HISTORY10 - Iberian Peninsula

Pat is scheduled for a three-week trip to Portugal and Spain in late June and early July so I decided to do a little research and write a summary of Iberian Peninsula History before her trip.

The Iberian Peninsula, also known as Iberia, is located in the southwest corner of Europe.  The peninsula is mostly divided between Portugal and Spain, but also includes the tiny Principality of Andorra, between France and Spain; and the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.  The peninsula has an area of 230,400 square miles (slightly smaller than Texas).  The terrain of the Iberian Peninsula is largely mountainous, with the Pyrenees Mountains forming a natural border between Spain and France.

Modern map of Europe and the Mediterranean area with the Iberian Peninsula at the southwest corner  of Europe.  (Courtesy of wpmap.org)

First People (1.2 million years ago)

The oldest evidence of early humans living in Western Europe was found in the cave of Atapuerca in north-central Spain: a flint tool from there dates from 1.4 million years ago, and early human fossils date to roughly 1.2 million years ago.  About 200,000 years ago, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula from France.  Neanderthal cultures lasted until about 30,000 years ago, before becoming extinct.  Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) entered the Iberian Peninsula about 40,000 years ago, also from southern France.  Early humans were hunter-gatherers and cave dwellers.

The most conspicuous sign of prehistoric humans are the famous paintings of local animals and human hands, done 34,000-15,000 BC, in the northern coastal Spanish cave of Altamira.  These paintings are regarded as outstanding examples of cave art.

 

Altamira cave painting of a buffalo, c. 15,000 BC  (Courtesy of pinterest.com)

First Civilizations (30th Century BC to 3^rd Century BC)

For millennia, prehistoric cultures developed on the Iberian Peninsula, evolving through stone monument cultures, copper-using cultures, and bronze technology cultures.  Around 3,000 BC these cultures evolved into the peninsula’s first civilizations in hill forts, and fortified cities that established trade networks that reached to the Baltic Sea, Middle East, and North Africa. 

Early in the first millennium BC, the Iberian Peninsula starting attracting new setters from the north, south, and east.  Successive waves of Celtic tribes crossed the Pyrenees to dominate northern Spain and Portugal.  Iberians (from North Africa?) settled in the southern peninsula. 

Starting about 900 BC, peoples from the eastern Mediterranean came to Iberia in search of trade, mainly interested in the mineral wealth of the peninsula.  Around 1,100 BC Phoenician merchants (from coastal Northwest Africa) founded the trading colony Gadir (modern day Cadiz) on the southwest coast of Spain on the Atlantic Ocean.  The Phoenicians brought with them the technique of writing.  In the 8^th Century BC, the first Greek colonies were founded along the peninsula’s Mediterranean coast on the east, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians.  The Greeks most important colony was Nova (modern day Cartagena, Spain). The Greeks introduced winemaking and the olive into Spain and coined the name “Iberia” after the River Iber (Ebro).  Carthaginians (from Carthage on the northcentral coast of Africa) arrived in the peninsula in the 6^th Century BC, called the land “Span” or “Spania,” meaning “land of rabbits,” and settled deep into Spain to establish bases of operations against their great rival, Rome. 

By the 3^rd Century BC, the Iberian Peninsula was populated with a complex mix of agrarian and urban civilizations.

Roman Rule (3rd Century BC to 5^th Century)

In 218 BC, during the Second Punic War against the Carthaginians, the first Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula; however, it was not until the reign of Roman Emperor Augustus that the peninsula was annexed after 200 years of war with the Celts and Iberians.  Rome divided Spain into two provinces: Hispania Citerior (Hither Spain) in the north, and Hispania Ulterior (Farther Spain) in the south, and later formed the province of Lusitania in the west, corresponding roughly with modern Portugal.

The Iberian Peninsula supplied the Roman Empire with silver, food, olive oil, wine, and metal. The emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, and Theodosius I, the philosopher Seneca the Younger, and the poets Martial and Lucan were born from families living on the Iberian Peninsula.

Roman rule provided centuries of law and order, efficient administration, expanding production of olive oil, wheat, wine, honey - and prosperous trade. Roman roads facilitated communication; the Via Augusta stretched from Cadiz to the Pyrenees. Latin became the official language, from which modern Spanish and Portuguese were derived. Large Roman cities grew up, which were centers of government, of trade, and of cultural activity. The native peoples were gradually allowed to become full Roman citizens. When Rome officially adopted Christianity early in the 4th century, Romanized Spain and Portugal readily followed suit.

Germanic Kingdoms (5^th to 7^th Centuries)

In 410 a German tribe of the north, the Visigoths (or Western Goths), captured Rome. These Gothic attacks in the east caused the withdrawal of imperial Roman garrisons from the west. Taking advantage of this, other German peoples crossed the Rhine and swept through France into Spain and Portugal. This Germanic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula began in 409, the first to arrive being the Suevi, the Alans and the Vandals. The Suevi settled in northern Portugal, the Vandals in southern Spain from where twenty years later a large Vandal force moved on to the conquest of Northern Africa.

In 415-419 the Visigoths conquered much of the peninsula from the Suevi, Alans and Vandals, and continued to rule there until 711. The three centuries of Visigoth rule were far from peaceful. As well as troubles with the Suevi, Alans and Vandals, whom they gradually subjugated, there were frequent civil wars amongst themselves.

The Visigoths, during their period of rule, were a small minority of the population - about a fifth. Already partly “Romanized” when they took over the peninsula, they gradually adopted all Roman customs and habits, and in 587 abandoned Arian Christianity for Roman Catholicism. The Visigoth language gave way to a local vernacular of Latin origin; and in the middle of the 7th century Gothic, and Roman laws were amalgamated into a single code. Nevertheless the Visigoths were never fully assimilated with the Hispano-Roman majority. They remained rather aloof, as a ruling military caste with their own aristocracy. Their capital was Toledo, on the central plateau of Spain.

