The Spanish Empire was one of the largest in history. At its greatest extent, between the late sixteenth and the eighteenth century, it included much of the Americas, the Philippines and possessions in Europe and Africa. Its most visible legacy is language: today Spanish is the mother tongue of about 500 million people (see the spread of Spanish).
Discovery and conquest
On 12 October 1492 the three ships of Christopher Columbus, financed by the Catholic Monarchs, reached an island in the Bahamas. In 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world to be explored between Spain and Portugal. After the Caribbean, the conquistadors moved on to the mainland: Hernán Cortés, setting out from Cuba, conquered the Aztec empire between 1519 and 1521; Francisco Pizarro the Inca empire between 1532 and 1533. The conquest, carried out by small groups of soldiers with the decisive help of indigenous allies, was followed by a catastrophic demographic collapse of native populations, caused above all by epidemics but also by violence and forced labour. The Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas denounced the abuses, and in 1542 the New Laws tried to limit them.
In 1519-1522 the expedition that set out under Ferdinand Magellan and was completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano made the first circumnavigation of the globe.
Governing a world
America was divided into viceroyalties, first New Spain, with its capital in Mexico City, and Peru, with its capital in Lima; New Granada and Río de la Plata were added in the eighteenth century. Trade with the Indies was controlled by the Casa de Contratación in Seville, later moved to Cádiz, and travelled in galleon fleets. Silver from the mines of Potosí in Bolivia and Zacatecas in Mexico financed the monarchy's wars and circulated all over the world; from 1565 the Manila galleon linked the Philippines with Acapulco for two and a half centuries, joining Asia and America.
Charles V and Philip II
Under Charles V (Charles I of Spain) Spain's possessions were added to those of the Habsburgs: the Low Countries, Austria, imperial Germany, the kingdom of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia and the Duchy of Milan. His son Philip II inherited the Spanish, Italian and Flemish part and in 1580 Portugal with its empire too. For much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries southern Italy and Milan were governed by Spanish viceroys, leaving deep traces on Italian language, society and architecture.
Decline
The cost of wars in Europe, the revolt of the United Provinces (effectively independent from the late sixteenth century and recognised in 1648), competition from England, Holland and France and repeated royal bankruptcies wore down Spanish power in the seventeenth century. With the Peace of Utrecht (1713) Spain lost its European possessions. In the eighteenth century the Bourbons reformed colonial administration, but Napoleon's invasion of 1808 triggered the American wars of independence, led by Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín: between 1810 and 1825 almost the whole continent became independent.
1898 and the end
Spain kept Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, lost in 1898 after the war with the United States. In the twentieth century it retained possessions in Africa: the protectorate of northern Morocco (until 1956), Equatorial Guinea (independent in 1968) and Western Sahara (abandoned in 1975). Today the Spanish presence in Africa consists of Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands. See also the history of Spain.