The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

♦Extent of the Spanish Monarchy.♦

The European possessions of the Spanish Monarchy thus took in, at the time of their greatest extent, the whole peninsula, the Netherlands and the other Burgundian lands of the Austrian house, Roussillon, the Sicilies, Sardinia, and Milan. ♦Loss of the United Netherlands. 1578-1609.♦ But this whole dominion was never held at once, unless for form’s sake we count the United Netherlands as Spanish territory till the Twelve Years’ Truce. Holland and its fellows had become practically independent before Portugal was won. ♦Lands lost to France. 1659-1677.♦ But it was not till after the loss of Portugal that Spain suffered her great losses on the side of France, when the conquests of Lewis the Fourteenth cost her Roussillon, Cerdagne, Charolois, the County of Burgundy, Artois, and other parts of the Netherlands. The remainder of the Netherlands, with Milan and the three outlying Aragonese kingdoms, were kept till the partitions in the beginning of the eighteenth century. ♦Partition of the Spanish Monarchy. 1713.♦ The final results of so much fighting and treaty-making was to take away all the outlying possessions of both Aragon and Castile, and to confine the Spanish kingdom to the peninsula and the Balearic isles, less Portugal and Gibraltar for ever, and less Minorca for a season. ♦Recovery of Sicily. 1718, 1735.♦ Since then Spain has never won back any part of the lost possessions of Castile; but she has more than once won back the lost possessions of Aragon, insular Sicily twice, continental Sicily once. ♦Spanish kings of the Two Sicilies. 1735-1860.
Duchy of Parma, 1731-1860.♦ And if the Sicilies were not kept as part of the Spanish dominions, they passed to a branch of the Spanish royal house, as the duchies of Parma and Piacenza passed to another.

§ 3. The Colonial Dominion of Spain and Portugal.

The distinction between Spain and Portugal is most strikingly marked in the dominion of the two powers beyond the bounds of Europe. ♦Character of the Portuguese dominion out of Europe.♦ Portugal led the way among European states to conquest and colonization out of Europe. She had a geographical and historical call so to do. Her dominion out of Europe was not indeed a matter of necessity like that of Russia, but it stood on a different ground from that of England, France, or Holland. It was not actually continuous with her own European territory, but it began near to it, and it was a natural consequence and extension of her European advance. The Asiatic and American dominion of Portugal grew out of her African dominion, and her African dominion was the continuation of her growth in her own peninsula.

When the Moor was driven out of Spain, it was natural to follow him across the narrow seas into a land which lay so near to Spain, and which in earlier geography had passed as a Spanish land. ♦Portugal fully formed in the thirteenth century.♦ But as far as Castile was concerned, the Moor was not driven out till late in the fifteenth century; as far as Portugal was concerned, he was driven out in the thirteenth. Portugal had then reached her full extent in the peninsula, and she could no longer advance against the misbelievers by land. One is tempted to wonder that her advance beyond sea did not begin sooner. ♦Her African conquests, 1415-1471.♦ It came in the fifteenth century, when fifty years of conquest gave to Portugal her kingdom of Algarve beyond the Sea, an African dominion older than the Castilian conquest of Granada. ♦The Algarves.♦ The king of Portugal and the Algarves thus held the southern pillar of Hercules, while Castile held the northern. ♦Loss of African dominion, 1578.♦ The greater part of this African kingdom was lost after the fall of Sebastian. ♦Ceuta Spanish.♦ Ceuta remained a Spanish possession after the dominion of Portugal, so that Spain now holds the southern pillar and England the northern. ♦Tangier English, 1662-1683.♦ Tangier too once passed from Portugal to England as a marriage gift, and was presently forsaken as useless.

♦Advance in Africa and the islands.♦

But before the kingdom of Algarve beyond the sea had passed away, its establishment had led to the discovery of the whole coast of the African continent, and to the growth of a vast Portuguese dominion in various parts of the world. ♦Madeira, 1419.
Azores and Cape Verde Islands. 1448-1454.♦ Madeira was the first insular possession, followed by the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. Gradually, under the care of Don Henry, the Portuguese power spread along the north-west coast of Africa. ♦Cape of Good Hope, 1497.
Dominion of Arabia and India.♦ The work went on: Vasco de Gama made his great discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; the road to India was opened; dominion on the coasts of Arabia and India, and even in the islands of the Indian Archipelago, was added to dominion on the coast of Africa. This dominion perished through the annexation of Portugal by Spain. Since the restoration of Portuguese independence, only fragments of this great African and Indian dominion have been kept. ♦Modern extent of Portuguese dominion abroad.♦ But Portugal still holds the Atlantic islands, various points and coasts in Africa, and a small territory in India and the Eastern islands.

But Portuguese enterprise led also to a more lasting work, to the creation of a new European nation beyond the Ocean, the single European monarchy which has taken root in the New World. ♦Discovery of Brazil, 1500.
1531.♦ Brazil was discovered by Portuguese sailors at the end of the fifteenth century; it was settled as a Portuguese possession early in the sixteenth. ♦1624-1654.♦ During the union of Portugal with Spain the Dutch won for a while a large part of the country, but the whole was won back by independent Portugal. The peculiar position of Portugal, ever threatened by a more powerful neighbour, gave her great Transatlantic dominion a special importance. ♦1807.♦ It was looked to as possible place for shelter, which it actually became during the French invasion of Portugal. ♦Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil, 1813.♦ The Portuguese dominions took the style of ‘the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarve.’ Nine years later these kingdoms were separated, and Brazil became an independent state. ♦Empire of Brazil, 1822.♦ But it remains a monarchy with the title of Empire, and it is still ruled by the direct representative of the Portuguese royal house, while Portugal itself has passed away from the native line by the accidents of female succession.

In the sixteenth century Brazil held a wholly exceptional position. It was the only settlement of Portugal, it was the only considerable settlement of any European power, in a region which Spain claimed as her exclusive dominion. ♦Division of the Indies between Spain and Portugal. 1494.♦ By Papal authority Spain was to have all the newly found lands that lay to the west, and Portugal all that lay to the east, of a line on the map, drawn at 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Spain thus held the whole South American continent, with the exception of Brazil, together with that part of the North American continent which is most closely connected with the southern. While the non-European dominion of Portugal was primarily African and Indian, the non-European dominion of Spain was primarily American. It did not in the same way spring out of the European history of the country; it was rather suggested by rivalry of Portugal. ♦Oran, 1516-1708. 1732-1791.♦ In Africa the Spanish dominion hardly went beyond the possession of Oran and the more lasting possession of Ceuta. ♦Tunis, 1531.♦ The conquest of Tunis by Charles the Fifth[86] was made rather in his Sicilian than in his Castilian character. Within the range of Portuguese dominion the settlements of Spain were exceptional. But they took in the Canaries off the Atlantic coast of Africa, and the Philippine Islands in the extreme eastern Archipelago. ♦Insular possessions of Spain.♦ These insular possessions Spain still keeps.

♦Spanish dominion in America.♦