What went wrong with their empire?

what went wrong with their empire?

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Inflation and the peninsular war.

They instituted a system of wealth extraction that fostered pseudo-feudal power systems that in turn led to resentment and impoverishment.

one thing people don't mention is the simple fact that they were the first colonial power and didn't have anyone else's mistakes to avoid

Eh, it's between them Portugal.

Demographics and economics. Their colonial wealth brought in large amounts of gold and silver, which was good for the short term but led to horrible inflation long term. Meanwhile, the Spanish population started out smaller than the rest of Europe and a series of bad decisions ended up ruining any potential they had to recover.

Look at the population of Spain compared to the rest of Europe in 1500, for example. With about 8.5 million people living in it, it had a little over half the population of France and Germany (both around 16 million) - and that includes the Spanish domains in Sicily. So from the start, they're at a massive disadvantage as a continental power.

By 1600, even though the Spanish Empire had some 30 million people, Spain proper had actually shrunk to 8.25 million. The Spanish Netherlands added another 2 million, and Sicily was 1.8 million. The French Empire, on the other hand, had 20 million people, the majority of whom were in Europe.

Spain lacked the population growth to remain competitive, and they sabotaged themselves with decisions like the expulsion of the Jews and Moriscos, which tended to impact economic sectors that would have helped stabilize the economy.

>Spain proper had actually shrunk to 8.25 million

Interesting. Is it known why Spain's population shrank?

"Population" can't be the answer because Britain had an even smaller population.

faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351-06.htm
Despite the odd page layout, this actually covers the reasons for decline quite well.

From what I understand, it was a combination of emigration, economic stagnation, and tax burdens falling very heavily on the poor and hitting agriculture particularly hard.

Population seemed to be a symptom of a greater issue that itself became a contributing factor to decline. Spain, being a continental power, needed a large manpower base to be a competitive force on the battlefield. Without that, they couldn't effectively compete with the other continental powers.

England's success comes in part to them being an island, making them safer from invasion, and more thanks to them not making pants-on-head retarded economic decisions.

The English established settler colonies rather than resource extraction colonies because they were late to the party and all the areas with easily extracted resources (chiefly gold and silver) had already been claimed. Henry VIII initiated the English colonial empire expressly to get "his share" of the gold pouring into Europe from Spain's colonies.

They could have looked at British tactics in Ireland, old Roman and Greek colonization, Viking colonization, and Sassanid colonization.

>what went wrong with their empire?

Too much time fucking and not enough time on killing

Thirty Years War

>they sabotaged themselves with decisions like the expulsion of the Jews and Moriscos, which tended to impact economic sectors that would have helped stabilize the economy.
Spain's economy entered into a golden age when the expelled the Jews and muzzies. When they let them back in the empire went to shit.

...

>rapid inflation
>British pirates raiding their shit
>Dutch BTFOing their navy
>French BTFOing their army
>Austrian Hapsburgs throwing them into their wars
>French Bourbons throwing them into their wars
>Napoleon ruining everything like he always does
>Royal Navy shitting on them for shits and giggles
>America kicking them while they are down

basically no one liked them

napoleon and being half a planet wide.

latins can't manage a large state

The rose to power before the advent of Capitalism, which teaches you should invest in factories which lead to production instead of being a mercantilism and just pissing away all of the silver in trade and wars.

Masons. Any other answer is propaganda

Britain didn't exist at the time

>The English established settler colonies rather than resource extraction colonies because they were late to the party and all the areas with easily extracted resources
This is false. See the naval act. All British colonies were for wealth extraction

HRE autism certainly didn't help.

>kick jews out before getting tons of gold from the new world
>invite them back after multiple bankruptcies, peninsular war and losing their colonies

I-ITS DA JOOZ FAULT

Spain had an economic bomb from 1492-1520 which was a period in which the American colonies were Cuba+Hispaniola+Puerto Rico.Meaning that the only resources that they had were some crops and trees.I am sorry pal.Deporting jews and muslims was the key of Spain's success

>Deporting jews and muslims was the key of Spain's success
ok explain

Jews bought land but didn't work them, just like the church.When that land was confiscated they allowed christians to work it and most crops became more available which created a huge population boost.
Muslims were instigating revolts which depressed the economy of Granada.Once they were deported the region became stable and the economy grew again

we didthe roman and greek colonisation techiques; We gave them our religion, we assimilated them in our culture without exterminating them (ahem english colonies ahem) Look how it worked out, instead of making us more united, the sons of our brothers that went to the new world in search of a better life backstabbed us, backstabbed the natives and creatid the shitshow that south america is now

We're governed by greedy retards then as now. There is no future for this country.