Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 by John H. Elliott Page A
Authors: John H. Elliott
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urgency in English eyes. The reign of Elizabeth was to see an intensified planting of new colonies on Irish soil, and, in due course, a new war of conquest. The process of the settlement and subjugation of Ireland by the England of Elizabeth, pursued over several decades, absorbed national energies and resources that might otherwise have been directed more intensively, and at an earlier stage, to the founding of settlements on the other side of the Atlantic.
In medieval Spain, the land of the Reconquista, the pattern of combined conquest and colonization was equally well established. The Reconquista was a prolonged struggle over many centuries to free the soil of the Iberian peninsula from Moorish domination. At once a military and a religious enterprise, it was a war for booty, land and vassals, and a crusade to recover for the Christians the vast areas of territory that had been lost to Islam. But it also involved a massive migration of people, as the crown allocated large tracts of land to individual nobles, to the military-religious orders engaged in the process of reconquest, and to city councils, which were given jurisdiction over large hinterlands. Attracted by the new opportunities, artisans and peasants moved southwards in large numbers from northern and central Castile to fill the empty spaces. In Spain, as in the British Isles, the process of conquest and settlement helped to establish forms of behaviour, and create habits of mind, easily transportable to distant parts of the world in the dawning age of European overseas expansion.74
The conquest and settlement of Al-Andalus and Ireland were still far from complete when fourteenth-century Europeans embarked on the exploration of the hitherto unexplored waters and islands of the African and eastern Atlantic.75 Here the Portuguese were the pioneers. It was the combined desire of Portuguese merchants for new markets and of nobles for new estates and vassals that provided the impetus for the first sustained drive for overseas empire in the history of Early Modern Europe.76 Where the Portuguese pointed the way, others followed. The kings of Castile, in particular, could not afford to let their Portuguese cousins steal a march on them. The Castilian conquest and occupation of the Canary Islands between 1478 and 1493 constituted a direct response by the Crown of Castile to the challenge posed by the spectacular expansion of Portuguese power and wealth.`7
The early participation of Genoese merchants in Portugal's overseas enterprises, and the consequent transfer to an expanding Atlantic world of techniques of colonization first developed in the eastern Mediterranean'78 gave Portugal's empire from its early stages a marked commercial orientation. This would be reinforced by the nature of the societies with which the Portuguese came into contact. Neither Portuguese resources, nor local conditions, were conducive to the seizure of vast areas of territory in Africa and Asia. Manpower was limited, local societies were resilient, and climate and disease tended to take a heavy toll of newly arrived Europeans. As a result, the overseas empire established by the Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries consisted largely of a string of fortresses and factories (feitorias) - trading posts and enclaves - on the margins of the unconquered continents of Africa and Asia. The most obvious exceptions were Madeira and the Azores, and then, from the 1540s, Brazil, as the Portuguese became alarmed by reports of French designs on the territory and took the first steps towards bringing it under more effective control. By contrast, the Spaniards began constructing for themselves, from the very early stages of their movement overseas, something more akin to an empire of conquest and settlement.
The process had begun with the subjugation of the Guanche population of the Canary Islands and continued with Columbus. For all his Genoese origins and long residence in Lisbon, he seems, as
In medieval Spain, the land of the Reconquista, the pattern of combined conquest and colonization was equally well established. The Reconquista was a prolonged struggle over many centuries to free the soil of the Iberian peninsula from Moorish domination. At once a military and a religious enterprise, it was a war for booty, land and vassals, and a crusade to recover for the Christians the vast areas of territory that had been lost to Islam. But it also involved a massive migration of people, as the crown allocated large tracts of land to individual nobles, to the military-religious orders engaged in the process of reconquest, and to city councils, which were given jurisdiction over large hinterlands. Attracted by the new opportunities, artisans and peasants moved southwards in large numbers from northern and central Castile to fill the empty spaces. In Spain, as in the British Isles, the process of conquest and settlement helped to establish forms of behaviour, and create habits of mind, easily transportable to distant parts of the world in the dawning age of European overseas expansion.74
The conquest and settlement of Al-Andalus and Ireland were still far from complete when fourteenth-century Europeans embarked on the exploration of the hitherto unexplored waters and islands of the African and eastern Atlantic.75 Here the Portuguese were the pioneers. It was the combined desire of Portuguese merchants for new markets and of nobles for new estates and vassals that provided the impetus for the first sustained drive for overseas empire in the history of Early Modern Europe.76 Where the Portuguese pointed the way, others followed. The kings of Castile, in particular, could not afford to let their Portuguese cousins steal a march on them. The Castilian conquest and occupation of the Canary Islands between 1478 and 1493 constituted a direct response by the Crown of Castile to the challenge posed by the spectacular expansion of Portuguese power and wealth.`7
The early participation of Genoese merchants in Portugal's overseas enterprises, and the consequent transfer to an expanding Atlantic world of techniques of colonization first developed in the eastern Mediterranean'78 gave Portugal's empire from its early stages a marked commercial orientation. This would be reinforced by the nature of the societies with which the Portuguese came into contact. Neither Portuguese resources, nor local conditions, were conducive to the seizure of vast areas of territory in Africa and Asia. Manpower was limited, local societies were resilient, and climate and disease tended to take a heavy toll of newly arrived Europeans. As a result, the overseas empire established by the Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries consisted largely of a string of fortresses and factories (feitorias) - trading posts and enclaves - on the margins of the unconquered continents of Africa and Asia. The most obvious exceptions were Madeira and the Azores, and then, from the 1540s, Brazil, as the Portuguese became alarmed by reports of French designs on the territory and took the first steps towards bringing it under more effective control. By contrast, the Spaniards began constructing for themselves, from the very early stages of their movement overseas, something more akin to an empire of conquest and settlement.
The process had begun with the subjugation of the Guanche population of the Canary Islands and continued with Columbus. For all his Genoese origins and long residence in Lisbon, he seems, as
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