Remaking the history of the conquest of the world by Spain and Portugal differently, no longer from the limits of the Old World, but in its relations with the New, such is the ambition of a collective which is located in the wake of global history.
Spain and Portugal in the world offers another history of Europe: a history which is not only constructed within the conventional limits of the Old World, but also in the diplomatic relations between Philippe III of Habsburg and Shah Abbas about Hormuz, in the equatorial jungle of Marañón or even in South-East Asia where trade between Macao and Manila completes the first global commercial circuit which extends from Seville to Fujian passing by by Acapulco. Around Carlos Martínez Shaw and José Antonio Martínez Torres, both professors at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia de Madrid, around fifteen historians offer a series of contributions which, despite the variety of spaces and themes chosen, revolve around the question of a first Iberian, economic, political and cultural globalization not only concerning the ruling elites, but also a large number of actors, from the sailor to the merchant, from the soldier to the casado (Overseas Portuguese married to a native), from the Portuguese from Ceuta to the Chinese from Manila, from the Castilian to the Sinhalese.
The imperial history of the Iberian monarchies has experienced impressive dynamism over the past twenty years. Spain and Portugal in the world is therefore a work which deserves attention, because it marks a moment of blossoming of the themes of imperial history where national historiographical traditions, therefore segmented, are still tenacious.
The new Spanish and Portuguese global empires played a crucial role during an early modernity which connected all the continents. However, Spain and Portugal in the world does not offer another account of the “ Great Discoveries “, but the study of the period which comes after the conquests and which Serge Gruzinski had called the “ mixed worlds of the Catholic Monarchy “. By approaching this period 1581-1668 known as the Union of the Two Crowns, historians focus on 80 years during which the King of Castile and Aragon was also King of Portugal, since the succession of Philip of Habsburg to the Portuguese dynasty of Opinions, until the Treaty of Lisbon of 1668 which recognized, twenty-eight years after the Portuguese rebellion, the independence of Portugal. The work is therefore not a parallel history of the two countries, but rather that of a provisional and fragile Iberian union whose territories extended over four continents.
The Union of the Two Crowns, an interpretation in terms of costs/benefits
Edval de Souza Barros recalls the terms of this Union defined during the meeting of the representative assembly of the kingdom (cortes) in Tomar in 1581. The Tomar Accords between the Kingdom of Portugal and Philip II are based on an institutional balance which allows the Portuguese to be represented in the viceroyalty and a Royal Council. Above all, Philippe grants numerous privileges to the aristocracy and urban elites. The new regime therefore succeeded in channeling the tensions linked to the aggregation of kingdoms, but a crucial point was the fate reserved for overseas possessions. The agreements decide on the strict separation of the Portuguese and Castilian domains, but the fears of the Portuguese overseas of seeing themselves included in Spanish international conflicts are quickly verified. Manuel Ollé perfectly describes the butterfly effect whose epicenter is located in Northern Europe. Philippe’s economic embargo II on the revolted Netherlands and the occupation of Antwerp by the Castilians forced Portugal to break its commercial relations with this rich region and led to the creation of the VOC (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). Dutch attempts to gain direct access to spices sounded the death knell for Portuguese interests in Asia. The Netherlands exports the European conflict throughout the world. André Murteira’s article deals precisely with the incessant incursions into the Indian Ocean which undermined the Carreira da India (the Portuguese trade route to Asia via Cape Horn). The Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621) did not limit the war in the East. Several contributions emphasize and specify the economic consequences for Portugal of the union with hegemonic Spain.
Permeability between the two Iberian empires
The legal framework of the Union is therefore that of the Cortes de Tomar of 1581. However, the work shows how the seal between the empires is broken by informal circuits, exceptions and numerous and necessary collaborations. Furthermore, on several occasions a true Iberian union emerged, in which particular Portuguese and Castilian interests were erased in favor of a common political project.
The conquest of Marañón and Grand Para at the beginning of the XVIIe century, studied by Guida Marques, is a perfect illustration. The region to be conquered on the borders of the viceroyalty of Peru and Brazil being still unknown, the conquest raises the question of the theoretical separation of the empires established in 1581. However, the detailed analysis of the intentions of the actors and the objectives of this conquest rather shows the fusion of the interests of the two empires and the connection of “ colonial experiences » : « Ultimately it becomes a common spirit of conquering, of imperial and universalist pretension. » (“ Finally, (Portuguese and Castilians) find themselves in a common spirit of conquest, of imperial and universalist pretension. », p. 271) The idea arose to make the Amazon the route of communication with the silver mines of the Andes and the conquistadors presented themselves as Catholics, subjects and vassals of the king, defending an Iberian and Catholic identity in the face of the foreign threat (French and Dutch).
