Spain's Road to Empire

by Henry Kamen

  The present book is essentially a very simple outline of some of the factors that contributed to the rise of Spain's empire. Little is said about Spain itself, because its historians have told the story many times and very effectively. My narrative is directed towards the untold story, viewing Spaniards not as the unique ‘movers and shakers’ who ‘fashion an empire's glory’ (in the words of the poet7), but as joint participants in an extensive enterprise that was made possible only by the collaboration of many people from many nations. The creators of empire, as presented here, were not only the conquerors from Spain. They were also the selfsame conquered populations, the immigrants, the women, the deportees, the rejected. Nor were they only the Spaniards: they were also the Italians, the Belgians, the Germans and the Chinese. Many Spaniards preferred and still prefer to consider the empire as a unique achievement of their own; these pages offer material towards an alternative view.

  In a brilliant study published in 1939 the American historian William L. Schurz outlined a phenomenon that can serve most appropriately as an image of the Spanish empire. He described the fortunes of the Manila galleon, a lonely vessel that ploughed the waters of the Pacific between Asia and Acapulco for over two centuries, carrying in its hold the fortunes and hopes of Spaniards, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese, a veritable symbol of the international scope of Iberian interests. The empire, like the relentless galleon, survived for centuries and served many peoples. Many of them were inevitably Spaniards, but they came also from every corner of the globe. I have attempted to narrate an imperial history rather than merely the history of one nation in an imperial role. My book presents the empire not as a creation of one people but as a relationship between very many peoples, the end product of a number of historical contingencies among which the Spanish contribution was not always the most significant. Historians of a previous generation preferred to focus only on the Spanish side of the story, and consequently ended up ensnared in imaginary and now wholly superseded problems such as the so-called ‘decline of Spain’.8 When the mechanisms of empire are defined clearly, ‘decline’ as a concept ceases to have any meaningful place in the picture.

  Only by considering the role of all the participants can we begin to understand the unprecedented scenario that was beginning to develop. It may be helpful to begin at the end, by offering some conclusions. The first main conclusion is fundamental: we are accustomed to the idea that Spain created its empire, but it is more useful to work with the idea that the empire created Spain. At the outset of our historical period ‘Spain’ did not exist, it had not formed politically or economically, nor did its component cultures have the resources for expansion. The collaboration of the peoples of the peninsula in the task of empire, however, gave them a common cause that brought them together and enhanced, however imperfectly, peninsular unity.

  The second conclusion is equally important: the empire was made possible not by Spain alone, but by the combined resources of the Western European and Asian nations, who participated fully and legally in an enterprise that is normally thought of, even by professional historians, as being ‘Spanish’. This book therefore attempts to deconstruct the role of Spain, in order to understand who really contributed to what. Fernand Braudel once described the empire of Philip II as being ‘un total de faiblesses’,9 literally a total of weaknesses, and I have deliberately looked at this side of the picture. In the process, the role of other Europeans is emphasized, for empire was always a joint enterprise. A scholar has recently reminded us that ‘European expansion, and more particularly the overseas imperial systems that followed upon it, were functions of general improvements in technology and Europe's resulting ability to produce goods and services more efficiently than the rest of the world’.10 The technology was, as we know, normally European rather than Spanish.

  Two generations ago Américo Castro, in attempting to assess the Spanish contribution to civilization, affirmed with good reason that ‘no significant innovation ever originated in Spain’.11 Religious ideas, humanism, technology, science, ideology, all came (he said) from outside. His views echoed those of the great neurologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who also recognized that ‘science, industry, agriculture, commerce, all aspects of thought and work in the epoch of Charles V, were wholly inferior to those of Europe’.12 Yet it was this passive Iberian culture that had the ability to produce world power. Spain developed thanks to what it received from outside, but at the same time Spaniards made use of their own essential character in elaborating the path that led them to imperial status. My presentation, it should be noted, explicitly rejects the fashionable view that Europeans were the basis of power, and that some sort of miracle in Europe gave it world supremacy.13 Neither do I accept the view, elegantly argued by some historians, that Europe's role in the world was based on the ‘absolute superiority of western weaponry over all others’.14 The reader will see that for me the Spanish empire was created no less by native Americans, Africans and Asians, than by Europeans.

  The chronology adopted here needs a brief explanation. Though its origins were earlier, I place the creation of empire only in the mid-sixteenth century, when the Castilian state began to seize the initiative from the many explorers, adventurers, missionaries and entrepreneurs who had made the whole venture possible. Unlike other empires both before and after, there was little conquest and expansion, for the Crown already claimed that it possessed, by God-given right, most of America and a good part of Asia, in addition to its associated territories in Europe. The task was to consolidate what it already in theory possessed. The subsequent two centuries (with which this book is principally concerned) were a challenging and unprecedented exercise in coming to terms with the problems of imperial power. Despite the rude shock represented by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Spain went on to affirm its right to empire until the historic Treaty of Paris (1763), which recognized its claims and confirmed the extent of its control. All the factors that produced the fragmentation of the empire were already in place by this date, making it a logical point at which to round off the narrative.

