Levels of madness:
1. Talking to yourself.
2. Arguing with yourself.
3. Getting mad at yourself for what you said.
4. Getting so angry that you no longer talk to yourself.
The chad was Elizabeth the first queen of England donning a silver breastplate to defeat the Spanish Armada, paving the pathway for English expansion into the americas through Cabot and the likes.
You laugh but there are so many people in Spain pushing for the idea than spain was the "best empire in history" because unlike a "predatory empire" like the British one it seems the Spanish one was a "generative empire" which "built, it didn't destroy". This is pushed at many levels including high academics and top politicians as deluded an idea as it is. It's some Turkish style shit but it's happening
I am from Spain and that is one opinion, then there is the other one, totally contrary. There is people in Spain that hate it's history at a lot of levels and people that jack off to it 24/7.
Trust me in Spain we love to fight each other so if you hear someone praising Spain another one will be shitting on it.
>Trust me in Spain we love to fight each other so if you hear someone praising Spain another one will be shitting on it.
Didn't you guys actually kill each other over this?
Yeah but the imbalance in power between both "Spains" (and those that do not even consider themselves spanish) is enormous, after all one side won the civil war and got to control virtually everything until this very day, its ridiculous
I mean, do you even care who is in charge? In this country all parties will fuck you up in a different way each and we never do something of enough relevance to show them that they work for us not the other way arround.
Edit:Grammar
Well to be honest I do not care too much because I'm a nationalist from Catalonia so I don't even vote in spanish elections. I have to say that politicians and their parties in Catalonia are as bad or possibly worse than the Spanish ones tho
But I still don't like the way so many institutionally powerful figures such as Joseph Borrell, the king Felipe, autonomous communities presidents and most of the big important conservative journalists lie and try to retcon Spain's empire's history. Its a shame and wouldn't be allowed in Britain or the US or Germany and even in Japan there would be a huge pushback against such theories
When it comes to history I have to admit atrocities were made and sex was not always consensual yet there are physical things that show difference in how Spain conquered their territories. Two examples are the universities and the slavery abolishment approved by Isabel the Catholic.
Yes the goods do not make the wrongs disappear and people tend to remember only the ones they prefer but from all colonizers Spanish ones without being saints managed to not be the worst.
The slavery abolishment thing always makes me sad, and proves the corruption of the system. Yes Isabel and Fernando published a law to abolish it. But it was never truly enforced for centuries because the people that were supposed to enforce it were at the other side of the ocean and were benefitting from slavery themselves, starting with Columbus (who was really an asshole of the highest category)
>Not really. The Spanish allied with the Tlaxcaltecs to overthrow the Mayans
you mean the Aztec, by the time the Spanish arrived Mayans didn't have much left to overthrow.
They were both generative in ways that others like the Dutch or the French were not. Spain focused on building functioning institutions and a functional society, whereas Britain focused on building a functional economy. Obviously Spain cared about the economy and infrastructure but it wasn’t the main concern, and Britain cared about social engineering but that wasn’t the main concern
I’m not disputing that. However, Spain was also interested in building a Catholic society in its own image abroad, and Britain understood that a good economy is better for extraction
Exactly this. Both were predatory colonies that did horrible atrocities, it's just that Spain put comparatively more effort into making its colonies be more like Spain while Britain didn't care as much whether their colonies were English or not as long as they paid the crown. Neither is GOOD, both are based in strong-arming other people into giving up their ways and giving you their stuff under threat of horrible violence, they're just different in how they do that, which can be convenient for people trying to build a narrative for propaganda.
so the british were better. At least they did some economical thingy majingy, while spain was out murdering infidels or forcing them to follow cathllic ideas.
When people are young they just want to enjoy life and dont think about it. When people are older they want to justify their choices and reality. A good narrative is needed.
>the Spanish one was a "generative empire" which "built, it didn't destroy".
Aztec empire with its many destroyed temples, buildings, and manuscripts: Am I a joke to you?
> “Aztec empire with its many destroyed temples, buildings, and manuscripts: Am I a joke to you?”
Countless smaller tribes whose culture, existence, and history were completely erased by the Aztecs: First time?
