VII.

History of Spain

A.

Overview

Spain began the 21st century as a wealthy, urbanized, industrial, and democratic European country. Spain’s path to modernity differed in many ways from other parts of Europe. Located at the far southwestern corner of Europe and geographically isolated by steep mountains and seas, Spain has often appeared distant from European cultural developments. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain during the late 18th century, spread slowly to Spain. In the 20th century the brutal Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the ensuing dictatorship of Francisco Franco seemed to set Spain apart from a prosperous, democratic, and modern Europe.

For much of its history, however, Spain has been a historical crossroads. The Strait of Gibraltar, at the tip of Spain, permits easy travel between Spain and Africa. Since prehistory peoples have entered Spain from other parts of Europe and Africa. The Iberian Peninsula, with its many seaports, made it easy for seafaring Mediterranean peoples to land in search of natural resources. Spain’s earliest written history tells of a long sequence of migrations and cultural mingling. Home to Iberians in prehistory, Spain was colonized by Celtic and Phoenician settlers by the 8th century bc. The name Spain (Hispania) owes its origins to the Phoenicians, who called the Iberian Peninsula “Span,” which meant hidden or remote land. Celtic and Phoenician settlers were followed by Greeks and Carthaginians and then by Romans. It took Roman soldiers 200 years to conquer all of Spain, a process completed in the 1st century bc.

As a part of the Roman Empire, most of Spain’s population became Christian and began to speak languages based on Latin. Romans were followed by Germanic peoples who came overland from Europe and entered Spain in the 5th century ad. These ancient tribes included Vandals, who passed through and settled in Africa, and Visigoths, who settled in Spain to build a kingdom. Persistent conflict among Visigothic nobles weakened the monarchy, and in 711 Spain was invaded again, this time by Muslims from Africa. For centuries the Muslim conquerors would control much of the Iberian Peninsula. The high point of Islamic culture in Spain occurred in the 10th century. Muslim rulers introduced new crops and efficient irrigation systems, trading and commerce thrived, and mathematics, medicine, and philosophy flourished.

Muslim power declined after 1000 as Christian kingdoms in northern Spain, supplemented by migrants from Europe, gradually moved southward to take control of the peninsula. That process was completed in 1492 with the Christian conquest of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain. The most important Christian kingdoms were Castile, Aragón, and Portugal. Castile emerged as the largest and strongest of these monarchies, and it was central to the construction of the Catholic, Castilian-speaking society of medieval Spain.

By 1500 the migrations were over, but Spain remained an important crossroads. Spain was well located for seaborne trade between the Mediterranean and northern Europe. In the late 15th century navigators in the service of Spain began to explore the Americas, and they discovered great quantities of silver. American silver made Spain central to Europe’s expanding world trade. At the same time, dynastic marriages and diplomacy gave Spain control of a huge European empire. Spain’s American and European empires lasted in various forms until the early 19th century, when they largely disappeared in the wake of the French Revolution (1789-1799) and the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815).

Throughout the 19th century Spaniards fought and argued about their government and the appropriate amount of popular participation in politics. During this time, Spain gradually entered the Industrial Revolution, and the expanding economy created new political forces. Still, no single faction succeeded in commanding a political majority. Many Spaniards looked to the army to bring order out of chaos, and it became another powerful faction.

By the early 20th century Spain’s government was democratic on paper but it was controlled by an oligarchy that refused to share power. Political groups increasingly resorted to anarchy and violence, and in 1923 General Miguel Primo de Rivera became dictator. Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship was followed by a remarkable experiment with democracy in the 1930s that was suppressed by the Spanish Civil War. The war cost Spain more than 500,000 lives and resulted in the long dictatorship of Francisco Franco. After Franco’s death in 1975, Spain began the rapid transition to the dynamic, modern, and democratic European nation it is today.

B.

Spain in Antiquity

B.1.

Early Peoples

People have occupied the Iberian Peninsula for hundreds of thousands of years. Fossils of primitive humans unearthed in northern Spain’s Atapuerca hills are at least 780,000 years old—some of the oldest human remains ever discovered in Europe. Anatomically modern humans probably appeared in Spain 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. A remarkable series of paintings of bison, deer, and other animals, some dated at approximately 14,000 years old, adorn the deep cave at Altamira, in northern Spain. These graceful depictions provide evidence of a sophisticated Paleolithic hunting culture.

About 1500 bc a North African people called Iberians began to move northward, across the Strait of Gibraltar. By 1000 bc the Iberians were well established on the peninsula. The Iberians developed a system of writing and built many towns. Another ancient people, the Basques, inhabited the western Pyrenees and probably predated the arrival of the Iberians. About 700 bc a people known as Celts migrated from France into northern Spain and imposed their Indo-European language and culture on indigenous peoples. Iberians and Celts met in central Spain and gradually merged into a people called the Celtiberians. These Celtiberians first dominated the central plateau and the west, and then occupied the peninsula’s eastern coast.

Regional differences among these sophisticated prehistoric cultures foreshadowed distinctions that are still evident today. The northern, central, and western areas were thinly populated, reliant on grazing and livestock, and dominated by Celtic culture. The south was mostly Iberian and dotted with towns. The Iberians and Celtiberians were expert metalworkers. Many southern towns were mining centers that produced finely crafted metal weapons and tools. Over time the metalworkers shifted from copper to bronze and then to iron, all of which were mined in southern Spain.

Spain’s mineral riches drew Mediterranean trade from the earliest times, and many Mediterranean peoples established colonies in the southern and eastern parts of the Iberian Peninsula. According to legend, the Phoenicians, a people from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, sailed to Spain as early as 1100 bc (see Phoenicia). However, archaeological evidence suggests that Cádiz (ancient Gadir; later Gades), Spain’s oldest Phoenician city, was founded in the 8th century bc. Seafaring Greeks established several colonies on the east coast by the 600s bc, including Ampurias (ancient Emporion) and Sagunto (ancient Saguntum). The Greeks traded with the Celtiberians and the Phoenicians. In the 500s bc inhabitants of the powerful North African city of Carthage, originally a Phoenician colony in modern Tunisia, entered southern Spain. The Carthaginians supplanted their Phoenician predecessors and built several more colonies. In 228 bc Cartagena (ancient Carthago Novo) was founded in southeastern Spain to serve as the capital of Carthage’s Iberian domains. Archaeological evidence, including artifacts reflecting a mixture of Carthaginian and Iberian culture, suggest that these trading centers coexisted peacefully.

As Carthage’s influence in Mediterranean trade grew, a rivalry developed between Carthage and Rome, another rising Mediterranean power. In the First Punic War (264-241 bc) Rome defeated Carthage and forced it to surrender Carthaginian possessions in Sicily and to pay a large indemnity (see Punic Wars). After this costly defeat, Carthage looked to the Iberian Peninsula to rebuild its trading empire. The Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca conquered southern and eastern Spain from 237 to 228 bc and founded a colony at Barcelona. In 219 bc Barca’s son, the Carthaginian general Hannibal, seized the Greek colony of Saguntum, violating an agreement with Rome regarding the limits of Carthage’s expansion on the Iberian Peninsula. This precipitated the Second Punic War (218-201 bc), during which Hannibal used Spain as the base for an invasion of modern Italy. By 206 bc the Romans had forced Carthage out of Spain.

B.2.

Roman Conquest

It took the Romans two centuries to gain complete control of Spain. Rome fought several extended wars against the Celtiberians, and its armies had to fight even longer to subdue the Celts and Basques in the north. The Celtiberian capital of Numantia was not captured until 133 bc, after years of fierce resistance against Roman assaults. When the Romans finally entered Numantia, the city’s surviving citizens set fire to it and committed mass suicide. The northern tribes did not submit to Rome until 19 bc.

Spain, like Rome’s other provinces, was governed ineffectively in the early years of Roman rule. Provincial governors appointed by Rome often used their positions for personal enrichment, glory, and to advance their political careers. Corruption was rampant, and provincial governors imposed arbitrary taxes and freely conscripted men for their armies.

The administration of Spain improved after the Roman Republic gave way to the Roman Empire in 27 bc. Rome divided Spain into three separately governed provinces: Lusitania (most of modern Portugal) in the west, Baetica in the south, and Hispania Tarraconensis, in the center, north, northwest, and eastern coast above Cartagena.

B.2.a.

Romanization

The Romanization of Spain proceeded rapidly under the Roman Empire. A code of law was established, and commerce flourished. Roads, bridges, and aqueducts were constructed that still stand today. Port cities carried on active trade in minerals, oil, wine, wheat, and other products. The Romans improved the towns and built large villas (estates) in the countryside that controlled significant numbers of peasant laborers and slaves. The estates relied on agricultural and livestock production, a pattern that persists to this day. The large villas existed alongside smaller farms, some of which preceded Roman occupation. Other small holdings were granted to Roman army veterans—a practice used by Rome to help colonize new lands. Latin became the official language and many Spaniards became full Roman citizens. Indigenous leaders achieved positions of influence and power in Roman Spain and they helped govern the peninsula.

By the 1st century ad the region of Andalucía in southern Spain was heavily Romanized and native languages had largely disappeared. Romanization did not reach all parts of Spain, however, especially in the north. In the Basque provinces, Latin never replaced the ancient Basque language, which is still spoken.

B.2.b.

Christianity

The Roman Empire officially legalized Christianity under Emperor Constantine the Great in the early 4th century. Persecution of Christians ended and the church won legal rights and financial support from Rome. Although Christianity had first entered Spain in the 2nd century, conversion proceeded slowly in some regions. Christian churches and monasteries gradually appeared, but pagan religions continued for a long time, particularly in northern areas defended by Roman army garrisons. Many soldiers belonged to pagan cults, making it politically risky for Rome to push conversion too hard.

Christianity was well established in Spain by the 5th century, but by then the Roman Empire was changing. Epidemics, crop failures, and civil wars had divided the Roman Empire into two parts, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire. In the Western Roman Empire, which controlled much of Spain, a power vacuum ensued. Civil administration in Spain fell largely to Roman Catholic bishops, and they helped maintain order and continuity with Roman traditions as Roman political authority broke down. About the same time, nomadic peoples spread out across Europe in a series of mass migrations. These migrations would eventually contribute to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476.

