Yeah, the audio was rough in the first half with their audio desyncing and overlapping at several points. I groaned inside when the text came up saying that the audio in the second half would get worse.
8:12 I forgot where I read this, but I once read about a theory that Columbus deliberately reported miscalculations on the size of the earth on purpose. The argument was that Columbus was set in a context where sea exploration, for the goal of finding new trade routes mostly, was an extremely competitive and aggressive endeavor. Any knowledge gained about the seas - wind directions, locations of islands, etc) - was kept as closely guarded secrets. Thus, Columbus reported obviously incorrect numbers as a way to keep other explorers from trying to follow his footsteps by making himself look like a fool. The king and queen of Spain, however, could guess that Columbus had information that he wasn’t telling, and therefore were more willing to bet on his ambitious plan.
Yes, every scientist since the ancient Babylonians knew roughly the size of the globe. It was fairly easy to calculate based on comparing the angles of shadows at known times and locations. Then Columbus comes along without any evidence to say that the world is a quarter of the known size and it is thus easy to sail the wrong way around to reach Cathay. Even Magellan failed at that task. The only rational explanation that makes any sense at all is the time-traveler hypothesis of Orson Scott Card's PastWatch novel. In the O.G. timeline Columbus was going to retake Constantinople, but instead he was given a holy vision that sent him West rather than East, a few decades before the Azteca would have been able to conquer Europe in a reverse-Columbian exchange.
@FozzyBBear It's like you're trying to say the Packers would have beat the Bulls in the Stanley Cup. A) disease B) the ocean C) why didn't the Zulus or Japanese or Kmer do the conquer Europe trick you posit here? D) the Mongols did it, but hyperaggressive societies regress toward the mean, and no ocean to cross and centuries of contact with the Chinese
Colombus was married to the daughter of the Portuguese vice governor of the island of Madeira! so he was amongst the 1st to get the news from returning Portuguese Caravels, once Colombus returned to spain baddabing badabang the Portuguese Discover Brasil and sign a new treaty to include it... it was also rewritten several times until the Portuguese could get the closest pararell without enterering the Spanish carabeans which... where suposedely Portuguese in accordance to the old sharing treaty! So he knew there were islands in there! ofc it also meant that most of northern India technically belonged to Spain such as Ormuz which would suck to buy spices from the Spanish and then the Portuguese would only get the trading fees of carrying it! so new treaty ... the Portuguese get India Spain the new world minus Brasil Uruguay and the Canadians eastern Islands... the spanish got 10% of land mass and 90% non potable waters!
According to Von Humboldt, a german man explorer and scientist, a peasant in the Spanish America was wealthier not only than one in the US but Europe as well... Therefore we might deduce that their poverty comes after independence. You need to double check your bibliography.
One of the more underrated empires in industry. They converted a whole continent to Catholicism and discovered 1.5 continents. Bad trade policy, not creating diversified economies in their colonies, bad monetary policy, and Hapsburg inbreeding ultimately brought Spain down.
YES!!! MY HISTORIC SPECIALITY FINALLY!!! (Thanks to Rudyard for getting me to learn more about where I’m from through the Latin American video. You are forever the reason why I keep learning more history.)
I know american love the self flagelation of calling everything collonies, but south Spain was liberated from moorish colonisers and américas turned pretty fast into viceroyalties with equal standing to the peninsular provinces of spain
One of the most interesting topics ever as it is fascinating to see how different "flavors" of culture influence large areas of the world through colonization. 🇪🇸 Videos on the French 🇫🇷 and British 🇬🇧 (maybe even Dutch 🇳🇱) Empires to supplement this one would be absolutely fascinating
Nah I didn't say civilization just culture. Fascinating to compare different cultures and empire-management techniques whose effects are still seen in todays world
Some corrections: -Christian Spain wasnt the poorest country in western europe, instead it was one of the richest due to social structure -Jews were converted in great numbers and only the ones that didnt convert flee the peninsula -Inquisition wasnt a bloodshell, there were more agressive "religious" prossecution on northrent europe by far. Also inquisition cannot judge any native people -The crown made laws to prevent enslavement of native peoples, laws of Salamanca prohibit native slavery and the crown fought hard to cambat the conquerers -Spain had lots of creativity, you can check the wonderpull painters, writers and artist that Spain had in the renaissance. Opened most of the overseas trade routes and had a vibrant economy -The "colonies" of Spain werent extractive colonies, were in the same status as the european parts of the empire and was much more brutal for castillians or aragonese. -Latin america is more poor due to the lack of unity that the other european powers impose on it after the independence. Breaking the once very large Virreinatos into lots of small countries
@@yanx4797 no, its not small, but you should think that the portuguese colony were on the coast, pushing inland is more a Brazilian independent thing, and Brazil didnt have large wars against the crown nor too many internal conflict as, for example Mexico or Colombia. Also is not part of the Spanish Empire so they have a similar but different organization.
@@vonartal381 Regardless, division and size differences should not be the reason for being poor (just look at Europe). And from what I have heard Argentina Was fairly wealthy until it declined during the 20th century.
@@yanx4797 yeah, but Argentina was mostly depopulated, the south was not colonized yet. What i mean by division y the dissolution of the old political entities
This was hard to watch.. think this channel is just becoming a circle jerk for rudyard, he doesn’t even care about anything this guy has to say when he’s supposed to be “teaching” him
@@utarefson9 First he said the Latin American colonies were poorer than other ones when in fact at the moment of their independence were actually richer than other colonies in the Americans and most of Europe second Spain wasn’t the poorest country in Western Europe during Medieval times that actually it was actually richer than a lot of places of Western Europe. Spanish Inquisition was brutal but wasn’t actually worse the largest persecutions in Germany for example and other places and definitely not more than the papal inquisition anybody who has studied or even read something about history will know that. He implies that in Spanish inquisition there was no notion of innocent proven guilty when in fact at that time it was the tribunal with the most guarantees in Europe to the people who had to confront it. There are more errors but these are the ones that come to mind first but honestly just grab a book about history of these places or even look at other comments in the section and you will find other errors or I don’t know if there errors are just pure ignorance. I mean I cannot really remember everything that he has said as I watch the video some hours ago but it was just embarrassing. I mean he said he has read more than normal people. I mean maybe it’s true because normal people not really read but I don’t know what books he has read but maybe only Dutch or English books from the 16th or 17th century because anybody who has studied history of those places after those centuries will know that what he says is pure nonsense
Dude the errors you listed aren't errors from the video they are errors you wanted to find in the video. The corrections you made were things that were said in the video.
19:47 A few things that get memory-holed about the Spanish Inquisition is that the Reconquista was a victory for Christianity in Iberia overshadowed by Mehemet's conquest of Constantinople and Ottoman expansion into the Mediterranean. Even as the Spaniards were moving in on the New World, Ottoman-backed pirates out of northern Africa - Jizrat al-Maghreb ("Island of the West" in Arabic) were depopulating the coasts of Iberia and other parts of southern Europe with razzias. The Spanish Inquisition kicked off to root out probable fifth-columnists that might welcome the Ottomans in the way the Ummayids were, but it devolved into a purity-spiral of neighbors ratting out neighbors for not social distancing.
I have been LOVING this channel! Thank you both! I wish the interviewer did more research on the topics in order to provide a more challenging debate/discussion though. Looking forward to many more of these though. Would love one on Brazil/Portuguese culture/history! 🇧🇷
Rudyard I love your work followed for years. Experiment with different camera angles. Not because you look bad but rather I think a topish left/right slightly down angel like a lot of streamers would make the channels look a lot more clean cutish if that makes sense. I'm just autistic and this is out of love.
