating Spanish norms
• most resorted to outright revolt to resist new impositions
• many abandoned their culture to fully embrace the Spanish way of life
• few were able to understand the new culture and therefore were punished

4. The main purpose of the encomienda system was to

• establish a racial hierarchy for social situations
• alleviate the disputes that occurred between Native Americans and Spaniards
• govern and tax the Native American communities
• create a tolerant community with multiple religions and ways of governing

5. In practice, the encomienda system created a

• forced labor system to support plantation-based agriculture and mining
• labor system whereby Native Americans voluntarily paid tribute to their Spanish conquistadors
• collaborative labor system that encouraged Native Americans and Spaniards to work together
• labor system that paid Native Americans for their labor on large Spanish construction projects

6. A result of the Native Americans’ susceptibility to European disease was

• the importation of African slaves for labor purposes
• the hostile resistance of Native Americans to Spanish conquest
• the harvesting of high-caloric and diverse food stuffs for the European population
• the rapid evolution of a capitalist system in Europe

7. The Spanish law permitting a slave to purchase freedom allowed for

• a strict racial hierarchy in which African slaves were consistently at the bottom
• opportunities for free blacks to become sailors, militiamen, and blacksmiths
• additional conflicts between slaves and Spaniards
• the establishment of a Catholic church that excluded non-Spanish people

8. In practice, the castas system was

• very strict and rigid
• fluid, to a certain degree
• precisely articulated
• based entirely on bloodline

9. The social hierarchy created by Spanish settlers and Native American people resulted in

• the encomienda system
• the repartimiento system
• the castas system
• the cabildo system

Free Response Questions

• Explain how the Spanish relied on existing social structures to maintain order in their colonies.
• Explain why social structure in the Spanish colonies could be considered both rigid and flexible.

AP Practice Questions

An oil painting from 1777 entitled Las castas mexicanas (The Mexican Castes).

1. The image provided most likely represents

• the enslavement of Native Americans by colonizers in the Americas
• the dynamic social hierarchy in Spanish colonies
• the system of forced labor created to efficiently extract precious mineral resources
• Spanish reliance on Native Americans for political and economic advancement

2. The image provided most likely represents

Primary Sources

Bartolomé de Las Casas Describes the Exploitation of Indigenous Peoples: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory1os/chapter/primary-source-bartolome-de-las-casas-describes-the-exploitation-of-indigenous-peoples-1542/

Suggested Resources

Boyer, Richard, and Geoffrey Spurling. Colonial Lives: Documents on Latin American History, 1550-1850 . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Elliott, J.H. Imperial Spain: 1469-1716 . New York: Penguin, 2002.

Kamen, Henry. Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492-1763 . New York: Harper, 2004.

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Schwartz, Stuart B. Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico . Boston: Bedford, 2000.

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A journal of undergraduate writing and research, from wip at uga, spain’s lesson in hubris: tracing spain’s financial collapse to the beginning of its new world empire.

by Ryan Miller

In the span of a few hundred years, Spain transformed from the world’s largest empire, acquiring seemingly endless wealth in the New World, to a modern periphery country, plagued by its economic decline from centuries earlier. This essay traces how this came about by connecting the stream of wealth from the New World and Spain’s ultimate decline. I go beyond the typical scholarship on the topic, beginning at colonization and its immediate effects rather than beginning with the consequences that came from these. These immediate consequences include the price inflation caused by more gold and silver, the significant cost of establishing new administration, and the compounding cost of defending these new territories. I then explain how the Spanish Habsburg monarchs implemented careless policies, such as eager military ventures and reckless government borrowing, that furthered the issues that presented themselves after colonization and spelled doom for the future of the Spanish economy. My work traces the root of these policies to the arguably misplaced confidence of the Spanish Crown in the influx of New World silver and gold and expands upon how exactly these policies were shaped and the ways in which they contributed to the ultimate collapse. I finish the essay by analyzing how the New World expansion affected the common people of Spain and the role that they played in the decline themselves. My ultimate interest is to offer a critical analysis of how colonial Spanish strategy, governance, and reaction kicked off the ultimate decline of the peninsular economy.

KEY WORDS: Spain, empire, decline, Habsburgs, New World

Introduction.

Flipping through the pages of my children’s historical atlas, I—like so many others—stopped at the sight of the Earth being largely presented in a single color. Looking more closely at that map, I saw the legend indicate this color represented the Spanish Empire. Even as a child, I was astounded by how much land it covered, and naturally I thought that it must have been powerful too. Tracing the boundaries of the territory with my hand, I imagined how mighty and prosperous Spain must have been to accumulate such a vast amount of territory. I knew nothing of atrocity, bureaucracy, or colony, but the size of their empire stuck out to me. Rushing to the end of the atlas, the rapid disappearance of that Spanish Empire confused me. What could cause an empire like that simply to disappear?

Numerous historians have offered their own answers to this debacle over the years. Anglo-American historians prior to the late twentieth century nearly universally attributed the decline to the “Black Legend,” a trend detailed in depth by Richard L. Kagan. [1] Along this same trend, Earl Hamilton, in 1938, claimed that “with almost complete unanimity, previous writers since the seventeenth century have regarded the Moorish expulsion of 1609-14 as the overshadowing cause of the Spanish economic decadence.” [2] This vein attributes the Spanish decline to the suppression and absolutism exhibited by the Inquisition and Castilian monarchy, claiming that it stifled progress into the modern era. More recent scholarship points to the Crown’s irresponsible policies and loans for the ultimate decline. While those dug Spain deeper, they are consequences more than causes. The real cause came from the very beginning, when Spain first integrated the American colonies into its economy.

The Spanish management of the Americas and its riches in the century after discovery started them on their journey to financial ruin and relative insignificance. Retrospect makes one wonder, “whether the Discovery of Peru has been more beneficial, or more mischievous to Europe,” just as an anonymous seventeenth-century writer did. [3] Looking back, it seems the Spanish should have followed Daedalus’ advice toward his son, Icarus: ‘do not fly too high.’ [4] Instead, the Spanish imperial desires increased exponentially, believing the American riches would never end, and doomed their failure from the very beginning. Whereas Icarus’ wax wings melted when he rose too high, so too did the Spanish’s wings of gold and silver melt away when the material could not fulfill their ambition—inflation robbing its value and debt stealing it from the peninsula. The Spanish fatally held absolute confidence in the American colonies as a source of endless wealth and power and acted accordingly, causing their economy and prominence to come crashing down because of it.

