The Spanish Empire (Spanish: Imperio Espa�ol; Latin: Imperium Hispanicum),

historically known as the Hispanic Monarchy (Spanish: Monarqu�a Hisp�nica) as the

Catholic Monarchy (Spanish: Monarqu�a Cat�lica)[2] or as the Universal Catholic
Monarchy (Spanish: Monarqu�a Cat�lica Universal)[3][4][5] was composed of kingdoms,
vice-royalties, provinces and other territories ruled or administered by Spain and
its predecessor states between 1492 and 1976.[6][7][8][9] One of the largest
empires in history, Spain controlled a huge overseas territory from the late 15th
century to the early 19th century in the Americas, the archipelago in the modern-
day Philippines (which they called "The Indies" (Spanish: Las Indias)) and
territories in Europe, Africa and Oceania.[10] It was one of the most powerful
empires of the Early Modern Period.[11][12] The Spanish Empire became known as "the
empire on which the sun never sets" and reached its maximum extent in the 18th
century.[13][14][15]

Castile became the dominant kingdom in Iberia because of its jurisdiction over the
overseas empire in the Americas and the Philippines.[16] The structure of empire
was established under the Spanish Habsburgs (1516�1700), and under the Spanish
Bourbon monarchs the empire was brought under greater crown control and increased
its revenues from the Indies.[17][18] The crown's authority in The Indies was
enlarged by the papal grant of powers of patronage, giving it power in the
religious sphere.[19][20] An important element in the formation of Spain's empire
was the dynastic union between Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon,
known as the Catholic Monarchs, which initiated political, religious and social
cohesion but not political unification.[21] Iberian kingdoms retained their
political identities, with particular administration and juridical configurations.

Although the power of the Spanish sovereign as monarch varied from one territory to
another, the monarch acted as such in a unitary manner[22] over all the ruler's
territories through a system of councils: the unity did not mean uniformity.[23] In
1580, when Philip II of Spain succeeded to the throne of Portugal (as Philip I), he
established the Council of Portugal, which oversaw Portugal and its empire and
"preserv[ed] its own laws, institutions, and monetary system, and united only in
sharing a common sovereign."[24] The Iberian Union remained in place until in 1640,
when Portugal re-established its independence under the House of Braganza.[25]

The Spanish empire in the Americas was formed after conquering indigenous empires
and claiming large stretches of land, beginning with Christopher Columbus in the
Caribbean Islands. In the early 16th century, it conquered and incorporated the
Aztec and Inca empires, retaining indigenous elites loyal to the Spanish crown and
converts to Christianity as intermediaries between their communities and royal
government.[26][27] After a short period of delegation of authority by the crown in
the Americas, the crown asserted control over those territories and established the
Council of the Indies to oversee rule there.[28] The crown then established
viceroyalties in the two main areas of settlement, Mexico and Peru, both regions of
dense indigenous populations and mineral wealth. The Magellan-Elcano
circumnavigation�the first circumnavigation of the Earth�laid the foundation for
the Pacific Oceanic empire of Spain and began the Spanish colonization of the
Philippines.

The structure of governance of its overseas empire was significantly reformed in

the late 18th century by the Bourbon monarchs. Although the crown attempted to keep
its empire a closed economic system under Habsburg rule, Spain was unable to supply
the Indies with sufficient consumer goods to meet demand, so that foreign merchants
from Genoa, France, England, Germany, and the Netherlands dominated the trade, with
silver from the mines of Peru and Mexico flowing to other parts of Europe. The
merchant guild of Seville (later Cadiz) served as middlemen in the trade. The
crown's trade monopoly was broken early in the 17th century, with the crown
colluding with the merchant guild for fiscal reasons in circumventing the
supposedly closed system.[29] Spain was largely able to defend its territories in
the Americas, with the Dutch, the English, and the French only taking small
Caribbean islands and outposts, using them to engage in contraband trade with the
Spanish populace in the Indies. In the 17th century, the diversion of silver
revenue to pay for European consumer goods and the rising costs of defense of its
empire meant that "tangible benefits of America to Spain were dwindling...at a
moment when the costs of empire were climbing sharply."[30] The Bourbon monarchy
attempted to expand trade within the empire, by allowing commerce between all ports
in the empire, and took other measures to revive economic activity to the benefit
of Spain. The Bourbons had inherited "an empire invaded by rivals, an economy shorn
of manufactures, a crown deprived of revenue... [and tried to reverse the situation
by] taxing colonists, tightening control, and fighting off foreigners. In the
process, they gained a revenue and lost an empire."[31]

Spain experienced its greatest territorial losses during the early 19th century,
when its colonies in the Americas began fighting for independence.[32] By the year
1900 Spain had also lost its colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific, and it was left
with only its African possessions.

In Spanish America among the legacies of its relationship with Iberia, Spanish is
the dominant language, Catholicism the main religion, and political traditions of
representative government can be traced to the Spanish Constitution of 1812. In
conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire's establishment in the
15th century ushered in the modern global era and the rise of European dominance in
global affairs.

