2. Isabella and Ferdinand
The Catholic Kings
• During Isabella and Ferdinand’s time of ruling the wars on
religion came to a climax with the Catholics dominating.
• Around 1502 the Catholics forced people to covert or leave
their country. Doubt of unauthentic conversion lead to torture.
• Christians with Muslim or Jewish ancestry were treated as
inferior. This created the birth of a caste system that ranked
people by their ancestry.
• Extremely expensive to fund their religious crusade and Spain
soon became dependent on the New World for money.
• Europeans were entering the new world with the intent to
convert or get rich. Ethnocide was practiced in the new world
and a caste systems was put into place as racial mixing came to
awareness.
3. King Charles The 5th of Spain
• 1517 the grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, Charles The 5th
became King
• Spain was now the world’s superpower and was in charge of
world politics and policies.
• Charles soon went into debt with war costs and created the
first bond like document. This also spurred a rise in capitalism
for Europe.
• Bartolome de las Casas was from Spain and got rich in the
Caribbean. In 1512 he became a priest and traveled all around
the new world to find that the people were being treated
horribly in the name of God.
• de las Casas traveled back to Spain to inform the King and his
court of these intolerable accounts.
• In response Charles V made “The New Laws” which ordered
Europeans in the new world to treat Americans as subjects of
Spain
4. King Philip the 2nd of Spain
• Although “The New Laws” from Charles V was put into
place these laws were largely ignored.
• In 1551 de las Casas returned to Spain to attend a five day
debate on the issue. De las Casas arguing that the
conversion of Americans should be principle and to not do
so through terror. There was no definitive winner.
• Charles V left the issue up to his son, Philip II who assumed
that throne in 1556.
• Philip II’s main concern was converting people of the new
world. However, the Holy Wars in Europe were costly and
he depended on money from America therefore not doing
much to enforce cruel treatment except offer Americans
employment of jobs of the most dangerous nature.
• A good example is of Bolivians mining silver in the Andes.
This left 350,000 tons of silver mined but also eight million
men dead due to harsh and dangerous conditions.
5. The Decline of The Spanish
Empire and Other Failures
• In 1584 Philip II planned a naval campaign to win war on
religions by bringing down the Protestants in England and
stopping their support for the Protestants in the
Netherlands.
• Although smaller in number, the English managed to out
maneuver Spain and set many ships on fire. England
ultimately won the battle.
• The many deaths lead the Spanish into despair and the
enormous amount of money accumulated from America was
lost in the battle.
• This marked the end of Spain’s role as world superpower and
a decline in their economy form many years.
• Garcilaso de la Vega, left his homeland in 1560 and while
studying the Spanish lifestyle. He argued that the amount of
riches taken from America had done Spain more harm than
good. Useful things like food and clothes had actually
become more scarce and only businessmen and bankers
grew wealthy.
• To this day, the debate de las Casas held in Spain 400 years
ago is still being wrestled with. Indigenous people of
America are just now starting to tell their story.
