Outside Spain Ferdinand and Isabella are known for backing the Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus... after he tried to get financial backing (without success) from other wealthy patrons. You may be tempted to say... Christopher is the real hero... he was the one sitting at the helm when the Boats dropped anchor off an island in the Bahamas archipelago. But a growing number of historians are portraying Christopher as a 'nutter'... nearly all his decisions and motivations were weird... his governorship of the Hispaniola islands was a disaster... his best skills may have been espionage and betrayal!
But in1492, after Columbus ran out of friends in Lisbon... and couldn't get to meet the right people in Rome... Ferdinand and Isabella hired this nutter... gave him just enough money to get the job done... managing the insane is never easy. But Spain didn't have the sail technology to take on the Portuguese in a race around Cape Of Good Hope... and was forced into the high risk strategy of sailing west to discover the east... and it was only nutters who would take on the job.
Ferdinand and Isabella made the investment that brought a flood of gold and silver into Spain for centuries... allowing it military significance and political influence unlike any previous period. These co-sovereigns... in just one investment decision lifted Spain from a middle player in second division politics to be a leader in the first division. For people of modest ambition (like you and me) that achievement may be enough. But the Americas was just one small achievement for the Co-sovereigns.
At marriage, Ferdinand was from the ruling house of Aragon... and Isabella was from the ruling house in Castile. Neither had clear titles to their kingdoms... but they wrote a prenuptial agreement setting out how a co-sovereignty would operate if they did gain clear title. They fought a few battles and managed to unite the houses of Castile and Aragon. Then, they turned their attention to the remaining Moorish kingdom in Spain, the Nasrid dynasty in Granada. They used military force and negotiation to gain control of Andalusia... collecting a fortune from the Nasrids in exchange for agreement to allow Islamists to stay in the province and practice their religion freely.
In March 1492, the monarchs issued the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews, also called the Alhambra Decree, a document which ordered all Jews either to be baptized and convert to Christianity or to leave the country. It allowed Moors (Islamic) and converted Jews to stay, while expelling all unconverted Jews from Castile and Aragon. As with all mass expulsions, the number of deaths along the roads out of Spain were large. Many Jewish communities all across Europe, that later fascinated Adolf Hitler, had their origins in the 15th century expulsions from Spain.
Another gigantic achievement was their negotiating the Treaty of Tordesillas(in 1494) that divided the entire world beyond Europe between Portugal and Castile (Spain) for conquest and dominion purposes — by a north-south line drawn down the Atlantic Ocean. Not a bad achievement for a couple from regional families who hadn't ventured beyond Spain.
So, here is the question. Are Ferdinand and Isabella heroes or villains?
You can say that Spain benefited from the rivers of gold that the Co-sovereigns initiated. They left Spain a larger and more unified kingdom. They left a good government bureaucracy and good infrastructure. All this sounds good.
But they left a stain on the heart of Spain... an Inquisition that would sap the country's energy for centuries. They expelled from their country some of the most clever people of their time. Civilisation, technology and culture suffered major setbacks. Pretty bad... don't you think?
But, whichever way you look at it, Ferdinand and Isabella were 'big stage' players... they changed the course of world history.
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