Islamic Caliphate (8^th to 11^th Centuries)

In 710, in a conflict over succession to the Visigoth throne, one of the contenders appealed for help to the Moors, the inhabitants of Morocco in North Africa, across the Strait of Gibraltar. (The term "Moors" originated from the Mauri, a Berber people of the Roman province of Mauretania in Northwest Africa. By the beginning of the 8th century Northern Africa had succumbed to the Arab Conquest, and the Berbers were converted to Islam). Fired with religious zeal, Arab and Berber armies crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain, defeated the Visigoth king and swept aside the faction which had requested their help. The bulk of the peninsula’s people showed little enthusiasm for their Visigoth rulers; and in the course of eight years, the Moors conquered the whole peninsula except for the mountainous region of Asturias in the northwest. Here, the remnants of the Christian armies survived. They became the nucleus of the "Reconquest,” the Christian struggle for the recovery of the peninsula from the Moors, which went on intermittently for the next eight centuries.

After their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the Moors went on to Invade France, but were defeated by Charlemagne and the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 732, and withdrew permanently. (The history of Western Europe might have been much different had the Islamic invasion succeeded.)  But the Moors remained masters of the Iberian Peninsula until late in the 11th century. The Moorish domination was strongest in the south, with their capital at Cordoba.

The Moors treated their Visigoth, Celtic, Iberian and Hispano- Roman subjects with toleration - and also the Jews, who had been oppressed in Visigoth times. Christian worship was allowed, many Christian mercenaries were enrolled in the Moslem armies, some Christians rose to high office in the Moorish administration, and mixed marriages were frequent. In agriculture the Moors introduced new crops - figs, dates, rice, and sugar - and irrigation was extended by Arab engineers. They expanded the mining, stock-raising, and wool and silk industries. Beautifully designed silk fabrics were exported in the ships of the largest merchant marine in the Mediterranean. The Moors also brought with them a renaissance in art, science and literature, in which for several centuries, while Europe was in a state of virtual intellectual stagnation, the Arabs led the western world. Through Arabic translations the learning of ancient Greece found its way to the West.

Cordoba became the leading intellectual center of Europe, with a library of 400,000 books, a university where students from far and wide came to study medicine, mathematics, science and philosophy under Moslem, Christian and Jewish professors, and a famous academy of music. The streets were paved with stone, fountains and public baths abounded, and the houses had a piped water supply, marble balconies for the summer, under-floor hot air ducts for the winter, and fine gardens. In architecture the great mosque of Cordoba, founded in 785 (now a cathedral, and the largest in the world after St Peter's in Rome), and the Alhambra palace at Granada, built in the 13th and 14th centuries, are world-famous. The Moorish power was at its peak at the end of the 10th century. But the Berbers, constantly reinforced from Africa, had grown in power at the expense of the old Arab military aristocracy; and in 1002 domestic struggles caused the Moorish domains to split into a number of small states.

Reconquest (8^th to 15^th Centuries)

The history of the Christian kingdoms of the north during the first four or five centuries of the Moorish occupation is mainly one of wars and intrigues against each other in the intervals of sporadic attempts to drive back the Moors. There were indeed occasions when one Christian state had Moslem allies against another Christian state. Until late in the 11th century, the Reconquest made little progress.

Over the years and many battles, smaller Christian kingdoms began to merge until by 1400, there were five principle kingdoms on the peninsula: Navarre at the western end of the Pyrenees, Aragon in the northeast, Castile in the center, Granada in the southeast, and Portugal in the southwest.  Progress in the Reconquest was slow:  In 1085 Castile scored the first signal success in the Reconquest with the capture of Toledo. (This period coincides with the start of the Crusades to recover the Eastern Mediterranean Holy Lands from Muslim rule; the zeal of Crusaders from many lands did much to help the Reconquest. French, German and Italian knights took part in the capture of Toledo.) After the loss of Toledo the Moors called in Berbers from Africa to help them. The Berbers were Moslem fanatics, and defeated Castile in 1086, recovering for Islam much that had been yielded.

The five principal kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula in 1400.  (Courtesy of Wikimedia)

In 1118 Aragon captured the Moorish stronghold of Saragossa in northeast Spain.  Further progress in the Reconquest, however, was halted in the second half of the 12th century by the arrival from Africa of yet another Berber invasion.  The Berbers drove back the Christian forces and in 1195 routed the army of Castile. Then, urged on by the Pope, Castile, Aragon and Navarre at last combined in a coalition against the Berbers, and won a great victory in 1212. In the course, of the next fifty years, Castile and Aragon continued their victorious campaigns. Castile took Cordoba, Seville, Cadiz and other cities; Aragon took Valencia and the Balearic Isles. The Berbers were expelled from Spain and soon after the middle of the 13th century, the whole peninsula was in Christian hands except for Granada in the south, where the Moors remained rulers for over two more centuries.

The last invasion from Africa in support of the Moors was decisively defeated by Castile in 1340; but the completion of the Reconquest, with the final conquest of Granada, did not take place until 1492.

As Christians strengthened their position on the peninsula, they resorted to their own fanaticism. In 1478 the Spanish Inquisition was founded, a court whose object was the eradication of heresy. And in 1492, the Jews, who had been tolerated until the end of the 14th century, and who had contributed greatly to economic and cultural advances, were expelled - some 200,000 of them.

Castile and Aragon combined in 1479 as a strong western Mediterranean power - and Barcelona became one of the leading Mediterranean ports. Finally, in 1512, Aragon conquered the part of Navarre south of the Pyrenees and joined it to Spain. Spain thus assumed its present-day boundaries.

