The Spanish Empire (Spanish: Imperio español) was one of the largest empires in history. At the time, it was not known as that by the Spanish, but rather the Spanish Monarchy (Monarquía española) with the monarch ruling kingdoms in Spain, his possessions in Italy and northern Europe, and in the "Spanish Indies," its New World territories.[1] From the late fifteenth century to the early nineteenth, Spain's crown of Castilecontrolled a huge overseas territory in the New World.[2][3] The crown's main source of wealth was from gold and silver mined in Mexico and Peru. The empire reached the peak of its military, political and economic power under the Spanish Habsburgs,[4] through most of the 16th and 17th centuries, and its greatest territorial extent under the House of Bourbon in the 18th century. "In its size and span, in organisation and development, it was, and increasingly recognised to have been, one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern world."[5] The Spanish Empire became the foremost[citation needed] global power in 16th and 17th centuries. "The empire of the King of Spain was indeed one on which the sun never set."[6] The monarch's authority in its overseas possessions was enlarged by the papal grant of powers of patronage, giving it power in the religious sphere to appoint clerics.[7][8][9]
The Spanish Empire originated during the Age of Discovery after the voyages of Christopher Columbus. It comprised territories and colonies of the Spanish monarch in the Americas and the Philippines with some territory in North Africa and Oceania. An important element in the formation of Spain's empire was the dynastic union between Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, known as the Catholic Monarchs, which initiated political, religious, and social cohesion but not political unification.[10] Iberian kingdoms retained their political identities, with particular administration and juridical configurations, although the power of the Spanish sovereign as monarch varied from one territory to another, the monarch acted as such in a unitary manner[11] over all the ruler's territories through a polysynodial system of councils: the unity did not mean uniformity.[12] Under this political configuration, irrespective of the denominations[13] given to the "dynastic union"[14][15] existing from 1580 to 1640, the Portuguese realm kept its own administration and jurisdiction over its territory, as did the other kingdoms and realms ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs.[16]Nevertheless, some historians say that Portugal was part of the Spanish monarchy at the time,[17][18][19]while others draw a clear distinction between the Portuguese and Spanish empires.[20][21] Castile became the dominant kingdom in Iberia because of its jurisdiction over the overseas empire in the Americas and the Philippines, with its enormous flow of silver bullion and a slice of the Asia trade through the Philippines and Manila galleon.[22]
After a short period of delegation of authority by the crown in the Americas, the crown asserted control over those territories. The organization of governance of the overseas empire established under the Hapsburg monarchy was significantly reformed in the late eighteenth century by the Bourbon monarchs. The Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian peninsula precipitated the Spanish American wars of independence(1808-1826), resulting the loss of its most valuable colonies.[23] But Spain retained Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and the Marianas, as well as various territories in Africa under Spanish rule. Following the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain ceded its last colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific to the United States. Its last African colonies were granted independence or abandoned during Decolonization of Africa finishing in 1976.
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