Although the UK, France, the Netherlands, and several other countries established colonial
empires in the Americas, it was Spain (and also Portugal, but we‘re going to focus
on Spain) who were the first to get there.
These colonies made Spain stupidly rich, but eventually they all declared their independence
to the point where Spain went back pretty much to where it started, all without a UN
resolution.
So, how and why did Spain lose control of its colonies?
In the 16th and 17th centuries, after Spain inadvertently sent Christopher Columbus to
a new continent (like him or hate him, he was still consequential in world history),
the Spanish Empire quickly became among the richest and most prosperous in the world.
Having beaten most of its competition to a new world filled with native civilizations
that found themselves unable to effectively fight back, Spain established a colonial empire
stretching from the San Francisco Bay to the Rio de la Plata.
However, while it may have been relatively easy for Spain to build this empire, the real
challenge— as with basically all empires throughout history— was with keeping it.
Silver was an especially profitable export for the Spanish crown.
With the Americas holding huge stores of silver (and native populations to mine the mountains)
Spain became incredibly rich.
Although this did result in quite considerable inflation, this wealth funded a long series
of wars that Spain would get itself involved with, especially once the Habsburgs got involved
in 1516.
The Habsburgs set out many goals for Spain, notably exploiting the Americas for trade
with Asia, keeping other European powers from doing so, maintaining a Habsburg hegemony
in the HRE, undermining France (because why not), and defending the faith against Islam
and the Protestant Reformation, having been named by the Pope as the Catholic Monarchy.
Unfortunately these didn’t all end well for Spain, especially when they used some
of that trade money to build a huge armada to be sent to England in 1588… yeah that
went marvelously for Spain.
Of course while Spain was fighting all these wars with their European neighbors (I swear,
Europe is like a toxic dorm room sometimes) they had also done quite a lot with their
colonies, mainly setting up trade routes, not being very nice at all to non-Europeans,
circumnavigating the globe, establishing Viceroyalties in New Spain (Mexico) and Peru, and importing
all these crazy new products to Europe like tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chillies and many
others.
However there were also quite a few things they didn’t do, including letting the sun
set on their empire, winning all the wars they were fighting in Europe against the French,
English, and Ottomans, keeping their trade monopoly against many of the said empires,
not spending so much that the American colonies couldn’t even keep up with it all, and perhaps
most importantly: not being invaded by Napoleon.
We all know how ThDubya’s song goes, [when Napoleon conquered us it all went crashing,
colonies got in “revolting” mood] Spain was initially allied with Napoleon, but then
they got a new king who Napoleon didn’t really like, so he did the logical thing and
sent troops to invade Spain, but of course he knew he couldn’t just invade a sovereign
country, so he sent the troops in under the guise of supporting the troops tasked with
invading another sovereign country… because that’s how European logic works, and now
they got a new Bonaparte king.
Beforehand a separate American identity from Spain was commonplace, but the idea of declaring
independence wasn’t exactly one that most people were clambering all over, but this
had changed now that the Spanish Empire was effectively running around like a headless
chicken.
A lot happened around this time, including Spain recognizing everyone in the Americas
as Spanish citizens (except for slaves) but at this point most Spanish-Americans, while
they were fine with the Spanish monarchy, were not so fine with the new, French-installed
government, and this triggered numerous revolutions across Latin America.
The first to go were Argentina and Venezuela in 1810, then went Paraguay in 1811, and then
Uruguay in 1815 [roubado!], followed by Chile in 1818, and Peru in 1821.
Up in the north, independence movements were being fought and won in modern-day Venezuela,
Colombia, and Ecuador by Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios
Ponte Andrade y Blanco… also just known as Simón Bolívar, who also fought campaigns
in Peru and Alto Peru (now Bolivia).
Panama also gained its independence in 1821 and joined the EcCoVe countries in forming
the Republic of Gran Colombia.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain also declared their independence in 1821 as Mexico, and
had… a hell of a 19th century.
Central America also had quite a bit of fun with all this, but honestly a post-colonial
history of Latin America would make for a very detailed video in its own right.
After all this, Spain was left with its holdings in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, Equatorial Guinea,
and the Spanish Sahara, then the US blamed the Maine on Spain and fought the Spanish-American
War, stealing the first three.
Then a couple world wars happened and the UN was established, though they weren’t
too fond of the idea of colonial empires, so they kind of had to break the news to Spain.
UN: Hey sorry I’m late, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to let go of your colonies
in Africa.
Spain: ¿Qué?
¡Pero ya he perdido mis colonias en América!
UN: Look, we’re a no-empires club, how do you think France and Britain are feeling about
this?
And they’re both on the Security Council!
… And then Spain just kept Melilla and Ceuta like a goddamn madlad.
Spain‘s empire may have fallen and they might not exactly be a world superpower today,
but that doesn‘t mean their influence isn‘t still incredibly widespread.
Spanish is the sixth most widely spoken language and third most widely spoken Romance language…
in Germany, but also the fourth most widely spoken language and most widely spoken Romance
language in the world.
In addition, Spain (and Portugal) completely changed most of South and Central America
to the point where it is now completely unrecognizable, though do keep in mind that a lot of cultures
had to be sacrificed in one way or another for all this to happen, and although many
may have assimilated willingly, it’s not as if Spain always gave them the choice.
Thanks for watching and I hope you enjoyed this video.
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