Portugal’s part of the Reconquest was attempting to push her southern boundary further south at the expense of the Moors, while holding her northern borders against Castile. Portuguese kings conquered the southern region of Portugal in a series of battles with Moors in the middle of the 13th century, and the boundaries of Portugal became those of the present time, with Lisbon as capital. But the struggle to maintain her independence from Castile continued for over a century more, with several wars with Castile. In a final dispute over the Portuguese throne in 1385, Portuguese independence was assured after their decisive defeat of Castile.

Rise of Portugal (13^th to 16^th Centuries)

From 1279 to 1325 Portugal was ruled by the remarkable King Diniz, the "poet King.” As well as being a poet himself, he was a patron of literature and learning. Diniz also did much to promote agriculture, and foreign trade, in search of which he made a commercial treaty with England. And he built the first Portuguese navy, laying the foundation for Portugal's later supremacy at sea.

In 1385 King John founded the Aviz dynasty, which ruled Portugal for nearly 200 years, including the period of her greatest fame. One of his first acts in 1386 was to conclude the Treaty of Windsor, a formal alliance with England, which had helped Portugal defeat Castile. Under this treaty, England and Portugal agreed to defend each other's interests and territories. The alliance was cemented by John's marriage in 1387 to an English noblewoman.

One of the (five) sons of this marriage was Prince Henry, known as Henry the Navigator (1394-1460). He devoted his life to the organization of voyages of discovery and exploration - voyages which changed the future course of history and which put Portugal in the forefront of the new era of colonization. At Sagres (in the extreme southwest of Portugal) he gathered together sea-captains, astronomers and mapmakers who established the principles of navigation on the high seas. From 1418 onwards, Henry sent out carefully prepared expeditions in search of geographical knowledge and trade with West Africa and the Spice Islands in the Far East. (This eastern trade had for long been dominated by the Arabs of the Middle East.) Madeira was discovered 1419, the Azores in 1431, Senegal (on the bulge of West Africa) in 1446, and the Cape Verde Islands in 1455. Gold was brought back from West Africa, and also Negro slaves to eke out Portugal's limited resources of manpower (though slave raiding was later forbidden by Prince Henry).

In 1497-98 Vasco da Gama sailed round the south of Africa to Calicut on the southwest coast of India. In 1500 Pedro Cabral sailed to the Indies and started carrying spices to Europe in Portuguese ships.  (The spices had previously been carried by the Arabs from the Spice Islands to Venice by a combination of sea and land routes.) Lisbon, instead of Venice, became the chief European trading center for eastern produce.

Over the next half century, Portugal established an eastern overseas empire that included the Island of Ceylon, the African (Mozambique) east coast, the southwest coast of India, the Malay Peninsula, and the Spice Islands. In the Spice Islands, Portugal encountered the rivalry of Spain, but prevailed.  (Spain then turned their attention to the Philippines which they conquered from local Moslem rulers.)  To conclude this phase of eastern colonization, in 1557 Portugal acquired a lease from China for Macao on the Chinese south coast mainland, that later became a Portuguese possession.   

Nearer to home, Portugal had annexed Madeira, the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands in the 15th century; and in the 16th she started colonization in Africa in Angola on the southwest coast. Her first object was trade, but she gradually established forts and settlements and extended her influence into the interior, engaging in intermittent warfare with the native kingdoms.

Thus Portugal was the first European country to build an eastern empire. Meanwhile, during the same period, Spain and Portugal had been gaining even greater empires in the western hemisphere.

Western Voyages of Exploration and Colonization of the Americas (15^th and 16^th Centuries)

Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor, settled in Portugal in 1478, and often took part in the Portuguese voyages of exploration. He was convinced that Asia could be reached by sailing westwards, and in the 1480s appealed to Portugal to finance such an expedition. With Portugal already heavily committed in West Africa and in the search for an African route to the east, Portugal declined Columbus's proposal. Eventually, Columbus in 1492 secured the backing of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. After a ten weeks voyage, his fleet of three small ships struck land at San Salvador in the West Indies (so named because Columbus thought that he had reached India). Fearing counter-claims by Portugal, Ferdinand and Isabella quickly claimed Spain’s right to these new lands.

To avoid conflict over ownership of new lands in the west, in 1494 Spain and Portugal agreed to the Treaty of Tordesillas that divided the newly discovered lands between the two countries at (approximately) the 46^th west meridian.  Spain would get all new lands to the west of the line and Portugal new lands to the east. That gave Spain North America and most of South America, with Portugal getting the eastern quarter of Brazil.  (Later, In 1529, while arguing with Spain over ownership of the Spice Islands, and trying to protect their newly won eastern empire, Portugal signed the Treaty of Zaragoza with Spain that gave Portugal all new lands west of (approximately) the 144^th east meridian, leaving Spain free to take the Philippine Islands.

Spain and Portugal divided newly discovered lands with two treaties.  (Courtesy of wordpress.com)

Columbus made several more western voyages, and these were followed by many other explorations. The most famous are those of Amerigo Vespucci and that of Ferdinand Magellan. Vespucci, another Italian, in the service of Spain and then of Portugal, between 1499 and 1502 explored much of the eastern coast of South America, and the newly discovered continent was named after him.  Magellan, a Portuguese, but sailing for Spain, on the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1519-1522 (which he didn’t survive), sailed first to Brazil, went on south and passed through the strait which bears his name (at the southern point of South America) into the Pacific Ocean and on to the East Indies.