I been watching your videos for quite a time now, and I find them quite entertaining and fun. In addition, I would like to point that you have gained a lot of quality over time and that each video is better that the last. Great improvement for sure! That said, I have noticed in some of your videos that every time the Portuguese or the Spanish empire are treated, you have this strange image of them being almost failed empires, exporters of decadence, corruption, mistreatment of their subjects and that they destroyed everything they touched. I never commented before on RUclips, but for this video, I wanted to point some characteristics to the Spanish empire and why I find some of your perceptions incorrect or not fair when talking about it. It Is true that in the academic world it has always being the trend to identify the “bad habits” of the Portuguese and Spanish empires, and why the are the reasons of the “failures” of their old colonies. But it is also true that in recent years, more focused and unbiased (modern) works had being done in the matter and started to challenge these assumptions some decades ago. Of course, my arguments are based on these new studies and I will add some of my favorite works on the matter (I will only add work in English) I have to warn you all that the post is very large! So feel free to go just for the bibliography if you find the post boring: P Some interesting bibliography: - By far the one of the best work, I have ever read about the topic. It explain how the empire was not based on an extractive wealth economy and that intercontinental trade was common and necessary for the existence of the empire. It has a very interesting argument about how the collapse of the intercontinental economic system was the origin of the politic unrest (and civil wars and unrest) and not the other way around: www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/Research/GEHN/GEHNWP23-IrigoinGrafe.pdf - Independence’s effects on the economies of latin American countries eprints.lse.ac.uk/22482/1/wp10.pdf - Economic growth of latin american countries from 1820 to actuality. scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0719-04332011000200001 - Of course, anything written by John Elliot is pure gold and totally unavoidable if you like the topic of the spanish empire. I let here a PDF link to one of the books, but shhh :P cheirif.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/j-h-elliott-imperial-spain_-1469-1716-penguin-books-2002.pdf Now, some of my concerns about some of your points in the video; 1) Latin America does not behave as a western European nation. We could argue about what to “behave as a western European nation” means, but anyways; Of course latin america has slightly different approaches to politics, culture, way of life, and so on, but I’m not sure they cannot be considered as western countries. In fact, their political systems are based on the Presidential system of the USA, and many cultural traits are the same as in Spain o Portugal (with differences, of course). At the end, they are close to the Spanish and Portuguese culture (and vice versa, because a lot of what is now Spain comes from the Imperial period). For example, Latin American history in the XIX century has many similarities with Spanish one. Instability and unrest, constant changes of regimes, civil wars and economic devaluation (notably because of the previous reasons), and civil wars were a common thing in Latin America, but also Spain. In fact XIX century Spain witnessed a sequel of coups, countercoups, civil wars, restorations and constitutional experiment, just like (if not worst) the territories in Latin America In tends to be attributed to the end of the Spanish Empire and the consequent instability that this created. Like the end of the Roman Empire, the loss of governance, legitimacy and political authority was happening in all the territories at the same time and provoked vacuum of powers that made emerged factions that ended up fighting for power and resources. Every part of the empire was now crumbling and fighting for his own piece of land. Even the independence wars happened in different contexts and timings. For example, the Argentinian revolution started because of the will to obtain a more libertarian government (not tolerated by Spain) and avoid commercial tariffs but Mexico’s one really succeeded after the government in Spain enhanced the Liberal Constitution on 1820. Mexican elites saw this liberal constitution as an attack to the “criollo” elites and therefore decided to declare independence to maintain a status quo. As you see, every Latin American country as a different origin history. We could also point out; that during his timeframe, the Spanish Empire in the Americas was quite stable. Not big rebellions, revolts nor independent movements until the French invasion of 1808. That can only be explain if the population was relatively conformed to the situation. We have to think of the elites being okay with the situation but also the lower classes. The backbone of Spanish America, Native Americans and mixed population, seems to have been in consonance with the imperial policies. Of course, revolts happened when taxes were raised and policies not fair, but is IMPOSIBLE to maintain a system during more than 3 centuries without the validation of the subjects. P.S: 2 tiny things I saw that were incorrect or that need a little bit of further information. 1) You mention that the Spaniards enslaved the native population but it was not the real situation. The natives had a different status from other social classes (Peninsulars, creoles, free blacks and slaves) with benefits and downsides. Of course being a white born Spanish was the best and being an slave was utter shit, but neither of the classes had full disadvantages (except, again, slaves). For example, native population could not be touched by the inquisition or they had granted free access (payed by the state) when having to use the Spanish “judicial system” to which they had access to defend themselves (like slaves, they had an status on the system and were able to use some of the benefits of a complex estate). In the bad side? Many things… forced to work for a low salary, had to pay taxes and could not access some post of the Spanish bureaucracy, and a long list of mistreatments. However, at the end of the day, they were not enslaved but integrated in the civic life (for the good or the bad). 2) Casta systems, I have read a lot about them and the general conception in the scholar ambit is that we do not have enough data to confirm is existence. The “casta paintings” do not give information about their existence. In fact, they show a lot about the Spanish American territories; how they lived, what they ate, what they worked on and how they mixed. However, they never showed that a caste system existed. It is sure that differences between the social classes existed, but it seemed closer to the medieval states. The reasoning behind this conception is the fluidity between the classes. In a caste system, it is impossible. For example, in USA or South Africa during the apartheid a black person would be forever a black person. You cannot enter a bathroom only for with people and for sure, you will not be able to become white. he cannot change his legal situation, nor move between the social classes. In the Spanish system, fluidity between these classes existed (they were low). In fact, at the end of the XVIII century, a “mestizo” could pay money and became “white” therefore climbing posts in the social echelon. A similar situation could be found in different Europeans countries were titles of nobility could be purchased by a bourgeois to become a nobleman and gain access to better status and the right to work on some administrative positions. At the end of the day, color or race was not the main issue (a big issue, for sure, but not the driving force) but a secondary one to religion, quality of the family, nobility and status given by your job. That would explain the differences between natives among themselves. Natives that were part of the nobility were excepted to work or to pay taxes and could carry guns and ride horses. In contradiction, low class Spaniards that had to kill themselves on serfdom in Andalucía for a cacique had quite few rights. Best to be from peninsular Spain than a Criollo (bot white, but what matters is the origin), as better to be a Native Nobleman than a low born Spanish in the peninsular Spain, but better to be a peasnt on spain that a native peasant in America.
Would you look at the Dutch Empire? They're a mix of the Spanish and British. And by the end of the 19th century they tried hard to reform and become more like British. But it didn't work of course.
I wouldnt say that, basically they exploited the locals to extract raw materials, never mixing with them. Its the opposite of spain. Just look at the philippines compared to indonesia, the philippines is full of spanish influence, there is no Dutch influence in Indonesia
You should do more that are super outside even the average history buff's radar, like this, India, Southeast Asia, Africa. One on Brazil would be a cool one. Ethiopia is one I'd love you to cover. Keep up the good work!
The only reason Latam is poorer than US is that we don't have liberal economies, we didn't adopt liberalism in the XXth century, and started to lose the edge. Up until the XXth century Latam was the same or better than Western Europe. Everything else is black legend.
@DiotimaMantinea-qm5yt Indeed. Its the perfect tool to expunge the politicians failure "oh its not my fault its what happened centuries ago" And the leftists love to push that shit, since they want people to forget about the past, and just embrace socialism.
What the Anglo mindset has to understand is that the Spanish Kingdom didn’t have colonies. All the territories they conquered were part of their Kingdom with the same status and rights as Madrid, Barcelona or Seville.
Don’t blame Spain for the genocidal Protestant sins. As opposed to the English settlers, the Spanish mixed with the local people. They were some of the most religious and least racist cultures of that time.
Didn’t New Spain have a caste system that explicitly favored Spaniards, Peninsulares, who were born in Spain rather than the new world? The church should be given credit for treating the natives well, but the Spanish landlords and their encomiendas were ruthless.
I recommend to read the "La Insubordinacion Fundante" (Founding Insubordination) of Marcelo Gullo. Would give a more balanced view in economics and realpolitik terms to how countries developed in those times by challenging the hegemonic economic power.
Boy your takes on the hispanic history are agresively Anglocentric. XD It's not your fault, most of the english sources are blur by the black legend and only recently the hispanic historiography is working on a more truth and nuance view of the imperial period. Sadly, most of this work is not available in english so again, not your fault. Maybe you could push for translations of it, so you could refine your view of the hispanic world. Still I love your work!!!
I greatly respect his work but if you look at his bibliography of recommended books on the Spanish empire, they are all written by English authors. Imagine reading about China and not reading any Chinese authors. That's why I think he has drawn conclusions that are too superficial and he needs to see new perspectives.
@@scz4611I am from south america and it kinda surprises how shallow their knowledge of this region is and it isn't just about being Anglocentric or just read anglo authors, I mean there are anglo parlant authors that have dedicated their lives to study south america and hispanic history and they do a pretty good job unraveling historic points that sometimes hispanic authors don't pay attention to, for example some interesting takes in the region wide and geopolitical implications or certain local events and conflicts like the 1000 days war in colombia. I think that read local authors from a region your are studying is important, however there are people from other cultures who have studied said regions who can have really interesting takes and notice things that locals tend to ignore or even be more neutral and objective while analizying certain events. So I have reach the conclusion that these guys who did this video are just not interested enough the hispanic world, the south american region and hispanic history to really dig deeper in the region's rabbit hole and that is ok, no one has to be interested in everything and everywhere but if you are going to make a 1 hour long video about it you better try to dig a little deeper.
