Spanish American Imperialism

Back when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the new monarchs of Spain, were ruling, Spain was split into two distinct regions and was extremely disunited. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella originated from the two regions Aragon and Castile, respectively. Ferdinand and Isabella married to unify the two regions but the two remained separate politically and economically. The Spanish Empire had no sense of nationalism which could be dangerous if any group of people wanted to take over Spain and the Spanish people had no pride in them to defend themselves. The Spanish Catholic Church proved to be the kindling for the feeling of national identity in Spain. To fuel the fire, Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Reconquista. The Reconquista had been

However, achievements were made and some characteristics of a new monarchy were met or attempted, so the Holy Roman Empire was a new monarchy. The Holy Roman Empire was perhaps the most decentralized out of all the new monarchies and consisted of many diverse states . The three types of states included the princely states, the church/ecclesiastic states, and the imperial free states. The states liked the liberties they had under this feudalistic government and had, for many years, prevented electing an emperor who would try and take away these liberties (Palmer 76). They did this by making the emperorship an elective office, which would re-establish states’ rights every election and prevent a hereditary dynasty from gaining too much power and interfering with their rights. The title of Holy Roman Emperor was a joke by this time because the emperor had basically no authority whatsoever. The Habsburg family tried to change this and establish some characteristics of a new monarchy in the Holy Roman Empire. The Habsburgs, who had considerable power in Austria, managed to maintain the title of emperor for their family for about 300 years by “using the resources of their hereditary possessions in Austria (and later elsewhere) and by delicately balancing and bribing the numerous political forces within Germany” (Palmer 76). Establishing this hereditary line was a big change for the confederation of states that had planned so carefully to prevent it, and would start to lead the Holy Roman Empire on its way to becoming a new monarchy. The first Habsburg ruler was Maximilian I who ruled from 1493 to 1519. Maximilian attempted to organize and centralize the government by creating some government institutions. He tried to divide the government into administrative circles and create an Imperial Chamber and Council, but both endeavors proved ineffective against the liberties of the states. Though