The style of and motivations for Spanish colonization are essential to understanding how the American colonies began the ultimate decline. Opinions aside, Columbus’s voyage in 1492 did kick off the Spanish presence in the New World. While his initial journey was small, his return inaugurated Spain’s imperial ventures into this New World. His initial letter to the king and queen of Spain also provides a window into what Columbus saw as Spanish motivations. He concluded his letter by giving thanks to “the Redeemer” for the “victory to our most illustrious king and queen… bringing fame… converting so many people to our holy faith, and also for temporal goods.” [5] Within a few decades, Spain went from not knowing that the Americas existed to overtaking native empires and extending their massive bureaucracy across thousands of square miles. While fame and faith were certainly important, the finances played a massive role in motivating that Spanish expansion. While defending colonization in his Indian Policy , Juan de Solórzano y Pereyra could not help but add a caveat: “If we grant that greed for gold and riches, whose power is so ancient… has prevailed in some, this does not negate the merits of so many good people.” [6] The “ancient” power of gold and riches was too strong for the Spanish to resist diving into a full blown empire a world away. The excitement of the early–sixteenth-century “treasure ships” travelling back to the continent full of gold and silver set the table for the disappointment of the later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century economic declines that would symbolize the decline of the Spanish empire.

The Immediate Consequences of Colonization

The immediate price inflation caused by the shipments of gold and silver set in motion the avalanche that would take with it the Spanish economy. The first Spanish conquistadores were thrilled to see all the gold and silver worn by the Aztec and Incan royalty and strove themselves to find the mines that offered such valuable substance. The Spanish found plenty in the early sixteenth century, and the American bullion would come to make up “25 percent of Philip [II]’s total revenue” near the end of the century as the “flood of gold and silver wrung from the mountains of the New World enriched the Spanish treasury.” [7] Yet, more money does not necessarily constitute more wealth as Spain would find out. As Martin Gonzalez de Cellorigo observed, the existence of more gold and silver did not make Spain any richer but instead led to inflation across Spain and Europe in what would be later known as the “price revolution of the sixteenth century.” [8] While Ferdinand and Isabella may have originally imagined the New World would be Spain’s key to endless riches, the “massive importation of gold and silver… reinforced inflationary pressures,” making the prices in Spain double by 1560—only decades after the conquering of Peru and Mexico. [9] Those shiploads of gold and silver just circulated more currency into the market, which lowered the value of the existing forms of currency in Spain. The American bullion put major pressure on the Spanish economy, and this pressure was only increased with the new costs that came with the empire.

The costs of the vast and distant American colonies put significant pressure on the peninsular economy contributing to the ultimate financial struggles underlying the Spanish decline. The new empire’s vastness required from Spain ample resources to govern and its distance confounded this issue immensely: “communications between [the New World] and with the mother country involved arduous, time-consuming journeys by land and sea,” and the “sheer distance increased the problem of governance.” [10] The resulting Spanish bureaucracy was “cumbersome, corrupt, and appallingly slow,” an observation that led to the conclusion that “the government’s greatest failing lay not in its institutions or intentions, but in the fact that it could do nothing quickly.” [11] The stress of extending the bureaucracy massive distances was essentially dragging the entirety of the empire. The Casa de Contratacion, an example of bureaucratic extension, was first established to collect taxes from the New World but ultimately was “transformed into a regulatory agency for private enterprise and state fiscal ends” over time. [12] The expansion’s daunting task was felt at home in Castile. Both money and good people were needed by these budding Spanish societies in America, and the absence of these two things from Spain negatively impacted the peninsula. Maintaining the American bureaucracy funneled some of the would-be financial gain from the Americans back to the Americas in order to run this “intricate economic mechanism which required the most careful regulation.” [13] The empire’s bureaucratic costs were huge to Spain and would combine with the empire’s protection costs to cause some contemporaries to question whether these colonies were necessary.

The vastness and distance of the Americas complicated defending the new borders around and trade between. Trade and communication between Madrid and the New World was difficult in optimal conditions, so the threat of foreign powers intervening made it all the more difficult. Both “European competition open[ing] Spanish shipping to attack at sea” and “increased pirate activity in the Caribbean” forced the Spanish to pour resources and manpower into defending the American borders and the Atlantic Ocean. [14] The resources put into the necessary defense only furthered the cost that the extended bureaucracy created, establishing these New World colonies as a financial sinkhole for the Crown. The Crown experimented with various measures attempting to counterbalance this precarious issue, but the attempts never quite appeased the situation as these defensive costs were coupled with constant ambitious military campaigns. The imperial defense coupled with the foreign policy goals of the Spanish Habsburgs (the ruling dynasty in Spain for this period) wore the monarchy far too thin, and the government’s inability to create an administrative structure to handle it doomed the empire. [15] The momentous efforts to create an extension of Spain an ocean away and the cost of defending those communities and the contact between undermined the Spanish economy and underpinned its ultimate decline.

Monarchical Policies Following the Imperial Expansion

The Spanish Habsburg kings could not help but fall into the trap of using their newly acquired and greatly desired bullion to finance extremely costly military ventures that stretched the Spanish economy even more thinly. The newfound gold and silver funded the aggressive tactics of the monarchs both directly through payments and indirectly through paying back loans taken to pay for the armies. Mauricio Drelichman summed it well:

Several authors have identified the treasure of the Indies as the main enabler of the Crown’s imperial designs in the sixteenth century, while also arguing that excessive expectations over future yields were a principal determinant of the Crown’s financial woes in the second half of the sixteenth century. [16]

One of those ‘authors’ was the economic historian, Earl J. Hamilton, who equated “aggressive foreign policy” to “the illusion of prosperity created by American gold and silver.” [17] The kings relied immensely on Spain’s gold and silver and allowed their debts to rise very high but seemed to think little of what may happen if that gold and silver lost its sturdiness while their debts were still too high. Spanish officials exhibited this short-sighted viewpoint by constantly advertising “Castile’s capacity to handle the growing problem of debt liquidation when silver flows were interrupted or when demand exceeded supply,” despite the possibility that this may not be the case—as multiple bankruptcies showed. [18] Even when times were tough, however, the expectations of the future yields were still high, and so was the confidence in eventually settling debts. This confidence caused the kings—especially Charles V and Philip II—to continue “to command an unprecedented amount of credit and thus fund their imperial adventures” because of the “windfall acquisition of mineral resources from American mines.” [19] The monarchs thought little of the trap in this reliance and instead saw the increased capacity for loans as a unique opportunity to exert themselves militarily. The debt continually grew as conflicts all over Europe were incited and continued by armies paid by the Spanish American silver. The costs of the conflicts coupled with the costs of repaying the debts accumulated for these conflicts neutralized any benefit the gold and silver may have created, and they added to the initial economic woes of price inflation and the American imperial toll.