Extremely anglocentric. I commented something similar. Anglo sources are also pretty bad for the History of France, it's not just Spain. I've been studying Spanish and Latin American/Caribbean history for over 20 years and some of his points here were just flat out wrong. Spain was extremely rich and creative during this era. They had vast reserves of Gold, centralized before other European countries, and disproportionately contributed to the arts and humanities at this point. Plenty of famous Spanish painters, architects, and writers at this time.
You haven't read the sources, Colon wasn't as bad as the left says. You've read English and Spanish black legend. RE-read it and if you know Peru, read its actual historians they tell a completely different story. Like Maria Rostorowski.
A lot of people whining way too much in the comments…Just enjoy the loose off the cuff format here. Rudyard is still dropping a lot of interesting factoids and tho I wish Eric was a bit better prepared with questions this content is still really good and I appreciate their efforts and hope they keep it going.
Love the history n ur wide knowledge of the past. But hate that ur limited to time, would prefer if u could jus make multiple parts, so can rly geek out n get into the details n wutnot. Shits interesting, way to many ppl gloss over our history, way more should try n understand what n y it all happened.
There’s a book called why nations failed. It covers how the British tried a wealth extraction model in North America but it didn’t work. But they did do it in India. Therefore they had to incentivise people in North America to work and colonise
Even if I'm not Spanish, i know that this man is just speaking no sense, I'm a mestizo and the only question is where are the natives that where in the USA when the British empire and Anglo-Americans started their own colonization
Pre Hispanic civilizations were not stone age civilizations, most of them knew how to work gold, silver, copper and bronze. It's still baffling to me that so called historians keep getting this wrong.
My family is from Colombia, they come from Spanish monarchy In Colombia even 20 years ago we had really old traditions like el derecho a la perna, it is all aristocratic and we the criollos compose the elite in most of our countries
Nojodas, Yo sí soy de Colombia y estudie derecho, nosotros ni siquiera tenemos pena de muerte desde hace 100 años. Derecho de pernada es una locura y no, no existía ni siquiera hace 500 años.
This explains a lot about the issues of the Philippine government system despite the government system had being influenced by the Americans, the short sightedness of Filipino culture, and even the stereotype we have called "Juan Tamad" (Lazy John).
I don't wanna complain like all the other comments since I like this co-host more than the previous but I am surprised to see the editing be so lax or even nonexistent. Appreciate Erik's patience and attitude and Rudyard's explanations but definitely want longer videos (not necessarily more structured as others mention as that may actually castrate conversation).
Spanish empire was planned as a colection of small kingdoms, i miss you didnt talk about the Austrias-Borbon change in dinamics after 1700, lot of things changed
55:50 I kinda get the gym metaphor (the "because they took the easy route" part), but also not (the confusing part about short / long term stuff) 😅 Could someone enlighten me?
Actually I'm an Hispanic-American born and raised in NYC and my wife is a Filipina and I must say that Filipinos for the most part aren't really culturally Hispanic.
35:18 @DJPeachCobbler actually has an amazing 3 part series on how the Spanish & allied enemy nations used each other to take The Aztecs king, which lead to the series of events that has the Spanish win. ruclips.net/p/PLpN74e1-UM2LrtwKBQbZl20iH8tpsH9oB&si=88zCkAaRxpD3oNuu Also, at 33:17 that was His sex slave. Not mistress
better than most but can still see the influence of english propaganda badmouthing Spain (adding a few spanish books may help with that perspective) - The crown outlawed the native slavery from the start (queen Isabela declared them to be her subject with rights like everyone else), and went repetedly against encomiendas wich was resisted ba latin societies. Peru faught a war between the conquistadors and the first couple vicerois for this in the early mid 1500's - The crown took only 20% of the riches produced (still a lot) most was used for the developement of America, why you see big cathedrals, universities and other structures in latinamerica that the north never got, also in running and defending the area against pirates and the british. - Peasant had the same or better living conditions in america than Europe or US - Peninsulares were sent to run the americas mostly cause the high corruption and abuse of the locals, the dference wasnt as strong before the borbonic reforms - Revolutionaries grabed the chance to go for independence in a weak spot for Spain they mostly came from from the high class of the americas and studied in Europe and had english and mason influences - Independence, at least in Peru and Bolivia, was forced by Bolivar and San Martin, were most of the country fought for Spain. the local conflict was more coast vs highlands and both liked the spaniards more than the other. - Most issues sterm from the newly independent ruling classes that tore down previous structures, and populist or autoritarian rulers down the line. - In Peru Bolivar did more damage than all the spaniards put togerther; taking big areas for his Gran Colombia, or to make a new country named after himself, wrecked the army and economy so Peru wasnt dominant in the continent as it was under Spain and put a bunch of the first presidents from colombians and venezuelans to keep control - English and French comertial intrerests and manipulations have a lot todo with many problems and conflicts in independent South America - Argentina was among the richest countries in the world until the peronists killed the economy A lot of it is geography (many factors conspire in this things and each sees more weight in the ones he studies) - Spain found a super resourse rich area North America had no other choice than to work for it, the same resourse curse you see around the world. - US east is all flat and easily conected in Latin america you have mountains and jungles separating the territory impeding interconectedness and developement - Geographic separation led to many areas wanting to run themselves, while US is so conected that a bunch of separate colonies decided to merge - South America is a lot more isolated and removed from other continents and hence global trade than the north
My biggest problem is the thumbnail and early seconds image just swiping off hispanic territory in what today is USA and Canada, under formal control or not.
There's a bunch of minor innacuracies here. Min 29 he says "the colonies could only trade with some specific spanish ports which led to monopoly and etc" (Namely Seville), That's true, but he fails to mention that was common policy in ALL colonial empires, including the French and British... it's called colonial mercantilism.. almost EVERY colony until the 19th century could ONLY trade with the metropole No mention of the taxing of Castille to fund the Spanish wars for instance, whereas the colonies were not taxed. The regional differences in Spain wrt to the colonies, the privileges of each region,
Unfortunately I expect they do not look at it as the greatest strategic powerplay of all time. Iberian peninsuala goes from being ruled by foreigners an occupied arab colony to ruling about 1/3 of the world in the space of 100 years, this was the resurgence of the Roman empire, the globalization of Roma and it outflanked the Islamic world in a struggle betwen Islam and Christianity that is impolitic to point out but that is obviously ongoing. Though Rudyard might be able to bring in Don Quijote or anecdotal cultural views which make it entertaining and even at times enlightening. Basically I exect his under-developed methodology to flourish and he goes at it all from the perspective opposite to mine, not politically but as a matter of method. The Spanish Empire was Rome 2.0 I still think the buddhists will outflank the monotheists.
I lived in Brazil for 14 years and there some truth. Brazil is a low trust society. I am from latin america and I feel the US is changing and becoming like Latin America.
Aragon is NOT Catalonia. There are many factors that divide the catalans from the rest of spain and pertinent to this case Aragon. The mediterranean climate wereas aragon has more of a continental / steppe / alpine climate, the geography like the mediterranean ports which make catalonia much more connected with the other mediterranean countries than Aragon with cities like Barcelona being more simmilar in many ways to Marseille or Genova than Zaragoza for example. The language of course, the already dead aragonese language was part of the Iberian group of descendants of latin, which means that it was more similar to old Castilian, Galician, Bable or Portuguese than Catalan which is part of the Occitain group of languages, that is it was more similar to how the southern French spoke, which used to be pretty different from French but northern French Nationalism killed those languages. Also historical differences, for example, Catalonia was the first place to be Romanized, also one of the few places in Spain to have Greek and Phoenician colonies, also has had much more fluent contact with what today is southern France thanks to the Pyrenees being more passable on their border, and more maritime trade, also catalonia was the first place to be industrialized in spain, Aragon is still struggling with that. And also more generally their culture is very different, Catalans are mediterranean traders, Aragonese are continental mountain people in essence. One is trying to sell you something the other is trying to head butt you. And of course theres probaly stuff im missing, specially since im not from those areas, but hopefully this goes to show how ignorant of your ignorance you can be and how hard is to disprove a simple 3 second sentence in an hour long video of an arrogant ignorant, ignorant of his ignorance.
14:21 they even expelled those that converted in fear that they would be false converts. I remember this from a conference in Seville, I don't have further reference sorry
At 12:24, I have. That’s a great song “Inquisition: The Musical” from a hilarious movie “History of the World: Part I” (1981). He’s a Jew and I’m a Muslim, and it was rather dark comedy for him to appear as Torquemada like that, but that’s my favorite flavor of entertainment. Last year, Part II was Mel Brooks’ television show, which was rather disappointing and I think only watched one, maybe two episodes. The part I remembered from that show was the predictive programming where he joked about the coming civil war in 2024 (which is this year).
