Spanish Empire

G

Shifting Identities

With less interference from Spain, Spanish Americans increasingly developed their own new societies. Creoles, people of Spanish descent who were born in the Americas, developed a cultural identity shaped by both their Spanish roots and their American home. At the same time, the number of mestizos, people of mixed European and indigenous ancestry, increased. Art, architecture, and writing in the Americas reflected this cultural mixture. As Spain’s American colonies became more economically and politically independent, Spanish Americans felt less connected to Spain.

The population of Spanish America grew dramatically in the 18th century. Agricultural and mining production surged, and new towns were born. Spaniards founded settlements and missions in what are now California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. More products and metals were sold abroad. In the late 18th century, Spanish Americans increasingly exported animal hides, sugar, tobacco, cocoa beans, cotton, and indigo, a purple dye. Most valuable, however, was the rising output of gold and silver.

H

The Bourbon Reforms

In the 18th century, the Bourbon kings of Spain initiated economic reforms to stimulate manufactures and technological advances in order to modernize Spain. They also hoped Spain would profit from reforms designed to make the administration of Spanish America more efficient and to promote its economic, commercial, and fiscal development. Beginning in the 1760s, King Charles III reorganized imperial administration and defenses and introduced a comprehensive package of commercial reforms largely expected to benefit Spain. In order to pay for the reforms, Charles taxed Spanish Americans.

In 1776 Charles created a new viceroyalty, the Viceroyalty of the Río de La Plata, in the southern part of South America, with its capital at Buenos Aires. The new viceroyalty was made up of territory formerly governed under the Viceroyalty of Peru. It included the sparsely populated lands east of the Andes that now form Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

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I

Collapse of the Empire in the Americas

In the 1780s the Spanish presence extended over much of the continent, but growing British power threatened Spain's colonies in the Americas. In 1762 Spain entered the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) as an ally of France against Britain. When the British won, Spain gave up Florida but received the huge territory of Louisiana from France as compensation. France and Spain allied again in 1779 to support the American Revolution against Britain, and following Britain’s loss Spain recovered Florida.

Although trade between Spain and its American colonies increased, Spain was increasingly unable to prevent other nations from trading with them. Smuggling of foreign manufactured goods increased, and such goods were often carried on English ships or ships from Britain’s American colonies. In addition, many of the goods that Spain shipped to its colonies had originally been manufactured in other nations.

At the same time, Spanish reforms also introduced Creoles to ideas of enlightened development. For example, reformist viceroys encouraged Creoles to develop natural resources and to form groups to promote their regional economies, scientific advances, and commerce with Spain. This increase in decision making stimulated the Creole leaders of Spanish colonial society to desire yet more control. They wished to trade freely and to govern and develop their regions themselves. As the Spanish government increasingly drained American treasure and resources, the colonists’ resistance grew.

Revolutionary movements in other areas inspired Spanish Americans. Britain’s North American colonies gained their independence and formed their own nation in the American Revolution. In 1789 the French revolted against their king in the French Revolution. And in 1791 a group of black slaves led the Haitian slave revolt in the French colony of Hispaniola, which Spain had ceded to France in 1697.

Economic motives also increased the desire for independence. In 1796 the British blockaded shipping between Spain and America. With Spain completely unable to control its colonies’ trade, Spanish American products had many new markets. The colonies also had more sources for imports, which lowered import prices. The enormous population growth in the Americas also encouraged many to want autonomy from Spain. By 1800 the population of Spain's colonies was 17 million, dramatically more than Spain's domestic population of 10 million.

Spain’s power diminished further in the first decade of the 19th century, when the French army under Napoleon I invaded Spain, and Napoleon placed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne. The Spanish people rebelled against French control, providing another example of revolution for Spanish Americans. The colonies first declared their opposition to the French government in Spain, but then they began to demand independence. In 1810 the people and town councils of Caracas, Venezuela, and Buenos Aires rose against the local Spanish authorities. Many other cities, including Cartagena and Bogota in Colombia, Santiago in Chile, and Quito in Ecuador, followed their example.

In South America, two leaders were particularly important in the movement for Latin American independence. Simón Bolívar fought against the Spanish in what are now Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. He also assisted José de San Martín, who had liberated Chile from Spanish control, to secure Peru’s independence. Despite these successes, fighting among local and regional factions in what were essentially civil wars complicated the revolutions for independence. Creoles in Mexico City and Lima, for example, initially opposed independence, although they were motivated less by love of Spain than by fear of social upheaval.