B.3.

Visigothic Spain

In 409 Germanic tribes migrating south crossed the Pyrenees and swept into the Iberian Peninsula. The most important of these, the Vandals, settled in central and southern Spain. Another group, the Suevi, established a kingdom in northwestern Spain. Roman rule in Spain disintegrated as Roman authority gave way to a mosaic of barbarian settlements. In an attempt to stem the havoc brought by the invasions, Rome appealed to the Visigoths, who had settled in parts of modern France (see Goths). Partly Romanized by their contact with the Roman Empire during previous conquests, the Visigoths brought their armies into Spain and soon became the dominant power. In 429 the Visigoths forced the Vandals from the peninsula into North Africa. By 500 Visigoths controlled all of Spain except a strip in the south occupied by the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire.

As the Visigoths advanced into Spain, they established a kingdom in southern France, with its capital at Toulouse. The Visigothic kings ruled Spain from France, treating it as an occupied province and sending royal counts and garrisons to the main towns. However, in 507 another Germanic group, the Franks, routed Visigothic forces in the decisive Battle of Vouillé and drove the Visigoths from most of France. The Visigoths then migrated deep into the Iberian Peninsula. They eventually established a new capital at Toledo in central Spain.

The Visigoths were far outnumbered by their subjects, and they ruled mainly through military occupation. The Visigoths never developed a strong central bureaucracy to enforce royal authority. Instead, they relied largely on the Roman Catholic Church, which had preserved many of the old Roman administrative arrangements and retained significant control over local government. Visigothic kings continued to depend on the Church and the indigenous Hispano-Roman nobility to collect taxes, educate the population, and administer justice.

The Visigothic monarchy was generally unstable and weak. The monarchy adopted royal symbols and titles that imitated the Byzantine court, but it lacked a stable system of succession. Because Visigothic nobles traditionally elected their king from among their own ranks, dynastic struggles for power frequently broke the peace. The high point of the Visigothic monarchy came under King Leovigild (569-586) and his son Recared (586-601). They expelled Byzantines from the south and pacified the peninsula. In the early 7th century the Visigoths conquered the last remaining Byzantine strongholds in the peninsula and established the first kingdom that included all of modern Spain and Portugal.

At first the Visigoths were not well integrated into the native Hispano-Roman population. Most of Spain was Roman Catholic. The Visigoths followed Arianism, a form of Christianity that Catholics considered heretical, and they had a different legal system. This led to strife between Catholic and Arian religious leaders. However, the two societies gradually came together. In 589 King Recared converted to Catholicism, which he adopted as the monarchy’s official religion. The reign of King Recceswinth (649-672) saw the completion of a single legal code for the entire kingdom, the Liber Iudiciorum, published in 654. One of the Visigoths’ greatest achievements, the code fused principles of Roman law with elements of Germanic customary law.

By 700 Visigothic Spain was a complex medieval society that held an important place in Mediterranean learning and commerce. While the achievements of the Visigothic monarchy never matched those of Rome, it did succeed in unifying an area similar to that of modern Spain—a considerable feat. Visigothic Spain was the largest unified region in the Europe of its time, with a developed legal code, a church hierarchy, and a rudimentary bureaucracy. Despite these accomplishments, the Visigoths were too embroiled in internal struggles to mount an effective defense of the realm.

Muslim armies in North Africa posed the most serious threat to Visigothic Spain. In the early 8th century Muslim forces began conducting raids on Spain’s southern coast. North African Muslims included Arabs, who had swept across the region from the Middle East in the 7th century, and Berbers, the indigenous North African peoples conquered by the Arabs (see Spread of Islam).

In 710 a battle for succession to the Visigothic throne erupted following the death of King Witiza. Dynastic conflict prevented the succession of Witiza’s son, and Roderick, duke of Baetica, claimed the throne. In an effort to oust Roderick, Witiza’s family appealed to Muslims in North Africa for help. The Muslims quickly agreed. In 711 a Muslim army under the command of Berber general Tariq ibn-Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and invaded Spain. After defeating Roderick’s army at the Battle of Guadalete in southern Spain, Muslim forces advanced swiftly into the rest of Spain.

B.4.

Muslim Rule

By 719 Muslims controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula. The Moors, as the Muslim conquerors came to be known, pushed northward into France, where their advance was repelled near Poitiers by Frankish leader Charles Martel in 732. The Moors then retreated south of the Pyrenees, and for the next several centuries they dominated nearly all of Spain.

At first Islamic Spain, or al-Andalus, as it was known, was ruled as part of the Province of North Africa, a division of the caliphate of Damascus. At that time Damascus, in modern Syria, was the capital of the Islamic world and the residence of the powerful Umayyad caliphs (religious and secular leaders). The power of the caliphate in Spain was weak, however, and governors (emirs) appointed by Damascus had little real authority. In 750 the Abbasids deposed the Umayyad ruling family in Damascus and claimed the caliphate.

Abd-ar-Rahman I, a member of the Umayyad family, fled Syria and in 756 established an independent emirate at Córdoba in southern Spain. His Iberian Umayyad dynasty centralized power and ruled al-Andalus for almost 300 years. Córdoba reached its peak under Abd-ar-Rahman III, who established the caliphate of Córdoba in 929. By then Córdoba was one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in the Mediterranean world.

Over time ruling elites across Muslim Spain challenged Córdoba, and other Muslim cities became independent. This trend accelerated in 1036 with the death of the last Umayyad caliph. Spain fragmented into a mosaic of small, independent Muslim kingdoms, known as taifas. The most important of these were Córdoba, Seville, Granada, Toledo, Lisbon, Zaragoza, Murcia, and Valencia.

B.4.a.

Life in Muslim Spain

Spanish society became increasingly complex under Muslim rule. This is partly because Islamic conquest did not involve the systematic conversion of the conquered population to Islam. Islam restricted the ability of Muslim rulers to tax other Muslims, making it financially advantageous for a ruler to have non-Muslim subjects. At the same time, Christians and Jews were recognized under Islam as “peoples of the book.” Christianity and Judaism shared with Islam the tradition of the Old Testament, and Islam considered Jesus Christ a major prophet. Thus, Christians and Jews were free to practice their religion, but they had to pay a prescribed poll tax. Conversion to Islam therefore proceeded slowly. In many areas Muslim rulers found it easier to rely on the existing Christian network of local authority.

The Roman Catholic Church in Muslim Spain continued to function, although it lost contact with religious reforms in Rome. Muslim Spain came to include a growing number of Mozarabic Christians, people who adopted Arabic language and culture and followed forms of religious service different from those of Rome. In addition, Jews held prominent positions in government, commerce, and the professions under Muslim rule.

The Muslim community in Spain was itself diverse and beset by social tensions. From the beginning the Berber tribespeople of North Africa clashed with the Arabs of Egypt and the Middle East. The Berbers, who were comparatively recent converts to Islam, accounted for the largest share of Moors in Spain and they resented the sophistication and aristocratic pretensions of the Arab elite. Meanwhile, many Christians in Spain, including Visigothic nobles, converted to Islam. Conversion was commonplace among merchants, large landowners, and other local elites. Drawn into the politics of Islamic power, many Christians found that conversion made it easier to maintain their influence. Despite being Muslim, however, former Christians often faced discrimination. These tensions led to struggles between the established Muslim leadership and local lords from once Christian families.

Spain was wealthy and sophisticated under Islamic rule. Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange flourished. Muslims imported a rich intellectual tradition from the Middle East and North Africa, including knowledge about mathematics, science, and philosophy, and they continued to build upon it in Spain. Crops and farming techniques introduced by the Arabs, including new irrigation practices, led to a remarkable expansion of agriculture. In towns and cities the Muslims constructed magnificent mosques, palaces, and other architectural monuments, many of which still stand today. Outside the cities the mixture of large estates and small farms that existed in Roman times remained largely intact, because Muslim leaders rarely dispossessed landowners. The Muslim conquerors were relatively few in number and they generally tried to maintain good relations with their subjects.

Roman, Jewish, and Muslim culture interacted in complex ways. A large part of the population gradually adopted Arabic. Even Jews and Christians often spoke Arabic, while Hebrew and Latin were frequently written in Arabic script. These diverse traditions interchanged in ways that gave Spanish culture—religion, literature, music, art and architecture, and writing systems—a rich and distinctive heritage.

B.4.b.

Christian Reconquest and the Decline of Muslim Power

The Muslim advance never succeeded in conquering the entire Iberian Peninsula. A remnant of Christian rule survived in northern Spain, even as Muslim power reached its zenith. In the early years of Muslim rule the Christian states fought mainly among themselves. Also, as the Muslims prospered, they lost the incentive for further conquest.

In 718 the Visigothic chieftain Pelayo, a survivor of the Muslim victory at the Battle of Guadalete, founded the tiny kingdom of Asturias in the mountains of northwestern Spain. In an encounter that is based in part on legend, Pelayo’s forces defeated a Muslim army at the glen of Covadonga. This small victory came to be seen as the first decisive action of the Christian reconquest (reconquista), the campaign by Christians to retake Spain from the Muslims.

The reconquest has long figured prominently in stories about Spain’s modern national identity. As such, chroniclers have often portrayed it as a heroic Christian crusade to expel the heretical Muslims intruders. But these accounts oversimplify centuries of intermingling between Christians and Muslims. They also exaggerate the coherence of the reconquest. All told, more than 750 years of intermittent fighting and shifting alliances would pass before the reconquest was complete.

By the late 9th century Christian rulers had gained control of about one-third of the peninsula. Under the rule of Alfonso III the kingdom of Asturias expanded greatly, reaching across much of the northwest and as far south as the valley of the Douro (or Duero). The territorial gains of Asturias came at the expense of Christian and Muslim rulers alike. Several new Christian kingdoms began to emerge in the northeast, including Navarre in the Pyrenees and, farther to the east, Aragón. Frankish rule also extended into northern Spain and included several counties in Catalonia.

With the collapse of the caliphate in Córdoba and fragmentation of Muslim Spain into small and independent kingdoms, Muslim regions became increasingly vulnerable to Christian expansion. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Christian forces gradually moved south, bringing central Spain under Christian rule.

