Concept

Spanish Empire

Overview

The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa, various islands in Asia and Oceania, as well as territory in other parts of Europe. It was one of the most powerful empires of the early modern period, becoming known as "the empire on which the sun never sets". At its greatest extent in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Spanish Empire covered 13.7 million square kilometres (5.3 million square miles), making it one of the largest empires in history.

Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus and continuing for over three centuries, the Spanish Empire would expand across the Caribbean Islands, half of South America, most of Central America and much of North America. In the beginning, Portugal was the only serious threat to Spanish hegemony in the New World. To end the threat of Portuguese expansion, Spain conquered Portugal and the Azores Islands from 1580 to 1582 during the War of the Portuguese Succession, resulting in the establishment of the Iberian Union, a forced union between the two crowns that lasted until 1640 when Portugal regained its independence from Spain. In 1700, Philip V became king of Spain after the death of Charles II, the last Habsburg monarch of Spain, who died without an heir.

The Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation—the first circumnavigation of the Earth—laid the foundation for Spain's Pacific empire and for Spanish control over the East Indies. The influx of gold and silver from the mines in Zacatecas and Guanajuato in Mexico and Potosí in Bolivia enriched the Spanish crown and financed military endeavors and territorial expansion. Spain was largely able to defend its territories in the Americas, with the Dutch, English, and French taking only small Caribbean islands and outposts, using them to engage in contraband trade with the Spanish populace in the Indies. Another crucial element of the empire's expansion was the financial support provided by Genoese bankers, who financed royal expeditions and military campaigns.

The Bourbon monarchy implemented reforms like the Nueva Planta decrees, which centralized power and abolished regional privileges. Economic policies promoted trade with the colonies, enhancing Spanish influence in the Americas. Socially, tensions emerged between the ruling elite and the rising bourgeoisie, as well as divisions between peninsular Spaniards and Creoles in the Americas. These factors ultimately set the stage for the independence movements that began in the early 19th century, leading to the gradual disintegration of Spanish colonial authority. By the mid-1820s, Spain had lost its territories in Mexico, Central America, and South America. By 1900, it had also lost Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippine Islands, and Guam in the Mariana Islands following the Spanish–American War in 1898.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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The French colony of Canada was, during the greater part of the last century, and some part of the present, under the government of an exclusive company. Under so unfavourable an administration, its progress was necessarily very slow, in comparison with that of other new colonies; but it became much more rapid when this company was dissolved, after the fall of what is called the Mississippi scheme. When the English…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Spanish Empire is.
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The whole of the polity and economy of every country in Europe has been derived from the same sources. It was drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic custumary, from the feudal institutions which must be considered as an emanation from that custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and discipline by the Roman law. From hence arose the several orders, with or without a monarch (which are…
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
States what Spanish Empire is.
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and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus, Theodoros Gaza and Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo da Vinci and Bojardo, Leo X. and Luther. After the invasion of the barbarians, Christian Europe had lost its political unity: it was as a great republic whose divided members, struggling continuously one against the other, tearing by turn a shadow of supremacy, were the realms, the pontifical or laic…
Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, The golden verses of Pythagoras
Close in meaning to Spanish Empire; the term itself is not named.
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Philosophers who discussed Spanish Empire

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Aztecs

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Part of Scholasticism.

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