These are such big topics. Perhaps a History 103 is in order at some point in the future. Your specialty is on the Middle Ages. Here are some specific topics that you could spend half an hour or one hour, focusing on perhaps 1000 to 1200 AD in Western Europe: - Heresies - Medieval Inquisitions - Jews and Christians - The Origins of Scholasticism - Aquinas and the Problem of Aristotle - The First Universities The People's Crusade - The Conquest of Jerusalem - The Norman Conquest - Philip II of France - Magna Carta These are actual lecture titles by the Teaching Company on the High Middle Ages by Dr. Daileader. Maybe you could modify them with your research and analysis. Of course, it’s just a humble suggestion. I shall continue to watch the playlist to its conclusion.
39:30. That was one reason. Another key reason was because of the fact that most of the natives died due to disease. The Portuguese and later the Spanish needed a cheap, easy-to-replace workforce that was resistant to the tropical diseases present in the Americas. West Africa was simply the most convenient source of manual laborers.
Yeah I know that one! I showed the inquisition from history of the world part II in my class one time lol I don’t remember what it was for but it’s funny remembering that 😂
They founded trade depots, but never had the population to really colonize anywhere. Napoleon invaded the Iberian peninsula, the Portuguese nobility fled to the one place that they did resettle, Brazil, and eventually that nobility declared Brazil it's own Kingdom independent of Portugal.
I know you guys are Americans which is why you want to talk about Christopher Columbus, though for the very beginning of the Age of Discovery, I think you should have talked about Portugal and Henry the Navigator instead FIRST but yeah, its a big topic
Yo Rudyard, respectfully, I think you were off in this one. Been studying Spanish and Latin American/Caribbean history for over 20 years now and a lot of your statements run contrary to most accepted and rigurous sources. Anglo sources tend to be off in both French and Spanish History, very contradictory to what the French and Spanish sources themselves say. If I were you, I'd do more research and not rely on Anglo source so much for the History of some of its main rivals. I think you usually put in a good faith efdort to find the truth, but honestly for this one, it would seem to me you need to put in more effort. To say Spain was the poorest country in western Europe at this time is silly. It centralized before other western powers and had vast reserves of gold before even even ideating going to "India."
I like the lectures but it would be better if there was a real conversation. Fix the audio and let him ask questions or find somebody that can go back and forth with you.
The 90% diseases mortality estimation is just a myth. The whole myth don't come from any documents or proof, all this idea come from ludicrously large population estimations previous to the conquest, so if some historian make an estimation of (insert estimations between fewer than 20 millions to 100 millions in the whole continent [North and South]) and after the conquest the population is fewer than 20 millions, so therefore the difference between the estimation and the more or least really know numbers of population after conquest, that's the % that died. It's absolutely no serious, all this diseases where new diseases when spread in Europe from Asia, non of them caused very high mortality rates in europeans when europeans don't have immunity at all to them, so the same happened in America. The realistic estimations of population are the lowest, so the real percentages of population lost could be something like 15-20% here, 30% there... Maybe even 50% as maximum in some places (i don't think so). But nothing like the ludicrous 70 to 90% estimations. If this would had happened we should have dozens at least if not hundreds of spanish documents saying "everybody is suddenly dying! It's like an apocalypse!" "We buried 9 of every 10!" "The city is now a ghost city" "they excavated 50 mass graves, we put 200 victims in each one" ...etc Not a single document like that exists, nor mass graves... Nothing. No proof at all. Also i don't think is necessary explain why there wasn't a big population in the continent with most populations being tribes in paleolithic or neolithic stage of development, with only three densely populated areas, one of them in decaying period and without cattle and low developed agriculture tools. It's just a myth.
I'd say Latin America is extremely wealthy... For the white Spanish descendants that still have us a serfs today. It is working as intended. Mostly all of the land is own by those people, they get tax breaks, bribe judges and politicians, are racist towards fellow colombians and have monopolies over the industries
Cortez & 500 Spaniards conquering the 20 million population Aztecs (With something like 12 basic early stage guns, 12 cannons, 16 horses, a couple thousand locals and some diseases) + Pizzaro & 200 Spaniards doing the same to the Incas (~11 million) is one of if not the most badass thing in human history. You shouldn't feel like you can't say it. History seems to mostly talk about conquest, and this was 700 Spanish guys conquering south America, California, Texas, New Mexico in 50 years. Despite resistance from the local Spanish governor and not having the full help of Spain's king. Also I find it interesting that it took the Spanish 700 years to take back Spain from the Muslims (who had 200-300k people) but only 50 years to conquer all of the peoples of South America (30 million +). Europeans invented the majority of what we call civilization today, from technology, to social structures, to law, to morality. And what I find unusual is it's white people who are the ones most pushing for Europeans to be viewed as evil. 90% of people would have died to those diseases even if it hadn't been conquest. Can you even call it conquest when 700 guys successfully conquer 30+ million? Surely there is a point where a better efficiency, science, understanding of how things work makes it likely that at some point they would intercede. Is the modern moral advice meant to be for the Spanish to do nothing and watch Aztecs do human sacrifices and cannibalism on the natives every year? People are at the mercy of others so long as they don't advance, Europeans advanced the whole world so that it's not at the mercy of Europeans anymore. Europeans made the USA, Canada, all the countries of south America, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam etc. And had a lot of influence over the remainder like China & Japan.
0:01 that's not Spanish empire map. in 1620 Spain and Portugal are 2 different Kingdoms with one ruling King, the Spanish King.. that bring lots of problem to Portugal, the dutch start to conquer Portuguese comercial cities in India and large areas in Brazil and that's why in 1640 Portugal had a revolution and kick out the Spanish king. But that map never was the Spanish Empire special the areas in Africa and india that was Portuguese
Nobody would blame you for redoing this video in multiple parts. You skipped over WAY more than usual.
Yeah, the audio was rough in the first half with their audio desyncing and overlapping at several points. I groaned inside when the text came up saying that the audio in the second half would get worse.
It’s 1 hour covering 300 years and 4 continents…
Can we get longer episodes? I like it when rudger can dive deep into a topic
8:12 I forgot where I read this, but I once read about a theory that Columbus deliberately reported miscalculations on the size of the earth on purpose. The argument was that Columbus was set in a context where sea exploration, for the goal of finding new trade routes mostly, was an extremely competitive and aggressive endeavor. Any knowledge gained about the seas - wind directions, locations of islands, etc) - was kept as closely guarded secrets. Thus, Columbus reported obviously incorrect numbers as a way to keep other explorers from trying to follow his footsteps by making himself look like a fool. The king and queen of Spain, however, could guess that Columbus had information that he wasn’t telling, and therefore were more willing to bet on his ambitious plan.
Yes, every scientist since the ancient Babylonians knew roughly the size of the globe. It was fairly easy to calculate based on comparing the angles of shadows at known times and locations. Then Columbus comes along without any evidence to say that the world is a quarter of the known size and it is thus easy to sail the wrong way around to reach Cathay. Even Magellan failed at that task. The only rational explanation that makes any sense at all is the time-traveler hypothesis of Orson Scott Card's PastWatch novel. In the O.G. timeline Columbus was going to retake Constantinople, but instead he was given a holy vision that sent him West rather than East, a few decades before the Azteca would have been able to conquer Europe in a reverse-Columbian exchange.
@FozzyBBear It's like you're trying to say the Packers would have beat the Bulls in the Stanley Cup.
A) disease
B) the ocean
C) why didn't the Zulus or Japanese or Kmer do the conquer Europe trick you posit here?
D) the Mongols did it, but hyperaggressive societies regress toward the mean, and no ocean to cross and centuries of contact with the Chinese
Colombus was married to the daughter of the Portuguese vice governor of the island of Madeira! so he was amongst the 1st to get the news from returning Portuguese Caravels, once Colombus returned to spain baddabing badabang the Portuguese Discover Brasil and sign a new treaty to include it... it was also rewritten several times until the Portuguese could get the closest pararell without enterering the Spanish carabeans which... where suposedely Portuguese in accordance to the old sharing treaty!
So he knew there were islands in there!
ofc it also meant that most of northern India technically belonged to Spain such as Ormuz which would suck to buy spices from the Spanish and then the Portuguese would only get the trading fees of carrying it!
so new treaty ... the Portuguese get India Spain the new world minus Brasil Uruguay and the Canadians eastern Islands...
the spanish got 10% of land mass and 90% non potable waters!
According to Von Humboldt, a german man explorer and scientist, a peasant in the Spanish America was wealthier not only than one in the US but Europe as well...