A similar observation is made in the peninsula by Tamar Herzog: the Union is based on an initial confusion between conquest and dynastic heritage in which formal categories often tend to fade. If in 1642, the village of Barrancos (on the Portuguese side, but populated by Castilians) was attacked by the neighboring village of Moura, it was not so much to impose a strict separation between the kingdoms, but because for 200 years the two villages dispute over land. The Union of the two crowns is rather a period of calm where the stakes of delimitation are low unlike the preceding and subsequent periods. In Ceuta, studied by José Antonio Martínez Torres and Antonio José Rodríguez Hernández, the Portuguese city finally decided to enter the Castilian fold following the Treaty of Lisbon of 1668. The inhabitants benefited for a century from the largesse of the Catholic Monarchy which wants to keep this strategic position in North Africa.
On the other side of the world, the challenges of competition between Portuguese Macau and Castilian Manila are different. The commercial struggle for monopoly on the markets of Japan, China and the Moluccas is tough. It does not prohibit, on the contrary, illegal trade between the two ports: silver, amber, ivory, precious stones, silk, carpets are exchanged. P. Chaunu had already been able in his time to measure the importance of this traffic: 79 ships arrived from Macao to Manila between 1580 and 1644, at irregular frequency, for 10 % of total trade, the majority of boats come from China, Fujian. The first commercial exchanges are due to the Castilian embassies in China (that of Alonso Sanchez in 1582-83) which passed through Macao. The new Portuguese Christians played an important role in Portuguese trade with Manila. They invest a minimum of 450,000 cruzados per year in the Manila Galleon (which connects the archipelago to Acapulco) and the same amount in the intra-Asian trade which supplies the Galleon. It is with American silver (from the mines of Potosí and Zacatecas) that this lucrative trade is carried out.
The Iberians and other world powers
The cases of Ceylon, Hormuz, the Kingdom of Fez and the Ming Empire show the complexity of the political relationships established by the Portuguese, then with the Union of the Two Crowns, by the Iberians with Asian powers like the Shah. Persia or the modest kingdom of Kotte. Ceylon is thus the largest and longest Portuguese experience of territorial conquest in Asia before the XVIIIe century. Initially, the Portuguese thalassocratic strategy of indirect control and characteristic of Avis imperialism works well: it is based on a logic of suzerainty (symbolic lordship based on tribute without effective presence) compatible with certain political practices in Asia South. The new Habsburg power cannot be satisfied with this arrangement and begins a policy of sovereignty and conquest. This project, which did not take into account local political realities, was a failure which contributed to the loss of the island to the benefit of the United Provinces in 1658.
If the result is the same in Hormuz, lost in 1622, the situation is very different: Hormuz is a commercial crossroads between Africa and Asia and a customs post which brings the greatest profit of all the Portuguese fortresses in the East, apart from from Goa. The fortress held thanks to the domination of the seas by the Portuguese. Portuguese hegemony is achieved by the rise to the throne of Shah Abbas Ier (1588-1629) who had sufficient military forces to pursue a policy of expansion of power in the Persian Gulf. Bahrain was taken from the Portuguese in 1602. Abbas Ier maintains diplomatic relations with Philippe III (embassies are frequent), they have the Ottoman Empire as their common enemy: the alliance of the Catholic Monarchy, spearhead of the Counter-Reformation, with a Muslim power does not seem to pose a problem… Gradually, the shah turned towards the English who established themselves as privileged commercial intermediaries in the purchase of Persian silk. Long years of conflict and attacks on Portuguese fortresses led to the capture of Hormuz by the Savafids. Until the middle of XVIIe century, the Portuguese remain very present in this region, but they have definitively lost this pearl of the Orient.
The experience “ post-modern » of the Iberians
The question of identities and what is at stake in the Iberian enterprise is presented in an unprecedented way by Antonio de Almeida Mendes who proposes to break with an overly dialectical colonial historiography (settlers-colonized, center-peripheries). Within the framework of an Atlantic history that integrates Europe, Africa and America in equal parts, de Almeida explains how a polymorphic space is formed based on negotiation and the fragmentation of powers. From the confrontation of the Portuguese with the African Other arises interactions which lead to cultural appropriations: it is “ a postmodern experience » which comes to form a new Atlantic world linked to the global trading system. For example, in Guinea, a middle ground is set up between social groups and individuals who flee Europe (Jews, new Christians, renegades, refugees, exiles) and Africans: communities of Africanized Portuguese are formed, grouped in practices in Cacheu, Bissau, Ziguinchor, on the banks of the great rivers.
This type of reflection which invites us to see the past differently than in a gesture of Europeans conquering the world is the richness of the book, in addition to the (more positivist) insights into certain episodes and little-known areas of the “ first globalization “. On the one hand, this collective work brings together several summaries of the authors’ research in the manner of handbooks Anglo-Saxon, proof of a maturity acquired by the subject. On the other hand, the whole suggests a study of the representations and horizons of expectations of the various actors of the Iberian empires and their interlocutors. It is not a question of looking for traces of a “ world-consciousness », a path opened by S. Gruzinski, but to make a social and political history extremely situated in time and space leading to a kaleidoscopy undoubtedly quite close to the global realities of XVIe And XVIIe centuries.