The northwestern kingdom of Castile and León, which included the former kingdom of Asturias, gained the greatest share of lands reconquered from the Muslims. Castile and León captured the Muslim kingdom of Toledo in 1085, annexed its lands, and pushed the frontier of Christian Spain south beyond the Tagus River. The Muslim lands annexed by Castile and León became known as New Castile. The capture of Toledo—the ancient capital of Visigothic Spain—marked the first time a major city in Muslim Spain had fallen to Christian forces, and it served to sharpen the religious aspect of the Christian reconquest. In subsequent centuries this dimension of the conflict would grow stronger.

Christian expansion was slowed at first by new Muslim forces entering Spain. In the early 11th century, a large part of northwestern Africa was under the control of the Almoravids, a fundamentalist Muslim movement led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, a Berber chieftain. The fall of Toledo alarmed many Spanish Muslims and prompted several Muslim leaders to invite Yusuf and the Almoravids to Spain. The Almoravids invaded Spain in 1086, conquered numerous Muslim kingdoms, and pushed back the Christians. But the advancing Muslims failed to retain control of the kingdom of Valencia, which was captured by Spanish hero El Cid in 1094. El Cid became legendary as the one Christian leader who defied the Almoravids. After El Cid’s death in 1099, however, Valencia returned to Muslim control.

A second conservative Muslim movement from North Africa, the Almohads, entered Spain and attacked the Almoravids. By the 1140s the Almoravids’ power had disintegrated. Once again Muslim Spain became a mosaic of small taifas. Over the next half century the Almohads established control in Andalucía and recaptured much of New Castile. Christian kingdoms, however, gradually learned to collaborate. In 1212 the Almohads suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Christian forces in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, on the plains of Toledo. Muslim power collapsed, opening the heart of Andalucía to Christian attack.

The Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragón continued to expand into Muslim territories, and by 1230 Christian armies had captured most of Andalucía. Only the wealthy kingdom of Granada remained Muslim. Muslims maintained control of Granada until 1492, when Castile, with the help of Aragón, conquered the kingdom, ending centuries of Muslim rule in Spain.

C.

The Late Medieval Period

After the mid-13th century Muslims no longer posed a serious challenge to the Christian kingdoms, whose rulers began to establish centralized political control. A period of dynastic struggles and civil wars ensued. Castile and León (permanently joined in 1230) and Aragón emerged as the most powerful kingdoms in Spain. By 1400 Castile and León had a large army and navy and it controlled Spain’s Atlantic trade. Aragón, meanwhile, dominated the western Mediterranean. By the 1460s its empire included the region of Aragón, Catalonia, Valencia, Mallorca, Minorca, Sardinia, Sicily, and southern Italy. Aragón’s influence also reached into northern Africa, especially Tunisia. The kingdoms of Castile and Aragón each had its own interests, and each was important in 15th-century Europe.

Medieval Christian Spain was organized around several key institutions. Warfare preoccupied the Christian monarchs, and royal institutions evolved to fight and pay for wars. The medieval monarchies collected few taxes until after 1100. They maintained their authority and ability to wage war through a combination of cash income from tolls and commercial taxes, income from the king’s own estates, and the ability to grant jurisdictional rights to nobles in return for military service. In a predominantly agricultural economy, grants of jurisdictional rights over farming towns or districts provided soldiers with a source of income; peasants working the land paid rent and provided services to their masters.

As the economy became more complex, the crown exacted more revenue in the form of taxes. Kings had little bureaucracy to collect these taxes, so they signed contracts with nobles and town governments to collect the taxes for them. As taxation increased, however, wealthy families and representatives from the towns forced the monarchies to consult with them in parliamentary assemblies known as cortes.

C.1.

Major Institutions

C.1.a.

Parliamentary Assemblies

The development of parliamentary assemblies, or cortes, served to check the power of the monarchs and royal officials. The cortes in Castile were relatively weak compared to those that developed in Aragón. The Castilian cortes originally had three houses, one each for clergy, nobility, and the towns. However, after the monarchy stopped convening the first two, the cortes consisted solely of representatives from the towns. The Castilian monarch often deferred to the cortes, and needed its approval to collect taxes, but assertions of royal power were largely unchallenged.

In Aragón the cortes had four houses, one each for clergy, upper nobility, lower nobility, and the towns. Consent of the Aragónese cortes was needed for all significant legislation; it could veto royal initiatives and determine the royal succession. In addition, power in Aragón was more decentralized than in Castile, which had a single royal government. Each of Aragón’s provinces had its own cortes, and a general cortes composed of all of the provincial assemblies occasionally convened. These arrangements forced the monarch in Aragón to negotiate with more groups to get what he wanted.

C.1.b.

Aristocracy

A powerful aristocracy developed in medieval Spain. By 1400 a few great clans dominated the aristocracy in Castile. In the north, aristocratic estates included jurisdictional rights that gave nobles control of local offices and taxation. Much of the land, however, actually belonged to peasants or the towns. In the south, however, Castilian kings gave large tracts of lands taken during the reconquest to Christian military leaders. These land grants are the origin of the latifundia, large estates owned by powerful families. Lords of the estates hired day workers to herd the sheep and farm the land. This created a system of debt peonage. Poor laborers who owed money to landlords could not afford to move unless they paid up.

A landed aristocracy also emerged in Aragón, but the power of Aragónese nobles was challenged by the wealthy merchant families of Barcelona, who could block decisions that they disliked in the cortes. Aragónese merchants were much less interested in the reconquest than the landed nobility, who stood to gain additional lands and jurisdictional rights. For merchants, the reconquest meant the disruption of profitable trade. In the cortes, merchants generally opposed taxes on trade and preferred taxes on land and agriculture; landed nobles generally favored the reverse.

C.1.c.

Local Government

The exercise of royal power depended on the cooperation of town governments. In exchange for the authority to manage local affairs, towns collected many of the king’s taxes and implemented royal edicts. Land grants issued by the monarchy, called propios, provided rents that helped support local governments. Most landowners took part in town meetings and elected the town councils. As towns grew in size and economic importance, local government often became dominated by the local nobility. Some town governments, however, remained independent of the nobility, and they helped the king limit the power of the landed aristocracy.

C.1.d.

Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church exercised significant power in medieval Spain. The church was important in two ways. First, it made royal authority legitimate, through the doctrine of the divine right of kings. People who did not accept Catholicism were suspected of disloyalty to the monarchy. Second, it asserted spiritual jurisdiction over all Spaniards. As both head of the Catholic Church and a foreign ruler, the pope could call upon church members in Spain to undermine royal policy. The papacy, for instance, frequently opposed royal actions that were perceived as conflicting with the church’s interests in other countries, and it sought to prevent kings from diverting the income of the church into the royal treasury. For these reasons, kings tried to control the selection of bishops in their territory. The church also controlled an immense amount of wealth, which it accumulated in the form of bequests when people died. Wealth and papal political influence gave the church great power that kings often sought to restrict.

The church consisted of several influential organizations. The most important were the monasteries and the military religious orders. Monasteries participated in the Christian reconquest, and several bishops and abbots led armies. As the idea of a crusade grew in popularity, the pope encouraged another religious institution in Spain, the military orders. The most important of these included the orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcántara. Knights in the orders took religious vows to fight the infidels, and they played a significant military role in the reconquest between 1150 and 1250. The orders were granted tracts of land to support the reconquest, and those who were admitted gained the status of nobles. Later, the orders grew wealthy and lost their original purpose.

C.1.e.

Economic Development

Spain’s medieval economy prospered. Agriculture flourished, and farmers in central Spain raised wheat, grapes, olives, sheep, and cattle. Most agricultural goods were consumed locally. The exception was wool. As Europe’s economy grew, European demand for Spanish wool rapidly expanded. By the 1200s regional organizations of sheep owners (mestas) were established in Castile, and the monarchy chartered a national Council of the Mesta. The council was granted a special court to resolve disputes with farmers over damage caused to cultivated lands by grazing. In return for such privileges, the Mesta agreed to pay taxes to the king on sheep migrating through key mountain passes. It also became wealthy itself and frequently loaned money to the monarchy.

The Black Death, an outbreak of bubonic plague that swept across Europe in the mid-14th century, reduced farming and increased livestock grazing in Spain. The plague decreased the population in Europe by as much as one-third. Many farms were turned into pasture because it took fewer people to herd sheep than to farm. Grazing also became more profitable than farming because the smaller population needed less food, leading to a decline in food prices. As a result, people had more income to spend on luxuries such as wool cloth. The stronger market for wool reinforced the shift to grazing.

Commerce thrived in medieval Spain. Barcelona was an important banking center by 1200 and Aragón dominated trade between Spain, France, Italy, and North Africa. This trade included cloth, food, gold, slaves, and ransomed prisoners. The Basque region became the largest source of iron in Europe and developed several important industries, including shipbuilding, fishing, and whaling.

D.

The Making of a World Power

In 1469 Isabella of Castile (later Isabella I), heiress to the Castilian throne, married her cousin, Ferdinand of Aragón (later Ferdinand V). Isabella was declared queen of Castile and León in 1474, and by 1476 Isabella had won control of the kingdom amidst a war of succession for the crown. Ferdinand, who ruled Castile alongside Isabella, inherited Aragón in 1479, and the two monarchs became joint rulers of both kingdoms. The partnership between the rulers of the Iberian Peninsula’s most powerful monarchies set in motion the developments that made Spain a great power. During their rule, they established the Spanish Inquisition to enforce uniform adherence to the Catholic faith. In 1492 Isabella and Ferdinand conquered Granada, the last Muslim kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, and expelled from Spain Jews who would not convert to Christianity. That same year they sponsored a voyage of Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus, who was seeking a westward route to Asia. Columbus’s discoveries preceded a spectacular expansion into the Americas that brought enormous wealth and control of vast new overseas territories to Spain.