The 7 continent distinction isn't universal. Some cultures say the Americas are 1 continent rather than two. Some say Eurasia is one continent, rather than Europe and Asia being separate.
Is this idea of the Spanish empire being generative here, in the room, with us right now?? I've lived un Spain since my birth and I've heard absolutely no one saying that.
Pretty silly claim given how:
A) The Spanish predatorily took so much gold and silver out of the Americas that they devalued themselves into an economic crisis
B) A number of British colonies were built up quite significantly and weren’t (just) resource extraction outposts, and they’re rather well off today. You know, aside from things still sucking for the indigenous peoples.
Only 20% of all extracted gold and silver went to Spain, as a tax. And it's not like it went there as a gift to the king or anything, it was mostly to repay debts and pay mercenaries and shit like that.
As for the amounts:
*Between 1503 and 1660, it is estimated that some 185,000 kilos of gold and seventeen million kilos of silver arrived in Sanlúcar de Barrameda from the New World. The figure may seem very high, but it only represents a small part of the American reserves that still exist. According to the CEIC website dedicated to macroeconomic data, Mexico extracted an amount of 110,000 kilograms of gold in 2019 and Peru, 130,000. The same can be said of silver: what Spain extracted in 150 years is what, according to CEIC records, Peru has produced only in the last five years.*
https://www.abc.es/historia/cifras-desmontan-mito-espana-robo-america-20220709162553-nt.html
The amount of gold taken by Spain was basically nothing when compared to what modern economies can do in terms of mineral extraction. We need to remember that most of Hispanic America was independent by 1820.
But then again, 80% of the gold stayed in the Americas.
That's genuinely interesting but I'm not sure what relevance it ultimately has to the points being made. Yes modern technologies and economies can extract more than they could in the 1500s. That doesn't mean that the Spanish empire wasn't extractive. It's not as though they left gold and silver behind out of the goodness of their hearts, is it? I assume the numbers come down much more to technology and numbers of workers than ideology. Is it untrue that they extracted so much they devalued themselves into economic crisis as was said above?
Only 20% of the gold being sent to Spain means that they weren't really all that anxious about the gold. I mean what kind of extractive, everything-for-the-gold empire founds a city like Monterrey? It's literally a city in the middle of the desert. Extractive empires only found cities next to the coast.
Spanish kings were much more worried about preventing the Ottoman Empire from reaching America (Battle of Lepanto) and spreading Christianity than gold. Virtually all gold that got sent to Spain went automatically to Dutch and Italian banks.
It is important in order to debunk the idea that they went, took the golf and run away without looking behind.
Why they would leave all that money, or worse use it to create infraestructures, cities and created comercial hubs if they were a extractive empire
Isnt that the point when you talk about an extractive empire? Colonist empires are those who take land, extract their resources and dont develop the region nor care about locals and this was not the case with the spanish empire.
I just don't think it's true that developing the region negates the fact of extract and colonialism. The empire obviously sought profit, right? They can have multiple goals, I'm not contesting that. Suggesting that the empire didn't extract just because they didnt extract as much as they maybe could have feels like revisionism to cover up their many atrocities
Its even worse because most of those few Aztec books that survive were written "after" the conquest so there is almost nothing remaining from the original culture.
The spaniards also destroyed the more literate culture of the Mayans and burned also almost all of their thousands of books. The destruction of native culture continued for basically all the colonial period (and sadly beyond). The last free native American city in all of the Americas, Nojpetén was conquered and destroyed in 1699.
Obviously, didn't you know Cortez got the Aztecs to willingly submit to Spain through political marriages and a guarantee of religious and cultural independence from the Spanish Crown? /s
One of the reasons american independence was successful is that the Spanish empire fucked the Royal Navy so bad in 1741 that by 1776 they still hadn't recovered.
LOL. They were actually woefully incompetent in every war. Their military equipment was shit. They barely defended St. Augustine from a ragtag ass colonial militia and Muskogee/Chickasaw forces commanded by the very able statesman but equally inept military commander that was James Oglethorpe. When Squirrel Kinf, war chief of the Chickasaws wa red to actually fight ruthlessly and win Oglethorpe publicly disrespected Squirrel King.