The constant acquisition of loans by the Habsburg monarchs and the required subsequent repayments further dug the Spanish economy into an inescapable hole that would suffocate the country on the eve of modernity. Most of the New World bullion did not even make it to Spain: it “went directly to pay for the armies and their expenses and to service the crown’s debt,” causing it to “almost immediately flow out.” [20] Even the roughly contemporary and anonymous writer noticed that, in Spain, “the Money itself which is borrowed for the public good, passes through so many channels, that always the least part comes to them to whom it is due.” [21] Essentially, the borrowing of the Crown created a situation where the money from the New World became little more than a timely—if chance allowed—debt repayment, taking advantage of its liquidity. The borrowing itself was not the issue; rather, it was the places where it was funneled. As A. W. Lovett summarized, “Prudently managed, borrowing on such collateral would have brought stability. Recklessly misused, it merely hastened the inevitable crash.” [22] The Spanish mishandled the opportunity the Americas offered to maximize truly the virtually endless loans through investment in worthwhile and productive industry. Martin Gonzalez de Cellorigo, the arbitrista (a contemporary social commentator), explained in 1600 that “the effect of an apparently endless flow of American silver into Seville had been to create a false sense of wealth as consisting of gold and silver, whereas true wealth lay in productive investment,” which Spain was not doing. [23] Instead, the Habsburg kings continued their endless wars in the belief that they had ample amounts of wealth to uphold them. As debts piled up from this borrowing, the Spanish became inventive with loan types that pushed Spain into bankruptcy.

The Spanish concocted new strategies with the inland loaners to continue to borrow as much as anyone was willing to loan and to drive the debt to all new heights. Cellorigo again delivered a scathing review in regard to one of these methods, the censos : “It is very important to the king to see that his subjects not let themselves keep making the error… to live off of censos … because their use has up until now been the plague and ruin of Spain.”These censos were government annuities that Spaniards were using in attempts to ‘get rich fast’ and caused them to take up “idleness.” [24] Cellorigo observed that these pushed Spaniards away from pursuing honorable and necessary trades, and these censos were made available only because of the ceaseless money search by the Crown from any source. An anonymous writer in 1691 claimed that the king actually shared the least in the “while his Subjects tumble in Gold, the Prince alone is forced to borrow, to supply the pressing Necessities of his Kingdom,” a perspective that was likely derived from the constant debt repayment required. [25] The king was ultimately playing an endless game of catch-up to try and finance new ventures while the debts from the former, reckless borrowing constantly loomed. This cycle ultimately doomed Spain’s economy.

Perhaps Spain’s most destructive loans took the form of the asientos and the juros , and they deserve their own attention. Asientos were a direct product from the American silver, a correlation charted by Drelichman; Asientos “were short term bank loans… [that] did not require clearance with the Cortes,” and “the correlation between the two series (asientos and treasure imports) is a staggering 95.1 per cent, lending support to the widespread conjecture that expected silver revenues were the main collateral behind the extension of credit to the Crown.” [26] Asientos were especially problematic because “both interest and principal was to be made at a specified future date”; when unexpected conflicts or lighter shiploads occurred, these payments were delayed for years, giving the banking families leverage to charge even higher interest rates from the beginning. These loans reached such a deficit that Philip II restructured them for juros , a very similar style of loan, in 1557, when bankruptcy was declared that year. [27] Juros moving forward had less of a relation to the New World bullion but still was quite correlated and were given to “disgruntled owners of confiscated treasure” from the Americas. [28] Both strategies came into practice because of the irresponsible borrowing of the Spanish crown, and both would only further increase the deficits that led to peninsular financial ruin.

The Crown tried to offset the drastic deficits through increased and clever taxation schemes, but these schemes ultimately served to hurt the common people in a way that would hold Spain back even further. The debts from borrowing coupled with the total imperial costs caused the Spanish kings to find a way to increase revenue, and taxation was an answer apart from further borrowing; however, “the burden of [these] new forms of taxation fell primarily on Castile and on Spain’s commoners,” further harming the peninsular economy. [29] This taxation took place alongside the borrowing explained earlier but was unable to save Spain from “the Crown’s chronically ill finances,” and because of the burden it caused, Castile remained a relatively poor country through even the best years post-Columbus. [30] The new taxes took many names—the alcabala or the millones , among others—but all of them further increased the poverty of the poor and did little to calm the financial woes. The alcabala (a 10% tax on the amount of all commercial transactions) created a “heavy burden on merchants… probably a contributing cause of the declining vigor of Spanish economic life in the later sixteenth century,” and the “ millones enabled Philip II to reduce his annual deficits during the 1590s, but did not eliminate them. It did, however, increase the suffering of the poor.” [31] The common person in early modern Europe already scraped by, so these measures hit them especially hard in comparison to the affluent. The wealth gap this expanded worked to undermine further profitable capital that may have been generated from this group of people that may have spurred growth that could counteract the inevitable decline. The Spanish taxes perpetuated struggles and stunted growth, and policy changes were unable to slow the current economic decay. The Crown’s overconfidence in American imports caused irresponsible financial policy that doomed Spain’s economy and empire.

The Common People’s Role in the Spanish Economic Decline

In the century following the discovery of America, Spain struggled with a population decline sourced in the American imperialism that was recognized by the contemporaries of the time and contributed to even further economic woes. An exodus of people from Spain followed colonization because the new colonies needed good Spaniards to fill the state and church offices and also “profit possibilities in silver mining stimulated Spaniards emigrating to America.” [32] A resurgence of the plague in the 1590s and lowered birth rates in the period coupled with the emigration to cause serious population shortages in Spain. Contemporary Europeans, outside of Spain, positively viewed American emigration as serving as a drain of sorts that allowed Spain to export “riff-raff and desperadoes” who would cause trouble. [33] Cellorigo had a starkly different take on the emigration, stating that “the most striking reason for the decline of our republic and the deepening of its problems is the shrinking of the population”—a perspective that is confirmed by modern studies. [34] He aptly acknowledges the increased pressures the population deficiency put on the struggling economy that was already bringing Spain to ruin. The population shortages “added to Castile’s woes—and the government’s expenses—by increasing the wages even further and reducing the number of men available for military service.” [35] The value of Spanish goods were already struggling on the international market from the inflation of the currency, so the increased input costs brought by more expensive labor advanced this issue. Fewer men for service also increased the need to hire foreign armies whose payments drove the Crown to undertake reckless borrowing that stymied Spanish economic capabilities. Spain’s overall population issues further compounded the financial woes that contributed to total economic decline.

The Spanish people suffered as Spain did because of the country’s financial woes. The royal taxation disproportionately disadvantaged the public that had little money to spare, and the price inflation that exceeded wage increases exacerbated this effect. These coupled to create the situation “in Holland (a principality of the Spanish Crown for centuries), [where] a Man that is not worth ten thousand livres is poor, and cannot live upon his income… [but] in Sweden, Switzerland, and some parts of France, he that has a thousand livres lives very comfortably.” The people in Spain—and the areas under Spain—lived in poverty despite “all [the] wealth which is brought from Peru.” [36] Cellorigo similarly observed that, although Spain has “a lot of money, silver, and gold… the necessities of life are lacking.” [37] Poverty constricts personal investment that may stimulate the struggling economy, so the Castilians’ suffering did nothing to help and likely hurt the Spanish economy. Despite all the gold and silver that passed through the city of Seville and Spanish hands, it did little to improve the situation on the ground for the people, both representing and increasing financial hardships.

