Spanish Empire

 

The Spanish Empire, sometimes called "the Golden Age of Spain", was a period of rapid colonial expansion that spread Spainish domination to much of the New World, as well as the Philippines and colonies in Africa. From the 16th century to the 19th century Spain, with its vast empire, was a global superpower.

Precedents

The Christian kingdoms in the North of what we know as Spain spent the Middle Ages after 722 in an intermittent struggle, known as Reconquista, against the Islamic kingdoms of the South. In the Late Middle Ages, the Aragonese expansion southwards had met in Murcia with the Castilian advance. Since them, the Aragonese empire focused in the Mediterranean, acting as far as Greece and in Barbary.

It was in the interest of Castile to keep a last remnant of Moorish power as the vassal kingdom of Granada so that, through the tributes, gold from the Niger region of Africa would enter Europe. Nevertheless, Castile also intervened in Northern Africa, competing with the Portuguese Empire, and acquired the Canary Islands from its Norman lord.

Beginnings

In 1492, the Reyes Católicos (Ferdinand V of Castile and Isabella I of Aragon) drove out the last Moorish king of Granada. After their victory, they negotiated with Cristopher Columbus, a sailor attempting to reach Asia by sailing west. Columbus instead inadvertently discovered the Americas, inaugurating an age of Spanish conquest and colonization of the continent.

After Columbus, the subjugation of the New World was led by a series of warrior-explorers called the Conquistadors (conquistador is Spanish for conqueror.) The new kingdom of Spain had just emerged from the union of the Castile and Aragon, its religious zeal and convictions of ethnic superiority strenghted by the Reconquista.

The first Spanish conquest in the Americas was the island of Hispaniola. From there Juan Ponce de León conquered Puerto Rico and Diego Velázquez took Cuba. The first settlement on the mainland was Darién in Panama, settled by Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1512.

The most successful conquistador was Hernán Cortés, who in 1520-1521, with Amerindian allies, overran the mighty Aztec empire, thus making Mexico a part of the Spanish empire; this would be the basis of the colony of New Spain. Of comparable importance was the conquest of the Inca empire by Francisco Pizarro, which would become the Viceroyalty of Peru.

After this, rumours of golden cities (Cibola in North America, El Dorado in South America) caused several more expeditions to be sent out, but many of those returned without having found their goal, or having found it, finding it much less valuable than was hoped.

Some Spaniards, in particular the priest Bartolomé de Las Casas, defended Native Americans against the abuses of conquistadors. In 1542, new Spanish colonial laws were made to protect Indians. In 1552, Bartolomé de las Casas published "Short Account of the Destruction of the West Indies" (Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias), which was used by the other European colonial powers, rivals of Spain, to criticise Spain's role.

The Empire in Europe (Monarchia Hispanica)

As a result of the marriage politics of the Reyes Católicos, their grandson Charles inherited the Castilian empire in the Americas, the Aragonese empire in the Mediterranean (including a large portion of modern Italy), as well as the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and of the Low Countries. Charles was the most powerful man in Europe, his rule stretching over an empire not to be rivaled in size until Napoleon. After defeating Castilian rebels in the Castilian War of the Communities, he treated Castile as the foundation of his empire. Charles used his power to defend Catholicism against the Reformation and the Turkish Empire. Charles attempted to quell the Protestant Reformation at the Diet of Worms but Luther refused to recant his "heresy." However, Charles's piety could not stop his mutinied troops of plundering the Holy See in the Sacco di Roma.

His son, Philip II of Spain parted the Austrian posessions with his brother Ferdinand. It was said that in his domains, the sun never set. He also inherited the Portuguese Empire and tried to marry Mary, the queen of England.

Spain lost her posessions on the mainland of America with the independence movements of the early 19th century, especially with the power vacuum during the Peninsula War; at the end of the century most of the remaining Spanish Empire was lost in the Spanish American War.

Spanish American War

The Spanish-American War took place in 1898, and resulted in the United States of America gaining control over the former colonies of Spain in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Background

For many centuries Spain's position as a world power had been slipping away. By the late nineteenth century the nation was left only a few scattered possessions in the Pacific, Africa, and the West Indies. Much of the empire had gained its independence and a number of the areas still under Spanish control were clamoring to do so. Guerrilla forces were operating in the Philippines, and had, for decades, been present in Cuba. The Spanish government did not have the financial or the manpower resources to deal with these revolts and thus turned to expedients of building camps to separate the rebels from their rural base of support. The Spaniards also carried out many executions of suspected rebels and harshly treated villages and individuals thought to be supporting them. By the end of the 1890s the rebels had mostly been defeated and Cuba was returning to a relative peace. In the long run, however, Spain's position was completely untenable.

