Christian Spain and Portugal

Between 1452 and 1494 the Pope granted sovereignty of all the new world territories to Portugal and Spain; the proportions varying according to power struggles between the parties.  The Papacy also gave two these countries extraordinary powers in the new world.  The Papal Bull of 1455 granted them the right to ‘reduce pagans and other enemies of Christ to perpetual slavery’.

The reconquest set the tone for the Conquistadors

I suppose the biblical precedent was when  God gave Joshua a licence to kill all the men and boys and any woman who has slept with a man; in the lands he had given to the Israelites ‘as an inheritance’. He was required by God to take all their material belongings (and the virgins);  (Numbers 31:17; Deuteronomy 20:16; Joshua 8 etc; numerous references).

The 1455 Bull became a licence to rob the conquered lands of their wealth, particularly gold and silver, and enslave the populations. 

In due course this caused growing concern within the Church as native peoples were successfully evangelised and converted to Christianity. 

The Franciscans were particularly active missionaries; as can be seen by the many locations called San Francisco. The Dominicans were so appalled by the colonial authorities they even sided with native revolutionaries seeking independence on several occasions. Also concerned were the Jesuits; with their emphasis on learning and civil rights.

In addition to evangelising and doing good works these various Orders still found time to attack each other; as we have seen in South America; stripping each other's churches and re-decorating as ecclesiastical territories changed.

 
A church in south eastern Peru 

During our more recent trips to South America; Mexico; Cuba; and of course California; the impact and lasting influence of the Spanish and Portuguese was evident in every aspect of life.

But brutal as the Christian conquerors could be, it would be hard to compete in brutality with the human sacrifice, beheadings and forced labour practiced by the preceding religions of the Inca, Maya and Aztec.  It’s little wonder that the Conquistadors found so many local supporters in their overthrow of these civilisations; or that the Church found such fertile ground for evangelising.

I once speculated that that the plot of King Lear might in part be a parable based on Spain and Portugal (Goneril and Regan) and the Pope (Lear), with Cordelia as France (with whom she is aligned in the play).  This appeals to me but I haven’t seen the parallel (or parable) anywhere else; so I may be ‘drawing a long bow’.

I simply note that in Shakespeare’s time Portugal and Spain were struggling over how to split the new territories between them.  The Pope had made an arbitrary division on his map of the world; but excluded France from the spoils; just like King Lear.  In the course of his differences with Charles V of Spain the Holy Roman Emperor, Pope Clement VII had become his prisoner.  France was now at war with Charles V.

King Lear is of course a tragedy in which all three sisters and their father; as well as several others; lie dead by the end of the play.   The element of parable is possibly one factor in the play’s popularity in Elizabethan England.

The final treaty between Spain and Portugal and the Pope to divide up the world was the Treaty of Tordesillas.  This still stands in establishing borders in South America and was used by Argentina as recently as the Falklands War as part of its territorial claim; and justification for the invasion. 

Needless to say the Treaty and the authority it purported were never recognised by England; France; Germany; or after its liberation from Spain, the Netherlands.  These countries, and later the United States, set about taking the territories thus granted away from Spain and Portugal; generally by force of arms.

But the initial ‘open slather’ on exploiting the resources and people of the new world and Asia opened the way to great wealth for both countries.  Spain, in particular, quickly became a super-power. 

He's got the whole world in his hand...

Conflicts with England, Holland and France and the Thirty Years War whittled away at this power; followed by Napoleonic invasion; wars of independence in the colonies; and the First World War; culminating in the Spanish Revolution and the advent of Franco. Since Franco's death Spain has undergone rapid economic growth and improvement in the material standard of living.