Therefore we might deduce that their poverty comes after independence.
You need to double check your bibliography.
Yeah, you're completely right. The downfall was after independence.
One of the more underrated empires in industry. They converted a whole continent to Catholicism and discovered 1.5 continents. Bad trade policy, not creating diversified economies in their colonies, bad monetary policy, and Hapsburg inbreeding ultimately brought Spain down.
YES!!! MY HISTORIC SPECIALITY FINALLY!!!
(Thanks to Rudyard for getting me to learn more about where I’m from through the Latin American video. You are forever the reason why I keep learning more history.)
Awww…!
Awww…!
@@WhatifAltHist Why the fuck do you respond to ihs comments but not mine
The video got some things wrong
I know american love the self flagelation of calling everything collonies, but south Spain was liberated from moorish colonisers and américas turned pretty fast into viceroyalties with equal standing to the peninsular provinces of spain
One of the most interesting topics ever as it is fascinating to see how different "flavors" of culture influence large areas of the world through colonization. 🇪🇸
Videos on the French 🇫🇷 and British 🇬🇧 (maybe even Dutch 🇳🇱) Empires to supplement this one would be absolutely fascinating
It's funny to call the British French and Dutch "civilization".
Nah I didn't say civilization just culture. Fascinating to compare different cultures and empire-management techniques whose effects are still seen in todays world
@@mikefromnasa9730 it's a joke
@@RESTITVTOR_TOTIVS_HISPANIAE The Dutch are just a bunch of "Tokkies", some of them with some hustling skills.
Some corrections:
-Christian Spain wasnt the poorest country in western europe, instead it was one of the richest due to social structure
-Jews were converted in great numbers and only the ones that didnt convert flee the peninsula
-Inquisition wasnt a bloodshell, there were more agressive "religious" prossecution on northrent europe by far. Also inquisition cannot judge any native people
-The crown made laws to prevent enslavement of native peoples, laws of Salamanca prohibit native slavery and the crown fought hard to cambat the conquerers
-Spain had lots of creativity, you can check the wonderpull painters, writers and artist that Spain had in the renaissance. Opened most of the overseas trade routes and had a vibrant economy
-The "colonies" of Spain werent extractive colonies, were in the same status as the european parts of the empire and was much more brutal for castillians or aragonese.
-Latin america is more poor due to the lack of unity that the other european powers impose on it after the independence. Breaking the once very large Virreinatos into lots of small countries
This!!!!
For your last point, no the Brazilian empire was by no means small.
@@yanx4797 no, its not small, but you should think that the portuguese colony were on the coast, pushing inland is more a Brazilian independent thing, and Brazil didnt have large wars against the crown nor too many internal conflict as, for example Mexico or Colombia. Also is not part of the Spanish Empire so they have a similar but different organization.
@@vonartal381 Regardless, division and size differences should not be the reason for being poor (just look at Europe). And from what I have heard Argentina Was fairly wealthy until it declined during the 20th century.
@@yanx4797 yeah, but Argentina was mostly depopulated, the south was not colonized yet. What i mean by division y the dissolution of the old political entities
Never thought I’d find something with worse sound editing than Rudyard’s channel.
Ikr I wanna hear the different swooshing noises of various eras worth of swords
This was hard to watch.. think this channel is just becoming a circle jerk for rudyard, he doesn’t even care about anything this guy has to say when he’s supposed to be “teaching” him
It's the same guy
Been feeling real Bonita since this dropped
💀
Next Time, please invite a historian that has actually studied Spanish and Latin-american history. This is embarrasing
Can you please explain his errors?
@@utarefson9 First he said the Latin American colonies were poorer than other ones when in fact at the moment of their independence were actually richer than other colonies in the Americans and most of Europe second Spain wasn’t the poorest country in Western Europe during Medieval times that actually it was actually richer than a lot of places of Western Europe. Spanish Inquisition was brutal but wasn’t actually worse the largest persecutions in Germany for example and other places and definitely not more than the papal inquisition anybody who has studied or even read something about history will know that. He implies that in Spanish inquisition there was no notion of innocent proven guilty when in fact at that time it was the tribunal with the most guarantees in Europe to the people who had to confront it. There are more errors but these are the ones that come to mind first but honestly just grab a book about history of these places or even look at other comments in the section and you will find other errors or I don’t know if there errors are just pure ignorance. I mean I cannot really remember everything that he has said as I watch the video some hours ago but it was just embarrassing. I mean he said he has read more than normal people. I mean maybe it’s true because normal people not really read but I don’t know what books he has read but maybe only Dutch or English books from the 16th or 17th century because anybody who has studied history of those places after those centuries will know that what he says is pure nonsense
Dude the errors you listed aren't errors from the video they are errors you wanted to find in the video. The corrections you made were things that were said in the video.
19:47 A few things that get memory-holed about the Spanish Inquisition is that the Reconquista was a victory for Christianity in Iberia overshadowed by Mehemet's conquest of Constantinople and Ottoman expansion into the Mediterranean. Even as the Spaniards were moving in on the New World, Ottoman-backed pirates out of northern Africa - Jizrat al-Maghreb ("Island of the West" in Arabic) were depopulating the coasts of Iberia and other parts of southern Europe with razzias. The Spanish Inquisition kicked off to root out probable fifth-columnists that might welcome the Ottomans in the way the Ummayids were, but it devolved into a purity-spiral of neighbors ratting out neighbors for not social distancing.
I have been LOVING this channel! Thank you both! I wish the interviewer did more research on the topics in order to provide a more challenging debate/discussion though. Looking forward to many more of these though. Would love one on Brazil/Portuguese culture/history! 🇧🇷
Rudyard I love your work followed for years. Experiment with different camera angles. Not because you look bad but rather I think a topish left/right slightly down angel like a lot of streamers would make the channels look a lot more clean cutish if that makes sense. I'm just autistic and this is out of love.
Great advice
I didn’t expect Rudyard to talk about the Spanish Inquisition
I been watching your videos for quite a time now, and I find them quite entertaining and fun. In addition, I would like to point that you have gained a lot of quality over time and that each video is better that the last.
Great improvement for sure!
That said, I have noticed in some of your videos that every time the Portuguese or the Spanish empire are treated, you have this strange image of them being almost failed empires, exporters of decadence, corruption, mistreatment of their subjects and that they destroyed everything they touched.
I never commented before on RUclips, but for this video, I wanted to point some characteristics to the Spanish empire and why I find some of your perceptions incorrect or not fair when talking about it.
It Is true that in the academic world it has always being the trend to identify the “bad habits” of the Portuguese and Spanish empires, and why the are the reasons of the “failures” of their old colonies. But it is also true that in recent years, more focused and unbiased (modern) works had being done in the matter and started to challenge these assumptions some decades ago. Of course, my arguments are based on these new studies and I will add some of my favorite works on the matter (I will only add work in English)
I have to warn you all that the post is very large! So feel free to go just for the bibliography if you find the post boring: P
Some interesting bibliography:
- By far the one of the best work, I have ever read about the topic. It explain how the empire was not based on an extractive wealth economy and that intercontinental trade was common and necessary for the existence of the empire. It has a very interesting argument about how the collapse of the intercontinental economic system was the origin of the politic unrest (and civil wars and unrest) and not the other way around:
www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/Research/GEHN/GEHNWP23-IrigoinGrafe.pdf
- Independence’s effects on the economies of latin American countries
eprints.lse.ac.uk/22482/1/wp10.pdf
- Economic growth of latin american countries from 1820 to actuality.
scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0719-04332011000200001
- Of course, anything written by John Elliot is pure gold and totally unavoidable if you like the topic of the spanish empire. I let here a PDF link to one of the books, but shhh :P
cheirif.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/j-h-elliott-imperial-spain_-1469-1716-penguin-books-2002.pdf
Now, some of my concerns about some of your points in the video;
1) Latin America does not behave as a western European nation.
We could argue about what to “behave as a western European nation” means, but anyways; Of course latin america has slightly different approaches to politics, culture, way of life, and so on, but I’m not sure they cannot be considered as western countries. In fact, their political systems are based on the Presidential system of the USA, and many cultural traits are the same as in Spain o Portugal (with differences, of course).
At the end, they are close to the Spanish and Portuguese culture (and vice versa, because a lot of what is now Spain comes from the Imperial period). For example, Latin American history in the XIX century has many similarities with Spanish one. Instability and unrest, constant changes of regimes, civil wars and economic devaluation (notably because of the previous reasons), and civil wars were a common thing in Latin America, but also Spain.