A cause for Spain’s decline frequently cited by contemporaries was American riches’ degrading the population’s morality and undermining the workforce’s competency. Cellorigo declared that “we (the Spanish) have disregarded natural laws, which teach us to work, and because we have put wealth… into gold and silver, and because we have ceased to follow the true and right path,” and Pedro de Ribadeneyra, in the wake of the Armada’s defeat in 1588, echoed this in asking that His Majesty “should consider that the greatest wealth of the kingdom is not… gold and silver… [or] goods… [or] other things concerning the… luxury of human life, but rather the proliferation and abundance of courageous and magnanimous men.” [38] Both of these men reflect the belief that the American riches flowing into Spain ruined the work ethic of the people. These men saw what they believed to be laziness among people in Spain while observing the many who left their posts in pursuit of riches. The Spanish emigrants to the New World held the goal “to find precious metals and to establish landed estates for themselves that would, they hoped, make them equals to lords,” and Catalina de Erauso recollected that “the infantry wouldn’t go along with [growing food to appease shortages], saying we didn’t come out here to be farmers but to conquer and take gold.” [39] Gold dominated the minds of Spaniards who braved the journey to the New World. The prospects for financial gain drove hordes to the New World and, in the eyes of the Spaniards then, ruined the Spanish work ethic Erauso later defended in her memoir.

Can it be determined that the ‘disregard for the natural laws’ of mankind actually did contribute to the Spanish decline? Cellorigo, Ribadeneyra, and Erauso all interacted with the sixteenth-century Spaniard firsthand and bring valuable insight to scholars centuries later; however, theirs are inherently biased perspectives. Cellorigo wrote his piece to the King and avoided placing any blame on the Crown so the people were a natural scapegoat. Ribadeneyra wrote following a historical defeat at sea and was searching for any kind of explanation for such a loss. Erauso simply observed the words of soldiers in South America that may not have reflected peninsular Spaniards. These generalizations appear to be common assumptions shared by those witnessing Spanish degradation, although Drelichman found evidence of the idleness they were explaining. His discovery was as follows:

Calculations based on the census of households of 1542 allow one to infer that by that time at least 12 percent of the Spanish population enjoyed hidalgo status. To this already high number one must add the ‘dead hands’ of the clergy to obtain a rough idea of the enormous proportion of idle population in Spain. [40]

In times of financial need from the imperial ventures, the Crown had liberally given titles, which brought exemption from taxes and a social expectation not to work with one’s hands. Spain was already struggling with the size of its working class, and exempting possible workers only worsened it. Essentially, the creation of hidalgos was another example of the Crown playing directly into future financial decline as they created even more idle hands in a country strapped for workers. There is numerical support for these contemporaries’ observations, demonstrating that idleness trickling from the Americas hindered the possible output of the Spanish population. The peninsular Spaniard, both in absence and in presence, furthered the economic collapse that would suffocate Spain heading into the modern era.

Spain long knew it was sliding into the abyss, but it was already too late to stop it. The decline did not surprise the Spanish leaders or people. By the close of the sixteenth century, the complete despair “seems to have been widely shared by all levels of society,” an “intense awareness of the misery of Castile” was omnipresent, and the collapse of the economy “had been repeatedly diagnosed” and “the grandeur of Spain was in the past tense.” [41] The Spanish people were feeling the intense poverty, and the Crown and officials recognized that the cycles of exorbitant borrowing, intense debt, and ultimate bankruptcy was dooming Spain. The Castilians’ confidence in their ‘divine favor’ had vanished as they realized, as Elliot accurately observed, “the gift of empire had proved a poisoned chalice.” [42] The seventeenth-century Spaniard had quite a unique position of hopelessly knowing that their country was in descent. The Spanish knew that they had gone astray, but history suggests that it was too late for them to correct or that they were not willing to take the necessary steps to do so.

Could the Spanish really have passed on the opportunity for this Empire? The people they found had seemingly endless resources, the areas were primed for commercial agriculture, and the continent had unfathomable stretches of European-free land. America certainly was the jackpot, so one cannot blame the Spanish for feeling a sense of destiny in stumbling upon it. The Spanish “looked upon themselves as the heirs and successors of the Romans” after all, so ambition was potent, and, “consciously following in the steps of the Romans, [they] first had to conquer, then to colonize, and then to organize, govern, and exploit their conquests.” [43] Had the treasures been better managed, these aspirations may have been satiated while maintaining Spanish prominence and prosperity. Instead, the gold and silver were allowed to drive up prices rampantly, constantly coax glory seekers from Spain, and imprudently support endless borrowing schemes, but it was never adequately placed into investments that could have offset or overcome these inevitabilities. The Spanish developed a reliance on the shiploads of bullion and seemingly banked on these always keeping them afloat. Of course it is impossible to know how history may have changed had the Spanish better handled the plethora of America’s untapped potential, but the legacy that they left is that of their incapability of preventing New World colonies from sinking their economy and dragging the home nation and people down with it.

Bibliography

“Advice from Spain.” In The Present State of Europe: Volume 2 , 24-25. 1691.

Cowans, Jon. Early Modern Spain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

Drelichman, Mauricio. “All that glitters: Precious metals, rent seeking and the decline of Spain.” European Review of Economic History 9 (2005): 313-336.

Elliot, J. H. Spain and its World, 1500-1700 . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Hamilton, Earl J. “Revisions in Economic History: VIII.-The Decline of Spain.” Economic History Review 8, no. 2 (1938): 168-79.

Kagan, Richard L. “Prescott’s Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the Decline of Spain.” American Historical Review 101, no. 2 (1996): 423-46.

Lovett, A. W. Early Habsburg Spain 1517-1598 . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Maltby, William. The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire. London: Palgrave, 2009.

“Reflections upon the Advice from Spain.” In The Present State of Europe: Volume 2 , 26-28. 1691.

Rice, Eugene and Anthony Grafton. The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994.

Schevill, Rudolph. “Ovid and the Renascence in Spain.” University of California Publications in Modern Philology 4, no. 1 (1913): 1-268.

Stein, Stanley J. and Barbara H. Stein. Silver, Trade, and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe . Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Stepto, Michele, and Gabriel Stepto, trans. Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World . Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.

[1] Richard L. Kagan’s “Prescott’s Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the Decline of Spain” described the evolution of historical scholarship in its perception of Spanish history: specifically focusing on the early modern period. The beginning of the essay cited numerous early Anglo-American historians that propagated the “Black Legend” ideas. Richard L. Kagan, “Prescott’s Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the Decline of Spain,” American Historical Review 101, no. 2 (1996): 423-46.

[2] Earl J. Hamilton, “Revisions in Economic History: VIII.-The Decline of Spain,” Economic History Review 8, no. 2 (1938): 171.

[3] “Reflections upon the Advice from Spain.” In The Present State of Europe: Volume 2 , 26–28. 1691.

