Under Imperial Spain: A History of Exploration PDF

## Under Imperial Spain The most spectacular change during the Renaissance which shaped the course of history was the opening of the world to European shipping. Propelled by "Gospel, Gold and Glory" and supported by much-improved technology - new types of ships, sailing charts and maps, navigationa...

## Under Imperial Spain The most spectacular change during the Renaissance which shaped the course of history was the opening of the world to European shipping. Propelled by "Gospel, Gold and Glory" and supported by much-improved technology - new types of ships, sailing charts and maps, navigational instruments, gunpowder, and superior high-powered arms - the two Iberian superpowers of Spain and Portugal pushed through their ultimate goals to discover the rest of the world. With the accumulation of wealth, political authority, additional empirical knowledge in science and technology, and the support of a small economic elite, they were able to finance several daring reconnaissance enterprises in vast unknown, undiscovered seas, and untouched, uncharted continents. With momentous maritime discoveries, the hitherto *terra incognita* of Asia, with her diverse ancient civilizations and cultures, was integrated with Europe. Thus, in the arduous and lengthy process of maritime discovery in the late fifteenth century, new sea lanes to Southeast Asia were charted which led to the spice trade route. The first of these was initiated by Portugal by sailing via the southeastern route which made break-throughs into the Indian Ocean in 1488 and ended with the fall of Malacca (1511) and the Maluku or the Moluccas (1512). The second was led by Spain by sailing via the western or southwestern route that made serendipitous landfalls in the West Indies in 1492 and culminated in the "rediscovery" of the Philippines in 1521. ### East Meets West Making the food more palatable to the most discriminating medieval tastes triggered the search for spices of all sorts: pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger which were indigenous to the East. Spices accented the bland taste of meat and fish, while preserving them, in the absence of refrigeration. So expensive were spices like black pepper that it could even buy land, pay taxes, liberate a city, even pay dowries. As Fernand Braudel commented: "Everything depended on it, even the dreams of the fifteenth century explorer." In the eleventh century, pepper was even meticulously counted out by peppercorns, and when dried, cinnamon and ginger were weighed with windows shut lest the wind blew away their smallest priceless particles. Besides spices, gold, slaves, silver and silk spurred men to trade in these highly-regarded commodities which brought them great wealth. Merchants suddenly became important in the eyes of the people, and they not only became richer but also powerful in the more famous trading cities of Italy. Gold and silver not only funded but also expanded the jewelry trade of rare pearls and rubies from far-away India. The inclusion of Asian trade to that of Europe led not only to the flow of economic products and the wealth of Asia to European societies but also to the dynamic interaction of cultures. The tremendous profits European trade brought to nation states, particularly Portugal and Spain, intensified European rivalries for the fabled source of Oriental products. This required the intervention of the only known power in European relations - the Pope. ### The Lusitanian-Hispanic Rivalry in Maritime Discoveries Portugal was the first country to use innovation in seamanship and boatbuilding with the establishment by Henry "the Navigator" of the first navigational school in the globe at Sagres Point in 1419. Between 1451 and 1470, the Portuguese discovered and colonized all the islands of the Azores in the Atlantic which they used to stage the discovery of the Americas and the circumnavigation of the west coast of Africa. Propelled by their undying zeal, the Portuguese pursued the dream of reaching the East using a direct all-water route. By the turn of the fifteenth century, two of her intrepid explorers had reached the southernmost end of Africa, and later, to India, thus winning the race to the wealth and spices of the East. Spain, however, had earlier dispatched the first truly momentous exploration in modern times. Inspired by the Florentine mapmaker Paolo Toscanelli to discover westward sea route to India, Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo) instead made a landfall in Guanahani (earlier identified as San Salvador but in 1986 as Samana Cay) Island in October 1492, and two weeks later, on the coast of Cuba. His voyage, however, generated misapprehension and dispute between Spain and Portugal. King John (João) of Portugal protested on the ground that it was an incursion by Spain of his sphere of influence. Pope Alexander VI mediated between the two powers. Elected barely two months earlier, this Spanish pope from Valencia, who sired the notorious Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, issued in May 1493, the *Inter caetera* and the *Eximiae Devotionis*, giving Spain the right over any lands newly-discovered by Columbus equivalent to the Portuguese territories found along the western coast of Africa. The perceptive Portuguese, however, realizing the Spanish pope's bias, did not readily agree to the established demarcation line. Instead, they worked for its revision to reduce the area of the territory granted to the Spanish explorers in the New World. The spheres of influence of the two superpowers of the fifteenth century thus, were finally fixed by an imaginary line drawn from the north and south poles, a hundred leagues (one Spanish *legua* = 5.57 kilometers) from Spain, west of the Cape Verde Islands (on the coast of present Senegal, in the western-most tip of Africa). The lands lying to the east of the line were reserved for Portugal, and those territories to the west to Spain. Both nations agreed to propagate the tenets of Christianity in their newly-found lands. In 1494, the treaty of Tordesillas was signed which partitioned the non-Christian world into two spheres of influence. It faithfully followed the papal bull of 1493 granting the New World to Spain, while Africa and India were reserved only for Portugal. However, the treaty shifted the demarcation line 370 leagues farther west, thus assigning Brazil to Portugal. This was a veritable Portuguese gain. ### The Magellan (Magalhães) Expedition (1518-1521) Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães), a Portuguese serving the Spanish royalty, saw action for his country in the East, first in India with Alfonso de Almeida in 1505, and with distinction, in the fall of Malacca in 1511. His original suggestion of reaching the Maluku (the Spice Islands) by sailing westward was rejected by his King. After seven years of active service in the East, he returned to his home country and then fought in the North African campaign against the Moors. It was Ruy Faleiro, a brilliant cosmographer, who egged him to serve Spain as he was then not in the good graces of Lisbon court. In 1518 he convinced Charles V that he could find a shorter way to the Maluku by sailing westward via the Americas. As part of a reconnaissance voyage in 1511-12, Magellan had visited the Spice Islands. Magellan received royal instruction to sail directly to the Maluku and to bring back a cargo of the priceless spices. Thus began "the greatest of all epics of human discovery" when he sailed from San Lucar, Spain, in 1519, on board five very antiquated ships with a crew of 235 men. Skirting unknown and uncharted lands, he sailed around the southern tip of South America, across the vast Pacific Ocean after 98 days of sailing northwestward. Magellan finally reached the Philippines on March 17, 1521. In Mactan, he was defeated and killed in battle in April 1521 as a consequence of his intervention in a dispute between Lapulapu and Zula, chieftains of Mactan. Only one ship, in fact the smallest of them, the *Victoria*, completed the voyage back to Spain in 1522, arriving in Seville, led by Juan Sebastian del Cano. A mere eighteen Europeans and four Malays survived, thus leaving 170 of "the original expedition lost on the way." Other survivors were retrieved later by subsequent expeditions. The expedition was a test of human endurance. Food was the most serious and perennial problem, as by the time they were in the immense Pacific, Magellan's men were compelled to eat worm-infested powdery biscuits soiled by rats, sawdust, and sea-soaked leather. Lack of Vitamin C resulted in rampant deaths among the crew members due to scurvy. Magellan did not live to see the final completion of the "first-known voyage in history to circumnavigate the globe." It was through this trip that the Europeans first learned of the existence of the Philippines. It also proved that the earth was round; it established the vastness of the Pacific Ocean; it proved that the East Indies could be reached by crossing the Pacific; and finally it showed that the Americas was really a land mass entirely separate from Asia.