Spanish Empire
Longevity
The Spanish Empire lasted from the expansion overseas in 1492 to Napoleon Bonaparte’s conquest of Spain in 1808.[1]
Size
At the height of its power in the sixteenth-century the Spanish Empire consisted of Spain, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, southern Italy, Sardinia, Franché Comte, the Philippines, central America, the South American coast excepting Brazil, the North American coast, the Canaries, the Caribbean and the Netherlands.[2]
The Portuguese Empire brought (in 1580 with the union of crowns) Portugal, Brazil, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Azores, Madeira, Madagascar, and the coast from Morocco round to Vietnam.[3]
However, administratively and conceptually, Portugal was separate from Spain.[4] The two empires stayed militarily and commercially separate and in 1640 Portugal regained independence after a revolt, followed by the loss of the majority of the Netherlands in 1648.[5] Plus, the only unionising element of the empire was the king.[6]
Population
The Spanish population in the sixteenth-century was approximately 8 million.[7] However, multiple outbreaks of the plague, caused fluctuations in the population.[8]
From disease, the native population of the West Indian Islands disappeared, the Mexican population also changed, recent authorities have suggested the population of Central Mexico declined from around 25 million in 1519 to just over 1 million by 1700.[9] The American population in 1650 was about 13 million.[10]
Economy
The Spanish economy had never been strong – Castile was barely agriculturally self-sufficient and heavily relied on wool for wealth, the added cost of supporting an empire ruined the tax system and crippled the exchequer.[11] Spain went bankrupt in 1596, 1607, 1627 and 1645.[12] This has various knock-on effects such as the lack of wages for troops caused multiple mutinies during the Dutch Revolt.[13]
The empire distorted Spanish trade and industry, leaving it only an importer of manufactures and exporter of raw materials.[14] Spain may have been at the peak of its political power under Philip II, but there was still economic distress.[15]
Nevertheless, there was a sixteenth century boom in profit in trade with the New World and Northern Europe, and in the mid third of the century, the wool trade in the north had its greatest prosperity.[16] Fast, steep increase in commercial activity in the late sixteenth-century, only faded towards mid-seventeenth century.[17]
However, towards the end of the sixteenth-century, rising prices and population growth destabilized the coastal economy, by the 1570’s Castile was approaching a crisis before a run of bad harvests hit and decline of urban centres and industry followed.[18] Merchants were unable to solve the underlying problem of a weak internal market that was impeded by technological and ecological limits on agriculture.[19]
Growth in American trade lasted from about 1504 to 1601, and while 1608 saw the peak shipping volume, signs of problems and stagnation appeared between 1593 and 1610, a crisis in credit, trade and industry followed, affecting a large part of Europe in 1619-21.[20] American bullion then declined after 1600.[21]
Military
While Spain gained much of its land through marriages and inheritance rather than military conquest, for large scale efficiency, the Spanish were unmatched, they pioneered brigading.[22]
In the sixteenth-century compared to other armies the Spanish army was small small, only about 20-30,000 men, its superiority came from its recruitment, often from the lower nobility who had inherited martial traditions from wars with the Moslems’ which made it a dishonour to rum from an enemy.[23] The core of the army was the infantry which were organised into tericos of 3-4,000 men who were split into 12-15 companies making them more manoeuvrable.[24] At full strength these tericos were armed with 400 musketeers, 1000 pike men and 2,500 arquebusiers.[25] For 150 years, until a defeat in 1643, the Spanish infantry dominated the battlefield.[26]
To protect shipping from America Spain used escorts of heavy galleons, the most powerful ships of the time, at their height, Spanish monarchs had around 100 galleys.[27] The start of hostilities with England and France in the sixteenth-century forced the creation of a permanent fleet, which was made up of 40 ships of 250-500 tons.[28] In 1600 the Iberian nations could be called the greatest nautical power with their merchant fleet being only second to the Dutch, their naval power greater than the English or Dutch, during the 1620s Spain had the strongest navy in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.[29]
However, even at its height the Spanish navy was not completely able to cope because of the number of independent subdivisions, the variety of tasks it had to carry out and the range of enemies it faced.[30] By 1638 Spanish naval numerical superiority began to decline as losses could not afford to be replaced, by the end of the 1650s Spain was weaker in the Mediterranean and Atlantic than Holland or England and they were soon overtaken by France.[31]
Technology
Spain could not keep up with the technical advances in the 1630s, they did not construct the latest fishing, cargo and war ships, the resulting Spanish navy was short of men and guns.[32] While Spain could see they were falling technologically behind, they were unable to make the necessary changes as their resources were stretched too far.[33]
[1] Thomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans and Indians and their Shared World, 1400-1900 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2009), p. 164; Benjamin, The Atlantic World, p. 591
[2] J H Elliot, Imperial Spain 1469-1716 (Edward Arnold Ltd: London, 1963), p.1
[3] Elliot, Imperial Spain, p.1