[4] Icarus is one of the most popular Greek stories about the dangers of hubris (excessive pride). It has been referenced numerous times elsewhere and contained in Ovid’s Metamorphoses which was widely read and referenced throughout the Medieval and Early Modern Era, even coupled with Christian lessons, and was even translated into Spanish prose during this time. Rudolph Schevelli outlines all of this in “ Ovid and the Renascence in Spain ” in University of California Publications in Modern Philology 4, no. 1 (1913): 1-268.

[5] Jon Cowans, Early Modern Spain (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 33.

[6] Cowans, Indian Policy , 165.

[7] J. H. Elliot, “Spain and its Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Spain and its World, 1500-1700 , 7–26. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 23.; William Maltby, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (London: Palgrave, 2009), 52.

[8] Cowans, “The Restoration of the Republic,” 137.; Elliot, 22.

[9] Eugene F. Rice and Anthony Grafton, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994): 43.

[10] Maltby, 62, 80.

[11] Elliot, 14.; Maltby, 79.

[12] Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Silver, Trade, and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe , (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2000), 12.

[13] Elliot, 21.

[14] Stein, 13.; Maltby, 83.

[15] Elliot, 25.; Maltby, 85.

[16] Mauricio Drelichman, “All that glitters: Precious metals, rent seeking and the decline of Spain,” European Review of Economic History 9 (2005), 317.

[17] Hamilton, “The Decline of Spain,” 177.

[18] Stein, 41.

[19] Drelichman, 314

[20] Maltby, 128.; Elliot, 21.

[21] “Advice from Spain.” In The Present State of Europe: Volume 2 , 24-25. 1691.

[22] A. W. Lovett, Early Habsburg Spain 1517-1598 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 223.

[23] Elliot, 22.

[24] Cowans, “The Restoration of the Republic,” 137-138.

[25] “Advice from Spain,” 24-25.

[26] Drelichman, 319.

[27] Maltby, 47.

[28] Drelichman, 321.

[29] Cowans, 3.

[30] Cowans, 3.; Maltby, 4.

[31] Rice and Grafton, 119.; Maltby, 127.

[32] Stein, 22.

[33] Elliot, 12.

[34] Cowans, “The Restoration of the Republic,” 135.

[35] Maltby, 129.

[36] “Reflections Upon the Advice from Spain,” 26-28.

[37] Cowans, “The Restoration of the Republic,” 137.

[38] Cowans, “The Restoration of the Republic,” 133.; Cowans, “On the Causes of the Armada’s Defeat,” 132.

[39] Maltby, 62.; Michele and Gabriel Stepto, trans. Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), 33.

[40] Drelichman, 322.

[41] Maltby, 129.; Elliot, 25.; Stein, 4.

[42] Elliot, 26.

[43] Elliot, 9-10.

Acknowledgements : Dr. Benjamin Ehlers, for his continued instruction and support

Citation Style: Chicago

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The spanish empire.

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            The Spanish maintained a powerful and vast empire for a long period of time. The Spanish Empire was interesting and it was fascinating the way that they expanded the empire before its collapse. One of the most interesting things about the empire was how the Spanish interacted with the native people of the land during and after they were conquered. .              This paper will focus mainly on the community and social relationships within the empire. Some other topics of discussion will include issues associated with inter-community interaction, treatment of outsiders and enemies, the nature of war and expansion within the empire. .              The Spanish had a social hierarchy to sort of rank its people. At the top of this hierarchy were the penisulares. The peninsulares were those born in old Spain. People born in New Spain were called Criolles. Criolles were usually not considered as loyal as those born in old Spain and therefore were not trusted as much. Third in this order were the Mestizos. Mestizos had a percentage of Spanish blood. There was a system in place to determine how much a person had. One could purchase what was called "Certificates of Whiteness". Basically, if you had enough money you could make yourself Spanish in the eyes of the government. This goes to show how greedy the Spanish were. Next in the social order were the Indians. Indians were treated as perpetual minors and thus did not have the rights or privileges of the Spanish people. Last in the social order of people were the Castas. These were African slaves. There were very few slaves in Spain and thus most work was done without slave labor. .              Once the Spanish expanded their empire to what they called "New Spain", new problems arose. What did they do with the Indians? It seems as though they never really decided what to do with them. The Spanish finally decided on an approach. In theory they were supposed to do two things for the Indians: 1. They were supposed to introduce Christianity to them.

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The Rise and fall of The Spanish Empire - Essay Example

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The Rise and fall of The Spanish Empire al Affiliation The Rise and fall of The Spanish Empire Spain emerged as the most powerful country in Europe and used its dominancy to expand its territories overseas. The nature in which the Spanish empire expanded was more of their administrative strengths rather than their wealth capacities. Spanish king Ferdinand and wife Isabella where the formidable forces behind the success of Spain. The fall of the Spanish empire was imminent towards the end of the sixteen century.

This was attributed to factors both internal and external. In the mid 1500’s the then king Charles V ordered the expulsion of Moors of the Aragon. The successive regimes ignored the grievances of their subjects. King Philip II failure to listen to the Moriscos of grenade, led to an uprising, which lasted more than two years. The reign of Philip III saw the population being expelled from the kingdom. This had consequences to the economic status of Spain as the region lacked the needed labor to enhance economic activities.

The failures of the successive reign saw the Spain’s relationship with its neighbors and other European states worsen. The Netherlands’ revolt was evident of the decline power of the Spanish empire (Payne, 1973). The final undoing was the decision by the queen of England to denied span the use of her harbors. This was the final blow of the empire, which lead to Spain experiencing their worst economic setback (Payne, 1973). Despite these setbacks, they managed to control their territories including the Catalonia and Portuguese rebellion.

The recapture of the Catalans marked signaled their ability to control their internal territories but the rise of other European powerhouses ended the long dominance of the Spanish empire. Reference Payne, S. (1973). A history of Spain and Portugal. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press

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FALL OF SPANISH EMPIRE: AN ANALYSIS OF UNDERLYING REASONS

• Author: arsalan
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“The Spanish Empire eventually collapsed because of its expensive taste for warfare and conquest.

-Robert Kiyosaki

• Introduction : Ineffective economic and political decisions and strategies are the reasons behind fall of Spanish Empire
• Double decline of the empire : A theoretical perspective of different historians and researchers
• Rise of Empire : Emergence of Spanish Empire as a greatest power on the face of the earth
• Political rise : Wedding of monarchs Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Argo and other accomplishments
• Political fall : Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, separation of Netherlands and other factors
• Disastrous condition : Unstable conditions of states and defeated wars
• Devastating effects : Impact of wars and conflicts on Spanish Empire and its political system
• Economic fall : Silver and gold supply from Americans, inflation, wasted industries, taxes and absence of middle class
• Economic fall : A war’s perspective and dwindling trading opportunities through the port of Seville and America, loss of credibility and confidence of merchants
• Conclusion : A brief reflection of overall posit

Evidently, an empire based on a fundamental state that subject to control vast and numerous territories along with diversity of populace. Empires expand and indulge rise by spreading the span of their influence and power; on the other hand any lurch in controlling approach can cause a substantial fall of empire all in sudden. Historians and chronological annals analyze the processes and underlying reasons of falls of different empires to generate a better comprehension of the subject. An empire practices political control over a huge territory comprised of many diverse groups of people.