  It is hardly necessary to say that only a fraction of the story is told here, and, for example, the fascinating new advances made in the history of the North American Indian have barely been touched on in my pages. This may not be enough for more demanding readers, or for those seeking a fine array of impressive bibliographical references. To them I may point out that an adequate survey of the entire theme would have been impossible to contain within the dimensions of one volume. ‘The writer rash enough to make the attempt’, commented Steven Runciman about a similar survey of his own, ‘should not be criticized for his ambition, however much he may deserve censure for the inadequacy of his equipment or the inanity of his results’.

  It is important to stress what this book is not. It is not a narrative of the Atlantic empire, like J. H. Parry's masterly study (1966), nor is it an account of Spanish foreign policy in Europe (a much neglected subject). Neither is it intended to be in any way a work of controversy; the Spanish empire disappeared hundreds of years ago and it would be inane to polemicise about it now. I have been sparing in the use of names, technical terms, dates and statistics. Specialized terms and monetary values are explained in the glossary. The capitalized words Empire and Imperial are used here to refer only to the Holy Roman Empire of Germany; the non-capitalized words empire and imperial are used for the Spanish dominions and for other contexts. Citizens of the peninsular kingdoms are often identified by their places of origin in order not to sow confusion by imprecise use of the adjective ‘Spanish’. For ease of expression, I have retained the words ‘Indian’ for natives of the New World, ‘African’ for natives of Africa. Place names are given as we now know them, e.g. ‘Mississippi’ rather than the old Spanish name of ‘Espìritu Santo’. In the complex case of the Netherlands, I have made free use of the various terms used at the time, but tend to refer to ‘Belgium’ when talking of the Southern Netherlands. Most Spanish names are given in th
eir authentic form; by contrast, I have usually stuck to traditional English usage (e.g. Montezuma) for transliteration of names in other languages such as Quechua, Arabic and Chinese. It is evident that an adequate bibliography would occupy the same length as the book itself; I have therefore restricted footnote references.

  The begetters of this volume, who come first in my listing of thanks, are all those scholars of a previous and of my own generation, too numerous to name in this preface, whose painstaking researches are the foundation of my exposition and whose labours are gratefully acknowledged in the footnotes. Without their work this book could not have been written. I must next thank the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) for its financial support. My special thanks go to the personnel of the library of the Institució Milà i Fontanals (CSIC) in Barcelona, for their help in diligently obtaining for me the loan of essential books. As always, I have profited from the intellectual alertness and valuable criticism of my wife Eulàlia.

  This modest work will, I trust, enable the reader to appreciate the contribution across time of the many individuals and nations who created, collaborated with and suffered under the first globalized enterprise of modern times, the ‘Spanish’ ‘empire’.

  Barcelona 2002

  1

  Foundations

  The money from our realms alone would not be sufficient to maintain so big an army and fleet against so powerful an enemy.

  Ferdinand the Catholic, July 1509

  In a small ceremony in the year 1492 at the university city of Salamanca, in north central Spain, Queen Isabella of Castile was presented with the first copy, just off the press, of the humanist Antonio de Nebrija's Grammar of the Castilian language. She was slightly puzzled, and asked to know for what it served. Five years before, she had been presented with a copy of the same author's textbook of Latin grammar, and had found that to be undeniably useful; it had certainly helped her with her own earnest and not always successful efforts to learn Latin. But a grammar of one's everyday spoken tongue, as distinct from the formal study of a language used by professional people and lawyers, was something different. No other European country had yet got round to producing such a thing. Before Nebrija could reply, the queen's confessor, Fray Hernando de Talavera, bishop of Avila, broke in and spoke on his behalf. ‘After Your Highness has subjected barbarous peoples and nations of varied tongues,’ he explained, ‘with conquest will come the need for them to accept the laws that the conqueror imposes on the conquered, and among them will be our language.’ It was a reply that the queen could understand, for in the preceding months she had been actively engaged in military operations in the lands to the south of Castile, and the idea of conquest was uppermost in her mind.

  In the preface that he subsequently wrote for the Grammar. Nebrija followed through Talavera's line of thought and claimed that ‘I have found one conclusion to be very true, that language always accompanies empire, both have always commenced, grown and flourished together.’ The sentiment was, by then, a commonplace; Nebrija copied the phrase from the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla. The meaning of the reference was also no novelty, and reflected in good measure Nebrija's concern to advance his career by keeping on good terms with the government of the day. ‘Language’, in this context, was not limited to vocabulary and grammar. It implied, rather, the imposition of culture, customs and above all religion on subjected peoples. Language was power. Victors, as the Piedmontese humanist Giovanni Botero was to write a century later, ‘would do well to introduce their own tongues into the countries they have conquered, as the Romans did’. Over the next few generations, as Castilians came into contact with other peoples, they found that the problem of communication was a fundamental challenge. Talavera himself was to discover, from his experiences in the formerly Islamic territory of Granada, that conquest could not easily be followed by changes in laws or language. The task of understanding, and being understood, had to be resolved before power could be successfully imposed.