In fact XIX century Spain witnessed a sequel of coups, countercoups, civil wars, restorations and constitutional experiment, just like (if not worst) the territories in Latin America
In tends to be attributed to the end of the Spanish Empire and the consequent instability that this created. Like the end of the Roman Empire, the loss of governance, legitimacy and political authority was happening in all the territories at the same time and provoked vacuum of powers that made emerged factions that ended up fighting for power and resources.
Every part of the empire was now crumbling and fighting for his own piece of land.
Even the independence wars happened in different contexts and timings.
For example, the Argentinian revolution started because of the will to obtain a more libertarian government (not tolerated by Spain) and avoid commercial tariffs but Mexico’s one really succeeded after the government in Spain enhanced the Liberal Constitution on 1820. Mexican elites saw this liberal constitution as an attack to the “criollo” elites and therefore decided to declare independence to maintain a status quo.
As you see, every Latin American country as a different origin history.
We could also point out; that during his timeframe, the Spanish Empire in the Americas was quite stable. Not big rebellions, revolts nor independent movements until the French invasion of 1808. That can only be explain if the population was relatively conformed to the situation. We have to think of the elites being okay with the situation but also the lower classes.
The backbone of Spanish America, Native Americans and mixed population, seems to have been in consonance with the imperial policies. Of course, revolts happened when taxes were raised and policies not fair, but is IMPOSIBLE to maintain a system during more than 3 centuries without the validation of the subjects.
P.S: 2 tiny things I saw that were incorrect or that need a little bit of further information.
1) You mention that the Spaniards enslaved the native population but it was not the real situation. The natives had a different status from other social classes (Peninsulars, creoles, free blacks and slaves) with benefits and downsides.
Of course being a white born Spanish was the best and being an slave was utter shit, but neither of the classes had full disadvantages (except, again, slaves). For example, native population could not be touched by the inquisition or they had granted free access (payed by the state) when having to use the Spanish “judicial system” to which they had access to defend themselves (like slaves, they had an status on the system and were able to use some of the benefits of a complex estate).
In the bad side? Many things… forced to work for a low salary, had to pay taxes and could not access some post of the Spanish bureaucracy, and a long list of mistreatments.
However, at the end of the day, they were not enslaved but integrated in the civic life (for the good or the bad).
2) Casta systems,
I have read a lot about them and the general conception in the scholar ambit is that we do not have enough data to confirm is existence. The “casta paintings” do not give information about their existence. In fact, they show a lot about the Spanish American territories; how they lived, what they ate, what they worked on and how they mixed. However, they never showed that a caste system existed.
It is sure that differences between the social classes existed, but it seemed closer to the medieval states.
The reasoning behind this conception is the fluidity between the classes.
In a caste system, it is impossible. For example, in USA or South Africa during the apartheid a black person would be forever a black person. You cannot enter a bathroom only for with people and for sure, you will not be able to become white. he cannot change his legal situation, nor move between the social classes.
In the Spanish system, fluidity between these classes existed (they were low). In fact, at the end of the XVIII century, a “mestizo” could pay money and became “white” therefore climbing posts in the social echelon. A similar situation could be found in different Europeans countries were titles of nobility could be purchased by a bourgeois to become a nobleman and gain access to better status and the right to work on some administrative positions.
At the end of the day, color or race was not the main issue (a big issue, for sure, but not the driving force) but a secondary one to religion, quality of the family, nobility and status given by your job.
That would explain the differences between natives among themselves. Natives that were part of the nobility were excepted to work or to pay taxes and could carry guns and ride horses. In contradiction, low class Spaniards that had to kill themselves on serfdom in Andalucía for a cacique had quite few rights.
Best to be from peninsular Spain than a Criollo (bot white, but what matters is the origin), as better to be a Native Nobleman than a low born Spanish in the peninsular Spain, but better to be a peasnt on spain that a native peasant in America.
Would you look at the Dutch Empire? They're a mix of the Spanish and British. And by the end of the 19th century they tried hard to reform and become more like British. But it didn't work of course.
I wouldnt say that, basically they exploited the locals to extract raw materials, never mixing with them. Its the opposite of spain. Just look at the philippines compared to indonesia, the philippines is full of spanish influence, there is no Dutch influence in Indonesia
The Dutch don’t even come close to how Spain managed her terriories.
You should do more that are super outside even the average history buff's radar, like this, India, Southeast Asia, Africa. One on Brazil would be a cool one. Ethiopia is one I'd love you to cover. Keep up the good work!
This topic deserved a in depth video on the main channel
Could we get this edited properly so responses between the two participants is synced up?
Please fix the sound issues in the middle of the podcast. I want to share it but those sounds problems are a big turn off
Loving these history podcasts.
Me too
Not historically accurate though
@@igotfriendsinlowplaces2971how
The only reason Latam is poorer than US is that we don't have liberal economies, we didn't adopt liberalism in the XXth century, and started to lose the edge. Up until the XXth century Latam was the same or better than Western Europe. Everything else is black legend.
@DiotimaMantinea-qm5yt Indeed. Its the perfect tool to expunge the politicians failure "oh its not my fault its what happened centuries ago"
And the leftists love to push that shit, since they want people to forget about the past, and just embrace socialism.
Now we need one on the Portuguese
What the Anglo mindset has to understand is that the Spanish Kingdom didn’t have colonies. All the territories they conquered were part of their Kingdom with the same status and rights as Madrid, Barcelona or Seville.
There were no independence movements, only secessionist moves heavily promoted by the enemies of Spain, basically France and England.
You are a hundred percent correct.
No wonder they didnt last as long as
Don’t blame Spain for the genocidal Protestant sins. As opposed to the English settlers, the Spanish mixed with the local people. They were some of the most religious and least racist cultures of that time.
Didn’t New Spain have a caste system that explicitly favored Spaniards, Peninsulares, who were born in Spain rather than the new world? The church should be given credit for treating the natives well, but the Spanish landlords and their encomiendas were ruthless.
11:52 - “As I drink my tea, do you have any questions?” 😂
I recommend to read the "La Insubordinacion Fundante" (Founding Insubordination) of Marcelo Gullo.
Would give a more balanced view in economics and realpolitik terms to how countries developed in those times by challenging the hegemonic economic power.
Thoroughly entertaining. Thank you.
Boy your takes on the hispanic history are agresively Anglocentric. XD
It's not your fault, most of the english sources are blur by the black legend and only recently the hispanic historiography is working on a more truth and nuance view of the imperial period.
Sadly, most of this work is not available in english so again, not your fault. Maybe you could push for translations of it, so you could refine your view of the hispanic world.
Still I love your work!!!
I greatly respect his work but if you look at his bibliography of recommended books on the Spanish empire, they are all written by English authors. Imagine reading about China and not reading any Chinese authors. That's why I think he has drawn conclusions that are too superficial and he needs to see new perspectives.
@@scz4611I am from south america and it kinda surprises how shallow their knowledge of this region is and it isn't just about being Anglocentric or just read anglo authors, I mean there are anglo parlant authors that have dedicated their lives to study south america and hispanic history and they do a pretty good job unraveling historic points that sometimes hispanic authors don't pay attention to, for example some interesting takes in the region wide and geopolitical implications or certain local events and conflicts like the 1000 days war in colombia.
I think that read local authors from a region your are studying is important, however there are people from other cultures who have studied said regions who can have really interesting takes and notice things that locals tend to ignore or even be more neutral and objective while analizying certain events.
So I have reach the conclusion that these guys who did this video are just not interested enough the hispanic world, the south american region and hispanic history to really dig deeper in the region's rabbit hole and that is ok, no one has to be interested in everything and everywhere but if you are going to make a 1 hour long video about it you better try to dig a little deeper.
Extremely anglocentric.
I commented something similar. Anglo sources are also pretty bad for the History of France, it's not just Spain.
I've been studying Spanish and Latin American/Caribbean history for over 20 years and some of his points here were just flat out wrong. Spain was extremely rich and creative during this era. They had vast reserves of Gold, centralized before other European countries, and disproportionately contributed to the arts and humanities at this point. Plenty of famous Spanish painters, architects, and writers at this time.
Oh yeah, an hour long episode, sick
You haven't read the sources, Colon wasn't as bad as the left says. You've read English and Spanish black legend. RE-read it and if you know Peru, read its actual historians they tell a completely different story. Like Maria Rostorowski.
The disry of Colon portray the thinking of an evil man.
A lot of people whining way too much in the comments…Just enjoy the loose off the cuff format here. Rudyard is still dropping a lot of interesting factoids and tho I wish Eric was a bit better prepared with questions this content is still really good and I appreciate their efforts and hope they keep it going.