Following the great voyages of exploration, Spain led the way in colonization of the Americas. The first settlement was in Santo Domingo in the West Indies, founded in 1496, after Columbus's second voyage. In the course of the next twenty years the Spaniards conquered most of the rest of the West Indies, and Panama in Central America. From these bases were launched the two most celebrated exploits of this period - Hernando Cortes's conquest of Mexico (1521) and  Francisco Pizarro's conquest of Peru (1529).  In the following twenty years Cortes lieutenants conquered what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, and, after a struggle with the native Maya empire, the peninsula of Yucatan. Another major exploit was the conquest of the native Chibcha Empire in what is now Colombia by Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada in 1536-38. Also in 1536 Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires on the Rio de la Plata estuary.

From Mexico the Spaniards explored most of what was to become the western United States, though colonization there did not start until the 17th century. But in 1565, after several unsuccessful attempts to colonize in Florida, the Spaniards evicted French colonists and established at St Augustine the first permanent settlement in the future United States.

From Peru the Spaniards advanced inland to the Bolivian plateau and southwards into Chile. By the end of the 16th century the whole territory from New Mexico and Florida in the north, to Chile and the Rio de la Plata in the south (with the exception of Brazil) was effectively under Spanish rule. In this great enterprise the Spanish crown was inspired by visions of a great Catholic empire - and also by the streams of gold, silver and precious stones from America.

Portugal officially took possession of Brazil after Pedro Alvares Cabral’s landing there in 1500.  But Portugal, absorbed by her interests in the East, at first made no effective effort to colonize Brazil. However, starting in the 1520s, the menace of French encroachment there stirred Portugal to a more active policy, and in 1530 Martin de Souza was sent out as leader of a colonizing expedition. Bahia was founded as the capital, and then Rio de Janeiro, where a French attempt to start a colony was defeated. But in the 16th century, the Governor-general's authority did not extend much beyond the coastal strip from Pernambuco to Rio de Janeiro.

Spain's “Golden Age” The Union with Portugal (16th Century)

Charles I, grandson of Spain’s Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella became King of Spain in 1516.  From Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles inherited Spain, her American colonies, and the Argon kingdoms of Naples and Sicily in southern Italy. From his paternal grandfather, the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I, he inherited the Habsburg domains of Austria and the Netherlands. And in 1519 Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor becoming the Emperor Charles V - thus adding Germany to his empire.

Charles’s reign was a period of continual wars, first against France and then against the German Protestants. Though Charles himself would have preferred conciliation and compromise with the Protestants, with his Habsburg and Spanish background, he was by definition, the champion of the Papacy. Spain became the center of Charles's power, through the use of the wealth from Spanish America for his imperial campaign

In 1555 Charles, tired of his imperial labors, abdicated and retired to a Spanish monastery. He was succeeded as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by his brother Ferdinand, and his son Philip became King Philip II, ruler of Spain, her colonial empire, the Netherlands and southern Italy.  For most of Phillip’s long reign (1556-1598) Spain was the strongest European power and enjoyed her "golden age.” But, Spain had to divide her naval resources between the Mediterranean, where she was faced by the maritime strength of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, and the Atlantic. Allied with the Venetian and Papal fleets, she scored a decisive victory over the Turks in 1571 - thereby confirming Spain’s assumption of the role of champion of Christendom. But in the Atlantic, in spite of her enormous stake in America, she made no sustained effort to dominate the western seas. And by discouraging foreign trade with her colonies, she failed to make the best use of their potential for wealth. This, together with an ineffective system of taxation at home - the vastly rich clergy were immune - and widespread speculation, left Spain perpetually short of money.

Philip then looked to the prosperous Netherlands as a main source of revenue. This, on top of the iniquities of the Inquisition and the presence of hated Spanish troops, caused the Netherlands to revolt. By 1578 the revolt in the south died out, and the southern provinces remained under Spanish rule as the "Spanish Netherlands,” but in the north the Dutch fought on, their cause being kept alive by their mastery of the coastal seas.

Meanwhile relations with Protestant England had steadily worsened. In 1553 Philip had married the Catholic Queen Mary of England, but after her death in 1558 and the accession of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, Philip saw his hopes of a Catholic Europe dwindling, and there was a constant threat of war between Spain and England, exacerbated by England's support of the rebellious Dutch. When in 1588, Philip at last decided to settle with England and invade the island stronghold, the great Armada which was to convoy the Spanish armies from the Netherlands was utterly defeated by the English fleet.

In the following years, the Dutch showed that the Spanish armies as well as her fleets, were not invincible; and after a series of defeats Spain gave up the struggle and in 1609 agreed to a truce with the Dutch - who, back in 1581, had proclaimed their independence of Spain.

Meanwhile Portugal, which had reached the pinnacle of its glory early in the 16th century in the reign of Manuel I, had thereafter declined in power and influence. Manuel had made the mistake, already committed by Spain, of expelling the Jews, upon whom Portugal's prosperity largely depended. And in the reign of his son John III (1521-1557), the influence of militant Catholicism became paramount. In 1536 the inquisition was introduced, and in 1540 the Jesuits were invited in with the goals of suppression of heresy, worldwide missionary work, and the eradication of corruption and ignorance among the clergy - which resulted in the Jesuits acquisition of political power.

On the death of John III of Portugal, his three year old grandson Sebastian came to the throne. Sebastian was educated by Jesuits, who now controlled the government. On coming of age, Sebastian embarked on a crusade against the infidel Moors. It ended in total disaster in Morocco in 1578 when the Portuguese army was annihilated. Sebastian was killed and the flower of Portuguese nobility decimated. Sebastian was succeeded by his great-uncle Henry, on whose death two years later the royal Aviz dynasty died out.

There were many claimants to the Portuguese throne. The strongest was Philip of Spain, who was supported by the Jesuits. A Spanish army invaded Portugal, and after their victory near Lisbon, in 1580 Philip was accepted as King of Portugal. For the next sixty years, Portugal was under Spanish rule and her interests subordinated to those of Spain.

