perfidy

Ministry Crony NDR posts a lengthy (for blogs) excerpt from The Life and Times of Mexico, by Earl Shorris that I find very interesting. The three years mentioned in the title of this post are three decisive years in Spain, whose repercussions can be felt today. At least one of the events of 1492 should be obvious even to a fifth grade drop out. The other two are equally important - the end of the reconquista in Grenada, and the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews. These last two set the Spanish monarchy on a course of intolerance and rigid dogmatism that would infect two other continents, and play a major role in the religious wars that bedeviled Europe over the next two centuries. The first, by way of American silver, provided the means to finance this.

1521 is not a date I was familiar with. Rather than rewrite, I will excerpt the excerpt:

"The events of 1521, the third date, were to establish New Spain and set the pattern for its government. In that year the urban center of the Mexican world, Tenochtitlan, fell to the Spaniards and their Tiaxcalan allies, but of almost equal importance, the comuneros (townspeople) of Castille rose up in revolt. Fifteen Castillian towns gathered to petition the king for democratic reforms, perhaps a constitutional monarchy.

But there was to be no Spanish Magna Carta. The nobles joined their king in putting down the rebellion. The comunero leaders were executed, and as they died, the idea of democracy in Spain and its colonies died with them. There were no more democratic uprisings during the three centuries of Spanish Empire. The effective democratic movements of 1776 in the American colonies and 1789 in France did not spread to New Spain. The separate political paths of Mexico and its neighbor were set 250 years before Jefferson's Declaration. The deaths of the comuneros had ended the democratic rebellion, and the tightening of the connection between the king and his nobles had begun an absolutist and centralist tradition in Spain, old and new.

Well, that seems to have great world-historical importance. Many in the United States have wondered why American political traditions and institutions often fare so poorly in the nations to the south. Well, it seems we have a concise answer right there.

The last date, 1588 is again a well known one, the year of the Armada. The year that everything went south for Spain. The weather was more to blame for Spain's defeat than the English, but it did mark the beginning of the end. Spain would remain a power in fact for a good while more - Spanish tercios played a major role in the Thirty Year's War, but their role grew ever smaller.

Fascinating. I think I shall have to buy the book.