The Spanish Empire reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Spanish Empire

Spain, the first modern state in Europe, had three empires:

Table of contents

1 European Empire (Monarchia Hispanica) (1516-1713) 2 Overseas Empire (1492-1898) 3 African Empire (1492-1975)

European Empire (Monarchia Hispanica) (1516-1713)

In 1492, the Reyes Católicos (Ferdinand V of Castile and Isabella I of Aragon) drove out the last Moorish king of Granada. As a result of their marriage politics, Spain was a global superpower in the 16th century , as it was also the dominant power in the European continent. 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. The 16th and 17th centuries are sometimes called "the Golden Age of Spain".

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 Ottoman 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.

Spanish War of Succession,

After the Treaties of Utrecht (April 11, 1713), Spain would recover of fast and effective form. The century XVIII will be a century of prosperity for the overseas Spanish Empire.

Overseas Empire (1492-1898)

In 1492, the Reyes Católicos 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.

This Spanish Empire was the result of a period of rapid colonial expansion into the New World, as well as the Philippines and colonies in Africa.

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.

Ferdinand Magellan, Juan Sebastián Elcano, circumnavigation, Pigafetta, Andrés de Urdaneta, Galeón de Manila, Moros (Philippines), Asiento de negros, Battle of Trafalgar, Mulatto, Mestizo, Lepanto, Fugger, German colonization of the Americas, triangular trade, Libertadores,Spanish America, Plazas de soberanía, Gibraltar, Spanish language, Chabacano, Papiamento, pichinglis, battle of Ayacucho, General Prim in the Americas,

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.

African Empire (1492-1975)

The Portuguese capture of Ceuta in 1415

Ceuta, Melilla,

Spanish Morocco

colonisation of Western Sahara, and Equatorial Guinea was attempted as a substitute for the loss of the Americas.

battle of Annual,

Manuel de Iradier

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