Ferdinand and Isabella greatly expanded Spain’s influence on the continent by marrying their children to the heirs of other European rulers. When their grandson, Charles, came to the throne as Charles I of Spain, he inherited a vast amount of territory in Europe. In 1519, as Charles V, he became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the largest Western empire since the Roman Empire. Subsequent Spanish kings ruled vast European domains and faced many foreign threats. They met these threats using wealth from Spain’s huge American empire.

D.1.

Union of the Spanish Kingdoms

After their marriage, Ferdinand and Isabella succeeded in combining Castile and Aragón into an effective political unit. But they were less preoccupied with the task of unification than with stabilizing their authority and building reliable political alliances at home. It was a union of crowns, rather than of kingdoms. The two rulers ruled jointly, collaborating on religious and foreign policies but retaining distinct parliamentary and administrative institutions in each kingdom. Castile and Aragón also kept their different outlooks toward the world. Castile was oriented to Africa and the Atlantic Ocean, while Aragón, the smaller and poorer kingdom, looked toward Italy and the western Mediterranean.

D.2.

Consolidation of Power

Above all, Ferdinand and Isabella sought to establish law and order in their realms. For much of the 15th century Castile and Aragón were convulsed by civil war. A unified crown and stronger monarchy could help the rulers defend their lands from enemies, especially from non-Christians. Under Ferdinand and Isabella, royal power emerged as the greatest authority in the land. In Castile they reformed the judicial system and weakened the upper nobility by limiting their access to the royal administration. Both these steps laid the basis for royal absolutism. They also developed an efficient bureaucracy by favoring the selection of university-educated candidates as royal officials. This helped make Castile one of the largest and most modern European states of its time. Royal power was further enhanced with the conquest of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, in 1492. This completed the Christian reconquest of Spain.

D.3.

The Spanish Inquisition

For the Catholic Monarchs (Reyes Católicos)—a title given to Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander VI for their religious devotion—religious observation was central to achieving domestic peace. The Spanish monarchs, like their European counterparts, were believed to rule as trustees of God. This direct link to divine authority is what made rulers legitimate in Europe. It also made non-Christians or heretics dangerous because their rejection of Christianity implied that they did not accept the monarch’s right to rule.

In 1478 Isabella established the Spanish Inquisition under the leadership of Dominican monk Tomás de Torquemada. The Spanish Inquisition was originally founded to ensure the sincerity of former Jews and Muslims who had recently converted to Christianity, known as conversos and Moriscos respectively. Insincere converts were suspected of disloyalty and punished. As an institution that operated in both Castile and Aragón, the Inquisition was an important source of unity in Spain. It brought both monarchies closer to the Roman Catholic Church and it helped guarantee that Spain would remain a profoundly Catholic country.

In its first decades the Inquisition tried and punished thousands of people, including many conversos involved in commerce and trade. People judged to be heretics were executed, often by burning at the stake. In 1492 all unconverted Jews were ordered to leave Spain, and many thousands emigrated to North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and other parts of Europe. In the early 17th century the Spanish inquisitors turned their attention to Muslims. Between 1609 and 1614 more than 250,000 Spanish Muslims were driven out of Spain. Later, the Spanish Inquisition sought to discipline persons suspected of practicing Protestantism.

At the time, many Spaniards considered the Inquisition a triumph for Roman Catholicism. However, the costs of the Inquisition were high. Spain expelled many of its most economically important citizens, depriving the crown of a source of much-needed tax revenue. The church, with royal cooperation, also censored books, and students were prohibited from studying abroad to prevent the importation of Protestant ideas into Spain. These practices eventually cut Spain off from intellectual developments in Europe and turned Spanish universities into academic backwaters. This isolation made it more difficult for Spain to modernize in later centuries. In addition, the urge to protect royal legitimacy, power, and prestige led Spain to fight wars it could not win, at great cost to Spain’s society and economy.

D.4.

The Spanish Empire

Spain rose from a partnership between two Iberian kingdoms to the status of world power in a short time. The new strength of Castile soon became evident to the world. The consolidation of a strong government at home allowed Castilian monarchs to focus the crown’s resources on overseas expansion. At the same time, a series of strategic alliances and military initiatives permitted Spain to achieve dominance in Europe.

D.4.a.

Conquest in the Americas

Christopher Columbus’s westward voyages aroused great excitement in Spain, even if the results were at first disappointing. Castile was determined to follow the lead of neighboring Portugal, whose mariners had already traveled around the southern end of Africa and opened a sea route to Asia. Although Columbus did not succeed in finding a westward route to Asia, Castile annexed the islands he found in the West Indies upon his return from his first voyage. The Castilians gradually settled colonies in the Caribbean, beginning with Santo Domingo (in present-day Dominican Republic), and established their first settlement in Cuba in 1509. Then Spain’s stunning expansion in the Americas began.

Over the course of the next century generations of adventurers and explorers, known as the conquistadors, traveled to the Americas on behalf of the Spanish crown. Hernán Cortés destroyed the Aztec Empire in Mexico, and Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire in Peru. Explorers such as Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Ferdinand Magellan, and Hernando De Soto were chartered by Spain. Spain eventually laid claim to all of Latin America, except for Brazil, and also claimed the southern part of the United States from Florida to California, as well as Jamaica and the Philippine Islands.

At first the conquerors sent home gold and silver accumulated by the Aztec and Inca empires. These riches were soon exhausted, and little moveable wealth remained in the Americas that could bear the costs of shipment to Europe and still be sold for a profit. The conquerors then turned to the land and the labor of indigenous peoples to create wealth in ways that were familiar in Spain. They imported Spanish crops and livestock and attempted to build productive, largely self-contained, colonies.

Spain’s empire in the Americas entered a new phase in the mid-16th century when extensive silver deposits were discovered, first in Mexico and then in Bolivia. By 1560 large amounts of American silver were flowing into the Spanish treasury annually. At the same time, European diseases had decimated native peoples in the Americas. To keep the silver flowing, Spanish colonizers forcibly moved shrinking numbers of indigenous peoples to new towns where they could be put to work in the mines. As native peoples died, Spain imported African slaves to work in its colonies. Spain also organized a system of seaports and regular transatlantic fleets with naval protection to control trade between Europe and the Americas. By the late 16th century American silver accounted for one-fifth of Spain’s total budget. This silver allowed Spain to build a huge structure of credit and to fight many wars. When Spain’s monopoly on American silver broke down after 1630, Spanish power quickly collapsed.

D.4.b.

European Power

Spain’s expansion in Europe began even before the new wealth from the Americas became available. Ferdinand’s brilliant use of diplomacy and military power were central to Spain’s transformation into a world power. Spain’s main opponent in Europe was France, both along the frontiers that separated the two states and also in Italy, where Aragón’s traditional interests were threatened by French efforts to dominate the peninsula. Under Ferdinand, Spain succeeded in winning control of southern Italy, all Navarre south of the Pyrenees, and farther north, the regions of Cerdagne and Roussillon.

Ferdinand arranged strategic alliances with other royal houses hostile to France. He married one daughter, Catherine of Aragón, to the heir to the English throne, Henry VIII. He married another daughter, Joanna the Mad, to a member of the Habsburg royal family, Philip of Burgundy (later King Philip I of Castile).

Isabella’s death in 1504 greatly complicated the process of Spanish expansion as Castile’s crown passed to Joanna, who was mentally deranged. Ferdinand and Philip agreed that Joanna was incapable of ruling. Ferdinand served as regent until Philip and Joanna returned from Flanders, at which time Philip became king consort and regent. An alliance between Philip and powerful Castilian nobles forced Ferdinand to withdraw from Castile. In 1506, shortly after taking power, Philip died suddenly. A special council recalled Ferdinand to Castile, although he was denied the full powers of regency, including control over foreign affairs. Despite a contentious aristocracy, Ferdinand eventually regained full control over Castile. Upon his death in 1516, Ferdinand was succeeded by his grandson, Charles, son of Joanna and Philip. As legal heir to both Castile and Aragón, Charles became the first king of a united Spain.

D.5.

Charles V

With Ferdinand’s death, Charles inherited a vast amount of territory. In addition to Spain—which he ruled as Charles I—and its possessions in Italy and the Americas, he inherited the Low Countries (what are now Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg) through his father. The accession of Charles to the throne also made Spain the largest and most important domain of the Habsburg family, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire. Habsburg kings would rule Spain for nearly 200 years, until 1700. When his paternal grandfather, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, died in 1519, Charles inherited Habsburg lands in what are now Germany and Austria. Later that year Charles was elected Holy Roman emperor as Charles V, making him the nominal ruler of Germany. Charles emerged as the most powerful monarch in Europe.

Charles was just 16 years old when he became king of Castile and Aragón. Reared in Flanders, Charles could not speak Spanish, and he tried to rule Spain through foreign advisers. Charles quickly provoked resentment among the Castilian nobility and towns by granting offices to his followers and demanding new taxes. In 1519 this resentment exploded into the comunero revolt, which began in Toledo and quickly spread to other towns. The revolt was suppressed in 1521 with help from the nobility. To alleviate the concerns of his Spanish subjects, Charles agreed to give court positions to Castilians and he negotiated a system of tax payments that satisfied the towns. These compromises proved durable, and Spain’s interior remained peaceful for much of the next two centuries.

After a difficult start, Charles became a popular monarch. Spain’s imperial accomplishments in Europe and the Americas were a source of great pride. In addition, Castile grew increasingly prosperous under Charles’s rule, benefiting from American mineral wealth as well as remarkable growth in population, agricultural output, and manufacturing.

Charles brought Spain into many wars to defend his vast collection of territories. During his reign, Spanish soldiers and wealth were used to fight the Protestant Reformation sweeping northern Europe, the Ottoman Empire in the western Mediterranean, and the French in Italy and the Rhineland. The wars against France eventually made Spain a dominant power in northern as well as southern Italy. However, Charles failed to halt the advance of the Ottomans. Also of significance, he was unable to prevent the establishment of Protestantism in Germany. Under the terms of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, German princes seeking autonomy won the right to choose between Lutheranism and Catholicism for their subjects.

