An outline, era by era

Spain and Portugal

colonial empires

Early Modern Era · ~1500 – ~1800

Spain and Portugal, the two states of the Iberian Peninsula, built the first global colonial empires in the sixteenth century. Portugal sent ships down the African coast and across the Indian Ocean to Asia, setting up fortified trading posts and, later, a large colony in Brazil. The Spanish monarchy, formed by the dynastic union of Castile and Aragon under the Catholic Monarchs and then ruled by the Habsburgs, conquered much of the Americas and reached the Philippines, drawing huge quantities of silver from mines in Mexico and Peru.

These empires reshaped the world between about 1450 and 1800. They linked the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia in lasting trade, spread Christianity and the Spanish and Portuguese languages, and caused immense suffering through disease, forced labour and the Atlantic slave trade. From 1580 to 1640 the two crowns shared one king. Both empires then faced rivals, especially the Dutch, English and French, and declined in relative power, although they kept large colonies until the early nineteenth century.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Prince Henry and Portuguese voyages down Africa

    Event

    What happened

    In 1415 Portugal captures the Moroccan port of Ceuta. Through the following decades Portuguese captains, many sent by Prince Henry, reach Madeira, the Azores and the West African coast. In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounds the southern tip of Africa.

    The rest is history

    These voyages gave Portugal knowledge of Atlantic winds and currents and a profitable trade in gold, ivory and enslaved people from West Africa. In 1498 Vasco da Gama used this knowledge to reach Calicut in India, opening a sea route to Asian spices. Historians debate how much Henry personally planned the voyages, but his patronage is well documented.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryZurara, Gomes Eanes de. Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Portuguese chronicle, 1453.
    2. BookDisney, A. R. A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

  2. Union of Castile and Aragon and the fall of Granada

    Event

    What happened

    In 1469 Isabella of Castile marries Ferdinand of Aragon, and both become monarchs of their kingdoms in the 1470s. In January 1492 their armies take Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Iberia. In 1492 they also order Jews who refuse baptism to leave their kingdoms.

    The rest is history

    The two crowns stayed separate in law, but acted together in policy and war. Historians debate how directly the end of the Reconquista led to overseas expansion, though the monarchs' confidence and prestige after Granada formed part of the setting. Months after Granada fell, the monarchs backed a voyage across the Atlantic, which began Spain's American empire.

    Sources

    1. BookElliott, J. H. Imperial Spain, 1469-1716. London: Edward Arnold, 1963.
    2. BookKamen, Henry. Spain, 1469-1714: A Society of Conflict. London: Longman, 1983.

  3. Columbus's first voyage, 1492

    Event

    What happened

    With backing from Isabella and Ferdinand, Christopher Columbus sails from Palos in August 1492 with three ships. He lands on an island in the Bahamas on 12 October. He then explores Cuba and Hispaniola and returns to Spain in 1493.

    The rest is history

    Columbus believed he had reached the edge of Asia. Three more voyages followed, and Spain began settling the Caribbean, where disease and forced labour devastated the Indigenous Taino population. Portugal and Spain feared conflict over new lands and, in 1494, signed the Treaty of Tordesillas.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryColumbus, Christopher. Journal of the first voyage, 1492-1493, surviving in the abstract made by Bartolomé de las Casas.
    2. BookPhillips, William D., and Carla Rahn Phillips. The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

  4. The Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494

    Event

    What happened

    In June 1494 Spain and Portugal sign a treaty at Tordesillas. It sets a north-south line in the Atlantic, 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Lands to the west are to go to Spain, and lands to the east to Portugal.

    The rest is history

    The treaty followed papal bulls of 1493 and moved the line farther west than the pope had set it. When Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil in 1500, it fell on the Portuguese side, which became the basis of Portugal's claim there. Other European powers never accepted the division. A later treaty at Zaragoza in 1529 settled a similar dispute over the Moluccas.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTreaty of Tordesillas. Agreement between Spain and Portugal, 7 June 1494. Archivo General de Simancas and Torre do Tombo.
    2. BookDavenport, Frances Gardiner, ed. European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648. Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1917.

  5. Conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires

    Event

    What happened

    In 1519 Hernán Cortés lands in Mexico with a few hundred Spaniards. Allied with Indigenous peoples hostile to the Aztecs, and aided by an epidemic of smallpox, he takes Tenochtitlan in 1521. In 1532 Francisco Pizarro captures the Inca ruler Atahualpa at Cajamarca, and Spain gains control of much of the Andes.

    The rest is history

    Spain built viceroyalties in New Spain (1535) and Peru (1542). Disease caused a catastrophic fall in Indigenous population, by widely accepted estimates of well over half in many regions. The Spanish crown also imposed the encomienda system of forced labour. The conquests gave Spain its richest colonies and later its silver.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryDíaz del Castillo, Bernal. The True History of the Conquest of New Spain. Spanish chronicle, written by 1568, published 1632.
    2. BookRestall, Matthew. When Montezuma Met Cortés. New York: Ecco, 2018.

