Texas Almanac, 1992-1993 Page: 603
656 p. : ill. (some col.), maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this book.
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SPANISH HISTORY 603
Fernando suffered from a mental disability similar to
his father's during his reign from 1746 to 1759. Neverthe-
less, Fernando's major accomplishment was to keep
Spain at peace for more than a decade.
Charles III, son of Philip V and Isabel Farnese, suc-
ceeded Fernando VI. Charles served an apprenticeship
as king of Naples, never expecting an opportunity to
rule Spain because of the two older stepbrothers.
The new sovereign began a revival of Spain through
changes in government and improvement in education.
He upgraded the caliber of men appointed to positions
in the church and in colonial administration. Jose de
Galvez, one of the many professional men employed by
the king, became famous in Texas history through his
survey of the Spanish presidios across the northern
boundary of New Spain. Upon Galvez' recommenda-
tions, several presidios in Texas were closed and part of
the population relocated.
Charles III joined France against Great Britain for
the final two years of the Seven Years' War. When Brit-
ain won in 1763, Spain lost Uruguay and Florida but
gained the Louisiana Territory from France. (For Tex-
as this was a bad turn of events. The region's role had
been that of a frontier area, and it thereby got attention
from colonial administration. With Spain's eastern colo-
nial boundary moving to the Mississippi River, Texas
was simply a big open region meriting little attention.
During this period, the capital of Texas actually was lo-
cated at Los Adaes presidio, near present-day Natchi-
toches, La. )
To solve economic problems, Charles III established
factories in the interior of Spain and convinced the
craft guilds to loosen restrictions on young workers. In-
ternal tariffs were reduced or eliminated. Agricultural
reform was attempted for the first time in history dur-
ing the 1760s, and food production increased when addi-
tional land was placed in production.
Spaniards accepted the monarchist paternalism of
their government, and agitation for representative gov-
ernment on the peninsula did not begin until late in the
century. The Enlightenment was slow in coming to
Spain, but its ideas received support by a small, but
influential, minority. Most Spaniards and the king stillsupported the work of the Inquisition, which punished
more than 10,000 people during Philip V's 45-year reign.
The Enlightenment also reached the colonies during
Charles' reign and set the stage for a colonial revolt in
the following century.
Food riots broke out in major Spanish cities in 1766
and caught the crown's attention. Changes were made.
But blame for the riots had to be assessed, and the sca-
pegoat turned out to be the Jesuits. The religious order
was banished from the Spanish empire in 1767, affecting
about 10,000 clergy. Later the order was reinstated and
then banished again.
Under Charles, Spain played a significant, if not
well-known, role in the American revolution. Charles
did not commit troops, but Spain controlled the Missis-
sippi valley and kept the British occupied in Florida.
Additionally, the crown instructed Spanish officials, like
Bernardo de Galvez, Jose's nephew, to cooperate with
the Americans. Galvez saw that cattle from Texas were
driven to the Mississippi to feed revolutionaries. By ty-
ing up British troops in Florida, Spain prevented Great
Britain from giving its full attention to the uprising in
the northern American colonies.
Charles' drive to make Spain more rational, more
orderly, better educated and more productive was re-
warded by a growing prosperity in the late 18th cen-
tury. In the American colonies, an expanding creole
class established itself as a society that could stand
without Spain. During Charles' reign, there were an
estimated 17 million Spanish subjects in the Americas,
while the population of the peninsula was about 10 mil-
lion. The tail as wagging the dog, and the seeds of revolt
were sowed.
At his death in 1788, Charles' Spain was still back-
ward, compared to its European contemporaries, but it
was doing much better, having regained respect in in-
ternational affairs. The nation had enjoyed the most en-
lightened and most prosperous reign of a king in
modern Spanish history. Historians rank Charles III sec-
ond only to Philip II in Spanish history.
Unfortunately, Spain's luck did not last long, for di-
saster was just a few decades away.Divorce
The reigns of the two successors to Charles Ill were
periods of chaos and dismemberment within the once
powerful Spanish empire.
Charles IV, who succeeded his father in 1788, was a
weak sovereign and fearful of political forces unleashed
by the French Revolution. When Louis XVI of France
was executed in 1792, Don Manual Godoy was chosen by
Charles to lead the Spanish army against the new re-
public. France fought back with surprising energy and
success, and by 1795 occupied towns in northern Spain
and forced a truce. At the same time, Spain was in
almost permanent war against the British. In 1796,
France and Spain aligned against Britain, and two
years later, Spain went to war with Portugal, Britain's
closes ally on the continent. By 1808, these wars had run
their courses, and Spain remained friendly with
France, hoping to protect its American colonies.
Ferdinand VII took the throne on the abdication of
his father, Charles IV, in 1808. Ferdinand was a weak
leader, and on a visit to France, Napoleon made Ferdi-
nand and his father renounce their claims to the Span-
ish throne. Napoleon then proclaimed his brother,
Joseph, king of Spain.
When Joseph entered Spain, accompanied by
French troops, the first true people's revolution in Eu-
ropean history commenced. Spain's lower classes took
to the offense with a guerrilla campaign that harassed
the invaders, and the nobility and upper classes served
in the regular army. By 1813, with help from the British
and the Portuguese, the French and King Joseph were
driven from Spain. The nation's infrastructure had
been badly damaged and hard economic times were
ahead.
Turmoil buffeted Spain. A representative cortes was
organized by townspeople from across Spain and met in
Cadiz in 1812. The liberals wrote a constitution setting
up a monarchy answering to the people. While the
American colonies were recognized as part of Spain,
they were not given proper representation. Fears of the
Spanish colonial Americans that they would have little
role in the Spanish government were confirmed. Revo-lutions erupted throughout the colonies. Father Miguel
Hidalgo had fired Mexicans' imagination with his revolt
in Dolores in 1810. (In 1813, the so-called Green Flag Re-
bellion was staged in Texas, only to be put down by the
Spanish army.)
The Spanish Americans were right. The colonies
were only on the verge of the consciousness of Spani-
ards, who could not understand why the Americans
would abandon the many benefits of Spanish rule. The
attitude never changed, and Spaniards often thought
that the people of the Americas never really wanted to
withdraw from the empire.
Fernando returned to Spain in 1814 and declared the
constitution null and void, being unwilling to abandon
the crown's absolutism.
Spain was in constant political flux between 1811-
1820, but no matter who was in charge, there was little
change in the policy toward the colonies. In this period,
30 military expeditions were organized and sent to the
colonies. More than 47,000 men and officers left the pen-
insula. Spaniards could not imagine why the colonists
were dissatisfied with their lot in the empire and would
not accept their legitimate desire for self-government.
Shortly before the empire crumbled in the Ameri-
cas, Spanish officials tried to implement policies to
attract settlers to its vast underpopulated lands in
North America. A former Spanish subject, Moses Aus-
tin, received approval to bring 300 families into the
land. But Mexico achieved independence before Austin
could bring people in. His son, Stephen F. Austin, took
up the project after his father's death and made his way
into North American history as one of the greatest early
pioneers.
Mexico broke away from the Spanish empire in 1821,
and with the divorce, Texas slipped from under the
Spanish yoke. Spain moved on to more troubled times,
but the first of the great colonial empires had left its
mark on the land and the people of Texas extending
even until today.SPANISH HISTORY
603
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Kingston, Mike. Texas Almanac, 1992-1993, book, 1991; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279642/m1/607/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.