HISTORY OF SPAIN
(2500 words)
Much of the history of Spain can be condensed into one word: Alhambra. Alhambra, the magnificent palace that overlooks the city of Granada, embodies the ongoing clash of cultures that gave rise to the unique people who inhabit this portion of the Iberian Peninsula, and who had such an effect on the rest of Europe.
In addition, it was from this multi-styled architectural gemstone that Ferdinand and Isabella gave Christopher Columbus the grant to explore the unknown Atlantic Ocean. The Spanish names that stretch across the Americas, from Florida to Los Angeles, from San Antonio to Tierra del Fuego, demonstrate the impact that Spain has had upon the New World, as well.
PRE-HISTORY TO CHRISTIAN RECONQUEST
The history of Spain starts long before Alhambra was built. Since the time of the Neanderthal, inhabitants have been leaving their mark on the Iberian Peninsula. Painted bison have been roaming the ceilings of the caves at Altamira for some 25,000 years; and villages were built around central tombs in Andalusia as far back as 4,500 B.C. The walled settlement of Los Millares, with its 100 beehive tombs, is a prime example of the state of architecture around 2,000 B.C.
Sometime around the 6th Century B.C., the Celts brought the Iron Age to Northern Spain. The Greeks and Phoenicians, who began colonizing the coastline along the Mediterranean, followed them shortly. The Greeks settled at what would become Marseilles around 600 B.C.; just about the time, the Phoenicians established themselves at what would become Cadiz.
The 3rd Century B.C. found the Romans and Carthaginians (successors to the Phoenicians) battling over the eastern portion of the territory, vying for Spain’s enormous supplies of gold, copper, and silver. Rome finally won control, in the Second Punic War, during the 5th Century A.D. The Romans had previously subdued the fierce Celts in 138 B.C., and a Roman aqueduct that still stands in Segovia is testament to the relative peace that prevailed for a time.
However, Rome had not vanquished all invaders. When the Vandals roared in, Rome turned to the Visigoths for assistance. While the Visigoths assisted Rome in driving out the Vandals, the Visigoths, in turn, wanted their own area. Fighting between the Romans and the upstart Visigoths continued for centuries. Pursuit of a lasting peace was not helped by the infighting of the Visigoths, and when one faction brought in Arab support, another contestant for supreme dominance of the peninsula entered the fray.
The Arabs pushed the Visigoths from Toledo, and set up their own empire, the Umayyad Dynasty, in 756. The mosque in Cordoba built by Abd-al-Rahman is testament to the cultural achievements of this caliphate. The Umayyads ruled for three centuries, before the Christians, in concert with the Berbers, eventually managed to break the stranglehold of the Arabs.
Over the course of the centuries in between, there were many skirmishes in the ongoing battle. The Visigoths, hunkered down in Asturias, braved a foray into neighboring Galicia when a Berber uprising distracted the Arabs, and took the region for themselves. Galicia was not a total loss for the Christians, however. Remains said to be of St. James were discovered in 1211, and a shrine was erected at Santiago de Compostela.
Although the Visigoths went on to capture more land, they were pushed back when Charlemagne led the Franks to retake Gerona in 785, and Barcelona, in 801. The victorious Franks set up a count to rule the area in their stead. Over time, the counts extended their territories, and the ongoing strife for separation of the northern regions was born. Catalonia, Leon, and Castile have continued their efforts for independence into the present day.
Eventually, the Christians toppled the Umayyad caliphate, but there was short time for rejoicing. The Amoravids, a more dogmatic sect, crossed the Mediterranean from Morocco, and promptly gained back almost all of the lands the Christians had wrested from the Umayyad’s grasp. Only El Cid was able to keep the Amoravids in check for a while.
Stretched too thin, the Amoravids could not retain control. The Christians renewed their offensive, capturing Saragossa in 1188, while the puritanical sect of the Berbers, the Almohads, took Seville in 1147. The Almohads made Seville their capital, and constructed the Alcazar Palace there.
The last Muslim holdout was Granada. This region is mountainous, and difficult to invade, so the king of Castile contented himself with an annual tribute. The Muslims were left alone until the 15th Century. It was during this period, between 1238 and 1358, that Alhambra was built.
For centuries, religious fervor ebbed and flowed. Under the Umayyad caliphate, adherents of each of the three religions, Muslim, Christianity, and Judaism assimilated and intermarried. Things changed, however, when the more dogmatic Amoravids pressured their subjects to conform to Islam in the 11th Century, and changed again when the Black Death visited Europe in 1346. Approximately twenty-five million people died before 1353, when the plague finally abated, and one rumor had a rabbi from Toledo as the cause of it all. To escape persecution, many Jews converted to Christianity.
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella continued the re-unification of the regions of Spain. Isabella inherited the throne of Castile, while Ferdinand inherited the throne of Aragon. With the Reconquista (Christian Reconquest) nearly complete, Los Reyes Catolicos (The Catholic Monarchs) turned to other matters. The Jews who had supposedly converted to Christianity were believed to still be practicing their own religion in secret. In 1478, the pope authorized an Inquisition to discover the truth.