The Decline of Spain: Portugal Recovers her Independence (16^th Century to beginning of 18th Century)

Although Spain acquired some added strength by the union with Portugal, the decline from her position of pre-eminence in Europe, which started with her failure to subdue the Dutch and the calamity of the Armada, continued. With her finances in disorder, her agriculture failing, and discontent in Portugal and in her Italian possessions, Spain needed a period of peace and retrenchment - and the rooting out of court intrigue and corruption. Instead, she still tried to play a leading part in European affairs.

For 70 years, starting in 1589, Spain participated unsuccessfully in a series of European wars, including a religious civil war in France, another war against the Dutch, the Thirty Years War among several European nations with both religious and political power objectives, followed by an extended war with France, helped by England, that by 1659 firmly established France, rather than Spain as the leading European nation.

Meanwhile Portugal’s eastern colonies came under attack from the Dutch, England, and France.  Portugal found itself unable to defend effectively its overstretched network of trading posts, and the empire began a long and gradual decline.

Spain was also not doing so well at home.  Between 1609 and 1614, some 300,000 Spanish Moslems were expelled, in the hope that this would strengthen internal unity. The immediate effect was a heavy loss to Spanish agriculture, as these people had provided much of the labor on the large estates.  And Spain’s policy of centralization of power and high taxation to pay for the wars led to revolts, including Portugal.  Sixty years of union with Spain had brought no advantages to Portugal. She had been drawn into Spain's European wars, in which she had no interest; Cadiz had taken some of Lisbon's trade; and Portugal had lost to the Dutch her position of leading maritime power in the East.

In 1640, a group of Portuguese patriots achieved a bloodless coup and installed on the throne as John IV the Duke of Braganza, the most powerful nobleman in Portugal. Engrossed in her foreign campaigns and other rebellions, Spain could do nothing about it at the time, but she did not give up Portugal without a struggle. Desultory warfare, further embittering relations between the two countries, went on for 28 years, until in 1668 Spain finally recognized Portuguese independence.

The decline of Spanish power went on throughout the 17th century. It was characterized by continuing visions of world empire without the military or economic means to sustain it, a rigid Catholic orthodoxy, and further centralization of power in the hands of the king and the aristocracy.

The King of Spain at the end of the 16^th century, Charles II, was the last of the line of Spanish Habsburg monarchs. When Charles died in 1700, it was found that he had bequeathed his entire empire to a French claimant, Philip of Anjou, grandson of King Louis XIV of France. War soon broke out in Europe - the War of the Spanish Succession. On one side, trying to limit the growing power of France, were Britain, Holland and Austria, supported by most of the German states, Savoy, and Portugal; on the other, France, Spain, and Bavaria.  The war ended in 1714 with Philip of Anjou recognized as King Philip V of Spain, founding the dynasty of Spanish Bourbons. Spain lost her Italian possessions, and the Spanish Netherlands.  England obtained the promise that the thrones of Spain and France would never be united, and was given rights of trade (mainly of slaves) with Spanish America. England also retained Gibraltar, a 2.6-square mile area dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, which she had taken from Spain in the course of the war.

Though Spain's political power declined throughout the late 16th and the 17th centuries, this period was a high point in Spanish art and literature. El Greco, born in Crete, went to Spain in 1575 and settled in Toledo; and other painters of this time to achieve world-wide renown were Ribero (1591-1656), Velasquez (1599-1660), Murillo (16l7-82), and Goya (1746-1828). In literature, all living at the same time were Spain's most celebrated writer Cervantes (1517-1616), the spiritual poet St John of the Cross (1542-1591), and the historical writer Lope de Vega (1540-1616); and later came the dramatist and poet Calderon (1600-81).

Portugal’s greatest poet Camoens (1524-1580) wrote of the great era of discovery, lived during the period of Portugal's decline from her previous eminence. His death occurring in the same year that Portugal fell to Spain, his last words are said to have been "I am dying at the same time as my country."

The 18th Century

During most of the 18th century, Spain was involved in wars. Some were European wars against Austria, stemming from the ambition of Elizabeth Farnese of Parma, a masterful woman who became Philip V's second wife, to recover for her family some of the lost Spanish possessions in Italy. Naples and Sicily were regained, and Philip and Elizabeth's son Charles was installed as ruler. And their second son Philip obtained the Duchy of Parma.

Of more lasting importance were the maritime wars with England, caused by the determination of individual Englishmen - merchants, smugglers, pirates - to trade with Spanish America to a much greater extent than was allowed by the treaty ending the Spanish War of Succession. These maritime wars in themselves did not lead to any great political or colonial changes, but they merged into the great conflict between Britain and France in North America which went on intermittently from 1743 to 1763. In the last of these wars - the American phase of the Seven Years War in Europe - Spain joined France against Britain.  (In Europe, the Seven Years War was fought from 1756 – 1763 between an alliance of France, Russia, Sweden, Austria and Saxony against Prussia, Hanover and Great Britain. The war had to do with inter-Europe domination objectives, but had an international element, particularly as Britain and France fought for domination of North America and India.  

The result was a triumph for Britain. France abandoned North America, leaving Britain firmly established in Canada and her thirteen American colonies, and ceding Louisiana to Spain. Spain lost Florida to Britain, but was given back Cuba and the Philippines, which the British had seized during the war.

Spain had her revenge over Britain twenty years later when she joined with France and Holland on t

At home the Bourbon kings of the 18th century were just as absolutist as the Habsburgs before them. One of them, however, Charles III, who reigned from 1759 to 1788, proved to be an enlightened monarch. In Spain Charles III stimulated the economy, encouraging industry and building roads. He also expelled the Jesuits; some 10,000 of them were deported to the Papal states on the Italian Peninsula. And Charles improved the efficiency of the administration. But his measures incurred the hostility of the aristocracy and the clergy; and on his death and the accession of his weak and irresolute son, Charles IV, Spain reverted to her former condition. Unbending Catholicism held sway, and vast estates remained in the hands of the nobles and the Church.

In Portugal, after the Spanish War of Succession, until 1750, Portugal was ruled by John V, mainly f

John V was succeeded by Joseph I, during whose entire reign (1750-77) the effective ruler of the country was the Marquis de Pombal, a ruthless despot but a far-sighted statesman who reformed the finances, the armed forces, the administration, and education, and set about the revival of commerce, industry and agriculture. Early in his political career, in 1755, a large part of Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake, and the city was rebuilt under Pombal’s energetic direction. He curbed the power of the nobles and the Church, and in 1759 expelled the Jesuits (setting the example which Charles III of Spain followed eight years later).

In 1762 Portugal, which stuck to an alliance with Britain during the Seven Years War, was invaded by Spanish and French forces, but with British help repulsed them.  On the death of Joseph I, his daughter Maria came to the throne. Pombal was dismissed and later exiled. The nobles and the Church recovered their supremacy.

The Napoleonic Period:  The Peninsular War (1808-1814)

In the early days of the French Revolution (1787-1799), the sympathies of King Charles IV of Spain were naturally with his Bourbon kinsman on the throne of France; and after the execution of the French king, Spain joined in 1793 in a coalition of powers against the French revolutionary regime. The French armies, after initial defeats, gained the upper hand and in 1804 the French Senate declared Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor, after which Napoleon led France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He built a large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe.

Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 1808, hoping to shut down Atlantic Ocean ports to choke off British trade with the European mainland, declared his brother Joseph Bonaparte the King of Spain, and forced Portugal’s royal family to flee to Brazil.  But the Spanish and the Portuguese people revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory against Napoleon, driving him back to France in 1814, where his empire collapsed in 1815 after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. 

Spanish and Portuguese America (17^th and 18^th Centuries)

The cumulative crises and disruptions of invasion, revolution and restoration led to the independence of most of Spain's American colonies and the independence of Brazil from Portugal.

In North America the net result of Spain's involvement in the Seven Years War and the War of American Independence was the retention of Florida and the acquisition of Louisiana. During the 18th century, Spaniards from Mexico occupied Texas (1720) and established settlements on the Californian coast between 1769 and 1781.

Spain divided her vast American domains into viceroyalties. In the 16th century the Viceroyalty of Peru, with its capital at Lima, included Panama and all Spanish territory in South America except Venezuela. The Viceroyalty of New Spain, with its capital at Mexico City, included Venezuela, the West Indies, and all Spanish territory north of Panama. In the 18th century two further viceroyalties were established: New Granada, which included Colombia, Panama, Venezuela and Quito (Ecuador); and Argentina in the south.

Colonization of the interior of Brazil did not start until the early 18th century with its greatest impetus between 1750 and 1777. This Portuguese expansion led to friction with Spain in southern Brazil.  Spain obtained by treaty what is now Uruguay and Paraguay, while Portugal was given a much larger area in northwestern Brazil than had originally been assigned to her under the Treaty of Tordesillas.

During the 18th century the virtual exclusion of Spaniards born in the colonies from important government positions was a cause of growing discontent.  Towards the end of the century, the ideas emanating from revolutionary France fired the imagination of Latin American intellectuals - whose thoughts of independence were encouraged by the successful revolt of the British colonies in North America. And Spain's support of that revolt had influenced Britain in favor of similar revolts in Latin America.

In South America the two great revolutionary leaders were Jose de San Martin in the south and Simon Bolivar in the north. After declaring the independence of Argentina, San Martin crossed the Andes, defeated a Spanish army, and liberated Chile (1818). Two years later, he moved an army by sea to Peru, the center of Spanish authority, where he occupied Lima and declared the independence of Peru (1821). In both these operations he was very much helped by the British who swept the Spanish fleet from the Pacific.

Meanwhile Bolivar, assisted by a force of British volunteers, freed what is now Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, and went on to establish another independent state, Bolivia (1825).

In Mexico the successful proclamation of independence in 1821 came as a result of a liberal revolution in Spain in 1820. The defection of Mexico took with it Central America (later the states of Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) and what is now the southwestern United States (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California). Louisiana had been ceded back to France during the Napoleonic Wars. The remaining Spanish possession on the mainland of North America - Florida - had been sold to the United States in 1819 for five million dollars, after United States' complaints of Spain's inability to keep order there.

In the West Indies, Trinidad had been taken by the British is the Napoleonic Wars; and in 1821 Santo Domingo - the site of the first Spanish settlement in the New World - proclaimed her independence (and became the Dominican Republic). All that was left of the vast Spanish American empire were the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, which remained loyal to Spain.

When John VI returned from Brazil to Portugal in 1822, Brazil declared its independence.  By the end of 1823 the resistance of Portuguese garrisons had been overcome.

Thus ended three centuries of Spanish and Portuguese rule in America.  As a lasting legacy the Spanish and Portuguese tongues were left as the languages of some twenty new nations, and Roman Catholicism as the predominant religion. And these new nations inherited the knowledge necessary for future progress - in commerce, road building, irrigation, agriculture, industry.

Over a Century of Strife in Spain (1814-1936)

Napoleon’s invasion of the Iberian Peninsula destroyed the social and economic fabric of Spain, and ushered in an era of social turbulence, political instability, and civil strife with periodic civil wars and revolutions, culminating in a massive civil war in 1936-1939.