The political difficulties that the Reformation created for Charles in much of Europe did not develop in Spain. The Spanish Catholic Church was one of the least corrupt in Europe. Church reforms implemented by the Spanish Inquisition had removed many of the abuses that infuriated Martin Luther and other European religious reformers. As a result, Protestantism had far less appeal in Spain than in much of Europe. Charles successfully promoted additional reforms and prodded the papacy into summoning the Council of Trent, which clarified Catholic beliefs and reformed the education of priests. At about the same time a former Spanish soldier, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founded the Jesuits, a Catholic religious order. The Jesuits set about making converts to Catholicism in Spain’s European possessions and in the Americas.

In 1556 Charles divided his empire, which had proven so difficult to defend. He relinquished the greater part of his realms, including the Spanish throne, to his son, Philip II. He also resigned as Holy Roman emperor in favor of his brother, Ferdinand I, who inherited the Habsburg lands in central Europe.

D.6.

Philip II

Spain reached the peak of its power during the rule of Philip II. Philip’s reign began with a financial crisis and royal bankruptcy as the new king consolidated the divided empire left by his father. Domestically, Spain was stable, and unprecedented amounts of American silver poured into Castile. Spain’s Golden Age of art and culture began under Philip, and it would continue for a century. In foreign affairs Spain enjoyed some successes. The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559 ended the exhausting wars with France, and for the next four decades France was too divided by civil wars and religious turmoil to challenge Spanish interests. However, Spain soon had to confront a major rebellion in the Low Countries as well as the renewed expansion of the Ottoman Empire in Mediterranean lands. Deeply religious, Philip was committed to the eventual triumph of Roman Catholic rule in Europe. However, much of Philip’s long reign was marked by failures that weakened the Spanish empire. At his death in 1598 Philip left a nation with a declining economy and a powerful, but precarious, international position.

D.6.a.

Spain’s Golden Age

Spain’s intellectual life flourished throughout much of the 16th and 17th centuries. Generous patronage by the crown, church, and aristocracy stimulated creative work, and Spain earned world renown as a center of learning, literature, and art. Several of Europe’s leading universities were in Spain. The University of Salamanca in central Spain was at the forefront in the new fields of economic and political theory. The University of Alcala, founded by Isabella I, became a center of Renaissance scholarship on the Bible. Experts in Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and other languages created the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, which compared the best versions of the Bible in several languages.

Literature produced the incomparable Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. His novel, Don Quixote (Part I, 1605; Part II, 1615), a satire of the outmoded values of the Spanish elite, is considered one of the great books of Western literature. In drama the plays of Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Henao were enormously popular and influenced many European dramatists.

The era of Philip II witnessed perhaps the greatest painters identified with Spain. El Greco, an immigrant from Crete, produced paintings that emphasized religious themes. The emotional intensity of El Greco’s work gave inspiration to the expressionist painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (see Expressionism). The Spanish baroque artist Diego Velázquez, who served as court painter for Philip IV, produced a spectacular series of paintings. Velázquez was part of a remarkable school of Spanish painting that also included Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Claudio Coello. After 1665, patronage of art lost its direction and for a time Spain produced few works with broader appeal.

D.6.b.

International and Domestic Affairs

International affairs dominated Philip’s reign, and his successes were notable. In the Battle of Lepanto (1571) Philip led the Holy League, an alliance of Spain, Venice, Genoa, and the Papal States, to a decisive naval victory over the Ottoman Empire. The battle was the first major victory of Christian forces against the Ottoman Empire. Ten years later Philip made himself king of Portugal, after overcoming rival claimants to the throne. Because Portugal controlled territories in Asia, Africa, and Brazil, its union with Spain put the Iberian Peninsula at the center of the largest and most far-flung empire in the world.

Despite these successes, Philip’s troubles gradually accumulated. Zealously religious, Philip was dedicated to defending his Catholic empire against the advance of the Protestant Reformation. Philip’s efforts to prevent the spread of Protestantism in the Low Countries proved disastrous. His use of the Inquisition to persecute Protestants in The Netherlands led to open revolt there in 1567. This conflict continued for more than a half-century, draining Spanish resources. It also led to war with England. Under Queen Elizabeth I, England was a Protestant power. England’s foreign policy included unofficial support for the Dutch rebels and for English mariners who raided Spain’s colonies and treasure fleets in the Americas. In 1588 Philip sent a huge naval fleet, the Spanish Armada, to conquer England and reconvert it to Catholicism. However, the armada was defeated in the English Channel, and many remaining ships were wrecked in a storm off the Hebrides. The destruction of the armada reduced Spain’s ability to wage war abroad. Despite this defeat, Spain was able to send another large fleet to Ireland in 1596 in an ill-fated attempt to capture that country. The war between Spain and England continued until 1604.

As Spain struggled with costly military operations abroad, the nation’s domestic situation deteriorated. American treasure alone could not support Spain’s wars. Philip was forced into bankruptcy three times. Crippling taxation caused extreme poverty and brought Spaniards to the point of revolt. Adding to the hardships, a series of epidemics swept Spain in the 1590s, greatly reducing the population. At the same time, Philip strengthened the Spanish Inquisition to crush any threat of Protestantism being imported. Intellectual life, in the midst of a great flowering, became narrower and less open to new currents of thought.

E.

Decline of Spanish Power

At the dawn of the 17th century Spain was still considered a great power. It ruled a vast empire, its diplomatic and military capabilities were widely respected, and Spanish cultural life flourished. But throughout the 17th century Spain suffered from erratic leadership, recurrent warfare with rivals, revolts in Spanish territories, and a perpetually depressed economy. By the end the century, Spain’s power and riches were drastically reduced and its culture was in decline.

E.1.

The Reign of Philip III

King Philip III, son of Philip II, was religiously devout but cared little for politics. Philip devoted much of his attention to court festivals and other amusements, and royal power largely fell to his prime minister, Francisco de Sandoval, duke of Lerma. During Philip’s reign (1598-1621), Spain curtailed foreign military campaigns and other international ventures. Spain made peace with England in 1604, ending 16 years of continuous war. In 1609 the Spanish and Dutch initiated a 12-year truce. That same year, Lerma’s government expelled the last of the Moriscos (Christian converts from Islam) from Spain. This policy deprived Spain of more than 250,000 of its most industrious inhabitants, leading to further population loss and economic disruption.

Royal finances failed to improve under Philip. Defense was costly, even in peacetime, and Philip spent large sums of money on palaces, festivals, and hunting parties. Philip created an impressive baroque court in Madrid and built the great Plaza Mayor, which long served as the city’s civic and economic center.

The peace enjoyed under Philip abruptly ended with the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), which began as a conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Germany. Philip’s strong backing of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and the German Catholic princes drew Spain into another prolonged military conflict. Spain joined the struggle out of a desire to help the Habsburgs retain power, advance the Catholic faith, and recover, if possible, the Dutch provinces. Philip III died in 1621, but his policies were continued under his son and successor, Philip IV.

E.2.

Spain Under Philip IV

During the reign of Philip IV (1621-1665), Spain continued its economic and political decline. Like his father, Philip IV was a weak leader. He preferred culture to politics and left the powers of the monarchy to his prime minister, Gaspar de Guzmán, conde de Olivares.

Olivares, a gifted politician, sought to carry out ambitious plans for government reform and to restore Spanish power abroad. He resumed the conflict with the Dutch and continued Spanish involvement in the Thirty Years’ War. At first, Spain met with military success, but the effort could not be sustained at home. Olivares’s attempts to increase taxation and conscription to support the military campaigns led to revolt. In 1640 the province of Catalonia declared itself an independent republic, and for 19 years the presence of French troops helped to maintain its autonomy from Spain. In the same year Portugal also broke away from Spanish control.

With the home front in chaos, Spain began to fail abroad. In 1643 Spain’s last army in the Low Countries was destroyed when it invaded France during the final phase of the Thirty Years’ War. Olivares, who was blamed for the disasters at home and abroad, was dismissed. However, the wars and revolts his policies helped bring about haunted Spain for nearly three decades. Catalonia was recovered in 1652, but Spain was forced to recognize Dutch independence in 1648 with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. The southern portion of the Spanish Netherlands, a region roughly corresponding to present-day Belgium and Luxembourg, remained a Spanish domain. Spain returned the provinces of Roussillon and Cerdagne to France in 1659 and accepted the independence of Portugal in 1668. In 1655 an English naval force captured Jamaica, the first of many colonies that Spain was to lose in the Western Hemisphere.

Declining shipments of American silver after 1630 weakened Spain further. The cost of Spanish military campaigns had caused the Spanish monarchs to confiscate private silver from Spain’s American fleets. They also used funds meant for the defense of Spain’s American trade for the conflicts in Europe. As a result, fewer fleets came from America and they brought less silver. This was disastrous for the war effort and Spain declared bankruptcy in 1647 and again in 1652.

E.3.

The End of the Spanish Habsburgs

The long and inept reign of Charles II (1665-1700), son of Philip IV, ended Habsburg rule of Spain. Mentally and physically infirm, Charles never understood government. Charles’s advisers involved Spain in a series of disastrous wars that caused Spain to lose much of its remaining possessions in Europe. Internal strife characterized Spain at home, with domestic policy dominated by competing noble families.

E.3.a.

Bourbon Rule

Charles died in 1700 without an heir, bringing to an end the male line of the Spanish Habsburgs. Charles willed his throne to his grandnephew, Philip V, duke of Anjou. Philip was the grandson of the powerful Bourbon king Louis XIV of France and the great-grandson of Philip III.

Much of Europe viewed the Bourbon family’s acquisition of Spain’s still-vast territories with alarm. Philip’s accession to the throne meant an enormous expansion in French power. Thus, many in Europe favored Habsburg claims to the throne, as represented by the Archduke Charles, younger son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. England, The Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, and several smaller countries formed a coalition against Louis XIV. This resulted in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), fought mainly in Germany, the Low Countries, Italy, and across Spain itself.

E.3.b.

Loss of European Possessions

The war stripped Spain of its last European possessions. Under the settlement reached in the Peace of Utrecht, Spain lost Gibraltar, Milan, Naples, Sardinia, Sicily, Minorca, and the last of its territories in the Spanish Netherlands. However, Spain’s American empire passed intact to Philip, who became the first Bourbon ruler of Spain.

E.4.