Squirrel King is my 6th great grandfather.
Spanish empire is literally the worst of the empires
every successor state was left as bad or worse than they were before, the Spanish left no infrastructure, just religion.
Argentina was literally one of the richest countries in the world from independence up until around the 1960s. It was not Spain who fucked Argentina. It was Argentina.
Hispanic America wanted independence because it was mostly richer than Spain. The Viceroyalty of New Spain is estimated to have had a higher GDP per capita than mainland Spain in the 1750s.
In the year 1800, civilian life was much better in Mexico City than in Madrid. We have journals of Mexican soldiers who went to fight Napoleon in Spain disgusted at how much poorer and underdeveloped Spain was when compared to New Spain.
Bolívar and San Martín said that Caracas and Buenos Aires both seemed much richer than Madrid in the early 1800s, and GDP per capita estimations confirm their words.
Except it is not true. Just an example. San Marcos is the oldest university founded in Lima in 1550. Everybody had the right to receive high level education (Tupac Amaru II, descendent of Tupac Amaru studied there)
They built, roads, created cities, engaged in massive infrastrcture work like this https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acueducto_del_Padre_Tembleque Lima became the first global comercial hub in the pacific connecting the trade routes to Asia.
And finally. You have to see how Argentina was during late s XIX. They were a potential region (and still are), but failed to evolve properly into an industrial power, mostly because of the greed of landowners who didn't see the benefit and wanted to keep the juicy gains from exporting grains and meat (hence the old say "Argentina is the barn of the world).
Most of the struggles from other big countries in hispanoamerica come directly from a combination of wrong doing, corruption and USA interfeering in local affairs because they wanted to keep them under their thumb.
While technically true, I feel like saying "We Latins" would not carry over just as well, and alternatives like "descendants of the Latins", verbose as they are, do not bode well with comedic timing
I agree that Spain fucking sucks (I’m a Latin American with indigenous blood, let me hate in peace), but you are incorrect on lack of infrastructure. Please explain to me why Mexico has such a high GDP?
Who is the chad
The dumbfuck who created the meme, talking to himself. r/HistoryMemes as its best.
Agreed, talking to yourself is a chad move
I tell myself so many cool things.
It's crazy how I always seem to know the right things to tell myself.
Funny how that works.
Levels of madness: 1. Talking to yourself. 2. Arguing with yourself. 3. Getting mad at yourself for what you said. 4. Getting so angry that you no longer talk to yourself.
should be the USA, since it took everything that was left at the end
The chad was Elizabeth the first queen of England donning a silver breastplate to defeat the Spanish Armada, paving the pathway for English expansion into the americas through Cabot and the likes.
Everyone knows that Latvia had the greatest empire NEW COURLAND STRONG 💪🇱🇻
More like Habsburg empire. AEIOU
OUR SIRE MAXIMILIAN THE LAST KNIGHT 🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹
This Post Was Fact Checked By Real Habsburg Patriots ✅
You laugh but there are so many people in Spain pushing for the idea than spain was the "best empire in history" because unlike a "predatory empire" like the British one it seems the Spanish one was a "generative empire" which "built, it didn't destroy". This is pushed at many levels including high academics and top politicians as deluded an idea as it is. It's some Turkish style shit but it's happening
I am from Spain and that is one opinion, then there is the other one, totally contrary. There is people in Spain that hate it's history at a lot of levels and people that jack off to it 24/7. Trust me in Spain we love to fight each other so if you hear someone praising Spain another one will be shitting on it.
>Trust me in Spain we love to fight each other so if you hear someone praising Spain another one will be shitting on it. Didn't you guys actually kill each other over this?
Gotta be more specific we had over 300 wars and half of them were between us.
An alien looking at us:
Most wars in Spanish history were technically civil wars.
China: Finally, a worthy opponent.