[4] Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Holding the World in Balance: The Connected Histories of the Iberian Overseas Empires 1500-1600’ The American History Review 112: 5 (2007), p. 1360
[5] Subrahmanyam, ‘Holding the World in Balance’, p. 1381; Henry Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’ Past and Present 81 (1978), p. 33
[6] Antonio Domingues Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain 1516-1659 (Weidenfield and Nicolson: London, 1971), p. 8
[7] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 175
[8] Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’, p. 36
[9] H G Koenigsberger, George L Mosse, G Q Bowler, Europe in the Sixteenth-Century (Pearson Education Ltd: Essex, 1989), p. 260
[10] B F C Spooner, ‘The European Economy 1609-1650’, J P Cooper (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume IV Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1970), p. 71
[11] Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’, pp. 30-35
[12] Spooner, ‘The European Economy 1609-1650’, p. 98
[13] J R Hale, ‘Armies, Naviesand the Art of War’, R B Wernham (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume III The Counter Reformation and Price Revolution 1559-1610 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1968), p. 184
[14] Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’, p. 30
[15] Carla Rahn Phillips, ‘Time and Duration: A Model for Economy in Early Modern Spain’ The American History Review 92: 3 (1987), p. 532
[16] Phillips, ‘Time and Duration’, p. 540
[17] Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’, p. 34
[18] Phillips, ‘Time and Duration’, pp. 540-1
[19] Phillips, ‘Time and Duration’, p. 544
[20] Phillips, ‘Time and Duration’, p. 544
[21] Spooner, ‘The European Economy 1609-1650’, p. 98
[22] Koenigsberger, Mosse, Bowler, Europe in the Sixteenth-Century, p. 300; J R Hale, ‘Armies, Navies and the Art of War’, R B Wernham ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume III The Counter Reformation and Price Revolution (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1968), p. 184
[23] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 35
[24] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 35
[25] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 35
[26] J W Wijin, ‘Military Forces and Warfare 1610-1648’, J P Cooper (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume IV Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1970), , p. 221
[27] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, pp. 41-2
[28] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 42
[29] J P Cooper, ‘Sea Power’, J P Cooper (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume IV Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1970), p. 227
[30] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 42
[31] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 42; Cooper, ‘Sea Power’, p. 227
[32] Cooper, ‘Sea Power’, p. 227
[33] Cooper, ‘Sea Power’, p. 228
Longevity
The Spanish Empire lasted from the expansion overseas in 1492 to Napoleon Bonaparte’s conquest of Spain in 1808.[1]
Size
At the height of its power in the sixteenth-century the Spanish Empire consisted of Spain, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, southern Italy, Sardinia, Franché Comte, the Philippines, central America, the South American coast excepting Brazil, the North American coast, the Canaries, the Caribbean and the Netherlands.[2]
The Portuguese Empire brought (in 1580 with the union of crowns) Portugal, Brazil, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Azores, Madeira, Madagascar, and the coast from Morocco round to Vietnam.[3]
However, administratively and conceptually, Portugal was separate from Spain.[4] The two empires stayed militarily and commercially separate and in 1640 Portugal regained independence after a revolt, followed by the loss of the majority of the Netherlands in 1648.[5] Plus, the only unionising element of the empire was the king.[6]
Population
The Spanish population in the sixteenth-century was approximately 8 million.[7] However, multiple outbreaks of the plague, caused fluctuations in the population.[8]
From disease, the native population of the West Indian Islands disappeared, the Mexican population also changed, recent authorities have suggested the population of Central Mexico declined from around 25 million in 1519 to just over 1 million by 1700.[9] The American population in 1650 was about 13 million.[10]
Economy
The Spanish economy had never been strong – Castile was barely agriculturally self-sufficient and heavily relied on wool for wealth, the added cost of supporting an empire ruined the tax system and crippled the exchequer.[11] Spain went bankrupt in 1596, 1607, 1627 and 1645.[12] This has various knock-on effects such as the lack of wages for troops caused multiple mutinies during the Dutch Revolt.[13]
The empire distorted Spanish trade and industry, leaving it only an importer of manufactures and exporter of raw materials.[14] Spain may have been at the peak of its political power under Philip II, but there was still economic distress.[15]
Nevertheless, there was a sixteenth century boom in profit in trade with the New World and Northern Europe, and in the mid third of the century, the wool trade in the north had its greatest prosperity.[16] Fast, steep increase in commercial activity in the late sixteenth-century, only faded towards mid-seventeenth century.[17]
However, towards the end of the sixteenth-century, rising prices and population growth destabilized the coastal economy, by the 1570’s Castile was approaching a crisis before a run of bad harvests hit and decline of urban centres and industry followed.[18] Merchants were unable to solve the underlying problem of a weak internal market that was impeded by technological and ecological limits on agriculture.[19]