The Early Spanish Bourbons

Spain’s early Bourbon kings—Philip V (1700-1746), Ferdinand VI (1746-1759), and Charles III (1759-1788)—ruled more effectively than their Habsburg predecessors. Under Bourbon rule, government administration became more centralized and efficient and the economy gradually expanded. The Bourbon kings also defended the empire both in Europe and overseas. They successfully prevented further territorial losses and restored Spanish influence in southern Italy.

E.4.a.

Administrative and Economic Reforms

Administrative reforms carried out by the early Bourbons made government more effective and reduced the privileges of the church and the nobility. Many of these reforms were modeled on the French system of government. Philip, schooled in the absolutism of Louis XIV, brought the regions of Catalonia and Aragón under central control. In medieval times these regions were independent states and they had retained a degree of autonomy.

The Bourbon rulers also lowered taxes, made efforts to balance the budget, and built roads and other public works. They removed obstacles to trade, reorganized commercial law, and gave financial incentives to industry and agriculture. In addition, Spain’s navy was rebuilt and expanded, local administration of the American colonies was reorganized, and Spain’s commercial ties with the colonies were improved. Partly as a result of these policies, the economy and population began to grow and the volume of Spanish-American trade greatly increased.

E.4.b.

International Relations

In foreign affairs, the early Bourbons regained some of Spain’s former greatness. The Bourbon kings were generally allied with France and hostile to Great Britain, Spain’s chief naval and colonial rival. Spain joined France against Austria in the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1735) and the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). In 1762 Charles III—convinced that Britain was the major threat to Spain’s American empire—entered an alliance with France against Britain in the Seven Years’ War. When Britain won, Spain lost Florida. However, in a secret treaty France transferred the vast Louisiana Purchase in North America to Spain as compensation for its support in the war. Spain and France allied again in 1779 to support the American Revolution against Great Britain, and in the 1783 Treaty of Paris Spain recovered Florida. The Spanish presence now extended over much of the North American continent.

E.4.c.

The Enlightenment

An abiding faith in the power of human reason and a deep respect for humanity lay at the center of the 18th-century intellectual movement known as the Age of Enlightenment. Spain was an active participant in the Enlightenment, but the movement’s ideas were applied selectively. The Enlightenment’s emphasis on the value of scientific learning, rational economic organization, and free markets was well received. However, many religiously devout Spaniards resisted anticlerical sentiments expressed in Enlightenment thought. In addition, few Spaniards were concerned about Enlightenment political principles—a belief in elections, parliamentary government, and popular sovereignty—before the 19th century, when these liberal ideas began to take hold in Spain.

During the 18th century the Spanish crown promoted educational reforms and scientific inquiry. Spain’s government sponsored scientific expeditions and constructed new museums and schools. Scientific and medical societies were founded, including the Royal Observatory and the Royal Botanical Garden. At the same time, modern ideas about urban planning became widespread, and Spanish cities began to acquire the boulevards common elsewhere in Europe.

Spain’s contributions to Enlightenment-era art were significant. In opera the renowned Neapolitan castrato singer Farinelli achieved his greatest success in Madrid. The Italian harpsichordist and composer Domenico Scarlatti spent much of his life at the Spanish court, and Spain produced such noted classical composers as Antoni Soler, Carlos Baguer, and Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga. The first Bourbon kings favored French and Italian court painters, but after 1750 Spanish painting came into its own. The Academy of Fine Arts, founded in 1752, was unique in its time for admitting women artists. Spanish painter Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a dominant influence in this era. A court painter to Charles III and Charles IV, Goya produced remarkable images of Spanish society, historical figures, and the inhumanity of war.

E.5.

Effects of the French Revolution

A weak ruler, prey to intrigues and corruption, Charles IV was dominated by his chief adviser, Manuel de Godoy. The reign of Charles (1788-1808) coincided with the turbulent French Revolution (1789-1799). The revolution caused extraordinary upheavals throughout Europe and had particularly adverse effects in Spain.

Many European monarchies watched in horror as the French Revolution unfolded, especially after the fall of the Bastille in Paris in 1789. Fearful that revolutionary ideas might spread to the peninsula, Spain’s Bourbon monarchy introduced repressive policies, revived the Inquisition, and ended plans for new domestic reforms. After revolutionary forces executed French Bourbon king Louis XVI in 1793, Spain joined Britain and other European powers in a war against France. The following year France invaded Spain and ravaged its northern provinces, occupying Bilbao and San Sebastián. After initial Spanish resistance, Godoy admitted defeat.

In 1796, as revolutionary fervor in France abated, Godoy reversed course and formed an alliance with France against Britain. The British navy proved superior to the French and Spanish fleets, however. For the next decade, British blockades largely cut off Spain from its American colonies. The economic consequences for Spain were disastrous, as Spanish colonial trade shifted to Britain and the United States and Spain’s finances deteriorated. Worse still, it soon became clear with the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte in France that Spain was a junior partner in the alliance. In 1800 Napoleon forced Spain to return the Louisiana Purchase to France. By 1805, after a joint Spanish-French fleet was destroyed by the British at the Battle of Trafalgar, Spain had been reduced to little more than a French puppet. Two years later, with Godoy’s consent, French troops marched across Spain in a bid to conquer Portugal. On their way, French forces occupied army garrisons in north and central Spain.

Resentment among the Spanish people grew, and they turned against Godoy and Charles. Godoy was deposed and Charles was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII. Napoleon, who had already decided to assume direct control of Spain, used the unrest as an opportunity to invade Spain. Napoleon ousted both Ferdinand and Charles and placed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne.

E.6.

War of Independence

Many Spaniards refused to recognize Joseph as king and angrily opposed the French occupation. On May 2, 1808, a popular uprising drove Joseph from Madrid. In the violent Peninsular War that followed, Spain, aided by British troops, fought a war of independence from France. By 1810 French forces had defeated the major Spanish armies and occupied most of the country. But Spanish irregular fighters who employed guerrilla tactics—surprise attacks and rapid retreats—continually harassed the French forces. Their efforts prevented the French from routing British forces sent to protect Portugal or from completely conquering Spain. Over time the French forces weakened, and British troops under Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, pushed into Spain from the west. In 1813, after a series of bloody engagements, France was forced to evacuate the peninsula. See also Napoleonic Wars.

E.6.a.

Constitutional Reform

During the war, Spanish resistance leaders attempted to establish a liberal government in Spain. From 1810 to 1813 they convened a Spanish Cortes (national assembly) in Cádiz. The assembly proclaimed a constitution for Spain in 1812. Advanced for its time, the Cádiz constitution gave Spain a limited monarchy and a single-chamber parliament, curbed the power of the nobility and the Catholic Church, suppressed the Spanish Inquisition, and expanded protection of individual rights. Suffrage was tied to property ownership, giving business interests a strong voice in the new parliament. The constitution was a victory for liberalism in Spain. Thereafter, much of Spain’s history involved struggles to make the constitution’s ideals effective.

E.6.b.

Loss of American Colonies

As Spain struggled to gain its freedom from France, revolutionary movements took hold in many of Spain’s American colonies. The Spanish colonists had initially opposed French conquest in Spain. However, they soon were demanding independence themselves, inspired by the revolt of American colonists in the American Revolution, as well as by the ongoing rebellion in Spain. Apart from their desire for political independence, the colonists wished to break free of Spain’s imperial monopoly on American trade and to exchange goods freely with all nations. By 1826 only Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippine Islands, Guam, and several colonial settlements in northern Africa remained under Spanish rule; the mainland colonies in the Americas had all gained their freedom, and their resources were lost to Spain.

F.

The Troubled Monarchy

F.1.

The Reign of Ferdinand VII

After Napoleon’s defeat in the Peninsular War, Ferdinand VII returned to Spain in 1814 and was recognized as king. In an effort to restore the absolute monarchy, Ferdinand promptly repealed the Cádiz constitution. A harsh and vindictive ruler, Ferdinand sought to repress all liberal elements in Spain.

In 1820 Ferdinand ordered Spanish troops sent to Latin America to reclaim Spain’s former colonies. The troops, however, refused to go. The mutiny quickly spread into a national revolt, the Revolution of 1820. The revolution brought a liberal regime to power that forced Ferdinand to restore the Cádiz constitution. But the liberals were unable to rule effectively, and Spain remained politically divided. France, alarmed by the attack on the monarchy in Spain, intervened in 1823. French troops toppled the Spanish government and restored Ferdinand to absolute power. Leaders of the liberal government were arrested or driven into exile, and Ferdinand’s despotic, antiliberal rule lasted another decade.

F.2.

The First Carlist War

In 1831 Ferdinand named his infant daughter, Isabella, to succeed him. Ferdinand’s brother, Don Carlos de Borbón, disputed Isabella’s claim to the crown, arguing that a female’s succession was forbidden by the Salic Law. Ferdinand responded by completing the repeal of the Salic Law in Spain, a process initiated by his father, Charles IV. After Ferdinand died in 1833, Isabella was declared queen, with her mother, Maria Christina, as regent. A group of religious traditionalists and political reactionaries, called Carlists, insisted that Don Carlos should inherit the throne. Isabella’s succession was backed by the liberals, known as Christinos, who took their name from Isabella’s mother. The dynastic split soon erupted in a civil war between the Carlists and Christinos.

Carlist support came largely from the rural areas of northern Spain, especially the Basque regions and Catalonia, where the clergy’s influence was strong. Strongly Roman Catholic, the Carlist movement was also fiercely protective of traditional laws, known as fueros, which had long governed many aspects of life in the northern provinces. Spain’s more developed regions opposed the Carlists, as did Britain, France, and Portugal, all of which supported the Christinos. To preserve the liberals’ backing, Maria Christina granted a royal charter in 1834 that took the form of a constitution and granted a modest degree of political reform. The civil war thus pitted supporters of a constitutional monarchy against advocates of absolutist rule, represented by Don Carlos. After a long struggle, the Carlists were defeated in 1839. Don Carlos went into exile and Carlist forces were allowed to become part of Spain’s regular army. Despite this defeat, Carlist sentiment remained a potent political force in the Basque provinces.