The first Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada, was appointed in 1480. Torquemada held auto-de-fes (religious trials) to find heretics, and asked the joint rulers to deport approximately 160,000 Jews. A decade later, he asked the same of Muslims. The Spanish Inquisition was not halted until 1834.
Meanwhile, Ferdinand and Isabella undertook a siege of the last holdout, Granada. The fall of Granada in 1492 marked the end of the Christian Reconquest. Most of Spain was now united under the joint rule of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was time to look to the west, to the Spice Islands. Spain needed its own route there, to cut out the middlemen and their drain on profits. The monarchs conferred on Christopher Columbus the support that he needed to prepare his convoy of three ships.
Within twelve years, Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean eight times, and opened up two new continents to European exploration and expansion. Determined to hold onto their conquest, Ferdinand and Isabella had Pope Alexander VI establish the Tordesillas Line: all land to the east of the line would be under Portugal’s control, and all land west of the line belonged to Spain. Spain wasted no time in exploiting its new territories to the fullest, and consolidating her power in the New World.
Back in Europe, the marriages of Ferdinand and Isabella’s children changed the balance of power among nations in a number of ways. Their youngest daughter, Catherine of Aragon, married King Henry VIII of England. After twenty years of marriage, Catherine was unable to give King Henry the male son he so desperately needed. In despair, Henry defied the pope, had the marriage annulled, and broke away from the Roman Catholic Church.
THE HAPSBURGS
Another daughter, Joanna, was married into the Hapsburg dynasty, and her son, born and raised in Brussels, became Charles V of Spain. Through all of his family connections, Charles inherited a vast empire, which required many wars to maintain. All through his reign, Charles was at odds with Francis I of France, in addition to quelling rebellions in the Netherlands and Italy.
Charles used the treasures of the New World, confiscated by the conquistadores, to help support his empire in the Old World. His also used his Spanish holdings to help finance the incessant European wars, which led to Spain declaring bankruptcy after his death.
Despite Henry VIII’s actions, Catherine’s daughter, Mary, became Queen of England, and Charles married his son, Philip, to her. When Charles abdicated his throne in 1555, he did so in favor of Philip. Philip II ruled for 39 years without ever leaving the Iberian Peninsula. He set up Madrid as his capital, and built his palace, El Escorial, near there.
When Philip’s wife, Mary, died, her half-sister Elizabeth took the throne of England. In need of ready cash, Queen Elizabeth sent Francis Drake to plunder Spanish ships and warehouses in the New World. When, in 1585, Drake and his fleet of 30 ships ran rampant in the Caribbean, Philip II prepared for war. Before he could move his armada, however, Drake burnt several of Philip’s ships, still anchored at Cadiz. The Spanish Armada fared no better when it faced England’s navy.
England’s light ‘race’ ships quickly out-paced the slow, heavy galleons of the Spanish Armada. The weather did not cooperate, either, and most of the ‘invincible’ Spanish Armada ended up on the ocean floor. Philip II continued his war with England for the rest of his life, to no real advantage. Philip’s son, Philip III, signed peace treaties with both England and the Netherlands, which left him free to deal with the internal issue of the Spanish Muslims who had converted to Christianity.
In response to the rise of Protestantism, Catholicism began a resurgence, or Reformation, during which Muslims living in Spain were forced to convert to Christianity or be expelled. Although many had chosen conversion, they retained their traditional clothing and culture. In 1567, Philip II had banned both. After a bloody uprising, he banned all Muslims who had converted to Christianity from Granada. In 1609, Philip III extended the ban to all of Spain. While the deportation of so many non-conformists cheered the Spanish, the loss of 300,000 workers caused great damage to Spain’s economy.
In contrast to the diminishing economy, the arts experienced a resurgence. The construction of El Escorial had brought Spain to the attention of some of Europe’s greatest architects and painters, and all of the Hapsburgs were huge patrons of the arts. The Siglo del Oro (Golden Age of Spain) is generally understood to have lasted from approximately 1492 to 1659, when the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed between Spain and France.
During the Golden Age, Diego Velazquez, one of the most revered painters in European history, exercised his genius on the royal family, with paintings such as Las Meninas (1656). El Greco, another noted painter, also flourished during this period. In addition, it was the Golden Age of Spain that conferred upon the world ‘El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha’, Miguel de Cervantes’ ground-breaking novel.
Outside the world of literature and art, Philip III and his son, Philip IV, reigned over an economy struggling through, not only the loss of the Muslim community, but also inflation, and the effects of the ‘Thirty Years’ War’. The Thirty Years’ War began as a conflict between the Protestant states and the Catholic states, but expanded to encompass most of Europe. The aftermath included a devastating famine, rampant disease, and the curtailing of Hapsburg ambitions throughout Europe.
