Naval History Forums

Recent evidence points to at least 3 waves of emigration into the Americas from Siberia prior to 10,000 years ago. The first wave can make a claim to not being invaders at least until they started fighting amongst themeselves.

Of course this is getting way off topic.

Back to the Spanish navy in the age of sail.
One of the critical elements (not that it's changed much) during that period was crew quality. There was a strong correlation with time at sea and crew quality (probably quite a bit more than today but that also might be an interesting dicussion). Given that the Spanish ships spent a lot of time at sea one would expect their crew quality to be quite high.

Speaking of Spanish naval victories wasn't Lepanto to a large extent a Spanish victroy? Perhaps the emphasis of Spanish naval power was the Med rather than the Atalantic at least early in the age of sail. That might explain some of the differences in the ships and technologies employed and why England took the lead as a naval power.

OK guys, and what about Spain´s own naval victories?

Here is one: The Battle of Terceira (1582)

A Spanish fleet under the command of Álvaro de Bazán defeats a French fleet securing the annexation of Portugal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Terceira

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batalla_de ... a_Terceira

http://www.revistanaval.com/armada/bata ... miguel.htm

José M. Rico wrote:...
Here is one: The Battle of Terceira (1582)
A Spanish fleet under the command of Álvaro de Bazán defeats a French fleet securing the annexation of Portugal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Terceira

Just followed the links. Unfortunatly I don't speak Spanish (at least not much more than being able to count to 10 and order a beer) so the other two links don't help much. Looks like a very interesting battle. I'd like to know more. The Spanish side was heavily outnumbered at least in ships yet won a really impressive victory. Was there much difference in the ships. Was it leadership and/or a divide command that helped the Spanish. Were they just a more cohesive force. Lots of questions.

the reason that spanish are degraded and defamed in our history books i because we are an anglo saxon society that is naturally biased against the spanish.

Now why would an ''Anglo-Saxon'' society be biased against the Spanish? Any more than it is biased against the Germans? After all, both Spain and Germany are Britain's European partners.....

Note also that Spain has a strong Celtic and German past much like Britain.

This is certainly true.

Spain was seen as ''the enemy'' in late Tudor times, when Spain was a major naval and colonial power, but times have changed.

Thinking about it another aspect is that Spain has kept out of the major conflicts of the twentieth century. Yes there was the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930's, and the earlier war with the USA in 1898, but Spain as a naval power has not been engaged against any substantial naval enemy since 1898, and possibly as such is unwittingly seen as something of an eclipsed naval power purely from non-involvement.

Spain is highly critiziced for her behaviour in the American colonies. Local natives have been murdered and reduced to slavery. Some just kidnapped for the ransom, as was the case with Atahualpa, and then killed anyway. The ships loaded with gold for the metropolis don´t give a good impression either. In general, here in Argentina for example, there is a growing sensation that the only intention of the colonization was the pillage of the local resources, October 12th being many times proposed to be eliminated as a day to be remembered.

I've read however that the Spanish crown discouraged such activities. They perhaps did not make a strenuous enough effort but internal and European politics would clearly have taken precidence over New World affairs.

Part of the problem of people not giving enough credit to Spain in naval matters is (especially here in the US) a lack of knowledge of such when Spain was at her height and the supreme naval power. Most again in the US think the Spanish Armada's failed campaign vs England (and not a verry detailed or accurate picture of that) and the Spanish American war if they think of much of anything in regards to Spain. This completely overlooks Spains rise to premminence as a naval power and her extended stay at the top.

I don´t know much of Spanish history, surely Jose has more to say, but I think that Spain´s days as a power came to the end with the French invasion at the start of the XIX century. That was one of the reasons behind the search of independance of the colonies, as there was no longer a Spanish king in the metropolis. With the colonies lost, Spain started to loose power, and by the end of the century, she was no match for the USN, it is no wonder that she lost the war of 1898.

I do not regard the Spanish conquest in the light of nowadays "revisionist" light. It is true that the media, controled in a high degree by the ancient enemies of the Spanish, it is the descendants of the british in Hollywood, had made the Spanish look like villains, and then the "commie" rethoric in our Latin American lands had done a lot of damage also.

I´m not negating the atrocities commited by the Spanish, which were real in a great degree, but they were not "worse" than other European (or Asian) powers for those times (or later). But the Spanish have been casted in a very negative light lately which must be re balanced in order to be more objective.

Best regards.

May be you are right Karl, but your own words "Spanish conquest" implies something like "taking a land that is not mine".

Marcelo,

If you walk down a street in Guatemala, Honduras, Peru or Bolivia you see thousands, no, millions of native Americans living in those and many other countries. How many "native americans" you find walking down New York or Denver or Wichita...? The US Cavalry did a better "final solution" than Francisco Pizarro, anytime.

Of course, Conquest is that: conquest. Many countries had conquered others, Mongolia, China, Japan, Korea, Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Persia, Rome, Germany, Russia, USA, Britain, even Sweden. And a great number had not behave well when conquering, specially the eastern ones but not exclusively. Can we condemn the conqueror for being the hunter? Can we condemn a Lion for being a predator, or a Tiger or an Eagle? I don´t think so. It´s just natural.

Spain, Holand, England, Belgium, France and Portugal: all of them were conquerors, colonialists and slave traders (one time or another). Spain has been denigrated also because of their adoption of the catholic Inquisition which is widely viewed in the scope of protestantism. Things that were bad are made look uglier.

Best regards,

Can we condemn the conqueror for being the hunter? Can we condemn a Lion for being a predator, or a Tiger or an Eagle? I

Well, there is no comparision. Animals hunt for food, no more no less than needed. Humans conquer for ambition, out of all necessity. I am not condemning the Spaniards for the conquest, as you said there are many similar instances in history, but I resist the idea of justifing it on cultural, social and religious grounds. We don´t remember the date of Barbarrosa or Weserubung, and if we do, is as something regrettable that should not have happened. The same must go the the New World conquest. My opinion of course.