Vast regions of Spain were ruled by the Moors for
centuries. In 1492 the armies of
Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the last of these territories – the City-State
of Granada – which was the last Moslem stronghold in Europe, bringing to an end
eight hundred years of Moorish rule in Spain.
News of this event set church bells pealing all over Europe. The Moors who remained were offered the
choice of deportation or baptism. During
their long history in Spain they had hugely contributed to the Art and wealth
of Spain and to the advance of Science and learning. Isabella in particular was fanatical in her
determination to expel non-Christians from Spain. The Jews too were offered the choice of
deportation or baptism in spite of having been full citizens of Spain for
centuries. About 150,000 Jews left the
country and, of course, had no homeland to go to. The Spanish Inquisition was launched to
enforce absolute religious conformity.
In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella sponsored the voyage
of Christopher Columbus on his epic voyage to discover a western sea route to
the eastern coast of India. Up to his
last voyage in 1502 he remained convinced that he had been exploring the
eastern Asia coast. It had been the
traditional belief that the three Continents – Europe, Asia and Africa – formed
part of a single land mass, surrounded by water. The price Columbus demanded for his
undertaking of this enterprise included a knighthood, the hereditary rank of
Grand Admiral and Viceroy as well as 10% of the receipts. His departure had to be delayed until after
the 2nd August, since that was the deadline for the last Jews to
leave Spain. As a result the seas were
rougher than he would have wished when he arrived at what we now call the
Bahamas. The Mission, in the words of
his sponsors, was to ‘supervise the preserving and peopling of them (the
Indies) because thereby our Lord God is served, his Holy Faith extended and our
own realm increased.’ They said ‘He is
bound for certain parts of the ocean to transact business of interest both to
God and to us.’ The first island in
which he landed and planted the Cross he named after our Holy Saviour – San
Salvador. Trinidad was named in honour
of the Blessed Trinity.
From the Lucaya (Bahama) Islands he arrived in Cuba
where his crew were the first Europeans to see tobacco being smoked. After landing at Hispaniola (Haiti and the
Dominican Republic of today) he returned to Spain with various plants to prove
that he had been to India! Spain and
Portugal entered into a Treaty in 1494 – the Treaty of Tordesillas – which
sought to assign new territories between them with the Pope as the ‘honest
broker.’ The North-South Meridian line
of 46° West longitude was the line of demarcation. Spain claimed everything west of this line
which gave it most of South America.
Portugal claimed Brazil to name the largest and the Island of Madeira
the smallest of many colonies
The only son of Ferdinand and Isabella died young
and daughters could not succeed to the throne.
One of their three daughters was Catherine of Aragon who married Henry
VIII in 1509. The throne of Spain passed
in 1516 to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, a grandson of Ferdinand and
Isabella and a nephew of Catherine of Aragon whom Henry divorced in 1533, three
years before her death.
The vast Spanish territories of South America won
their independence from Spain in the first quarter of the 19th
Century – nearly two hundred years ago.
They had previously split up into several countries in spite of the
efforts of Simon Bolivar to keep them politically united. Brazil, on the other hand, the great
Portuguese colony, did not splinter.
Portugal had a much more centralised administrative policy. It became independent from Portugal in 1822
and it never splintered. It is the fifth
largest country in the world. Before
independence its ruler was the son of the King of Portugal and he remained its
ruler after independence, becoming as Dom Pedro I the first Emperor of
Brazil. Brazil remained a monarchy for
the first six decades of its political independence.