  It was not an assignment that the Castilians could take on alone. Nebrija's Grammar, like everything he and his humanist colleagues in Castile did, leaned heavily on foreign influences and expertise. Since the 1470s Spain had begun receiving the new invention of the printing press, brought in by Germans. The entire printing industry in Spain until the early years of the next century was almost exclusively a foreign enterprise,1 with Germans predominating but with an occasional French and Italian printer as well. It helped to connect the Spanish peninsula to the cultural activity of the Renaissance in Europe. But it also had an important political role, for among the first pieces of work produced by the presses for distribution to the public in Castile were the texts of royal decrees. Isabella from the beginning extended her patronage to the presses, financed their work and protected them with special privileges. Spaniards, however, were slow to develop the new invention. Scholars found it hard to get native printers with the expertise to print their works. ‘Alas,’ lamented a Castilian humanist in 1514, ‘that we have not yet been visited either by the prudence of an Aldus or the proficiency of a Froben!’2 The complaint was a reflection on one of the problems that came to affect Spain's political future profoundly: its technological inexperience. A single small example will serve. Though Castilians were the first to have contact with the natives of the New World, the first drawing from life of an American Indian was done not by a Castilian but by a German, Christoph Weiditz, who encountered one in Spain in 1529.3 The first books to be published in the New World were also the work of a German, Hans Cromberger of Seville, whose agent, the Italian Giovanni Paoli, issued the first printed book in Mexico in 1539.4 In other respects as well, Castilians were slow to respond to the challenges of the age. Among the few pioneering Castilian printers was Miguel de Eguía, who complained a few years later that Spaniards depended on foreigners for printing and that authors had to wait for their books as if they were gifts from America.5 Though native printers eventually set up successful businesses, over the next two generations those who wished their books to be well printed took them abroad personally to France, Flanders and Italy.6

  Foreign expertise was crucial. Fostered in its early stages by German printers, Renaissance learning in the Iberian peninsula owed its success in part to the training that Spanish scholars had received in Italy, in part to the numbers of Italian and Sicilian scholars who came to teach and sometimes to settle.7 The humanist Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, the papal diplomat Baldassare Castiglione, and the Sicilian scholar Luca di Marinis (known in Castile as Lucio Marineo Siculo) figured prominently among the Italian visitors. In addition to the strong native influences in peninsular culture, for the next half-century scholars from all parts of Spain looked to and accepted the literature and learning that came from abroad. When in 1534 the Catalan poet Joan Bosca published a Castilian translation of Castiglione's book The Courtier, his fellow poet and friend Garcilaso de la Vega declared it to be ‘perhaps the first work written in Spanish worthy of a learned man's attention’. Significantly, it was translated from Italian. The creative impulse became closely tied to the development of international learning, and Castile began to develop its capacities in the light of its experience with other peoples.

  The Spain in which Nebrija lived was, in many senses, on the periphery of the continent of Europe. The Romans had always considered Hispania to be the edge of the world. The passage between the Pillars of Hercules – what we know as the straits of Gibraltar – led out, their poets explained, to an impassable sea of darkness. The Iberian peninsula therefore became the final destination of all the great expansionist civilizations. Celts, Phoenicians and Romans made it their home and settled among the native peoples. In the eighth century after Christ, Muslim invaders from north Africa swept up through the straits of Gibraltar and began a conquest that gave them three-quarters of the peninsula. By the tenth century the caliphate of Córdoba was a sophisticated, thriving empire, and the Arabs left a permanent imprint on the country. The small indigenous Jewish minority
managed to survive under the Muslims, as it later did under the Christians who many generations later reoccupied the greater part of the territory and left the Muslims in control of only the south, known as al-Andalus. Hispania conserved a rich and complex heritage of political forms, languages and creeds that made it impossible for any unity to emerge within the peninsula. It is not surprising that contemporaries looked hopefully for signs of this unity. It would, they thought, bring them peace and a sense of purpose. In the event, co-operation came about only with dedication to great common enterprises beyond their own frontiers.

  The territory known as Spain consisted of two main political units, the Crown of Castile and that of Aragon. Their rise to empire is, by common agreement, traced to the political accords that put an end to the long decades of civil war during the fifteenth century. The claimant to the throne of Castile, Princess Isabella, had the support of a group of powerful nobles, who during ten years of conflict backed her claim to succeed to the crown after her half-brother Henry IV. Various projects to marry the princess to powerful nobles ended when in January 1469 she agreed by treaty to marry the son of King Juan II of Aragon, the seventeen-year-old titular king of Sicily, Ferdinand. She herself was aged eighteen. Ferdinand travelled across the peninsula in disguise, with only a few attendants, until he reached the safety of the territory controlled by Isabella. The marriage was celebrated on 18 October 1469, in a simple ceremony at Valladolid. For some time to come, Ferdinand had little effective political power, since the realms he subsequently inherited in Catalonia were also involved in a civil war (1462–72). Isabella was recognized as queen of Castile in 1474, but the military struggles continued up to 1479. In this year Juan II of Aragon died and Ferdinand succeeded him on the throne. The young monarchs were at last able to set about pacifying their realms.