Spanish Empire

B

Oceania

When Magellan stopped at the Mariana Islands in 1521, he and his crew encountered the native Chamorro people. He named the archipelago Islas de Ladrones, or Islands of Thieves, because he claimed that some of the Chamorro stole Spanish supplies. Other Spanish explorers followed Magellan, and in 1565 Legazpi's fleet took possession of the islands on Spain’s behalf while en route to Manila. Later, the islands were named for Mariana of Austria, Queen Regent of Spain, who sent Jesuit missionaries to the area in 1668.

Spain governed Guam from Manila and stationed a garrison on the island to discourage sporadic Chamorro uprisings. In the late 17th century, Guam became a regular stopping place for all the ships that sailed the trade route between Acapulco and Manila. When those ships ceased to sail in 1815, the island served chiefly as a provisioning port for non-Spanish whaling ships.

At the end of the 16th century, Spanish friars on Guam chronicled Chamorro customs and culture as it existed before other peoples began to arrive and change the culture and ethnic makeup of the islands. These included survivors of Spanish shipwrecks, immigrants from the Carolina Islands, trading and whaling crews of various nationalities, and missionaries, soldiers, and other people from the Philippines. In the 19th century Spain established a military government and a general system of primary education on Guam. Spanish rule ended in 1898, when the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. Like the Philippines, Guam became a U.S. possession, but the other Mariana Islands were sold to Germany.

C

Caroline Islands

The Caroline Islands consist of a chain of approximately 600 islands spread across 3000 miles in Micronesia. The major islands are Palau, Yap, Chuuk (formerly Truk), Pohnpei (formerly Ponape), and Kosrae. Although Spanish explorers arrived in the Caroline Islands during the late 1520s, Spain only began to press formal claims for international recognition of its rights to the group in the 1870s, when Germany expressed an interest in occupying the islands. Spain’s diminishing power and its concerns with other colonies prevented it from exerting much influence, and the Carolines were considered only a minor Spanish possession. In 1898 Spain lost the Spanish-American War to the United States, and in 1899 Germany bought the Caroline Islands from Spain.

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V

Spanish Africa and Gibraltar

Spanish influence in Africa dates back to the beginning of Spain’s imperial expansion. Melilla, in North Africa, was among the earliest of Spain’s foreign claims, and it remains a Spanish possession today. Gibraltar, a part of the Iberian peninsula, is owned by Britain but claimed by Spain.

A

North Africa

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries Spain established a number of small exclaves along the North African coast. Spain's goals were to maintain fortified positions along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts in order to protect fishing, shipping, and trade; to promote mercantile and missionary activity; and to fend off the aims of other powers interested in expansion.

Among the first of these was Melilla, on the Strait of Gibraltar. It came under Spanish control in 1497, about the same time that Spain established a garrison at Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña (now Ifni) on the Atlantic coast opposite the Canary Islands. Spain took other areas between 1505 and 1510, including Oran and Bejaïa in what is now Algeria; Tunis, in what is now Tunisia; and Tripoli, in what is now Libya.

In 1580 Spain acquired Ceuta, an outpost on the North African coast, from Portugal. Ceuta served as a major Mediterranean port for goods (gold, ivory, and slaves) transported from the interior of Africa along the trade routes that crossed the Sahara Desert. In 1847 Spain made Ceuta the administrative headquarters for all its African coastal settlements. The boundaries between Morocco and Spain’s exclaves—Melilla and Ceuta—were formally established in 1860 under a treaty following Spain’s invasion of Morocco.

In 1881 the Society of Canary-African Fishermen, a prominent commercial organization, established an enclave and trading post on the Río de Oro, an inlet opposite the Canary Islands in the region later known as the Spanish Sahara. In 1884, in response to British interest in the area, Spain declared a protectorate over the coast from Cape Bojador to Cape Blanc. The site on the Río de Oro became Villa Cisneros (now Ad Dakhla), the administrative center of Spanish Sahara. Between 1916 and the 1930s Spain established a few other military garrisons on the coast.

In 1904, as Germany’s interest in North Africa increased, Spain made a secret treaty with France distinguishing respective spheres of influence and confirming the Spanish protectorate over Ifni and Spanish Sahara. From 1908 to 1912 native rebellion against foreign intervention resulted in civil war in the Moroccan cities of Casablanca and Fez. The French occupied Fez, and an international crisis threatened after a German gunboat arrived at Agadir. Britain convinced Germany to withdraw, allowing France and Spain to sign an agreement partitioning Morocco in 1912. In 1913 Spain designated its protectorate as Spanish Morocco, and various administrative and name changes took place thereafter. The Spanish area was far smaller than the French section and consisted of two zones 500 miles apart. Although the southern zone theoretically extended 150 miles inland, the Spanish presence actually remained confined to the region of Villa Cisneros.