Internal conflicts weakened the liberals, and their victory over the Carlists came slowly. Moderate liberals upheld the privileges of the crown and favored a narrow franchise based on wealth or education. Progressive liberals, like the moderates, supported a constitutional monarchy, but they wanted to expand the franchise and promote greater political participation. To the left of the progressives were the radical democrats, who demanded the establishment of a Spanish republic (a representative form of government based on the concept of popular sovereignty).

In 1836 a series of popular uprisings in southern Spain forced Maria Christina to reinstate the Cádiz constitution of 1812. One year later liberals accepted a moderate compromise, the constitution of 1837. In 1840 a progressive revolt led by General Baldomero Espartero ousted Maria Christina, who fled to France, and the Cortes made Espartero regent. But Espartero’s merciless suppression of political opponents triggered an uprising that drove him from power in 1843. Isabella, now 13 years old, was declared legally of age following Espartero’s overthrow, and she assumed the crown as Isabella II.

F.3.

Dissension and Crisis

F.3.a.

Isabella II

Continued struggle between liberal factions marked the turbulent rule of Isabella II (1833-1868). The moderates, favored by the court, came largely from society’s wealthier ranks, while progressives were drawn mainly from the middle classes. Moderates governed for much of Isabella’s reign, which witnessed frequent rebellions, military risings, and cabinet changes. Isabella’s absolutist tendencies and incompetent leadership eventually alienated all major political factions.

F.3.b.

Revolution of 1868

A popular uprising led by the military finally deposed Isabella in the Revolution of 1868. A provisional government headed by General Juan Prim assumed power after Isabella’s expulsion.

After the revolution, liberals who had conspired with the military helped set up government committees, called juntas, in most major towns. Military leaders, however, were determined to restore the constitutional monarchy and to prevent moves toward republican democracy. With the juntas largely in control of local government, Prim’s provisional government was forced to concede some democratic demands. These demands culminated in the constitution of 1869, which provided for a limited monarchy, universal male suffrage, and freedom of the press and association.

The new constitution failed to quell political unrest, however, and the provisional government vigorously crushed demands for additional reforms. Prim, convinced that the constitutional monarchy would restore political stability, order, and respect for traditional values, began searching across Europe for an acceptable monarch for Spain.

F.3.c.

Growing Instability

In 1870 Prim recruited Amadeo of Savoy, a duke from Italy, who accepted the Spanish throne and was crowned Amadeus I. However, Prim was assassinated on the day that Amadeus arrived in Madrid, and the revolutionary coalition quickly collapsed. The new king proved unable to form a stable government as opposition to the constitutional monarchy intensified on the right and the left. The Carlists opposed the reign of Amadeus, and their reactionary insurrection reemerged in northern Spain. At the same time, a movement agitating for republican government gained ground. Events overseas compounded Spain’s problems. In 1868 Cuba revolted against Spanish rule, leading to a long and costly struggle (see Ten Years’ War). Amadeus abdicated in 1873, beset by political and social conflict, popular hostility against him, and the strain of the Cuban and Carlist insurrections.

F.3.d.

The Republican Interlude

After Amadeus resigned the Spanish Cortes proclaimed the First Spanish Republic—a short-lived democratic regime based on parliamentary control of government. Supporters of the republic were deeply divided among themselves, however, and political anarchy ensued. The constitution of the First Republic called for a federal republic in which power was decentralized to the provinces. When the government rejected demands for an immediate declaration of federalism, radicals in Málaga, Alcoy, Cartagena, Seville, and Barcelona, asserted self-government under left-wing leadership. At the same time, Carlists opposed the regime and intensified their insurrection. Political stability eluded the government, which had four presidents in its eight-month existence. By late 1874 a group of Spanish generals had become convinced that only a restoration of the Bourbon monarchy could put an end to domestic strife. On Christmas Eve the army proclaimed Isabella’s oldest living son, Alfonso XII, king of Spain, and the First Republic collapsed.

F.4.

Restoration of the Monarchy

The new regime was determined not to repeat the errors of recent failed governments. Under Alfonso XII, the Spanish Cortes drafted a constitution in 1876 that established a system of limited parliamentary government and laid the basis for greater political stability. The constitution introduced a two-house legislature and a cabinet, and it restricted the powers of the crown. In addition, the constitution provided for a two-party system designed to represent the interests of the propertied middle and upper classes. Suffrage was confined to male property owners and taxpayers, and the two major parties—the Conservatives and Liberals—shared the same basic goals and assumptions. A contrived system of rotation, called the turno pacífico (peaceful turnaround), allowed the parties to alternate in office at regular intervals. To produce the desired rotation, elections were supervised by the incoming government and in much of the country were rigged by political bosses. The result was a closed political system controlled mainly by a rural oligarchy of conservative property owners that resisted broader political participation or social reform.

In 1885 Alfonso XII died without an heir, but his wife, Queen Maria Christina, bore him a posthumous son. The son came of age in 1902 and took the throne as Alfonso XIII. Until then, Maria Christina acted as regent.

Under the turno pacífico system, Spain enjoyed greater prosperity than it had known since the 18th century. The government defeated the Carlist insurrection in 1876, and the Ten Years’ War with Cuba came to an end in 1878. High tariffs protected Spanish agriculture from foreign competition, and the Basque iron, steel, and manufacturing industries boomed. Madrid and Barcelona grew rapidly and installed electrical systems, telephones, electric trams, and other modern conveniences. It was also an era of cultural flowering. Barcelona became a vibrant example of avant-garde architecture, the impressionist painter Joaquín Sorolla achieved world renown, and Spanish flamenco dancing became popular across Europe. In literature, Spain produced one of its greatest authors, novelist and playwright Benito Pérez Galdós.

Spain faced several difficult problems during the late 19th century. Stable rule and economic progress led to the emergence of new political forces that could not be contained by the existing political system. Industrialists and merchants in the Basque regions and Catalonia benefited from economic development, but they were largely excluded from political power; many gave their support to regional autonomy movements. A radicalized labor movement also began to develop, and political dissent emerged among the middle classes. In 1890 universal male suffrage was restored. Elections became more honest and representative in urban areas, but the rural oligarchy still dominated the government. Then, in 1898, Spain lost most of its remaining overseas colonial possessions in the devastating Spanish-American War.

F.4.a.

Spanish-American War

In 1895 another revolt began in Cuba, following Spain’s failure to carry out reforms promised at the conclusion of the Ten Years’ War. The United States sided with Cuba and in 1898 declared war on Spain after the battleship USS Maine mysteriously exploded and sank in Havana Harbor. In the fighting that ensued, Spain’s naval fleet was destroyed. Badly defeated, Spain withdrew from Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands to the United States.

The war marked the end of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and shattered Spain’s lingering claims to great-power status. The humiliation caused by the war led many young Spanish intellectuals to ponder their country’s predicament. Known as the generation of 1898, these intellectuals included important writers and critics such as Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, Pío Baroja y Nessi, Jacinto Benavente y Martínez, and Antonio Machado y Ruíz (see Spanish Literature). They began a searching criticism of Spanish institutions and initiated the Spanish cultural renaissance of the early 20th century.

F.4.b.

Domestic Upheaval

After the defeat of 1898, Spain’s parliamentary monarchy lost stability amid growing dissidence throughout Spanish society. Political groups increasingly resorted to violence. Republican movements pressing for greater democracy reemerged and demanded constitutional reforms. Support for anarchism took root among farm laborers in Andalucía and industrial workers in Barcelona. A small, though durable, socialist movement appeared in factories and mines in the Basque provinces and Asturias, and regionalist sentiments in Catalonia grew into demands for autonomy. King Alfonso XIII, favorably disposed to the military and authoritarian rule, intervened more frequently to try to achieve stability. As a result, he was accused of meddling and personal ambition, and the monarchy lost prestige.

Conflict also arose within the major political parties. Reforms initiated by Conservative prime minister Antonio Maura, who took office in 1907, attempted to resolve some of the sources of popular dissent. He legalized strikes, reformed the judiciary, and attempted to regulate rural rents and make elections fairer. However, Maura’s harsh repression of anarchists alienated the left and drew strong criticism from the Liberal Party, which had become allied with republican parties. In 1909 Spanish troops were sent to Morocco to protect Spain’s possessions there. Maura attempted to reinforce the military expedition with workers conscripted from Barcelona, Spain’s most volatile city. This sparked bloody riots in Barcelona that deepened class antagonisms. A Liberal ministry under José Canalejas y Méndez replaced Maura, but its reform program was cut short when Canalejas was assassinated by an anarchist in 1912. Throughout the next decade, political and social strife increased, aggravated by World War I (1914-1918) and the economic dislocation that followed.

F.5.

World War I

Despite many pressures to become involved, Spain remained neutral during World War I. The conflict brought significant economic benefits to Spain, as warring nations purchased large quantities of goods from Spanish factories, mines, and farms. Improvements in infrastructure and rapid industrialization in the early 20th century had enhanced Spain’s ability to profit on the wartime trade. Much wealth had returned to Spain from its former colonies after the defeat in 1898, and new investments in railroads, hydroelectricity, and heavy industries greatly increased Spain’s industrial production.

The war, however, made it difficult for Spain to import goods, and inflation soon became rampant. At the same time, labor unrest increased as workers demanded better wages and working conditions. In Catalonia, regionalists agitated for home rule. Throughout Spain, republican parties gathered force to demand reforms.

By 1917 labor unrest, strikes, and uprisings dominated Spanish life. Amid these troubles, a Conservative government led by Eduardo Dato triggered a new crisis when it attempted to reform the budget and reduce the officer corps. In the summer of 1917 the officer corps, upset over changes in pay and promotion, rebelled. They organized military juntas to press their demands on the state and refused to obey orders. The government backed down and withdrew the reforms. The military crisis was followed by labor protests in Barcelona and other cities that degenerated into urban terrorism by the anarcho-syndicalists (groups who opposed all forms of government and advocated the control of all social and economic institutions by trade unions). The army put down the protests with ferocity. The antagonism between conservatives and the military on one side and left-wing social and political forces on the other grew deeper and more entrenched.

