Where Columbus
500th ANNIVERSARY sister Anne of Beaujeu, who ruled until the king came of age), did not seriously consider Columbus' project, which had been presented to them by his brother Barthelemy.
These sovereign rulers were not ready for such an expansion, because their states were not ready.
BY focusing on the discoverer himself, his aides, his successors, the "New World", and the unhappy fate of its inhabitants, the commemorations of the five hundredth anniversary of the "discovery" of the Americas have tended to obscure the irresistible conditions which lay behind the event. These were the combination of the economic rise of Europe, in which the bourgeoisie was the prime agent, a concomitant development of centralized monarchies, and scientific and technological developments.
MICHEL LEQUENNE*
N othing would be more wrong than to view the adventure of
1492 and the events which preceded it in Spain as a series of accidents. Neither Columbus himself, nor the royal families of Castille or Aragon could escape the rigorous logic of determinism nor its contradictions.
The initial political forms under which the bourgeoisie was able to develop, namely the city-states of Northern Italy, had become exhausted. In order to expand, it needed to break out of the tight constraints of the city walls and escape the influence of the Princes.
For Italy, the limitations of this system were highlighted by the conquest of the Middle East by the Ottomans. Italian bourgeois capital increasingly turned outwards from Europe.
At the same time, the foundations of the great modern states of today were laid down as the result of the conflict of the instinctive alliance between the bourgeoisie and the centralizing princes against the old feudal monarchs. Everything depended therefore on the far-sightedness of the policies of the royal rulers, as well as their capacity to break or reduce the influence of the great feudal lords.
Colonialism and centralization
It is striking to note that these states took the road of colonial expansion in the same order as that in which they achieved monarchical centralization:
Spain, England and then France
(the case of Holland, the first bourgeois state, opened up another period).
Henry VII, who came to the throne in 1485, had to reestablish order in England after the typically feudal Wars of the Roses before he could entrust the Venetian-Genoan Cabot with finding him land
In France, the first colonial maritime explorations only occurred during the reign of François I, after the feudal rulers Charles VII and Louis XII. But the wars of religion postponed France's entry into the colonial era to the beginning of the 17th century, the time of Richelieu. Henry VII, like Charles VIII (or more precisely, his
500 ANS DE RESISTANCE
eVDO MALALA
In 1492 Spain, whose feudal divisions were more formal than real, was ready. Its unique bourgeois development was characterized by a powerful vitality.
"From the 14th century on, the towns were the most powerful element in the
Cortes [parliament], which was made up of their representatives and those of the clergy and nobility. It should not be forgotten, furthermore, that the eight centuries of bitter struggles required to gradually triumph over Moorish domination gave this peninsula an entirely different character to that of the rest of the Europe of the time. At the time of the European renaissance, the
North of Spain still retained the manners and customs of the Goths and Vandals, while the South retained those of the
Arabs.
"As far as municipal administration is concerned, the cities of Italy, Provence, northern France, Britain and a part of Germany showed undeniable similarities with the state of the Spanish cities. But one cannot compare the Spanish Cortes with the
French Etats Généraux nor the British parliaments of the Middle Ages. The Kingdom of Spain was formed in conditions that were unusually favourable to the limitation of the royal sphere of power.
"On the one hand, small parts of the peninsula were reconquered and transformed into independent kingdoms at a time when the long struggle against the Arabs was still raging. In these struggles new popular customs and laws took shape.
The successive conquests, made above all by immeasurably the nobles, increased the power of these latter while reducing that of the monarch.
"On the other hand, the cities and communes acquired increasing importance inside the coun try, as people were forced to come together in fortified places to shelter from the incessant
Moorish attacks. And the propitious form of a peninsula, and its constant relations with Provence and Italy, gave birth in their turn to trading cities and important seaports."1
*This article first appeared in the April-
May issue of Critique Communiste, the review of the Ligue Communiste Révo-
Lutionnaire, Frch section of the Pouth 19
International
June 8, 1992
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came from
500th ANNIVERSARY
It was the equilibrium of these contradictory elements that allowed the emergence of the Spanish monarchy, which rapidly crossed the thresholds of political modernity, conquering half of America and, thanks to its gold and the guidance of Charles V, stifling the bourgeoisie and eliminating the democracy of its Cortès.
There is a curious common feature shared by the three great "absolute" queens, Isabella of Castille, Elizabeth of England and Catherine the Great of Russia: all three came to the throne amidst violence, through the force of their intelligence and in spite of blind brute force.
Salic law [royal inheritance solely by the male line] did not apply in Spain, but Isabella was only the half-sister of Henry IV who had a daughter, Jeanne. It was said that the latter had been born out of an adulterous liaison, but she was nonetheless the legal heir to the throne upon the death of her father in 1474.