In the northern zone, Berber tribesmen of the Rif area resisted French raids, causing France to pressure Spain to exert more control. From 1909 to 1926 the Spanish and French repeatedly fought the Rifs. In 1921 Riffian leader Abd el-Krim guided his tribe in an attack against a Spanish military post in Er Rif, capturing it and massacring 16,000 soldiers.

The war against the Rifs was unpopular in Spain. Many viewed it as too expensive and serving the narrow interests of a group within the army. The Spanish government continued to waver in its Moroccan policy, neither ending the war nor supplying the army sufficiently to win it. In 1926 the government placed a military administration over the Rif region, and began developing it. Private investment financed railways and mining. In addition, public funds were used to improve urban areas.

Spain’s Moroccan holdings were significant during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). General Francisco Franco, who became the leader of the antigovernment Nationalist side during the war, had become a military hero for his service in Morocco. In early 1920s, he organized and commanded troops that helped subdue uprisings in Spanish Morocco. In 1936 Franco had his elite Army of Africa airlifted to the Spanish mainland to help the Nationalist military uprising against the Spanish government. During the war, Spain’s North African territories remained under the control of the military rebels.

During World War II (1939-1945), American troops occupied Morocco and used it as a major supply base. Following the war, Moroccan and pan-Arab nationalism increased, challenging Spanish control. In 1946 Spain designated the territories of Ifni and Spanish Sahara as Spanish West Africa. In 1956 French Morocco achieved its independence, and Spain recognized that it could be facing a losing battle to keep control of Spanish Morocco. Between 1956 and 1958, Spain withdrew from Morocco but retained its holdings in Spanish West Africa, Ceuta, and Melilla.

After Morocco became independent, a radical group called the Army of Liberation used it as a base to wage guerrilla warfare against Spanish West Africa. In response, Spain tightened control by again dividing Spanish West Africa into Ifni and Spanish Sahara and making each a province of Spain. In 1959 Spain formally incorporated Ceuta, Melilla, and some offshore islands as part of Spain itself, not just as protectorates or colonies.

In 1960 the United Nations (UN) passed a resolution abolishing colonialism. This act required nations to relinquish their colonies abroad. To comply with the UN resolution, Spain ceded Ifni to Morocco in 1969. Spain withdrew from Spanish Sahara in 1975, and it is now known as Western Sahara. Since Spain’s withdrawal, the country has been in the middle of disputes between Morocco and a Western Saharan group, known as the Polisario Front, backed by Algeria. In 1988 the United Nations proposed a settlement plan that Spain supported. As part of the plan, Spain has scheduled a referendum for December of 1999 in which Western Sahara will decide on its sovereignty. Today, Ceuta and Melilla remain a point of contention between Spain and Morocco. Morocco wants to annex them, but the two exclaves now have predominantly Spanish populations.

B

The Gulf of Guinea

In the late 18th century, Portugal ceded its areas in the Gulf of Guinea off western Africa to Spain in exchange for Spain's recognition of Portugal’s expanded territory in Brazil. Spain received the islands of Fernando Póo (now Bioko) and Annobón (now San Antonio de Palé), as well as the territory of Río Muni (now Mbini) on the African mainland. In 1827 Spain leased the region to the British as a base for intercepting slave traders to America and as a settlement for former slaves. In 1858 Spain founded a coastal colony called Spanish Guinea, and in the 1870s a private Spanish group, known as the Society of Africanists and Colonists, acquired more territory there through treaties with the inhabitants.

The first effective Spanish settlements on Fernando Póo were founded in the 1850s, when Catalan migrants began to establish rich cocoa plantations. The indigenous people, the Bubi, were largely assimilated into Spanish colonial culture. Colonization of mainland Río Muni, between the Niger and Ogooué rivers, never penetrated beyond the coastal strip. The Spanish explored the mainland interior only in the 1920s, where they met intermittent resistance from the dominant ethnic group, the Fang.

As in North Africa, an African nationalist movement evolved in Guinea following World War II. Beginning in 1958, Africans increasingly participated in political administration of the area. In 1963 Spain granted the region limited autonomy, and in 1968 Spain’s king, Juan Carlos I, conceded its independence under the name of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.