II.

Origins of the Empire

Spain's overseas empire dates from the joint rule of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragón, whose marriage in 1469 began the process of uniting their separate Iberian kingdoms into one Spanish nation. It was during their reign as Isabella I and Ferdinand V that the newly united country began to build an empire. Spanish expansion overseas began for a number of reasons. The monarchs wanted to secure neighboring areas for defense against Muslim raids originating from North Africa, to protect Castile's shipping activities and trade in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and to use the neighboring areas as ports for export of gold and enslaved Africans. They also supported exploration of distant areas primarily to spread Christianity and to increase Spain’s potential for trade with the Far East, thereby gaining wealth and international prestige.

The concern to increase Spanish trade centered on the desire to overcome the advantage Portuguese explorers and traders had gained by establishing similar bases on the African continent and islands off of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. Earlier in the 15th century Portuguese explorers had discovered and settled two of the small island groups, the Madeiras and the Azores. Between 1456 and 1460 Portugal occupied the Cape Verde Islands and soon established fortified trading posts in the Gulf of Guinea. In 1488 Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and opened a sea route to the Far East.

Portugal’s growing international influence encouraged Spain to match its neighbor’s achievements. Although claimed by both Portugal and Spain, the Canary Islands came under Spanish control through a 1479 treaty. In the 1480s and 1490s, papal decrees assigned the Canaries to Spain. Despite fierce resistance from the indigenous Guanche people, by 1496 all seven islands had come under Castilian control.

Like the Portuguese islands in the Atlantic, the Canaries under Spain were essentially military enclaves and trading centers where paid laborers or sharecroppers worked for a few merchant proprietors. The Spanish introduced cows, pigs, horses, sheep, and Mediterranean plants to the Canaries. The islands proved valuable for their supplies of sugar and fish, as well as their proximity to the West African coast.

In 1492 Spain’s exploration took a dramatic turn when Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand sponsored an expedition led by Italian navigator Christopher Columbus. Columbus and his crew left Spain with three ships in search of a westward route to reach India or Asia. More than two months later, Columbus reached land in the Caribbean Sea. Because Columbus thought he had reached India, the Spanish called the area the Indies.

Columbus’s voyage occurred at an opportune time for Spain. In January 1492 Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand had conquered Granada, the last Muslim kingdom on the Iberian peninsula, completing what is called the Christian reconquest of Spain from Moorish control. Still, Islam was advancing elsewhere and posed a threat to Europe. Spain’s rulers planned to extend Spain’s Christian crusades overseas. They readied an armed expedition to North Africa, declaring Muslim-held Jerusalem as the ultimate goal, but that army was ultimately diverted to war in Italy. They also sponsored Columbus, who proposed to reach India or Asia by a westward route and so give Spain an alternate route to Jerusalem. They also hoped his voyage would bring Spain international prestige and fabled riches.

Thus, Spain justified its imperial expansion on four grounds: to spread its religion; to reinforce national unity and identity by keeping alive a sense of national mission; to enhance Spain's international power; and to compete with Portugal for trade, territory, and glory.

Columbus laid the foundation of the Spanish overseas empire by claiming for Spain the lands he explored in the Caribbean islands and establishing the first European colony there. At that time Europeans simply assumed that if representatives of Christian nations discovered previously unknown lands and peoples, they had the right and the responsibility to take charge of them. In 1493, to formalize their claims to the lands that Columbus discovered, Spain began diplomatic negotiations with Portugal and with the papacy, which served as a sort of international mediation agency. Because Spain and Portugal had similar desires to expand, the papacy helped reduce conflict between the two nations by establishing formal boundaries.

A series of papal decrees confirmed Spain's claim to sovereignty in some of the lands that became known as America. The papacy based these decrees on what was considered to be the Spaniards’ responsibility to spread Christianity and Christian ways of life to the inhabitants of those newly discovered lands. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI formally approved the division of the unexplored world between the two countries. This was incorporated into the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) between Portugal and Spain. This treaty established the so-called Line of Demarcation, which set the boundaries between areas that would become Spanish territories and those that would be Portuguese. As it turned out, the treaty determined where Hispanic culture would gain a foothold and where Portuguese culture would take root.