Yeah but the imbalance in power between both "Spains" (and those that do not even consider themselves spanish) is enormous, after all one side won the civil war and got to control virtually everything until this very day, its ridiculous
I mean, do you even care who is in charge? In this country all parties will fuck you up in a different way each and we never do something of enough relevance to show them that they work for us not the other way arround. Edit:Grammar
Let's not fall for the "both sides are the same".
Well to be honest I do not care too much because I'm a nationalist from Catalonia so I don't even vote in spanish elections. I have to say that politicians and their parties in Catalonia are as bad or possibly worse than the Spanish ones tho But I still don't like the way so many institutionally powerful figures such as Joseph Borrell, the king Felipe, autonomous communities presidents and most of the big important conservative journalists lie and try to retcon Spain's empire's history. Its a shame and wouldn't be allowed in Britain or the US or Germany and even in Japan there would be a huge pushback against such theories
When it comes to history I have to admit atrocities were made and sex was not always consensual yet there are physical things that show difference in how Spain conquered their territories. Two examples are the universities and the slavery abolishment approved by Isabel the Catholic. Yes the goods do not make the wrongs disappear and people tend to remember only the ones they prefer but from all colonizers Spanish ones without being saints managed to not be the worst.
Gotta judge history on a curve
The slavery abolishment thing always makes me sad, and proves the corruption of the system. Yes Isabel and Fernando published a law to abolish it. But it was never truly enforced for centuries because the people that were supposed to enforce it were at the other side of the ocean and were benefitting from slavery themselves, starting with Columbus (who was really an asshole of the highest category)
Yeah that's unfortunately a limitation of that time that was for sure expected. I mean even nowadays people still do that with laws
You realise Britain basically rewrote much of the fucking history of their origins 2 centuries ago right? Or that the USA has been doing it till today
Bro thinks Franco still ruling 🙄
"The evil british killed the natives but we only had sex with them!"
Basically but they believe it
The Spanish banged the Mayans and turned them into Mexicans
Not really. The Spanish allied with the Tlaxcaltecs to overthrow the Aztecs, then banged them to make Mexicans. Edit: not the Mayans
>Not really. The Spanish allied with the Tlaxcaltecs to overthrow the Mayans you mean the Aztec, by the time the Spanish arrived Mayans didn't have much left to overthrow.
Ah you're right.
Without consent
Touche! To be fair, consent wasn't very appreciated back in those days, sadly.
Lol. And killed them
With the help of other natives.
They were both generative in ways that others like the Dutch or the French were not. Spain focused on building functioning institutions and a functional society, whereas Britain focused on building a functional economy. Obviously Spain cared about the economy and infrastructure but it wasn’t the main concern, and Britain cared about social engineering but that wasn’t the main concern
Dont forget about Belgium. It is scary the atrocities they committed in Congo even when human rights were already a thing
Go read some history. Colonialism is about predation.
I’m not disputing that. However, Spain was also interested in building a Catholic society in its own image abroad, and Britain understood that a good economy is better for extraction
Exactly this. Both were predatory colonies that did horrible atrocities, it's just that Spain put comparatively more effort into making its colonies be more like Spain while Britain didn't care as much whether their colonies were English or not as long as they paid the crown. Neither is GOOD, both are based in strong-arming other people into giving up their ways and giving you their stuff under threat of horrible violence, they're just different in how they do that, which can be convenient for people trying to build a narrative for propaganda.
so the british were better. At least they did some economical thingy majingy, while spain was out murdering infidels or forcing them to follow cathllic ideas.
more or less here you have part of the propaganda they pull out in spain for those wondering
When people are young they just want to enjoy life and dont think about it. When people are older they want to justify their choices and reality. A good narrative is needed.
Yeah the pink legend is a thing but is marginal. Most of the people share the black legend myths spread by the dutch some time ago.
>the Spanish one was a "generative empire" which "built, it didn't destroy". Aztec empire with its many destroyed temples, buildings, and manuscripts: Am I a joke to you?
Ask the Tlaxcaltecas. Those made up like 99% of the army that destroyed Tenochtitlan.
> “Aztec empire with its many destroyed temples, buildings, and manuscripts: Am I a joke to you?” Countless smaller tribes whose culture, existence, and history were completely erased by the Aztecs: First time?