Empires are generally addressed as a solo unit and when historians talk about fall of an empire it means the decrepit condition of the central state which can no longer exercised its vast span of authority. Such falls occur because states quit their existence or eradicate the power because of some of its territories and parts claim independency and autonomy. Empires are huge and complicated and therefore historians underline the decline of an empire in the context of an elongated procedural, instead of elaborating a single reason. Some major factors which can bring the fall to the fate of an empire are economic problems, societal and cultural matters, political issues and environmental factors. The following paper analyzes fall of Spanish empire which was apparently caused by implication of ineffective political and economic strategies.

Scott Eastman (2014) affirms that Spanish empire was not established enough long before its actual decline. Eastman quotes Matthew Restall and underlines that “surely the notion of Spain as an empire in perpetual decline long ago became a paper tiger.” (Eastman, 2014) for this reason historians and annals assert that Spain encountered double failure. According to this posit; Spanish Empire never developed synchronization with the alignment of other successful western states. Moreover the empire never heeded to adopt the political and economic models in the region. Regardless of flawless success and triumphs and establishment of a broad realm, Spain never produced advantages from imperial growth and expansion as its competitors did. The similar flaws of Spanish strategies are pointed out by many other contemporary researchers including Nicolas Masson de Marvilliers and Voltaire (Eastman, 2014) both affirm the ignorant conditions of Spain and agree that it was the most unaware and uninformed nation throughout the Europe, and for this purpose several African savaged regions even did not know about the existence of it.

. The ignorant and not-so-popular Spanish Empire continued to remain like this till the dawn of sixteenth century. The lack of natural resources and other flaws suddenly “and even miraculously, to have been overcome,” (Elliot, 1970) Spain according to historical perspective was just a geographical implication which all of nowhere turned into a chronological marvel. The alteration and transformation was significant and precisely observable. The subject change is stated by Machiavelli as he says that “we have in our days, Ferdinand, King of Argon, the present king of Spain, who may not improperly, be called a new prince, since he has been transformed from a small and weak king into the greatest monarch in the Christendom.” (Machiavelli, 1532) Subsequent to those sudden transformation diplomats from the court of Ferdinand indulged great esteem and people fear the armies of king.

The marvels of monarch persisted for a few tremendous decades and throughout this era Spain turned into the greatest and powerful kingdom on the planet. Apparently, Spain was not an only nation of Europe which developed an international realm; “that honor if honor it may be called, belongs to the Portuguese.” (Maltby, 2009) However, Spanish Empire was different and unique from other worldwide empires in many aspects, which include an explicit span of command and sovereignty across and over huge lands as well as diverse civilizations which comprised of millions of non-European population. Along with diversity and hierarchy of commanding, Spanish Empire also paid additional attention to its cultural, lingual, credibility and other similar issues to a great extent. Through this epoch fortune was kind to Spain and was assisting it to inscribe an impressive expression on the face of the earth. Spain experienced both economic and political rise during this period Spain could become the master of European region, it had unshared opportunity to develop vast colonies and conquer great territories overseas. There was an utter need to devise some smart strategies to administer the governmental system to manage the diverse and wide-spread empire. Only through a unique strategy of civilization Spain could have make an unmatched contribution to the cultural and traditional backdrop of Europe. But it never happened and Spanish empire fell down eventually.

The dwindling Empire of Spain got a chance to establish its condition by sustaining its political status through wedlock of monarchs. The subject wedding took place in 1496’s October within the premises of the Valladolid in a private residency. According to this ceremony Sicily’s King Ferdinand II which was also the rightful heir to the throne of Aragon became legally married to Isabella the rightful heiress of Castile. Both Isabella and Ferdinand were second cousins and belonged to House Trastamara. The marriage conducted in a secret manner because of several threats posed by brother of Isabella. The marital relationship of both heirs became the substantial reason of the unexpected rise of Spain. Through this wedding Spain got funds and financing to support the foreign military ventures. Moreover, through this knot, they both became capable to protect the borders of their regions. Evidently, the wedding of monarchs connected the entire Spain and established its reputation as a strong catholic-based Christian country. Throughout the epoch of its political rise, Spain claimed its supremacy all across the Mediterranean region. The funds and adequate financing fueled up the armies in foreign lands and they conquered over the Turk’s Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, Spain subjugated Portugal and this triumph was so influential that it allowed Spain to take control over India and Africa as well.

It was the year 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived back and brought the news about existence of America. According to Columbus, he first considered it as an alternative path to Indies but eventually he realized that it was merely a misjudgment. In short, the existence of a new place evoked desire in monarch couple to conquer that. It was a fashion in that era to keep conquering new lands. However Spanish empire belived in the most brutal ones. It was the beginning of series of Spanish wars which lasted for about thirty years and wrong and ineffective decisions and strategies brought decline to the great empire of Spain. It was the year 1588, when Spanish Armada gathered and embarked to raid England. At that time Philip was the king of Spain and he commanded dispatch of about one hundred and thirty ships for the subject invasion. However, regardless of their magnitude England battleships undermined the Spanish war crafts and utilized their mighty long-ranged cannons to bombarding the Spanish vessels. Consequently, the defeat marked a crippling effect on the Spanish dominance over sea ways. Along with external blow Spain encountered perplexity internally as well. Netherlands claimed independence, left the Spain and started to fend for themselves. After these circumstances Spain had to cope with independency because Spain was entirely reliant on Netherlands to continue Catholicism as underlying religion of the region.

The elongated series of unfortunate events and catastrophes led Spain to the colonial wars of 1898. (Balfour, 2011) It was the period from 1809 to 1810 when Buenos Aires instead of Asuncion is opted as the capital of new viceroyalty of La Plata. The matter in turn evoked the surge of defiance in Sucre, and in the due course Bolivia declared as the first American province which generated insurgency against Spanish authorities. And to support the rebel cause, a young Carcass officer named Simon Bolivar played an imminent role in the coup and to attain a control over Venezuela by snatching it from Spain. (Musicant, 1998) the ineffective battling strategies and impractical decisions of Spanish Empire led it to tackle an uncompetitive war with Americans which consequently ended in the defeat of Spain. The most basic reason for the subject defeat was wrongly implicated war tactics which dispersed the army within battlefield. On the contrary, American High Command very effectively handled all the troops and directed them to particular points according to the strategic planning that formulated through acquired information by local rebels. American troops depended largely on the insurgents’ army particularly in Cuba. These rebel armies had already won the war virtually in the eastern region and engaged Spanish stronghold at this point and provided American forces to move forward in the direction of Santiago. (Belfour, 2011)