These events in Cuba coincided in the 1890s with a struggle for readership between the American newspaper chains of Hearst and Pulitzer. One of the most popular features were tales of great atrocities (some based on fact, some not) which the 'cruel Spanish masters' were inflicting on the 'hapless native Cubans' (see: Black Legend). Sections of the American people began pushing for intervention.

There were other pressures pushing towards war. The United States Navy had recently grown considerably, but it was still untested. The Navy had drawn up plans for attacking the Spanish in the Philippines over a year before hostilities broke out. The end of western expansion and of large-scale conflict with Native Americans also left the Army with little to do, and army leadership hoped that some new task would come. From an early date many in the US had felt that Cuba was rightly theirs. The theory of manifest destiny made the island just off the coast of Florida seem very attractive. Much of the island's economy was already in American hands, and most of its trade, much of which was black market, was with the US. Some business leaders pushed for conflict as well. In the words of Senator John M. Thurston of Nebraska: "War with Spain would increase the business and earnings of every American railroad, it would increase the output of every American factory, it would stimulate every branch of industry and domestic commerce."

In Spain the government was not entirely averse to war. The US was an unproven power. The Spanish navy, however decrepit, had a glorious history and it was thought it could be a match for the US. There was also a widely held notion among Spain's aristocratic leaders that the United States' ethnically mixed army and navy could never survive under severe pressure.

The Start of the War

On February 15, 1898, the American battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor suffered an explosion and quickly sank with a loss of 260 men. Evidence as to the cause of the explosion was inconclusive and contradictory, but the American press, led by the two New York papers, proclaimed that this was certainly a despicable act of sabotage by the Spaniards. The press aroused the public to demand war, with the slogan "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!". This patriotic belligerent feeling is known as spread-eagleism or jingoism.

Expert opinion is still divided; most now consider an accidental explosion of coal fuel to be as likely a reason as any for the ship's fate. Modern analytical tools, especially computer simulations, have all but confirmed this. Few still think a mine could have been the cause. Some believe it could well have been sabotage, but by Cuban revolutionaries who hoped to draw the US into the war. Almost all agree the Spaniards would have no interest in provoking a war.

US President William McKinley was not inclined towards war, and had long held out against intervention, but the Maine explosion so forcefully shaped public opinion that he had to agree. Spanish minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta did much to try to prevent this, including withdrawing the officials in Cuba against whom complaints had been made, and offering the Cubans autonomy. This was well short of full independence for Cuba, however and would do little to change the status quo.

Thus On April 11 McKinley went before Congress to ask for authority to send American troops to Cuba for the purpose of ending the civil war there. On April 19 Congress passed joint resolutions proclaiming Cuba "free and independent", demanded Spanish withdrawal, and authorized the President to use such military force as he thought necessary. In response Spain broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. On April 25 Congress declared that a state of war between the United States and Spain had existed since April 21st (Congress later passed a resolution backdating the declaration of war to April 20th).

The Philippines

The first battle was in the Philippines where on May 1, Commodore George Dewey commanding the United States Pacific fleet, in six hours defeated the Spanish squadron, under Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón, at the Battle of Manila Bay. Meanwhile Philippine nationalists led by Emilio Aguinaldo attacked the Spanish on land, and many of the Spanish troops surrendered.

Cuba

In Cuba the American navy met the Spanish Atlantic fleet in Santiago Bay on July 3. The Americans defeated the Spanish and gained control of the waterways around Cuba. This prevented re-supply of the Spanish forces and also allowed the US to land its considerable forces safely on the island.

In Cuba Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt became a war hero when he led a charge at the battle of San Juan Hill outside of Santiago as lieutenant colonel of the Rough Riders Regiment on July 1. The Americans were aided in Cuba by the pro-independence rebels lead by General Calixto García.

The ground war had far more problems dealing with heat and disease than the Spanish forces, and within a month the island was in US hands.

On 25 July US troops landed in Puerto Rico.

End of the War

With both fleets incapacitated, Spain realized her forces in the Pacific and Caribbean could not be supplied or reinforced, so Spain sued for peace.

Hostilities were halted on August 12. The formal Peace Treaty was signed in Paris on December 10, 1898 and was ratified by the United States Senate on February 6, 1899.

The United States gained almost all of Spain's colonies including Cuba, The Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico.