Spanish Empire - Origins

Origins

During the 15th century, Castile and Portugal fell within territorial and commercial rivalry in the Atlantic western zone. Portugal obtained several Papal bulls which acknowledged the Portuguese control over the discovered territories, but Castile also obtained from the Pope, the safeguard of its rights to the Canary Islands with the bulls Romani Pontifex dated on 6 November 1436 and Dominatur Dominus dated on 30 April 1437. The Conquest of the Canary Islands, inhabited by Guanche people, began under the reign of Henry III of Castile in 1402, authorizing under feudal agreement to Norman noblemen Jean de Béthencourt. The conquest only finished when the armies of the Crown of Castille won, in long and bloody wars, the islands of Gran Canaria (1478–1483), La Palma (1492–1493) and Tenerife (1494–1496).

The proclamation of Isabella I of Castile jointly with her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, at that time king of Sicily, as sovereigns of Castile drove to a war with Portugal solved with the Treaty of Alcáçovas (4 September 1479). The Portuguese gave up their claims to the Canary Islands but were secured in their sovereignty over Madeira, Azores and the Cape Verde islands, and over the trade of Guinea, from the south of the Cape Bojador, and the right to conquer the Kingdom of Fez. This treaty was confirmed in 1481 by the Pope Sixtus IV, in the papal bull Æterni regis (dated on 21 June 1481).

Seven months before the treaty of Alcaçovas, the king John II of Aragon died, and his son Ferdinand II of Aragon inherited the thrones of the Crown of Aragon; therefore, a personal union was created between Aragon and Castile, each with their own administrations, but ruled by a common monarchy.

After a war of 10 years, the Granada War, in 1492, the Reyes Católicos drove out the last Moorish king of Granada. After their victory, the Catholic monarchs negotiated with Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor attempting to reach Cipangu by sailing west. Castile was already engaged in a race of exploration with Portugal to reach the Far East by sea when Columbus made his bold proposal to Isabella. In the Capitulations of Santa Fe, dated on April 17, 1492, Christopher Columbus obtained from the Catholic Monarchs the appointment as viceroy and governor in the lands already discovered and that of he might discover thenceforth; thereby, it was the first document to establish an administrative organization in the Indies. Columbus' discoveries inaugurated the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Spain's claim to these lands was solidified by the Inter caetera papal bull dated on 4 May 1493, and Dudum siquidem on 26 September 1493, which vested the sovereignty of the territories discovered and to be discovered.

On the other hand, since the Portuguese wanted to keep the line of demarcation of Alcaçovas running east and west along the latitude south of Cape Bojador, a compromise was worked out which was incorporated by the Treaty of Tordesillas dated on 7 June 1494, in which the globe was divided into two hemispheres between Spanish and Portuguese claims. These actions gave Spain exclusive rights to establish colonies in all of the New World (except where the Portuguese had already set up, in Brazil and eastern Canada), as well as the easternmost parts of Asia. The treaty of Tordesillas was confirmed by the Pope Julius II in the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis on 24 January 1506. Spain's expansion and colonization was driven by economic influences, a yearning to improve national prestige, and a desire to spread Catholicism into the New World.

On the other hand, the treaty of Tordesillas and the treaty of Cintra (18 September 1509) established the limits of the Kingdom of Fez for Portugal, and outside of these limits the Castilian expansion was allowed, beginning with the conquest of Melilla in 1497.