She was also the niece of the king of Portugal, who proposed to marry her. Isabella took advantage of the opposition of the great feudal lords and let it be believed that she could be used as a pawn in the hands of the opponents of Jeanne and of Portugal (the archbishop Carillo said "When I took her under my wing she was only a little girl; and I will send her back to her spinning wheel"). After the death of her brother she had herself proclaimed
Political intelligence
This was not the first example of her political intelligence. Her marriage five years earlier to Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Aragon, was of her own choosing and there is little doubt that she was even then ensuring her royal future through the construction of a bloc opposed to Portugal. Isabella was recognized as Queen of Castille by her supporters, although Ferdinand was not proclaimed
The war that broke out with Portugal in May 1475 was still a dynastic feudal war. By the beginning of 1479 King Alphonse of Portugal sued for peace, but the settlement recognized the Portuguese monopoly over navigation and commerce on the African coast, thus closing for Spain the route to Asia by the circumnavigation of Africa. It was this which would lead to Columbus'
If Jeanne's Portuguese party had won, historical events could have taken an entirely different turn, perhaps for some centuries. But it is doubtful that this could have changed the overall evolution.
The section of the great nobility that had supported Jeanne and Portugal was defea20 was insufficiently strong, it submitted. ted. Although not broken by Isabella, who International Viewpoint # 230 • June 8, 1992
At the same time, Isabella and Ferdinand were able to rally popular forces behind them. Thus they encouraged subversion in the lands of a stubborn lord, the Marquis of Villena - a portion of his possessions subsequently ended up in their hands. "The new monarchs appeared as if they were the defenders of the fatherland - which is true — and as the opponents of the feudal aristocracy — which is much more open to discussion and which must be qualified. This ambivalence served the Catholic kings well: while seeking the support of the nobility, without which they could do nothing, the exploited peasants and town dwellers saw in them a hope for liberation.
"They were counted on to end the arrogance of the lords who for a century had allowed themselves to take everything; the royal pair were believed to be the guarantors of an order more sensitive to the trials and tribulations of the people; their sense of justice was celebrated.
"Ferdinand and Isabelle knew how to capitalize on these aspirations; they were careful not to discourage them and knew how to use them in the service of their pro-
The two sovereigns took advantage of the authority they enjoyed in the eyes of the people, exploiting their worst religious prejudices and superstitions to play another double game: to base their power on an alliance with the clergy while aiming in the long term to reform it and the monasteries and to draw them into a common struggle for the religious homogenization of their kingdoms, where Judaism and Islam had until then been tolerated.
### Inquisition created
The war with Portugal was not yet over when, in 1478, the young monarchs created the Inquisition, with the approval of the Pope. It was aimed primarily against converted Jews, the conversos, who practiced Judaism in secret. It only really got underway in 1480 that is, directly after the war, and, it must be noted, under the strict political authority of the monarchs.
Thus, the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 was not at all without precedents. There was only a let-up in religious persecution between 1483 and 1492, necessary for "national unity" to achieve the Reconquista of the last Muslim stronghold on the
This periodisation speaks volumes: it reveals a coherent plan expressing a modern conception of the "absolutist state", replacing the previous empirical mediaeval tolerance, and whose religious aspects, ostensibly the most significant, are no more than a political ideology.
In contrast to the myth of the "Catholic kings", an idea promoted right up until this century with the plans to canonize Isabella,
Machiavelli was right in stressing the amoral realism of Ferdinand in The Prince (he ignored Isabella, probably because she was not directly involved in Italian affairs and perhaps out of misogynist prejudice).5
Three great events thus stand together as one political entity. The ten years war ended with the capitulation of Grenada, the result of an astute mix of military actions and intricate diplomacy.5
The royal couple, flushed with this success, moved quickly to expel the Jews, who threatened the unity of thought of the united kingdoms. Then they gambled on a short-cut to the lands of spices, gold and precious stones in the Far East.
### Royal hesitations
It really was a gamble. The royal couple hesitated between the influence of those whom Columbus had convinced and those who thought his plan impossible.
Moreover, the royal coffers were empty and there was a sense of relief at having achieved peace and united the kingdom (for the moment) within its natural borders. Columbus' friends had convincing arguments: Santangel, former secretary of state in Aragon and treasurer of the Santa Hermandad, agreed to advance half of the necessary funds; the navigator would find
As for the ships, the town of Palos owed the equivalent of two ships as a fine for an infraction of the accords with Portugal. What of Columbus's exorbitant demands for ennoblement, titles, economic privileges? If he perished at sea, not much would be lost; but if he succeeded, the advantages conceded to Portugal would be more than made up for.6
1492 is therefore the date of the birth of the Spanish Empire in Latin America. But the worm is born at the same time as the
The Church had been "transformed by the Inquisition into the most terrible instrument of absolutism. While, after Charles I's rule, Spain's social and political decadence would present all the symptoms of that slow and shameful disintegration that revolts us as much as the worst periods of the Turkish Empire, at least under this monarch the old freedoms had had a splen1. Karl Marx, "The Spanish Revolution" (translated from uvres politiques, trad. Molitor, t. VIII, p. 2. Joseph Pérez, Isabelle et Ferdinand, rois catholiques d' Espagne, p. 102, Fayard. 4. Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. XXI. 5. See Bernard Vincent, 1492, l' Année admirable, chap. 1, "La reddition de Grenade", Aubier. 6. See Christopher Columbus, la Découverte de l'Amerique, writings translated by S. Estorach and M. Lequenne, introduction and notes by Michel Lequenne, La Découverte; in particular, t. 3, "Ecrits et documents, 1492-1506".