The end of World War I brought Spain severe economic distress. Wages fell and unemployment spread as Spain lost its wartime customers. Violent strikes became common, and the government declared martial law. A struggle for independence in the Spanish sector of Morocco—a protectorate since the 1880s—aggravated the economic crisis. Ruinously expensive, the Moroccan war became especially unpopular when Spanish forces were badly defeated at the Battle of Anoual in 1921. In the next two years a succession of Spanish governments collapsed and domestic violence escalated, especially in Barcelona.

F.6.

Primo de Rivera’s Dictatorship

In September 1923 General Miguel Primo de Rivera, Barcelona’s military governor, led a coup d’état that gave vent to widespread disillusionment with the parliamentary regime. Rather than resisting, King Alfonso XIII endorsed the coup and made Primo de Rivera head of the government. The Cortes was dissolved, and a military directorate took charge. There were few arrests and little police or army brutality, but political parties were banned. Socialist trade unions continued to operate, however, and Primo de Rivera insisted that his dictatorship was only a temporary measure. One of his most popular achievements was the conclusion of the costly conflict in Morocco in 1926.

In 1925 the military directorate was abolished, and Primo de Rivera appointed a civilian government, which he led as prime minister. The new government focused on economic development and launched a broad program of public works. Major investments were made in roads and railroads, schools and universities, and new irrigation works. Opposition to Primo de Rivera’s administration grew in the late 1920s amid student protests, regionalist discontent in Catalonia, and disaffection within the army. Primo de Rivera became increasingly unpopular with the onset of the worldwide depression in 1929. In 1930 Alfonso, with backing from the military, dismissed Primo de Rivera.

Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship severely weakened support for the crown. Even moderates and conservatives no longer enthusiastically supported the monarchy because Alfonso had betrayed them by accepting authoritarian rule. The socialist, anarcho-syndicalist, and Catalan regionalist movements began to cooperate with the republicans, as did numerous former monarchists and army officers.

Alfonso hoped to bring about a return to constitutional government without threatening the monarchy. After a difficult year under a temporary government headed by General Dámaso Berenguer, Alfonso agreed to call municipal elections in April 1931. The elections gave overwhelming majorities to republican candidates in most of Spain’s provincial capitals. Support for the monarchy collapsed, and Alfonso—who refused to abdicate the crown—went into exile. The second Spanish republic was proclaimed at once, and a provisional government established under President Niceto Alcalá Zamora quickly arranged parliamentary elections. In December 1931 the Cortes approved a new constitution that was modern, democratic, and rigorously secular.

G.

Republican Spain and the Dictatorship of Francisco Franco

G.1.

The Second Spanish Republic

The Second Republic came to power with remarkable ease, ushered in by a great wave of popular enthusiasm. However, it soon became clear that supporters of the republic had little in common. Some supporters expected the government to be conservative; others pressed for radical change. Political participation grew divisive and increasingly polarized.

G.1.a.

Progressive Reforms

The republic initiated many far-reaching reforms during its first two years. A coalition of republican parties and socialists, headed by Prime Minister Manuel Azaña, gave the republic a progressive tone. Elections became more democratic, and women gained the right to vote. Autonomy was granted to Catalonia and the Basque provinces. The republic tried to improve the condition of workers, make taxes more equitable, and divide the large estates in southern Spain for redistribution to peasants. In addition, the republic secularized education and legalized divorce.

G.1.b.

Growing Divisions

The government’s ambitious reforms alienated many groups that had at first accepted the Second Republic. At the same time, the deepening worldwide depression in the 1930s reduced demand for Spanish exports and increased poverty and social tensions. The program to break up the large estates alienated landowners, but also lost the support of the peasantry because it moved too slowly. Opposition to the government increased among Roman Catholics who resented republican efforts to reduce the church’s authority. Azaña’s coalition began to crumble in 1933 after the government tried to close private Catholic schools.

In national elections in 1933 rightist and center-right parties won a majority and forced the republican-socialist coalition from power. The newly formed, conservative Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomous, CEDA), led by Catholic politician José María Gil Robles, became the largest party. CEDA entered the government, and the new leadership began to overturn the religious and social reforms of the previous government. Leftist groups bitterly resisted these changes. At the same time, political forces on the far right called for the overthrow of the Second Republic. These forces included monarchists and a new party called the Falange (“phalanx”), founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the former dictator. The Falange promoted fascist political ideas and supported a form of nationalist totalitarianism in Spain like that in Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.

Tensions exploded in October 1934 when a socialist-led workers’ insurrection swept Asturias, and Catalonia proclaimed its independence. Spanish troops crushed the Asturian revolt after two weeks of savage fighting, and the separatist rising in Catalonia was suppressed. The government rounded up and imprisoned thousands of leftists across Spain. This repression encouraged many groups on the left to begin building alliances, and the socialists under leader Francisco Largo Caballero began using revolutionary rhetoric. The governing coalition, plagued by scandals, collapsed in late 1935, and President Alcalá Zamora called new national elections.

G.1.c.

The Popular Front

The elections in February 1936 pitted a rightist bloc of conservatives against a new Popular Front coalition that included the entire left. Less moderate than the previous leftist coalition, the Popular Front included radical republicans, socialists, the small Spanish Communist Party, and other groups. The Popular Front scored a narrow victory and took control of the Cortes. The new government revived the progressive reform program and granted amnesty to hundreds of political prisoners.

The Popular Front’s reforms and radical rhetoric alarmed conservatives, many of whom feared a communist-inspired, leftist revolution. A conspiracy to overthrow the government soon took shape under General Emilio Mola and other prominent military leaders. Tension mounted as street battles between rival groups, assassinations, and widespread strikes paralyzed the nation. Peasants in the south began seizing the land and dividing some of the large estates. By mid-1936, amid escalating factional strife, many conspirators were ready to take action. The assassination on July 13 of monarchist leader José Calvo Sotelo provided convenient justification for the military rebellion.

G.2.

Civil War

On July 17, 1936, Spanish military forces stationed in Morocco mutinied and proclaimed a revolution against Spain’s elected government. The uprising marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Many troops based in Spain joined the insurrection. The rebels, or Nationalists, soon found a strong leader in General Francisco Franco. They were backed by conservative forces that included the Catholic Church, landowning peasants, the Falange, and Carlist monarchists. Supporters of the government, known as Republicans, included most workers, liberals, socialists, communists, and Basque and Catalan separatists. Juan Negrin, a moderate socialist, led the Republican cause for most of the war.

The Nationalists hoped to seize power quickly; they had not foreseen a long, bloody conflict. At first the Nationalist forces made great advances. The uprising succeeded in the provincial capitals of rural León and Old Castile, including Burgos, Salamanca, and Ávila. Nationalist control rapidly extended across most of western and southern Spain. However, Republicans soon defeated the insurgents in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and several other eastern and northern cities. A prolonged civil war ensued. Nationalist power was strongest in rural Spain; Republicans held most major industrial and urban areas. As the war continued, Nationalist control of agricultural areas led to severe food shortages in many Republican strongholds.

Both Nationalists and Republicans received help from abroad. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany sent troops, arms, and airplanes to aid the Nationalists. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) furnished military equipment and advisers to the Republicans. The Republicans also received aid from the International Brigades, made up of idealistic volunteers from Europe and the Americas. France, the United Kingdom, and the United States remained neutral, despite concerns that Franco would establish a new military dictatorship in Spain. Western democracies distrusted the Spanish government, which had backed leftist reforms and came to power in a coalition that included communists. The participation of the brigades, who were organized by communists, seemed to offer further evidence that Spain’s government was slipping toward Communism.

The Nationalist forces were more unified and better equipped and trained than their Republican adversaries. They also benefited from larger amounts of foreign assistance and an international blockade against Spain that was enforced mainly against the Republican side. Franco quickly secured military and political leadership of the Nationalists. In September 1936 he was named generalísimo (commander in chief) of the Nationalist troops and el caudillo (the leader) of Nationalist Spain. In April 1937 he merged the Falange, monarchists, and other Nationalist groups into a single party under his control, the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, or FET/JONS. The Republican ranks were more divided, hindered by internal conflicts and ideological rivalries. Moderates wanted Republican forces to focus on defeating the Nationalists and to postpone reform until after the war. Other groups, including anarchists, left-wing socialists, and revolutionary Marxists, wanted immediate revolution. In some areas revolutionaries asserted public ownership over private property and turned farms and factories into communes. This created economic chaos and led to armed conflicts between revolutionary and antirevolutionary Republicans. Meanwhile, the Spanish Communist Party’s influence over Republican strategy rapidly expanded because of its organizational skills and its control of Soviet-supplied arms.

After failing to seize Madrid, Franco’s forces launched a campaign in 1937 to conquer the Basque provinces, Asturias, and other industrial regions of northern Spain. During this campaign the first large-scale aerial bombing of civilians took place, including the infamous German raid that destroyed the Basque town of Guernica. As the war continued, a series of Nationalist offensives gradually brought the industrialized regions of eastern Spain under rebel control. In March 1939 Nationalist troops finally took Madrid after a long resistance. When Franco’s troops entered the starving city, the remaining Republican forces were too divided and exhausted to continue fighting. Madrid fell on March 28, and Franco proclaimed the Nationalists’ triumph on April 1.

The civil war devastated Spain. An estimated 500,000 people died in the fighting and much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed. Between 250,000 and 500,000 political refugees left the country. Spain’s short-lived experiment with democracy was replaced by an authoritarian regime under Franco, who would rule Spain as dictator for the next 36 years.

G.3.

The Franco Dictatorship

Spain’s savage civil war was followed by an unusually vindictive peace. Franco made no attempt at national reconciliation. Fervently anti-communist, Franco characterized Republicans as anti-Spanish “Reds,” a term that included anyone associated with the Second Republic. The Franco government tracked people suspected of Republican sympathies and persecuted them for decades. In the first four years after the war, the government imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people and executed many thousands of others.

The dictatorship’s main sources of political support included the army, the Catholic Church, and the Falange, which became known as the National Movement after 1945. The National Movement was the nation’s only legal political organization, and Roman Catholicism became the official state religion. The army provided the dictatorship with security, while the Catholic Church and the National Movement gave Franco’s rule a measure of legitimacy. The Cortes under Franco was