This period also saw the virtual end of Spain's overseas empire. A revolt in Cuba had been put down in the 1870s, but in 1895 the Cuban nationalists rose again, this time supported by the United States. This led to war between the United States and Spain in 1898.  Spain was defeated, acknowledged the independence of Cuba, and ceded Puerto Rico (her only other remaining West Indian possession) and the Philippines to the United States. Spain's overseas interests were now confined to the Balearic Islands east of Spain, the Canary Islands off northwest Africa, and possessions on the coast of North Africa that required almost continual warfare to maintain.  

In the First World, War Spain remained neutral - divided in sympathy between the two sides. She prospered economically; but the Russian revolution inspired enthusiasm among the lower paid workers, and after the war there were repeated clashes between employers and anarchist-controlled unions.  Two decades of turmoil unfolded, during which Spain’s government cycled between a constitutional republic and dictatorships with disputes about the importance of the Church, liberal reforms, the rights of lower classes, and fascist absolutism.

In elections in 1936, the Loyalists (supporters of liberalism, Socialists, and Communists, including most of the lower paid workers) came to power. There followed a military uprising of Nationalists (supporters of the Spanish throne, the Church, most of the upper and middle classes, and Spanish fascists) with General Francisco Franco as the insurgent leader.

The Spanish Civil War was fought with great savagery on both sides. For the first time in warfare large scale bombing of civilians was used-as a weapon of terror. In all, between half and three quarters of a million people are estimated to have lost their lives in battle, air raids, murders, executions, or from hunger or disease in captivity. The war was prolonged by becoming the battleground between the rival ideologies of Fascism and Communism. Franco’s Nationalists were provided with war material by Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, and had active assistance from German air forces and Italian troops. The Loyalists were supported by Communist Russia and by the "International Brigades" of volunteers from many countries, organized by the world Communist movement.

General Franco and the Nationalists finally prevailed in 1939 and with the end of the war Franco became Head of State, in effect dictator of Spain.

Over a Century of Strife in Portugal (1814-1932)

The history of Portugal in the 19th century, like that of Spain, is largely one of internal strife.  Until 1910 Portugal was ruled by constitutional monarchies, from 1828-1853 in a continual state of instability and insurrection, including civil war from 1828-1834. From 1853-1889 civil strife abated and the country was ruled alternately by conservatives and liberals.

Also during this period, Portugal’s efforts to expand its African empire inland from coastal forts and plantations, was thwarted by the British on the basis of claims that they were already effectively occupying the territory.

In Portugal, feelings for a republic gained ground. In 1881 a Republican Party was formed. Under Carlos I, who became king in 1889, discontent grew. It came to a head after 1906, when Carlos suppressed parliamentary government and tried to stifle all opposition. In 1908 Carlos and the crown prince were assassinated by anarchists. Carlos's second son, Manuel II, restored constitutional government, but in 1910 an insurrection forced him to abdicate and leave the country.

A Republic was proclaimed, but it was not successful.  The leaders attacked the Church: as in Spain, Church and State were separated and education secularized, but Royalist plots continued, and there was growing unrest among the idealists of the revolution and among the lower classes, disappointed that the revolution had brought no great improvement in their lot.

In the sixteen years 1910-1926, there were repeated coups and insurrections; and with political corruption and inefficiency, the finances of the country went from bad to worse. With a 65% illiteracy rate, a democratic system was difficult to work effectively, and there was a total lack of political stability. In 1920 alone there were nine different governments. In the midst of this chaos Portugal was drawn into the First World War against Germany, and her troops fought in East Africa and on the Western Front in France.

In 1926 the Republic was overthrown by an army revolt, and after a counter-insurrection had been defeated, General Oscar Carmona became President in 1928. He appointed as finance minister Dr. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, an economics professor from Coimbra University. In a remarkably short time Salazar succeeded in balancing the budget, and in 1932 he became prime minister. For the next 36 years Salazar, a studious and retiring man, was the virtual dictator of Portugal, under the presidency of Carmona.

Spain under Franco (1939-1975)

The Spanish Civil War resulted in the triumph of the army, the Church, and the landed gentry, and of the Spanish brand of Fascism over Communism. Franco proclaimed Spain to be a (technical) kingdom with himself as regent and Chief of State, effectively a dictator, until his death or retirement. His regime came to be accepted by the majority of Spanish people, who preferred his rigid authoritarianism to the misery of the civil war or the chaos which had preceded it.

In the Second World War Franco's sympathies were naturally with Germany and Italy, but he kept Spain nominally neutral. In the early post-war years Spain was an outcast among the victorious democratic nations and was barred from membership of the United Nations. But the growing breach between the Soviet Union and the western powers, and the spread of Communist control in Eastern Europe, changed the climate of opinion towards Spain. In 1953 the United States and Spain came to an agreement providing for American naval and air bases in Spain and for American economic aid and assistance in modernizing the Spanish armed forces.  In 1955 Spain was admitted to the United Nations.

American aid sparked an economic revival, particularly in industrial expansion and hydroelectric projects. The industrial progress, together with a vast increase in tourism after 1959, when the government started to give the tourist trade active encouragement, brought prosperity in the 1960s.

Spain's colonial policy after the Second World War followed the general trend in Africa towards independence for the African states. In 1956 France and Spain gave up their protectorates in Morocco (but Spain still kept Ceuta and Melilla). Spanish Guinea was given internal self-government in 1963 and full independence in 1968 (becoming the Republic of Equatorial Guinea). And is 1975 the Spanish Sahara was handed over to African Morocco and Mauretania.

On Franco's death in 1975, Juan Carlos became King of Spain.

Portugal under Salazar (1932-1968)

Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal established an authoritarian state based on the example of Mussolini's Fascist Italy. Salazar's regime was perhaps less ruthless than most dictatorships, but his regime did little to alleviate the widespread poverty or improve the inadequate education of the lower classes.  It did give Portugal a period of stability and solvency. There was progress in electrification schemes, modernization of the railways, expansion of the merchant marine, and in industrialization (the cotton industry being the most important) - but over 40% of the working population were still engaged in agriculture. As in Spain, the tourist trade prospered.

