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Following the return to Spain of the remnant from the Magellan-Elcano voyage around the world (1519–22), various other Spanish voyages attempted to find the elusive return route eastward across the...

This chapter describes Spain’s relationship with the sea over the years 1570 to 1870. The article concentrates on the reported numbers of sailors working in Spanish fleets and discusses their lives; characteristics; culture; origin; salaries and recruitment process. Also discussed in the chapter is the involvement of the government; group formation and striking; and mobility between seafaring careers.

From the fourteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, the ducal house of Medina Sidonia held exclusive rights to fish for Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) in south-western Spain. Framed by recent theories about the privatization of access to natural resources, this essay explores the history of successive royal grants to the house of Medina Sidonia. It then examines statistical evidence for the tuna catch over the long term, especially in the late sixteenth century, when the annual catch reached a peak and then suddenly declined. The ducal house may have contributed to that decline by overfishing. During the long term, however, ducal control may unintentionally have aided in the conservation of tuna stocks in times of population pressure, both by not fully exploiting their exclusive rights to fish, and by preventing all others from doing so.

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Spanish shipping, and the mariners employed therein, functioned in a global oceanic context that included the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Pacific and the South China Sea. During the period in which Habsburg kings ruled Portugal as well as Spain – from 1580 to 1640 – that context also included the Indian Ocean. Trade and defence for both of the Iberian empires required ships, mariners, merchants, soldiers, bureaucrats, and civilian purveyors of food and equipment in staggering numbers. Mariners of all ranks might serve in a variety of venues in the course of their lives at sea, and they might alternate between mercantile or military fleets, and sailing vessels or galleys. Maritime bureaucrats might serve on land or sea, as the occasion demanded, and soldiers might serve on sailing ships or galleys as well as on land. To demonstrate the wide variety of Spanish maritime service, this chapter will begin with a brief discussion of the fluctuating demand for ships and men during the early modern period. Then it will turn to wages, individual career trajectories and venues for maritime labour, focusing on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.1 The combined labour of tens of thousands of individuals on land and sea played a crucial role in developing, maintaining and defending the Spanish empire.2

(2001). ‘THE LIFE BLOOD OF THE NAVY’: RECRUITING SAILORS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SPAIN. The Mariner's Mirror: Vol. 87, No. 4, pp. 420-445.

Summary The paucity of sources for some aspects of Columbus's early life is especially acute for the years he spent in Portugal from the mid-1470s until about 1485. Nonetheless, by searching through every available source and secondary study, it is possible to patch bits of information together into a plausible scenario. Quite likely members of his wife's family and their political allies at the Portuguese court helped secure Columbus an audience with the Portuguese king Joao? and possibly aided his later efforts to secure an audience with the Spanish monarchs Fernando and Isabel. Even for topics so well-studied as the life and deeds of Christopher Columbus, a fresh look at standard sources can yield surprising results. Despite received wisdom, (1) the portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo in the Metropolitan Museum in New York does not depict Columbus; (2) the notion that Columbus kept a false log to fool the crew on his 1492 voyage is most likely a fantasy based on a misunderstanding of the log; and (3) Col...

After Primo's dictatorship ended in January 1930, the king asked General Damaso Berenguer to form a new government, based on the constitution of 1876, in an attempt to reestablish the constitutional monarchy. Berenguer had served as the military high commissioner at the time of the disastrous battle of Anual in 1921. His appointment to head the government signaled the king's continuing support for the army, but it can hardly have inspired confidence in the country as a whole. In a play on words that is typical of Spanish political humor, Berenguer's government was dubbed the “dictablanda” or “soft dictatorship,” as opposed to the hard dictatorship ( dictadura/dicta-dura ) under Primo. Berenguer lasted just over a year in office, during which the republican opposition organized support. In the Pact of San Sebastian in August 1930, republican leaders joined with Catalan nationalists and the Socialist Party (PSOE) to plan a provisional government after the ouster of the monarchy. Military leaders sympathetic to the republican cause staged an uprising in Jaca (Aragon) in December 1930. After forces loyal to King Alfonso put down the rising, the king ordered its leaders executed, creating martyrs – military martyrs – for the republican opposition. The king dismissed General Berenguer in February 1931 and replaced him with Admiral Juan Bautista Aznar, no doubt hoping that the navy leadership would prove more steadfast than the army had been. Aznar called elections for municipal officials on April 12, 1931 – the first elections under the 1876 constitution since 1923. In Spain's largest cities, republican candidates won a majority of the votes, although their victory was not a landslide. Nonetheless, the king knew all too well what the vote portended. Joyous republicans took to the streets to celebrate the victory, and their leaders proclaimed Spain a republic on April 14, announcing a provisional government under the leadership of Niceto Alcala Zamora. When army leaders made clear that they would no longer support King Alfonso, on the night of April 14 he simply left Spain without abdicating, as his grandmother Isabel II had done in 1868. Queen Victoria Eugenia also went into exile – separately from her husband. Their marriage had become increasingly strained over the years, not least because of the king's numerous extramarital affairs.