By 1824 Spain had lost all of its mainland territories. Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only American colonies remaining under Spanish rule. However, the value of Cuban trade—based largely on sugar—was greater than that of all Spain's former American colonies combined. Yet, as the 19th century progressed, these island territories were increasingly drawn into the economic orbit of the neighboring United States.

Increasingly, Cubans perceived Spanish rule as repressive, and when Cuba revolted against Spain in 1895, the United States secretly aided the Cuban insurgents. In 1898 an American battleship, the USS Maine, mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor. Many people in the United States blamed Spain, and the United States declared war. The Spanish-American War was brief but had huge consequences. The United States won the war, ending over 400 years of Spanish empire in the Americas. Under the peace agreement signed in December 1898, Cuba became independent, and the United States gained sovereignty over Puerto Rico. The Philippines and Guam, Spanish colonies in Asia and the Pacific, also became U.S. protectorates.

IV

Spanish Asia and the Pacific

The Spanish presence in Asia and the Pacific Islands dates back to 1521, when Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan was attempting to find a westward route to the Spice Islands on behalf of Spain. Early in the year Magellan reached an island in the western Pacific, probably what is now Guam in the Mariana Islands. He later reached Mindanao and Cebu, two of the 7000 islands of an archipelago that now make up the Republic of the Philippines.

A

The Philippines

On Mindanao, Magellan converted two local leaders to Christianity. On Cebu, Magellan and his crew encountered the Malay people and converted some of them as well. Magellan made a pact with Humabon, a chief on Cebu, agreeing to help him attack the nearby island of Mactan. When he and his sailors tried to land on Mactan, Magellan and most of his crew were killed by Mactan chief Lapulapu.

The Spanish claim to the islands was disputed by Portugal. Portugal was already in possession of the nearby Moluccas and could invoke the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, which reserved the eastern hemisphere for Portuguese colonization. In 1542, however, a Spanish expedition reasserted Spain’s claims and named the archipelago the Islas Filipinas, or Philippine Islands, in honor of Spain’s royal heir, later King Philip II.

In 1565 an expedition from Mexico led by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi founded colonies, first on Cebu and subsequently on Luzon. In 1571 a colonial capital was established on Luzon at Manila, from which Spain ruled the Philippines for more than 300 years. Under Philip II the Spanish government made the many islands a single political unit under Spanish control, and Manila became a valuable port for trade between Mexico and China. American silver was shipped to Manila where it was traded for silks and porcelain from Canton (now Guangzhou, China) and the Portuguese port of Macao. These Asian products were then shipped to Mexico and re-exported to South America or Europe. Although Philip tried to limit the amount of silver flowing to Manila, smuggling grew until it far surpassed legal trade. Chinese immigrants to Manila and other Philippine towns reaped much of the profits, causing the Spanish to view the islands as unprofitable.

However, Spain still extended its control of the Philippines by playing one group against another in local feuds. It also developed the major islands as a source of gold and spices. Those commodities and the silks and porcelain re-exported from the Philippines lured Dutch ships and merchants, as well as Dutch privateers and some Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and English raiders. British activity in the Pacific grew during the 18th century, and British forces occupied Manila from 1762 to 1764, as a result of the Seven Years’ War.

In the 19^th century Spain’s control over colonial trade declined, opening opportunities for Filipinos to develop their economy. Different regions in the Philippines began to specialize in a single export crop, such as indigo, sugar, rice, hemp, or tobacco, which they sold to English and American merchants. A large number of Chinese immigrants continued to settle in provincial towns and played a large role in business life by buying and selling the crops, making loans, and becoming shopkeepers.

As in the American colonies, foreign trade introduced foreign ideas. At first the people of the Philippines identified themselves with their language groups, but in the 1890s a sense of national Filipino identity evolved. The term Filipino originally denoted a person of Spanish descent born in the Philippines and was comparable to the term Creole in the Spanish-American colonies. Filipinos began demanding social, religious, and administrative reforms from the Spanish government. Spain’s response fluctuated between repression and conciliation.

In 1892 Filipinos organized several secret societies to act against the Spanish authorities. The foremost of these was the Philippine League, founded by celebrated novelist José Rizal in 1891. Rizal was critical of the power exercised by Roman Catholic religious orders in his country and demanded political rights and equality for Filipinos. In 1896, after being accused of inciting a rebellion, Rizal was executed by the Spanish authorities. He became a martyr and a symbol of his nation. The rebellion led Spain to agree to reforms, but before these were implemented, the Spanish-American War erupted in 1898. Filipino nationalists proclaimed independence, but following the U.S. victory, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States.

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