The disastrous effects of the wars and defeat burst the bubble of Spanish supremacy, and unfortunately this illusion was the pillar of traditional and national cultural identity of Spain. Consequently the trouncing of last elegance of Spanish Empire evoked an extreme post-imperial disaster among different fragments of Spanish societies. Political system of Spain was taken as the national character which became questionable and uncertain even for the Spanish nation. The side effects of defeat were immense because it was the apex point through the age of empire. It was the era when conquest and ownership of different colonies, territories, and new lands was considered as a bench-mark of stability and success of a nation, which in turn allow their survival. As the time passed, most of the nations of state merged with other European countries, and therefore the nation-state of Spain became more and more weak and vulnerable by the forces of centrifugals. Historians believe that this fadedness was the reason of bumpy ride of modernization. On the other hand the several Spanish parts were encountering swift procedural of societal and economic alteration meanwhile the other broad regions of the realm were totally unmodernized. Consequently the gap between two parts of the empire generated economic gap and augmented the cultural and political discriminations and differences which in turn developed more complexity to resolve the crisis of political system. And in this way ineffective decisions and strategies dragged Spanish empire in the pit of decline.

Similarly, the ineffective and impractical strategies and tactics on the economic grounds play a prominent role in the demise of empire. Spain indulged a Golden Age which came with power and expansion of wealth. Throughout the golden age Spain promoted different artists, playwrights as well as poets. However, Spanish authorities allowed Americans to fuel the economy with their endless supply of silver and gold. This supply of valuable metal from America continued of about a full century and caused terrible and dreadful inflation. The phenomenon destructed the Spanish industry to a great extent because in the presence of foreign gold and silver it was convenient to buy goods from outside of the country instead to produce goods within state. Consequently, with each passing year Spain lost its capacity to meet the production demands even of its colonies, and as a result most of the wealth exchanged to the European marketplace to obtain desired manufactured products.

Similarly, the subject royal strategy to tackle the economic matters ruined the flourishing and profitable silk industry of Spain which was established by Castile and centered in the Granada. Likewise, the imprudent governmental intervention wasted the agricultural fruition through sixteenth century. Moreover, Spain practiced brutal and unfair practices throughout the 1500s and consequently banished thousands of moors, Jews and Muslims and in the due course Spain lost the valuable treasures of artisan and business entities. Furthermore, the unequal implications of taxes freed rich men to pay governmental taxes and phenomenally all burden of state-wide taxes laid heavily on the feeble shoulders of lower class people. And Spanish government never permitted these people to commence their own businesses and for this reason Spain did not have a middle-class. Furthermore, the import of unchecked gold and silver from America created severe inflation. And because of abundance the value of silver decreased in the local markets. On the other hand, Spain confronted an increasing pattern in populace. All these factors smoothed the pavement for ultimate price revolution which in turn strained the governmental budgets to a great extent.

The epoch of Castile was the most flourishing and prosper era in the history of Spain as it established economic stability to cater the requirements of Spain through sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nevertheless, the elongated and tiresome thirty-year war along with Spanish squabbles with France exhausted the financial potential of Castile. (Elliot, 2002) The tax rules and other relevant factor made it tougher to aid material needs of armies on every front. And as it is mentioned in above content, that the economic position of Spanish was not very good because of their dumb policies and the only sustainable trade source which was imperatively connected Seville with America was also facing downfall. Historians assert that it was the major fault of Spain’s then-finance minister named Olivares; his ongoing confiscations of remittance and involvement of silver through American trade led to destructible outcomes of ultimate failure. In the due course the trading faculties shed their trust because with every passing day, shipping of Seville depicted a perishing effect and consequently by the year 1640 Spanish remittance of silver stuck suddenly because there were remained no fleets of silver. As a result, the prolonged established confidence and credibility of Seville trading came to halt and gradually crumbled the Spanish monarch along with it. (Elliott, 2011)

By analyzing above-content it becomes evident that the historical decline of Spanish Empire was the outcome of many amalgamated factors among which ineffective economic and political decisions and strategies were most prominent. Money and economic factor were in a fit through seventeenth century and regardless of tons and tons of imported American gold the situation never got better. The lesson one can learn from the rise and fall of Spanish Empire is that triumphing over an empire is one thing and effectively and efficiently managing and organizing it quite another thing. Conquerors populace sometimes deny to accept the conquest of winners because of unfair, brutal and selfish practices of authorities as it happened with Spain and separated many populaces including Netherlands. And in turn, such situations lead to the wars and conflicts and require a big deal of money to tend the needs of ammunition and fending weapons that in turn causes adverse effect on the economy of a kingdom. Such incidents either minor or major cast worst impact on the overall performance, reputation and continuity of a realm. Take the instance of 1898’s disastrous events which damaged the remnants of Spanish empire and pulled it to the dark pit of darkness.

Even after many decades subsequent to that disaster the impact lingered within the field of armies, military and becomes a reference for reprimand. The ending of Spanish monarchy as a systemized legend can be said to take place only when the despotism ceased its vague and absurd financial and economic policies which was adjacent to the elongated notion of modernization in the augmenting tinge of progress and development through 1960s to 1970s. The unfortunate conclusion of Spanish imperial was substantially interconnected with the universal idea of secular and democratic values that associated with the notion of modernization. It was the point when Golden aged Spanish Empire lost its last colony in the year 1973 which was known as Spanish Sahara which subsequent to its independence pursued the path of democracy.

All the misery and misfortune and disintegration of great Spanish Empire gives a bottom line that not everything is perpetual and everlasting in this world and like an business organization great and mesmerizing empires too have to watch their steps before taking any substantial decision. An empire, country and state consist on several little factors which require a cautious deal of handling smartly, otherwise no one can evade the peril of eternal demise of the entity, because through reckless decisions and strategic implications failure is inevitable one way or other. Spanish Empire was a country which elevated to the apex of success and then abruptly drawn to the hedonic depths, a realm which attained almost everything but also lost every bit of its achievements; it triumph the planet juts to get vanquished in the due course. Elliot says that fruition of Spain was no doubt a wonder of Castile but failure and downfall of the great empire of Spain also certainly caused by Castile. Elliot says that “Castile has made Spain, and Castile has destroyed it.” (Elliot, 2011)

Balfour, S. (2010). The end of the Spanish empire, 1898-1923. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Eastman, S. (2014). The spanish empire and atlantic world history . Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 15(2), 0-0. doi:10.1353/cch.2014.0026

Elliott, J. H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 . Yale University Press, 2006. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1nq747.

Elliott, J. H. (1970). Imperial Spain: 1469-1716 . Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Machiavelli, N., & Marriott, W. K. (2017). The prince. Place of publication not identified : Project Gutenberg.