THE BOURBONS
Charles II, who succeeded Philip IV in 1665, left no heir, but many claimants to his empire. At his death in 1700, Philip, a grandson of Louis XIV, of the House of Bourbon, was crowned, and the War of the Spanish Succession ensued.
Another 13 long years of war ultimately ended with the Treaty of Utrecht. Philip kept Spain and the Spanish holdings in the New World, but had to give up his rights to the Netherlands and Italy. Otherwise, the court became a little more French, but not much else changed. The intensely religious Philip applauded the ongoing auto-de-fes, and the imposition of sanctions on some 14,000 heretics. Philip also continued his predecessors’ restrictions on trade with the colonies in the New World, a policy that eventually led to yet another war with Britain.
Spain set aside her conflicts with France in favor of The Family Compacts, which allied Spain and France in a series of wars on the European continent. These Compacts turned out favorably for the Spanish, except for the one signed in 1761. This last Compact resulted in Spain losing Florida, during the Seven Years’ War.
During his reign, Charles III reversed previous government policy, and opened Spanish America to trade with Europe, to instant success. Not all of his policies worked out so well, though. During his reign, Charles III found himself embroiled in yet another war against Britain, this one in support of the American colonies.
Charles IV fared no better. He took the throne just before the French Revolution, and allying Spain with the monarchy cost Spain Santo Domingo. Spain then switched sides, which brought on yet another war with Britain, and a huge loss at Trafalgar. By 1810, Napoleon had taken control of most of northern and central Spain. What was left of the Spanish government retreated to Cadiz. They they set up a Cortes (legislature), and enacted a radical constitution. When Napoleon was deposed in 1814, Ferdinand VII was forced to accept the constitution as a condition of his return.
Upon the death of Ferdinand VII, another battle for succession resulted in a civil war, in 1873, which also served to harden Basque and Catalan support for independence. The four Catalan provinces were decreed to be commonwealths in 1913, which abated one of Spain’s problems, but there were other trends, which foreshadowed more upcoming internal tensions: the embrace of socialism, and the rise of the anarchists.
20th CENTURY
Spain lost the last dregs of its empire in the Spanish-American War of 1898. A wounded Spain was further split by the outbreak of World War I, in 1914. Leftists in the country supported the allies, while the church and the army were in favor of Germany. The result of the turmoil was that Spain determined to remain neutral in the war. Because of that neutrality, Spain’s next big international crisis didn’t occur until 1921, when the defeat of an expedition to Morocco brought down the Spanish government. The path was paved for Spain’s first dictatorship of the 20th Century, that of General Miguel Primo de Rivera.
Upon the crash on Wall Street, in the United States, the economy sank, and de Rivera was deposed. After that, the government bounced between the extreme left and the extreme right, until the country burst into a Civil War that last for three years. Finally, Generalissimo Francisco Franco took charge of Spain. The dictator retaliated against his opposition by killing more than 100,000 people. When World War II broke out just a few months later, Franco promised assistance to Hitler, but never followed through. Even so, after the War, Spain was refused entry into the U.N. and NATO, and was subject to a trade embargo until the U.S. needed bases in the area and relented, ending los anos del hambre (the years of hunger). Spain was admitted to the U.N. in 1955.
Franco kept iron control over the country until his death in 1975. In 1978, under the leadership of King Juan Carlos I, Spain began the transition from a dictatorship to a democratic republic. Pursuant to the new constitution, the king nominates a prime minister, who is then subject to a vote of confidence by the Congress.
Spain joined the EU in 1986. It has the fifth largest economy in the coalition, a significant drop from when it was the first country where ‘the sun never set on its empire’.
21st CENTURY
On March 11, 2004, bombs exploded on four commuter trains, ushering in the deadliest terror attack in Spanish history. Al-Queda claimed responsibility, and the public, believing that Spain’s immersion in Iraq was the cause, ousted the incumbent conservative Popular Party in favor of the Socialists. Days after the election, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, of the PSOE (Partida Socialista Obrero Espanol), pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq.
As had happened in 1929, an economic crisis in the United States in 2008 reverberated throughout Europe. Spain’s construction industry was hard-hit, and unemployment soared. 2011 saw the country still plunged in a deep recession, and the government instituted austerity measures. By 2015, the recession had officially ended, but the scars remained.
In 2014, King Felipe VI succeeded to the throne. Economic and separatist issues continued to dog the government. Catalonia’s Parliament approved a referendum for independence, but the central government declared the vote invalid. In August, Spain intercepted hundreds of illegal migrants, who were fleeing Morocco.
2015 saw the rise of Podemos, an anti-austerity movement, along with the liberal Cuidadanos cause.
After elections left the Popular Party without a majority, the Socialist party refused to create a coalition with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, leaving Spain without a government. The main issue is the same one that has divided the country from its very beginning: Catalonia wants to separate from the rest of Spain.
The Basque region is waiting in the wings’Arnaldo Otegi, a politician with ties to ETA (the Basque terrorist group), was released from jail on March 1, 2016. He says that he is ready to continue the fight for independence.
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