Spanish Exploration and Colonization

Spanish Exploration and Colonization

Overview

Beginning in 1492 with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451?-1506), Spanish explorers and conquistadors built a colonial empire that turned Spain into one of the great European powers. Spanish fleets returned from the New World with holds full of gold, silver, and precious gemstones while Spanish priests traveled the world to convert and save the souls of the native populations. However, Spain's time of dominance was to be relatively short-lived; onlytwo centuries later, Spain's European power was in decline, and a century after that, virtually all her colonies were in open revolt. Much of the reason for this sequence of events, and for the subsequent history of former Spanish territories can be traced back to the reasons for and the nature of Spanish imperialism.

Background

For almost 800 years, Arabs occupied and ruled the Iberian Peninsula. For over a century, a succession of Spanish rulers fought the Moors, gradually pushing them back and reestablishing Spain as a Christian nation. This goal was finally achieved in 1492, when the Moorish bastion of Granada finally surrendered after a decade of siege. In that same year, Spain expelled thousands of Jews, a Spaniard was elected Pope, and another Spaniard published the first formal grammar of any European language.

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