Joseph Bonaparte was arguably the best of the Bonaparte clan, and Napoleon undoubtedly hoped that the Spanish people would accept him as a welcome replacement for the feckless Bourbons. He was wrong. By the time that Joseph arrived at the frontier, a spontaneous revolt against the French invasion had already begun. The rising began in Madrid on May 2, in reaction to news that the royal family had left for France. General Murat put down a riot in the Puerta del Sol quickly and brutally, using the Mameluke cavalry that Napoleon had recruited in Egypt. Given the long Spanish history of conflict with Muslim forces, the sight of turbaned horsemen charging a crowd of men and women in the heart of Madrid had a shocking effect. The next day, Murat's soldiers executed the supposed leaders of the riot on the hill of Principe Pio, at the western edge of Madrid near the royal palace. Various Spanish artists would paint their interpretations of those two actions, but the versions that history remembers are two arresting canvases by Goya, which capture the events in all their horror. In The Charge of the Mamelukes on the 2nd of May , the mad look on the face of the horseman in the center of the composition, and the tangle of bloodied bodies and enraged citizens in front of him, evoke the violent movement, confusion, and savagery of the confrontation. By contrast, the composition of The Executions on the Hill of Principe Pio on the 3rd of May is eerily still, as a terrified man in a white shirt raises his arms in surrender, while a contingent of faceless uniformed French soldiers aim their weapons at him in perfect formation. The viewer is left to complete the action, imagining the white shirt splattered in blood and the man collapsing in death to join the bodies of comrades who have fallen all around him. In all, some 400 Spaniards were killed in those two days, and the stunning news spread to all corners of the country in record time. Although Murat thought he had ended the rebellion by his swift actions and exemplary punishments, in fact he had ensured fierce resistance to the French occupation would continue.

The rich cultural and political life of Spain has emerged from its complex history, from the diversity of its peoples, and from continual contact with outside influences. This updated edition traces that history from prehistoric times to the present, focusing particularly on culture, society, politics, and personalities. Written in an engaging style, it introduces readers to key themes that have shaped Spain's history and culture. These include its varied landscapes and climates; the impact of waves of diverse human migrations; the importance of its location as a bridge between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and Europe and Africa; and religion, particularly militant Catholic Christianity and its centuries of conflict with Islam and Protestantism, as well as debates over the place of the church in modern Spain. Illustrations, maps and a guide to further reading, major cultural figures, and places to see make the history of this fascinating country come alive.

The fall of the Visigothic monarchy marked the beginning of the Islamic phase of Spain's history. From 711 to 1492, Muslims controlled varying portions of Iberia, and their long presence had a profound influence on Spanish culture long after they lost political control. From their origins in the Arabian Peninsula during the time of the prophet Muḥammad ( c . 570–632), the Muslims spread quickly and widely throughout the Middle East and across North Africa. They conquered cities as they went, fighting when they had to and making deals with local authorities when they could. People who came under Muslim authority had the option of converting to Islam, but they did not have to do so to live peaceably under their new overlords. Christians and Jews, considered “People of the Book” or fellow monotheists, could retain their religion and customs if they refrained from proselytizing, if they paid special taxes, and if they agreed to political restrictions preventing them from having authority over Muslims. The historical sources, both Christian and Muslim, for the end of the Visigothic monarchy and the conquest and establishment of Islamic Spain are not abundant and come from later periods. Contemporary accounts are not available, and later ones are contradictory and contain legendary accretions. Nonetheless, scholars generally agree on the main outlines of the early years of Muslim consolidation in Spain.

Few things changed in the immediate aftermath of the Bourbon restoration of 1975. Most of the political figures who had served in the last years of the Franco regime continued to serve under King Juan Carlos, including Carlos Arias Navarro, the prime minister. The continuity dismayed Spaniards and outsiders hoping for dramatic change, but it provided stability and reassurance for Spaniards who feared change and the disruption it might bring. Newspapers and magazines debated the future of Spain in serious articles and political cartoons alike. The new daily newspaper El Pais began as a voice for change, strongly allied to the still clandestine Socialist Party but aiming to provide analysis rather than polemic. Farther to the left, the weekly magazine Cambio16 emerged as a harsher critic of the government and its continuity with the Franco regime. Beneath the surface, however, the king and his close advisers prepared to transform Spanish political life. Inadvertently, the assassins of Admiral Carrero Blanco in 1973 had made a transition toward democracy easier, removing a powerful opponent of change. One of the first indications of that transformation occurred seven months after Juan Carlos came to the throne. Carlos Arias met with the king on July 1, 1976, at the latter's request, and resigned as prime minister after the meeting. Arias had taken on a difficult and thankless task two and a half years earlier and had presided over the administration during a crucial period.

The administrative structure that the Catholic Monarchs implanted across the Atlantic Ocean laid the basis for the empire that Spain created in the sixteenth century. They improvised that structure from past precedents, responding to the changing situation as Spaniards explored the new lands across the sea. For several centuries Spain also held an empire in Europe, though Spaniards more often referred to the whole collection of diverse territories as a monarchy – lands ruled by a single person. Ironically, Spain's European empire was even more accidental than its American one – the product of bad luck more than conscious planning, as we have seen. Carlos I was proclaimed king of Spain in Brussels in 1516, ignoring traditions and prerogatives of the various Spanish kingdoms, and prepared to take up his inheritance. In Spain Cardinal Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros, the driving force behind the reformation of the Spanish church and many aspects of the Spanish Renaissance, performed one last service for the crown by keeping the political situation stable until Carlos arrived, in 1517. Fernando's regency had allowed a generation of explorers to continue tracing the outlines of Castile's New World across the ocean, and Spanish settlers had founded colonies on Hispaniola, Cuba, and various small outposts of the mainland of Central and South America. Whether the embryonic empire would turn out to be profitable remained to be seen.

(1992). THE IMPACT OF 1992 ON CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. The Mariner's Mirror: Vol. 78, No. 4, pp. 469-483.

(1991). THE GALLEON SAN JOSE, TREASURE SHIP OF THE SPANISH INDIES. The Mariner's Mirror: Vol. 77, No. 4, pp. 355-363.