Love the history n ur wide knowledge of the past. But hate that ur limited to time, would prefer if u could jus make multiple parts, so can rly geek out n get into the details n wutnot. Shits interesting, way to many ppl gloss over our history, way more should try n understand what n y it all happened.
There’s a book called why nations failed. It covers how the British tried a wealth extraction model in North America but it didn’t work. But they did do it in India. Therefore they had to incentivise people in North America to work and colonise
Would love to see an "explaining Slavic culture" video
I'll be great for more middle age history content
When as you have mentioned it is being seen as backward dark age but is in fact pretty advanced
Excellent and insightful as usual, Rudyard.
Even if I'm not Spanish, i know that this man is just speaking no sense, I'm a mestizo and the only question is where are the natives that where in the USA when the British empire and Anglo-Americans started their own colonization
I wonder why all those spanish people spoke mexican
This made me think hard lol but there’s two different variations of Spanish just like there’s English UK and English US
Pre Hispanic civilizations were not stone age civilizations, most of them knew how to work gold, silver, copper and bronze.
It's still baffling to me that so called historians keep getting this wrong.
My family is from Colombia, they come from Spanish monarchy
In Colombia even 20 years ago we had really old traditions like el derecho a la perna, it is all aristocratic and we the criollos compose the elite in most of our countries
That’s awesome! is it still as you described in Colombia?
Nojodas, Yo sí soy de Colombia y estudie derecho, nosotros ni siquiera tenemos pena de muerte desde hace 100 años.
Derecho de pernada es una locura y no, no existía ni siquiera hace 500 años.
Lier, no of that ever existed in Colombia.
Great, now I have to play a Spain run on EU4.
its a good game but every game its always the same great powers... try playing as an Asian country for a bit more diversity
This explains a lot about the issues of the Philippine government system despite the government system had being influenced by the Americans, the short sightedness of Filipino culture, and even the stereotype we have called "Juan Tamad" (Lazy John).
Surprised you didn't delve much into The rule of the caliphate played in andalusia and how it shaped Spain
That would be a different video, say 700-1492. This video covers events taking place after 1492.
I don't wanna complain like all the other comments since I like this co-host more than the previous but I am surprised to see the editing be so lax or even nonexistent. Appreciate Erik's patience and attitude and Rudyard's explanations but definitely want longer videos (not necessarily more structured as others mention as that may actually castrate conversation).
Spanish empire was planned as a colection of small kingdoms, i miss you didnt talk about the Austrias-Borbon change in dinamics after 1700, lot of things changed
55:50 I kinda get the gym metaphor (the "because they took the easy route" part), but also not (the confusing part about short / long term stuff) 😅 Could someone enlighten me?
Can I join the next pod. I can be in the background quietly doing stuff.
You can do it by anhero if you’d like
@@RaptorReplays did you just tell me to kys?
Actually I'm an Hispanic-American born and raised in NYC and my wife is a Filipina and I must say that Filipinos for the most part aren't really culturally Hispanic.
You guys still need to change your channel description.
Amazing content! Dude, how do I split a screen on a call like this? Was this call recorded on Skype or somewhere else?
35:18 @DJPeachCobbler actually has an amazing 3 part series on how the Spanish & allied enemy nations used each other to take The Aztecs king, which lead to the series of events that has the Spanish win.
ruclips.net/p/PLpN74e1-UM2LrtwKBQbZl20iH8tpsH9oB&si=88zCkAaRxpD3oNuu
Also, at 33:17 that was His sex slave. Not mistress
better than most but can still see the influence of english propaganda badmouthing Spain (adding a few spanish books may help with that perspective)
- The crown outlawed the native slavery from the start (queen Isabela declared them to be her subject with rights like everyone else), and went repetedly against encomiendas wich was resisted ba latin societies. Peru faught a war between the conquistadors and the first couple vicerois for this in the early mid 1500's
- The crown took only 20% of the riches produced (still a lot) most was used for the developement of America, why you see big cathedrals, universities and other structures in latinamerica that the north never got, also in running and defending the area against pirates and the british.
- Peasant had the same or better living conditions in america than Europe or US
- Peninsulares were sent to run the americas mostly cause the high corruption and abuse of the locals, the dference wasnt as strong before the borbonic reforms
- Revolutionaries grabed the chance to go for independence in a weak spot for Spain they mostly came from from the high class of the americas and studied in Europe and had english and mason influences
- Independence, at least in Peru and Bolivia, was forced by Bolivar and San Martin, were most of the country fought for Spain. the local conflict was more coast vs highlands and both liked the spaniards more than the other.
- Most issues sterm from the newly independent ruling classes that tore down previous structures, and populist or autoritarian rulers down the line.
- In Peru Bolivar did more damage than all the spaniards put togerther; taking big areas for his Gran Colombia, or to make a new country named after himself, wrecked the army and economy so Peru wasnt dominant in the continent as it was under Spain and put a bunch of the first presidents from colombians and venezuelans to keep control
- English and French comertial intrerests and manipulations have a lot todo with many problems and conflicts in independent South America
- Argentina was among the richest countries in the world until the peronists killed the economy
A lot of it is geography (many factors conspire in this things and each sees more weight in the ones he studies)
- Spain found a super resourse rich area North America had no other choice than to work for it, the same resourse curse you see around the world.
- US east is all flat and easily conected in Latin america you have mountains and jungles separating the territory impeding interconectedness and developement
- Geographic separation led to many areas wanting to run themselves, while US is so conected that a bunch of separate colonies decided to merge
- South America is a lot more isolated and removed from other continents and hence global trade than the north
My biggest problem is the thumbnail and early seconds image just swiping off hispanic territory in what today is USA and Canada, under formal control or not.
Can you suggest any good books on the Caudillos and Gauchos in South America?
The audio of the hosts are not synched. Seems like Rudyard is ahead in time.
Hey Rudyard, can you do a video on the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms Era? And a separate video on the Tang Dynasty?
There's a bunch of minor innacuracies here.
Min 29 he says "the colonies could only trade with some specific spanish ports which led to monopoly and etc" (Namely Seville), That's true, but he fails to mention that was common policy in ALL colonial empires, including the French and British... it's called colonial mercantilism.. almost EVERY colony until the 19th century could ONLY trade with the metropole
No mention of the taxing of Castille to fund the Spanish wars for instance, whereas the colonies were not taxed.
The regional differences in Spain wrt to the colonies, the privileges of each region,
Unfortunately I expect they do not look at it as the greatest strategic powerplay of all time. Iberian peninsuala goes from being ruled by foreigners an occupied arab colony to ruling about 1/3 of the world in the space of 100 years, this was the resurgence of the Roman empire, the globalization of Roma and it outflanked the Islamic world in a struggle betwen Islam and Christianity that is impolitic to point out but that is obviously ongoing. Though Rudyard might be able to bring in Don Quijote or anecdotal cultural views which make it entertaining and even at times enlightening. Basically I exect his under-developed methodology to flourish and he goes at it all from the perspective opposite to mine, not politically but as a matter of method. The Spanish Empire was Rome 2.0
I still think the buddhists will outflank the monotheists.
I lived in Brazil for 14 years and there some truth. Brazil is a low trust society. I am from latin america and I feel the US is changing and becoming like Latin America.
Brasil é uma sociedade onde poucos confiam um aos outros mas nem sempre foi assim e muito menos é devido a nossa herança Ibérica.
@@joao.fenix1473 exatamente
This was painful to watch given your captive audience couldn't say or contribute anything.
Interesting, but painful.
Yes, very distracting
Aragon is NOT Catalonia. There are many factors that divide the catalans from the rest of spain and pertinent to this case Aragon. The mediterranean climate wereas aragon has more of a continental / steppe / alpine climate, the geography like the mediterranean ports which make catalonia much more connected with the other mediterranean countries than Aragon with cities like Barcelona being more simmilar in many ways to Marseille or Genova than Zaragoza for example. The language of course, the already dead aragonese language was part of the Iberian group of descendants of latin, which means that it was more similar to old Castilian, Galician, Bable or Portuguese than Catalan which is part of the Occitain group of languages, that is it was more similar to how the southern French spoke, which used to be pretty different from French but northern French Nationalism killed those languages. Also historical differences, for example, Catalonia was the first place to be Romanized, also one of the few places in Spain to have Greek and Phoenician colonies, also has had much more fluent contact with what today is southern France thanks to the Pyrenees being more passable on their border, and more maritime trade, also catalonia was the first place to be industrialized in spain, Aragon is still struggling with that. And also more generally their culture is very different, Catalans are mediterranean traders, Aragonese are continental mountain people in essence. One is trying to sell you something the other is trying to head butt you. And of course theres probaly stuff im missing, specially since im not from those areas, but hopefully this goes to show how ignorant of your ignorance you can be and how hard is to disprove a simple 3 second sentence in an hour long video of an arrogant ignorant, ignorant of his ignorance.