In the Second World War, Portugal, like Spain, remained neutral. After the war, in line with the government's vigorous opposition to Communism, Portugal joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on its formation in 1949. Like Spain, however, she was not admitted to the United Nations until 1955.

During the post-war years Portugal did not follow the example of other colonial powers in working quickly towards granting independence to her colonies. Salazar was determined to keep the Portuguese overseas empire intact. But in the 1960s, Portugal found the preservation of this empire increasingly difficult. In 1961 Goa was seized by India. Also in 1961, a nationalist revolt broke out in Angola, followed by similar uprisings in Portuguese Guinea in 1962 and in Mozambique in 1965. Guerrilla warfare continued in all these African colonies in the 1960s and early 1970s, causing a sustained drain on Portugal's resources and finances.

In 1968 Salazar was incapacitated by a stroke and died in 1970. He was succeeded as Prime Minister (and Dictator) by Marcello Cactano, one of his ministers.

Spain’s Transition to Democracy (1975-present)

Juan Carlos moved Spain steadily towards democracy with the Spanish people eager for these reforms, and the King and his wife (Princess Sofia of Greece) immensely popular.  A new Spanish Constitution was approved in 1978, with the return of a large measure of regional autonomy.

In 1982 Spain joined NATO and in 1986 the country joined the European Economic Community which later became the European Union.  In 2002 Spain fully adopted the euro and Spain experienced strong economic growth in the early 2000s. 

From 2008-2016 Spain experienced a financial crisis, high levels of unemployment, and corruption in the socialist government.  The 2011 election restored conservatives to power.  (Since 1982, both conservatives and socialists had experienced periods of power.)

In 2014, Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of his son, who became Felipe VI.

In 2018 the socialists came back to power after seven years.

Today, Spain is comprised of the mainland on the Iberian Peninsula, with capital and largest city Madrid; two groups of islands:  the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands; and a handful of autonomous cities and small islands scattered along the coast of North Africa.  Spain is the fourth largest country in Europe at 195,360 square miles (about 25% larger that the U.S. state of California), with a population of about 47 million people in 2018.  Spain is an increasingly popular tourist destination with over over 82 million visitors in 2018.

The Iberian Peninsula and principal cities today.

Portugal’s Transition to Democracy (1968-present)

In Portugal Marcello Cactano loosened the restrictions on the press and on political opposition, and increased the expenditure on education; but after a few years, this liberalization began to fade, and the army became particularly critical of his African policy. In 1972 Angola and Mozambique were given a greater measure of autonomy, but Cactano continued Salazar’s efforts to subdue the nationalist guerrillas. These efforts accounted for more than 40% of Portugal's national budget.  

In 1974 Cactano's government was overthrown by a military coup, and General Antonio de Spinola became President. He promised to restore constitutional democracy and to hold elections within a year. He also announced a policy of “decolonization" - the withdrawal of Portuguese troops from Africa and the early grant of independence to the colonies. The next two years was a period of political turmoil, with the Communists making repeated efforts to control the government.  Spinola resigned in late 1974 and General Francisco da Costa Gomes took over. He completed the decolonization in Africa. In 1974-5 Portuguese Guinea, Mozambique, Angola, and the Cape Verde Islands all became independent. Portugal's overseas possessions were now reduced to the Azores and Madeira in the Atlantic, Macao in China, and Portuguese Timor in the East Indies.

In 1975-6 the promised elections were held to form a semi-presidential system or dual executive system, a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter being responsible to the legislature.  The socialist party won the election with Ramalho Eanes elected President, and Mario Soares, the leader of the socialist party, became the Prime Minister of Portugal’s First Constitutional Government. A rewritten Portuguese Constitution was approved in 1976.

In 1986 Portugal joined the  European Union. In the following years Portugal's economy progressed considerably as a result of the European Union’s structural and cohesion funds and Portuguese companies' easier access to foreign markets.

Portugal's last overseas colonial territory, Macau, was peacefully handed over in 1999.  In 2002, the independence of East Timor (Asia) was formally recognized by Portugal

In 2004, José Manuel Barroso, then Prime Minister of Portugal, was nominated President of the European Commission, the most powerful office in the European Union.

Economic disruption and an unsustainable growth in borrowing costs in the wake of the late-2000s financial crisis led the country to negotiate in 2011 with the International Monetary Fund for a loan to help the country stabilize its finances.

Today, Portugal is comprised of the mainland on the Iberian Peninsula, with its capital and largest city Lisbon, and two groups of islands:  the Azores in the North Atlantic Ocean, 850 miles west of Portugal, and Madeira, in the Atlantic, southwest of Portugal.  Portugal’s size is 35,600 square miles (about the size of U.S. state Indiana), with a population of about 11 million people in 2018.  Over 23 million people visited Portugal in 2018.

Andorra (1278 - present)

The Principality of Andorra is a small landlocked nation in the eastern Pyrenees Mountains, with France bordering to the north and Spain to the south.  The tiny (180 square mile) nation is believed to have been created by Charlemagne in the eighth century (after driving the Moors out of France) and ruled by the Count of Urgell until 968, when it was transferred to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Urgell, and the present municipality formed by charter in 1278.  It is known as a principality because it is a diarchy, headed by two Princes:  the Catholic Bishop of Urgell in Spain and the President of France. Andorra has a constitutional government consisting of a chief executive, prime minister, and legislature.

Andorra’s capital and largest city is Andorra la Vella, the small nation’s 2018 population was about 80 thousand people, and the principality welcomes over 10 million visitors annually.