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7

The Bourbon Reforms and

Spanish America

T

HE DEATH OF the sickly Charles II in No-
vember 1700 marked the end of an
era in Spanish history and the begin-
ning of a new and better day, although the signs
under which the new day began were far from
hopeful. On his deathbed, the unhappy Charles,
more kingly in his dying than he had ever been be-
fore, fought desperately to prevent the triumph of
an intrigue for the partition of the Spanish domin-
ions among three claimants of that inheritance:
the prince of Bavaria, the archduke Charles of Aus-
tria, and Louis XIV’s grandson, Philip of Anjou. In
one of his last acts, Charles signed a will naming
the French Philip, who became Philip V, successor
to all his dominions.
English fears at the prospect of a union of
France and Spain under a single ruler precipitated
the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713).
The war ended with the Treaty of Utrecht (1713),
which granted Gibraltar and Minorca to Great
Britain, established major trade concessions in the
Spanish Indies, and forbade any union of French

and Spanish thrones under Philip. Another peace

treaty, concluded the following year, gave the

Spanish Netherlands and Spain’s Italian posses-

sions to Austria.

Reform and Recovery

Spain’s humiliating losses deepened the prevailing

sense of pessimism and defeatism, but there were

compensations: the shock of defeat in the succes-

sion war drove home the need for sweeping reform

of Spanish institutions, and the loss of the Nether-

lands and the Italian possessions left Spain with

a more manageable, more truly Spanish, empire

comprised of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragón

and the Indies.

THE BOURBON REFORMS

The return of peace permitted the new dynasty to

turn its attention to implementing a program of

reform inspired by the French model. The reform

FOCUS QUESTIONS

• What were the major Bourbon economic and political reforms, and how did they
  affect the colonial economy and social relations?


• How did creole nationalism draw upon the European Enlightenment and the
  “classical antiquity” of ancient American indigenous societies?


• How did Bourbon reforms affect indigenous communities, enslaved Africans, and
  mixed-race peoples?


• Why did the Bourbon era produce the largest-scale popular revolts in colonial
  history?


• How is the phrase “growth without development” relevant to the colonial
  economy of the Bourbon era?