HISTORY 347 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Bourbon Reforms, Asiento, Peninsulars
Document Summary
17th century - habsburg, creoles gaining more power, pirates, etc. Sold offices and had a slacker grip over the territory. Theme - attempt of metropolitan powers to regain control of their empires that became too self sufficient (how to bootstrap a declining metropolis through capturing the wealth of colonies) Two things coming - wars of independence and social explosions. In 1700, the last habsburg king of spain, charles ii, died without an heir, which created the question of who would become king. In his will, he left the crown to his grand-nephew, philip, duke of anjou. Philip was the grandson (missed some information from the slides here) and basically it would have created a union with france and spain, which would be too much power and unacceptable. Other powers said no and this created the spain succession - 13 year long war between two coalision, leading to a stalemate. War ends and the treaty of utrecht (1713) is signed.