Contents
1 Catholic Monarchs and origins of the empire
2 Early expansion
2.1 Fall of Granada
2.2 Campaigns in North Africa
2.3 Navarre and struggles for Italy
2.4 Canary Islands
2.5 Rivalry with Portugal
3 New World Voyages and the Treaty of Tordesillas
3.1 Papal Bulls and the Americas
3.2 First settlements in the Americas
3.3 Assertion of Crown control in the Americas
4 The Spanish Habsburgs (1516�1700)
4.1 Charles I of Spain/Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1516�1558)
4.1.1 Struggles for Italy
4.1.2 Ottoman Turks during Charles V's rule
4.1.3 Religious conflicts in the Holy Roman Empire
4.1.4 Early Spanish America
4.2 Philip II (r. 1556�1598)
4.2.1 Ottoman Turks, the Mediterranean, and North Africa during Philip II's rule
4.2.2 Conflicts in North-West Europe
4.2.3 Spanish America
4.2.4 The Philippines, the Sultanate of Brunei and Southeast Asia
4.2.5 Portugal and the Iberian Union 1580�1640
4.3 Philip III (r. 1598�1621)
4.4 Philip IV (r. 1621�1665)
4.5 Charles II and the end of the Spanish Habsburg era
5 Spanish America
5.1 Explorers, conquerors, and expansion of empire
5.2 Ordering colonial society � social structure and legal status
6 Imperial economic policy
7 The Spanish Bourbons (1700�1808)
7.1 Bourbon reforms
7.2 18th-century economic conditions
7.3 Contesting with other empires
7.3.1 Military recovery
7.3.2 Role in the American Revolution
7.3.3 Contestation in Brazil
7.3.4 Rival empires in the Pacific Northwest
7.3.5 Loss of Spanish Louisiana
7.3.6 Other challenges to the Spanish Empire
8 End of the global empire (1808�1899)
8.1 Destabilization of the empire (1808�1814)
8.2 Spanish American conflicts and independence (1810�1833)
8.3 Santo Domingo
8.4 Spanish�American War
9 Territories in Africa (1885�1975)
10 Legacy
11 See also
12 References
12.1 Notes
12.2 Citations
12.3 Bibliography
13 Further reading
14 External links
Catholic Monarchs and origins of the empire
Main article: Catholic Monarchs
With the marriage of the heirs apparent to their respective thrones Ferdinand of
Aragon and Isabella of Castile created a personal union that most scholars view as
the foundation of the Spanish monarchy. The union of the Crowns of Castile and
Aragon joined the economic and military power of Iberia under one dynasty, the
House of Trastamara. Their dynastic alliance was important for a number of reasons,
ruling jointly over a number of kingdoms and other territories, mostly in the
eastern mediterranean region, under their respective legal and administrative
status. They successfully pursued expansion in Iberia in the Christian conquest of
the Muslim Kingdom of Granada, completed in 1492, for which Valencia-born Pope
Alexander VI gave them the title of the Catholic Monarchs. Ferdinand of Aragon was
particularly concerned with expansion in France and Italy, as well as conquests in
North Africa.[33]

With the Ottoman Turks controlling the choke points of the overland trade from Asia
and the Middle East, both Spain and Portugal sought alternative routes. The Kingdom
of Portugal had an advantage over the Crown of Castile, having earlier retaken
territory from the Muslims. Following Portugal's earlier completion of the
reconquest and its establishment of settled boundaries, it began to seek overseas
expansion, first to the port of Ceuta (1415) and then by colonizing the Atlantic
islands of Madeira (1418) and the Azores (1427�1452); it also began voyages down
the west coast of Africa in the fifteenth century.[34] Its rival Castile laid claim
to the Canary Islands (1402) and retook territory from the Moors in 1462. The
Christian rivals, Castile and Portugal, came to formal agreements over the division
of new territories in the Treaty of Alca�ovas (1479), as well as securing the crown
of Castile for Isabella, whose accession was challenged militarily by Portugal.

Following the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and first major settlement in
the New World in 1493, Portugal and Castile divided the world by the Treaty of
Tordesillas (1494), which gave Portugal Africa and Asia and the Western Hemisphere
to Spain.[35] The voyage of Christopher Columbus, a Genoese mariner married to a
Portuguese woman in Lisbon, obtained the support of Isabella of Castile, sailing
west in 1492, seeking a route to the Indies. Columbus unexpectedly encountered the
western hemisphere, populated by peoples he named "Indians". Subsequent voyages and
full-scale settlements of Spaniards followed, with gold beginning to flow into
Castile's coffers. Managing the expanding empire became an administrative issue.
The reign of Ferdinand and Isabella began the professionalization of the apparatus
of government in Spain, which led to a demand for men of letters (letrados) who
were university graduates (licenciados), of Salamanca, Valladolid, Complutense and
Alcal�. These lawyer-bureaucrats staffed the various councils of state, eventually
including the Council of the Indies and Casa de Contrataci�n, the two highest
bodies in metropolitan Spain for the government of the empire in the New World, as
well as royal government in The Indies.

Early expansion
Fall of Granada

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The Capitulation of Granada by F. Pradilla: Muhammad XII (Boabdil) surrenders to

Ferdinand and Isabella.
During the last 250 years of the Reconquista era, the Castilian monarchy tolerated
the small Moorish taifa client-kingdom of Granada in the south-east by exacting
tributes of gold�the parias. In so doing, they ensured that gold from the Niger
region of Africa entered Europe.[36]

When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella I captured Granada in 1492, they implemented
policies to maintain control of the territory.[37] To do so, the monarchy
implemented a system of encomienda.[38] Encomienda was a method of land control and
distribution based upon vassalic ties. Land would be granted to a noble family, who
were then responsible for farming and defending it. This eventually led to a large
land based aristocracy, a separate ruling class that the crown later tried to
eliminate in its overseas colonies. By implementing this method of political
organization, the crown was able to implement new forms of private property without
completely replacing already existing systems, such as the communal use of
resources. After the military and political conquest, there was an emphasis on
religious conquest as well, leading to the creation of the Spanish Inquisition.[39]
Although the Inquisition was technically a part of the Catholic church, Ferdinand
and Isabella formed a separate Spanish Inquisition, which led to mass expulsion of
Muslims and Jews from the peninsula. This religious court system was later adopted
and transported to the Americas, though they took a less effective role there due
to limited jurisdiction and large territories.