  6. Portugal's Asian empire and Brazil

    Event

    What happened

    After da Gama's voyage, Portugal seizes Goa in 1510 and Malacca in 1511. It builds a chain of fortified ports, from East Africa to Macau, trading in spices, textiles and other goods. In 1500 Cabral reaches Brazil, and from the 1530s the crown grants coastal captaincies to settlers.

    The rest is history

    The Portuguese Estado da Índia controlled sea trade by force more than land, and it never ruled large Asian territories. In Brazil, sugar plantations spread in the later sixteenth century. They relied on enslaved Africans, and millions were taken to Brazil in the following centuries. Gold found in Minas Gerais in the 1690s shifted Brazil's economy.

    Sources

    1. BookSubrahmanyam, Sanjay. The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700: A Political and Economic History. London: Longman, 1993.
    2. BookBoxer, C. R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825. London: Hutchinson, 1969.

  7. Silver from Potosí and the Manila galleons

    Event

    What happened

    In 1545 silver is found at Potosí in present-day Bolivia, a discovery traditionally credited to an Andean man, Diego Huallpa. The mines are worked with Indigenous labour, and from the 1570s under the mita draft system. After Spain founds Manila in 1571, galleons carry silver, mostly from Mexico, across the Pacific to buy Chinese goods. Treasure fleets carry much of the rest across the Atlantic to Spain.

    The rest is history

    American silver helped pay for Habsburg wars in Europe and became a major part of world trade, ending up largely in China. Spain still suffered repeated royal bankruptcies, beginning in 1557. Historians continue to debate how far the silver caused inflation in Europe, but its global importance is widely agreed.

    Sources

    1. ArticleFlynn, Dennis O., and Arturo Giráldez. "Born with a Silver Spoon: The Origin of World Trade in 1571." Journal of World History 6, no. 2 (1995): 201-221.
    2. BookBakewell, Peter. Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosí, 1545-1650. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.

  8. The Iberian Union and the loss of Portuguese and Spanish primacy

    Event

    What happened

    King Sebastian of Portugal dies without an heir at Alcácer Quibir in 1578, and his great-uncle Cardinal Henry succeeds him. When Henry dies in 1580, Philip II of Spain claims the throne and takes Portugal's crown. Spain and Portugal share a king until 1640, when Portuguese nobles proclaim John IV of Braganza king. In these years the Dutch attack Portuguese and Spanish possessions, and Spain's navy loses the Armada in 1588.

    The rest is history

    The Dutch took Portuguese posts in Asia, Ceylon and, for a time, parts of Brazil. Portugal won its independence in a war lasting until 1668, and Spain recognised it then. Spain's own power also weakened, and it lost territory in Europe. The two empires survived, but no longer dominated world trade.

    Sources

    1. BookParker, Geoffrey. The Grand Strategy of Philip II. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
    2. BookDisney, A. R. A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

  9. Columbus and the flat Earth

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Columbus is said to have sailed to prove the Earth is round, against ignorant churchmen who thought it flat and feared he would sail off the edge.

    The rest is history

    Educated Europeans had known the Earth was round since antiquity. The real argument at Isabella's court was about its size. Columbus's critics correctly judged that his estimate of the distance west to Asia was far too small. The Americas lay in the way, so his voyage did not end in the failure that such a distance would otherwise have meant. The flat-Earth story spread widely in the nineteenth century, notably through Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus.

    Sources

    1. BookIrving, Washington. A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. London: John Murray, 1828.
    2. BookRussell, Jeffrey Burton. Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. New York: Praeger, 1991.

  10. The Black Legend of Spain

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Spain's empire is often described as uniquely cruel, with Spaniards as bloodthirsty conquerors and inquisitors unlike other Europeans.

    The rest is history

    The Spanish conquest did involve massacres, forced labour and enslavement, as Bartolomé de las Casas reported in his Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, published in 1552. Dutch and English writers later reprinted it as propaganda against Spain. Other empires, including Portugal's, England's and France's, also used violence and slavery. Spain also held a debate at Valladolid in 1550 to 1551 on the rights of Indigenous people, and in 1542 it issued the New Laws to limit abuses.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLas Casas, Bartolomé de. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Spanish tract, 1552.
    2. BookMaltby, William S. The Black Legend in England. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1971.

  11. Gold ships and the Spanish Main pirates

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Spanish treasure galleons are said to have sailed laden with gold, and to have been constantly seized by pirates with eyepatches.

    The rest is history

    Most treasure from the Americas was silver rather than gold. The fleet system, with convoys escorted by warships from the 1560s, was very successful, and few treasure fleets were captured. Notable captures include Piet Heyn's seizure of the Mexican fleet at Matanzas in 1628. Much of the harassment was by privateers such as Francis Drake, who held government licence, rather than the later pirates of fiction.

    Sources

    1. BookLane, Kris. Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500-1750. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1998.
    2. BookHaring, Clarence H. Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918.

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