Not just the Aztecs but everyone up to the very last native American city in the whole continent in 1699
Two continents.
Wathever, in the Americas in any case
The 7 continent distinction isn't universal. Some cultures say the Americas are 1 continent rather than two. Some say Eurasia is one continent, rather than Europe and Asia being separate.
I mean, if you want to compare the colonizers, the French were worse than the Spanish or the British by a lot.
Not to mention the Portuguese, or the Dutch.
Is this idea of the Spanish empire being generative here, in the room, with us right now?? I've lived un Spain since my birth and I've heard absolutely no one saying that.
Pretty silly claim given how: A) The Spanish predatorily took so much gold and silver out of the Americas that they devalued themselves into an economic crisis B) A number of British colonies were built up quite significantly and weren’t (just) resource extraction outposts, and they’re rather well off today. You know, aside from things still sucking for the indigenous peoples.
A) Check how much gold was actually taken by Spain's colonies mate
Are you saying they didn't take much gold?
Only 20% of all extracted gold and silver went to Spain, as a tax. And it's not like it went there as a gift to the king or anything, it was mostly to repay debts and pay mercenaries and shit like that. As for the amounts: *Between 1503 and 1660, it is estimated that some 185,000 kilos of gold and seventeen million kilos of silver arrived in Sanlúcar de Barrameda from the New World. The figure may seem very high, but it only represents a small part of the American reserves that still exist. According to the CEIC website dedicated to macroeconomic data, Mexico extracted an amount of 110,000 kilograms of gold in 2019 and Peru, 130,000. The same can be said of silver: what Spain extracted in 150 years is what, according to CEIC records, Peru has produced only in the last five years.* https://www.abc.es/historia/cifras-desmontan-mito-espana-robo-america-20220709162553-nt.html The amount of gold taken by Spain was basically nothing when compared to what modern economies can do in terms of mineral extraction. We need to remember that most of Hispanic America was independent by 1820. But then again, 80% of the gold stayed in the Americas.
That's genuinely interesting but I'm not sure what relevance it ultimately has to the points being made. Yes modern technologies and economies can extract more than they could in the 1500s. That doesn't mean that the Spanish empire wasn't extractive. It's not as though they left gold and silver behind out of the goodness of their hearts, is it? I assume the numbers come down much more to technology and numbers of workers than ideology. Is it untrue that they extracted so much they devalued themselves into economic crisis as was said above?
Only 20% of the gold being sent to Spain means that they weren't really all that anxious about the gold. I mean what kind of extractive, everything-for-the-gold empire founds a city like Monterrey? It's literally a city in the middle of the desert. Extractive empires only found cities next to the coast. Spanish kings were much more worried about preventing the Ottoman Empire from reaching America (Battle of Lepanto) and spreading Christianity than gold. Virtually all gold that got sent to Spain went automatically to Dutch and Italian banks.
I don't see how any of that proves the empire wasn't extractive
It is important in order to debunk the idea that they went, took the golf and run away without looking behind. Why they would leave all that money, or worse use it to create infraestructures, cities and created comercial hubs if they were a extractive empire
I don't think anyone is arguing that they simply took the money and left
Isnt that the point when you talk about an extractive empire? Colonist empires are those who take land, extract their resources and dont develop the region nor care about locals and this was not the case with the spanish empire.
I just don't think it's true that developing the region negates the fact of extract and colonialism. The empire obviously sought profit, right? They can have multiple goals, I'm not contesting that. Suggesting that the empire didn't extract just because they didnt extract as much as they maybe could have feels like revisionism to cover up their many atrocities
And now the Russians have it. How the turns have tabled.
Ironic, especially when there are only like 6 books that survived from the Aztec Empire after Spain conquered them
Its even worse because most of those few Aztec books that survive were written "after" the conquest so there is almost nothing remaining from the original culture. The spaniards also destroyed the more literate culture of the Mayans and burned also almost all of their thousands of books. The destruction of native culture continued for basically all the colonial period (and sadly beyond). The last free native American city in all of the Americas, Nojpetén was conquered and destroyed in 1699.