Notice how it’s always regarded Spanish people triggered by facts they can’t swallow
14:21 they even expelled those that converted in fear that they would be false converts.
I remember this from a conference in Seville, I don't have further reference sorry
Reading some of the comments here, this is a tough crowd!
At 12:24, I have. That’s a great song “Inquisition: The Musical” from a hilarious movie “History of the World: Part I” (1981). He’s a Jew and I’m a Muslim, and it was rather dark comedy for him to appear as Torquemada like that, but that’s my favorite flavor of entertainment. Last year, Part II was Mel Brooks’ television show, which was rather disappointing and I think only watched one, maybe two episodes. The part I remembered from that show was the predictive programming where he joked about the coming civil war in 2024 (which is this year).
These are such big topics. Perhaps a History 103 is in order at some point in the future. Your specialty is on the Middle Ages. Here are some specific topics that you could spend half an hour or one hour, focusing on perhaps 1000 to 1200 AD in Western Europe:
- Heresies
- Medieval Inquisitions
- Jews and Christians
- The Origins of Scholasticism
- Aquinas and the Problem of Aristotle
- The First Universities
The People's Crusade
- The Conquest of Jerusalem
- The Norman Conquest
- Philip II of France
- Magna Carta
These are actual lecture titles by the Teaching Company on the High Middle Ages by Dr. Daileader. Maybe you could modify them with your research and analysis. Of course, it’s just a humble suggestion. I shall continue to watch the playlist to its conclusion.
There were multiple groups from Britain the Calviliers were extractive and founded the South and the groups that founded the North were productive.
It would be really important to explore Portugal, to explain the jump from medieval to colonial Europe,.
39:30. That was one reason. Another key reason was because of the fact that most of the natives died due to disease. The Portuguese and later the Spanish needed a cheap, easy-to-replace workforce that was resistant to the tropical diseases present in the Americas. West Africa was simply the most convenient source of manual laborers.
Early upload, nice
You can draw an interesting parallel with the American South from before the Civil War.
I am so excited for this
Legit request if you go over an hour please make a patreon / gumroad.
A small investment in audio would pay large dividends
16:15 this reminds me of how italian americans are like a fossilized version of the italians coming over in the 1800's and 1900's.
Yeah I know that one! I showed the inquisition from history of the world part II in my class one time lol I don’t remember what it was for but it’s funny remembering that 😂
Explain the Portuguese empire?
They founded trade depots, but never had the population to really colonize anywhere. Napoleon invaded the Iberian peninsula, the Portuguese nobility fled to the one place that they did resettle, Brazil, and eventually that nobility declared Brazil it's own Kingdom independent of Portugal.
@@tonyfriendly4409Have you seen Brazil?
I know you guys are Americans which is why you want to talk about Christopher Columbus, though for the very beginning of the Age of Discovery, I think you should have talked about Portugal and Henry the Navigator instead FIRST
but yeah, its a big topic
Yo Rudyard, respectfully, I think you were off in this one. Been studying Spanish and Latin American/Caribbean history for over 20 years now and a lot of your statements run contrary to most accepted and rigurous sources.
Anglo sources tend to be off in both French and Spanish History, very contradictory to what the French and Spanish sources themselves say. If I were you, I'd do more research and not rely on Anglo source so much for the History of some of its main rivals.
I think you usually put in a good faith efdort to find the truth, but honestly for this one, it would seem to me you need to put in more effort.
To say Spain was the poorest country in western Europe at this time is silly. It centralized before other western powers and had vast reserves of gold before even even ideating going to "India."
I learned more from one hour of listening to Rudyard that severe hours of reading Jared Diamond. The Academy is profoundly broken.
"As I drink my tea do you have any questions?"
Lived in panama and you are correct it was alll based on what you can steal. Angloamerica was based on production on and freedom of religon.
8-bit whatifalthist
Is it just me or did one of tese sounded like had the other muted or they simply didn't care just kept talking over each other.
I like the lectures but it would be better if there was a real conversation. Fix the audio and let him ask questions or find somebody that can go back and forth with you.
Then you don’t like lectures do you? You want a conversation. Lol
People forget the Incan Empire was a necocracy too.
Just how accurate that statement is that by 1950s Cuba had a bigger GDP than Spain!
Okay, after half an hour and multiple instances of poor audio synchronization, I can see why this video got a disproportionate amount of flack.
36:10 Rudyard, are you saying that "cuddly" bears are less dangerous than humans?
Thought spain had control of san diego? Thts where im from and ‘member.
Is that the English backsword from Cold Steel?
Actually there was a great deal of independence in the colonies, this is why it all kept working as normal when european spain was conquered
Do Portugal next
I feel like Shane Gillis must watch these episodes
Preise make a video about the ottoman empire and the arabic empire.
The 90% diseases mortality estimation is just a myth. The whole myth don't come from any documents or proof, all this idea come from ludicrously large population estimations previous to the conquest, so if some historian make an estimation of (insert estimations between fewer than 20 millions to 100 millions in the whole continent [North and South]) and after the conquest the population is fewer than 20 millions, so therefore the difference between the estimation and the more or least really know numbers of population after conquest, that's the % that died.
It's absolutely no serious, all this diseases where new diseases when spread in Europe from Asia, non of them caused very high mortality rates in europeans when europeans don't have immunity at all to them, so the same happened in America.
The realistic estimations of population are the lowest, so the real percentages of population lost could be something like 15-20% here, 30% there... Maybe even 50% as maximum in some places (i don't think so). But nothing like the ludicrous 70 to 90% estimations.
If this would had happened we should have dozens at least if not hundreds of spanish documents saying "everybody is suddenly dying! It's like an apocalypse!" "We buried 9 of every 10!" "The city is now a ghost city" "they excavated 50 mass graves, we put 200 victims in each one" ...etc Not a single document like that exists, nor mass graves... Nothing. No proof at all.
Also i don't think is necessary explain why there wasn't a big population in the continent with most populations being tribes in paleolithic or neolithic stage of development, with only three densely populated areas, one of them in decaying period and without cattle and low developed agriculture tools.
It's just a myth.
No mortality in Europe?
There were great plagues and high child mortality in Europe.
I'd say Latin America is extremely wealthy... For the white Spanish descendants that still have us a serfs today. It is working as intended. Mostly all of the land is own by those people, they get tax breaks, bribe judges and politicians, are racist towards fellow colombians and have monopolies over the industries
Rudyard singing the Spanish inquisition song made my night.
You must not have been there for early RUclips
Cortez & 500 Spaniards conquering the 20 million population Aztecs (With something like 12 basic early stage guns, 12 cannons, 16 horses, a couple thousand locals and some diseases) + Pizzaro & 200 Spaniards doing the same to the Incas (~11 million) is one of if not the most badass thing in human history. You shouldn't feel like you can't say it.
History seems to mostly talk about conquest, and this was 700 Spanish guys conquering south America, California, Texas, New Mexico in 50 years. Despite resistance from the local Spanish governor and not having the full help of Spain's king.
Also I find it interesting that it took the Spanish 700 years to take back Spain from the Muslims (who had 200-300k people) but only 50 years to conquer all of the peoples of South America (30 million +).
Europeans invented the majority of what we call civilization today, from technology, to social structures, to law, to morality. And what I find unusual is it's white people who are the ones most pushing for Europeans to be viewed as evil. 90% of people would have died to those diseases even if it hadn't been conquest. Can you even call it conquest when 700 guys successfully conquer 30+ million? Surely there is a point where a better efficiency, science, understanding of how things work makes it likely that at some point they would intercede.
Is the modern moral advice meant to be for the Spanish to do nothing and watch Aztecs do human sacrifices and cannibalism on the natives every year?
People are at the mercy of others so long as they don't advance, Europeans advanced the whole world so that it's not at the mercy of Europeans anymore. Europeans made the USA, Canada, all the countries of south America, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam etc. And had a lot of influence over the remainder like China & Japan.
0:01 that's not Spanish empire map. in 1620 Spain and Portugal are 2 different Kingdoms with one ruling King, the Spanish King.. that bring lots of problem to Portugal, the dutch start to conquer Portuguese comercial cities in India and large areas in Brazil and that's why in 1640 Portugal had a revolution and kick out the Spanish king. But that map never was the Spanish Empire special the areas in Africa and india that was Portuguese