Growth in American trade lasted from about 1504 to 1601, and while 1608 saw the peak shipping volume, signs of problems and stagnation appeared between 1593 and 1610, a crisis in credit, trade and industry followed, affecting a large part of Europe in 1619-21.[20] American bullion then declined after 1600.[21]
Military
While Spain gained much of its land through marriages and inheritance rather than military conquest, for large scale efficiency, the Spanish were unmatched, they pioneered brigading.[22]
In the sixteenth-century compared to other armies the Spanish army was small small, only about 20-30,000 men, its superiority came from its recruitment, often from the lower nobility who had inherited martial traditions from wars with the Moslems’ which made it a dishonour to rum from an enemy.[23] The core of the army was the infantry which were organised into tericos of 3-4,000 men who were split into 12-15 companies making them more manoeuvrable.[24] At full strength these tericos were armed with 400 musketeers, 1000 pike men and 2,500 arquebusiers.[25] For 150 years, until a defeat in 1643, the Spanish infantry dominated the battlefield.[26]
To protect shipping from America Spain used escorts of heavy galleons, the most powerful ships of the time, at their height, Spanish monarchs had around 100 galleys.[27] The start of hostilities with England and France in the sixteenth-century forced the creation of a permanent fleet, which was made up of 40 ships of 250-500 tons.[28] In 1600 the Iberian nations could be called the greatest nautical power with their merchant fleet being only second to the Dutch, their naval power greater than the English or Dutch, during the 1620s Spain had the strongest navy in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.[29]
However, even at its height the Spanish navy was not completely able to cope because of the number of independent subdivisions, the variety of tasks it had to carry out and the range of enemies it faced.[30] By 1638 Spanish naval numerical superiority began to decline as losses could not afford to be replaced, by the end of the 1650s Spain was weaker in the Mediterranean and Atlantic than Holland or England and they were soon overtaken by France.[31]
Technology
Spain could not keep up with the technical advances in the 1630s, they did not construct the latest fishing, cargo and war ships, the resulting Spanish navy was short of men and guns.[32] While Spain could see they were falling technologically behind, they were unable to make the necessary changes as their resources were stretched too far.[33]
[1] Thomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans and Indians and their Shared World, 1400-1900 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2009), p. 164; Benjamin, The Atlantic World, p. 591
[2] J H Elliot, Imperial Spain 1469-1716 (Edward Arnold Ltd: London, 1963), p.1
[3] Elliot, Imperial Spain, p.1
[4] Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Holding the World in Balance: The Connected Histories of the Iberian Overseas Empires 1500-1600’ The American History Review 112: 5 (2007), p. 1360
[5] Subrahmanyam, ‘Holding the World in Balance’, p. 1381; Henry Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’ Past and Present 81 (1978), p. 33
[6] Antonio Domingues Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain 1516-1659 (Weidenfield and Nicolson: London, 1971), p. 8
[7] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 175
[8] Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’, p. 36
[9] H G Koenigsberger, George L Mosse, G Q Bowler, Europe in the Sixteenth-Century (Pearson Education Ltd: Essex, 1989), p. 260
[10] B F C Spooner, ‘The European Economy 1609-1650’, J P Cooper (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume IV Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1970), p. 71
[11] Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’, pp. 30-35
[12] Spooner, ‘The European Economy 1609-1650’, p. 98
[13] J R Hale, ‘Armies, Naviesand the Art of War’, R B Wernham (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume III The Counter Reformation and Price Revolution 1559-1610 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1968), p. 184
[14] Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’, p. 30
[15] Carla Rahn Phillips, ‘Time and Duration: A Model for Economy in Early Modern Spain’ The American History Review 92: 3 (1987), p. 532
[16] Phillips, ‘Time and Duration’, p. 540
[17] Kamen, ‘The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?’, p. 34
[18] Phillips, ‘Time and Duration’, pp. 540-1
[19] Phillips, ‘Time and Duration’, p. 544
[20] Phillips, ‘Time and Duration’, p. 544
[21] Spooner, ‘The European Economy 1609-1650’, p. 98
[22] Koenigsberger, Mosse, Bowler, Europe in the Sixteenth-Century, p. 300; J R Hale, ‘Armies, Navies and the Art of War’, R B Wernham ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume III The Counter Reformation and Price Revolution (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1968), p. 184
[23] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 35
[24] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 35
[25] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 35
[26] J W Wijin, ‘Military Forces and Warfare 1610-1648’, J P Cooper (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume IV Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1970), , p. 221
[27] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, pp. 41-2
[28] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 42
[29] J P Cooper, ‘Sea Power’, J P Cooper (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume IV Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1970), p. 227
[30] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 42
[31] Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, p. 42; Cooper, ‘Sea Power’, p. 227
[32] Cooper, ‘Sea Power’, p. 227
[33] Cooper, ‘Sea Power’, p. 228