Maltby, W. S. (2009). The rise and fall of the Spanish Empire . London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Musicant, I. (1998). Empire by default: The Spanish-American war and the dawn of the American century. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

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Colonial Empires Of The Americas: The Spanish Empire Essay Sample

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: World , England , Colony , Spain , Colonization , America , United States , Europe

Words: 1500

Published: 02/20/2020

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The Spanish established colonial empire in the Americas in the 16th Century in parts of South, North and Central America; a region that later became known as the Latin America. Its empire was among the first and largest global empires in the world. Its territories spanned the Americas, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and Africa between the 15th centuries until the late 19th Centuries, with several other colonial empires in Africa in the late 20th century (Mills, Taylor, & Graham). In 1492, Spain began as one united monarch after the Iberian Peninsula was Reconquista. A Spanish voyager, Christopher Columbus, commanded and exploratory voyage from Spain across the Atlantic into today’s America; this is what led to the discovery of America. Apparently, this new discovery by Christopher Columbus, the America, became the focus of most explorations and voyages at the time (Wood). In this new age of discovery so the Spanish begin settling in the conquistadors and the Caribbean islands which they soon controlled, including native empires such as the Incas and the Aztecs on Americas mainland (The Ancient Worlds). These expeditions later established a territory that spanned from North America through present day Canada to South America in a place referred to as Tierra del Fuego. The expeditions by the Spanish were started by Magellan Ferdinand in the 1500s, specifically, around 1519. They were, however, completed in 1522 by Juan Sabastian Elcano. It is argued that what Christopher Columbus had longed for, a westward sea route to Asia, which aroused Spain’s attention to the Far East, was completed by this man, Juan Sabastian Elcano. Spain later established colonies in the Philippines, a region referred to as Guam, and the surrounding islands. The geographic stretch of the Spanish colonial empire began with the expeditions and the explorations carried out by Christopher Columbus in the late 15th century; Spain took advantage of these new discoveries and developed an empire in the new world. Its empire extended through the Americas, and later into Asia by the 16th Century. The Spanish empire was divided into three major viceroyalties, which included New Castile, New Spain and New Granada. Having acquired and conquered large territories, the Spanish monarch became the first monarch to be faced with the problem and challenge of administering a large territory on the West side of the Atlantic Ocean. However, careful and appropriate measures had already been taken from the beginning to help with this difficult situation that was emerging. As early as 1493, Christopher Columbus second expedition, Isabella and Ferdinand began building an administration through, Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, their personal chaplain (Sweet & Nash). The enormous empire that the Spanish had built lasted for more than 300 years and encountered a myriad of changes. Communications were very slow, rules were rigid and were more often than not always ignored, and numerous layers of bureaucracy existed. The mainstay of the Spanish empire’s economy was silver, which was more that the gold that the empire produced in Mexico and in Peru. The Spanish empire society was divided into three states or social classes, with the lowest being the commoners, followed by the clergy, then the nobility. Corporate bodies also existed such as the military orders, universities, and towns with their own legal entitlements. The nobles or nobilities were excused from direct taxation. In fact, those people who were aspiring top noble men subverted to the status and privileges that were conferred on them. The crown began selling patents for nobility in the 1520s.

The Portuguese Empire

Among the global empires in history, the Portuguese Empire was the strongest. In the 16th Century, Portuguese conquered and dominated Brazil with territories in various parts of South America, South Asia, India, South East Asia, and India. Apparently, the Portuguese empire was also one of the longest lived amongst all other European colonial empires such as the French, British and the Spanish empires. The Portuguese had global ambitions, which began when they began exploring the coast of Africa around1419 when they successfully conquered Ceuta, the North African City in 1415 (Mills). The Portuguese used the latest developments in cartography, maritime, and navigation technology to find a sea route that would lead them to the source of the spice trade, which was at the time very lucrative. The Portuguese occupied the Iberian Peninsula on the western part, which was slightly smaller than Indiana. Its continent was crossed by three major rivers that flowed from Spain into the Atlantic. The country was divided by this river into three major geographical regions. Part of the northern boundary, the Minho River cut through the mountains and extended into the area around the Douro River. In 1889, King Carlos, who was very corrupt, rose into power and made a close friend and confidant of his, João Franco, the Prime Minster in 1906. He gave him dictatorial powers. However, the Premier, João Franco and his sons were in 1908, shot dead in Lisbon. Portugal’s new King, Manoel II, was later dethroned in the 1910 revolution, which made Portugal a French like republic. The Portuguese were traditionally allied to the British, and as such fought with the Allied in Africa during the World War I and on the Western Front, as well. On January 1986, Portugal was admitted to the EEC, the European Economic Community

The French Empire

These were the colonial territories of the French that were under the rule of the French outside Europe from as early as the 1600s until the late 1960s. The French colonial empire was, by the 19th century, the second largest after the British Empire in the world. This empire spanned over 4 million square miles geographically (Pagden). It was located in the Alps near the Swiss and the Italian borders at Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest point. The Great French Empire, between 1804 and 1814, the Napoleonic Empire was led by the Great Napoleon I. It is considered as the most powerful and the most dominant in the continental Europe in 19th Century. The French influence of most parts of the Western Europe was extended into Poland and other parts of Western Europe following subsequent military victories of the Napoleonic wars. Around the 1800s, the French empire had established more than 125 departments and ruled over 44 million subjects. It maintained military presence in Spain, Germany, Duchy of Warsaw, and Italy; at the same time, it could consider Austria and Prussia as its allies.

The British/English Empire

The colonization of the Americas by the British began as early the 1700s, before it reached its peak, at a time when colonies were established all over the Americas and the establishment of protectorate over the Hawaiian Kingdom in the Pacific (Sweet & Nash, 1991). The British American Empire was one of the most important and, in fact, rivaled the Spanish American empire in economic and military might. The conquest by the British resulted in dramatic upheavals on the indigenous population due to their direct military force and their indirect cultural disruptions, which led to a myriad of diseases. The British Empire began in the 1497 when an Italian voyager John Cabot in the service of King Henry VII, sailed across the Atlantic and reached the Americas, the Newfoundland. Around 1583, Sir Humphrey, another explorer took the Newfoundland in possession on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I (Sweet & Nash, 1991). this was at a time when the Spanish and the Portuguese had considerably subdivided amongst themselves part of the Earth’s surface. England was at the time a reputable force in the seas, however, its seafarers were mostly freebooters who were more engaged in slavery, privacy and trade. There were several domestic industries already flourishing with most workers participating in dual occupations in both agriculture and industry. As opposed to most western countries, the English society had extensive and more flourishing middling sector. This gave it a strong platform for commerce, especially in terms of settlement, in faraway territories. In the 18th century, the British Empire became the most dominant among the trading empires in Europe (Taylor).

Works Cited

Mills, K. Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History. Oxford: SR Books, 2004. Pagden, A. Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, from Greece to the Present. New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2007. Sweet, D. G. and G. B. Nash. Struggle and Survival in Colonial America. San Francisco, CA: University of California Press, 1991. Taylor, A. American Colonies. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. The Ancient Worlds. Engineering an Empire: The Maya and The Aztecs. 2007. Wood, M. Conquistadors. San Francisco, CA: University of California Press, 2001.

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