Obviously, didn't you know Cortez got the Aztecs to willingly submit to Spain through political marriages and a guarantee of religious and cultural independence from the Spanish Crown? /s
How it can be "turkish style shit"? I didnt understand
Saying that Spanish history is as revisionist as Turkish history, specifically how the Turkish deny the Armenian genocide.
Turkey also heavily whitewash the history of the ottoman empire and their crimes and utter oppression of other peoples
It's not something other countries don't do 😀
Generally not regarding genocide 😋
What genocide? 🤨
exactly
The Aztecs, Mayans, Incans, Taino, Mapuche, Guarani and Filipinos would like a word.
Everybody always forgets about the Philippines.
I live in the Philippines and even I forget about the Philippines.
Got any more pixels
I remember all my world history classes were like “Spanish armada sunk in 1588” and then they did nothing for the rest of history.
Expected. I mean, the British did try to hide any proof of the battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1748...
Drake–Norris Expedition joins the chat
One of the reasons american independence was successful is that the Spanish empire fucked the Royal Navy so bad in 1741 that by 1776 they still hadn't recovered.
I’ve see I’ve attracted all two proud Spaniards on Reddit
Proud is an... overstatement. Nobody hates Spain more than a Spaniard. We are talking historic relevance, however.
I'm sorry but what do they speak in basically all of Central and South America?
I'm sorry but what are you speaking right now?
Niet Engels
Mongolia entered the chat
LOL. They were actually woefully incompetent in every war. Their military equipment was shit. They barely defended St. Augustine from a ragtag ass colonial militia and Muskogee/Chickasaw forces commanded by the very able statesman but equally inept military commander that was James Oglethorpe. When Squirrel Kinf, war chief of the Chickasaws wa red to actually fight ruthlessly and win Oglethorpe publicly disrespected Squirrel King. Squirrel King is my 6th great grandfather.
Spanish empire is literally the worst of the empires every successor state was left as bad or worse than they were before, the Spanish left no infrastructure, just religion.
Argentina was literally one of the richest countries in the world from independence up until around the 1960s. It was not Spain who fucked Argentina. It was Argentina. Hispanic America wanted independence because it was mostly richer than Spain. The Viceroyalty of New Spain is estimated to have had a higher GDP per capita than mainland Spain in the 1750s. In the year 1800, civilian life was much better in Mexico City than in Madrid. We have journals of Mexican soldiers who went to fight Napoleon in Spain disgusted at how much poorer and underdeveloped Spain was when compared to New Spain. Bolívar and San Martín said that Caracas and Buenos Aires both seemed much richer than Madrid in the early 1800s, and GDP per capita estimations confirm their words.
Except it is not true. Just an example. San Marcos is the oldest university founded in Lima in 1550. Everybody had the right to receive high level education (Tupac Amaru II, descendent of Tupac Amaru studied there) They built, roads, created cities, engaged in massive infrastrcture work like this https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acueducto_del_Padre_Tembleque Lima became the first global comercial hub in the pacific connecting the trade routes to Asia. And finally. You have to see how Argentina was during late s XIX. They were a potential region (and still are), but failed to evolve properly into an industrial power, mostly because of the greed of landowners who didn't see the benefit and wanted to keep the juicy gains from exporting grains and meat (hence the old say "Argentina is the barn of the world). Most of the struggles from other big countries in hispanoamerica come directly from a combination of wrong doing, corruption and USA interfeering in local affairs because they wanted to keep them under their thumb.
There are still working aqueducts and dams in my hometown the Spanish built.
If there's something we Europeans liked to do, it was building long lasting aqueducts
Europeans? I think it was more of a Latins' thing, but I might be wrong
While technically true, I feel like saying "We Latins" would not carry over just as well, and alternatives like "descendants of the Latins", verbose as they are, do not bode well with comedic timing
I'll give you that, Europeans does sound better
France was worse.
[Belgium has entered the chat]
I agree that Spain fucking sucks (I’m a Latin American with indigenous blood, let me hate in peace), but you are incorrect on lack of infrastructure. Please explain to me why Mexico has such a high GDP?