Definition of Spanish Empire

The beginning of the Spanish Empire has a very specific date: when on October 12, 1492, Columbus's ships reached the shores of America and a new world is discovered. As for its end, it can be dated to 1898 with the loss of the last colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and the Mariana Islands.

The reign of Carlos I in the XVl century represented the period of greatest splendor of the empire

Carlos l of Spain, grandson of the Catholic Monarchs, was a Spanish monarch born in the Belgian city of Ghent and by this reason when he was crowned king of Spain he did not know the Castilian language.

At the same time, he was proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor Roman empire Germano, which is why he is also known as Carlos V of Germany. During his tenure he faced all kinds of enemies: France, the Ottoman Empire, the peasants of the Kingdom of Castile, the nascent bourgeoisie of the Spanish Levant and the papacy. To meet the enormous military expenditures the emperor's court relied on precious metals from American lands (America's silver is also directly related to the creation of financial markets in the whole of Europe).

This situation became untenable and under Felipe II Spain declared bankruptcy three times. From an ideological point of view Carlos I and his son Felipe II tried to maintain the Unit of Christianity against the Lutherans and other Christian currents.

The long agony

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries the Spanish Empire gradually lost its hegemony. The reasons related to its decline were very diverse. Among them, we can highlight ten factors:

1) the decline of the industry compared to other European powers,

2) the desertification of Castile and the demographic decline throughout Spain,

3) the independence of the territories of America throughout the nineteenth century,

4) the nascent naval might of the British,

5) embezzlement and corruption, 6) riots in Catalonia,

7) the reduction of precious metals from America,

8) the continuous wars that emptied the state coffers,

9) the debts of the crown with the Genoese banks and

10) the domination French from territory Spanish during the Napoleonic period.

In 1898 the remnants of the Spanish Empire could not stop the desire for independence of the last colonies. In the Treaty of Paris of 1898 the definitive liquidation of the Spanish colonial Empire was certified.

Photo: Fotolia. joserpizarro

Themes in Spanish Empire