Chile and Argentina: The New Spanish-Speaking Empires

By the close of the wars of independence in South America in the 1820s, Spain never did colonize most of Patagonia, the southmost quarter or so of South America. Sure, there was a territorial claim there, and ships from many countries went through the Strait of Magellan, but just like the North American west coast north of California, little was done in the way of settlement. Therefore, apart from the indigenous nations who lived there, most of Patagonia and all of Tierra del Fuego was unclaimed land when Chile and Argentina became independent:

Chile and the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata (Argentina) in 1825 soon after independence. Screenshot from EmperorTigerstar's "The History of South America: Every Year".

In the decades to come, both Chile and Argentina would claim and settle lands stretching all the way to Tierra del Fuego and beyond. If you've read some of my other blog posts, you'll remember that I define an empire as any country that has expanded beyond its original borders. Therefore, both Chile and Argentina would count as empires. Like some other, more powerful empires, Chile and Argentina mainly expanded in one direction. For Russia it was east, and for the United States it was west, but Chile and Argentina expanded south.

Chilean and Argentine expansion happened at a slow pace at first, but little by little the two countries expanded southward until they embarked on their two biggest conquests: Chile's War of the Pacific and Argentina's Conquest of the Desert.

Another screenshot from EmperorTigerstar's video, showing the status of Chile and Argentina before the Pacific War began in 1879.

The War of the Pacific began in 1879 and lasted until 1884. Chile expanded northward rather than southward. What was originally a dispute over a Bolivian tax on Chilean mining companies became a conquest of Bolivia's coastline and some of Peru's. Chile also invaded Peru at other places on the coast, including Lima itself. By the war's end, Bolivia was a landlocked country and Peru was humiliated. Chile did not just expand north during this time, however, as it had to respond to Argentina's rapid expansion southward.

At the same time when the United States was busy fighting wars against indigenous nations such as the Nez Perce and Apache, Argentina got busy fighting wars against indigenous nations such as the Mapuche. Argentina's Conquest of the Desert has resemblance to the "Indian Wars" of North America in other ways, too. Argentine generals employed ruthless tactics in the war just as American generals often did, and the Conquest of the Desert is often criticized as a genocide. Another comparison is that the newly conquered lands were opened for European settlement, and many European immigrants came. In fact, Argentina today has about the same proportion of people descended from Europeans as the United States. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Andes, Chile was steadily conquering lands to the south as well. To avoid direct conflict between Chile and Argentina as they raced towards Tierra del Fuego, the two countries agreed in 1881 to set their border mostly along the Andes Mountains (as it was for the northern part of their border already), except Chile would have the whole Strait of Magellan; Chile already founded Punta Arenas on its shores decades earlier. This is essentially the border today.

In the 1920s through 1940s, Argentina and Chile began to look across the ocean southward (and southeastward for Argentina). The United Kingdom had by then claimed a lot of territory in that direction. It already had the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island, as well as the South Sandwich Islands and South Shetland Islands more recently. Argentina claimed South Georgia Island in 1927 and the South Sandwich Islands in 1938. As for Chile, it decided to claim the part of Antarctica closest to it in 1940 after Norway claimed a different part the previous year.

Chilean president Gabrial Gonzalez Videla visited Antarctica in the 1940s. Chile, Argentina, and the U.K. all claim the Antarctic Peninsula within their "sectors" which end at the South Pole.

Chilean and then Argentine claims on Antarctica marked a new chapter in not just their history but the whole history of the Spanish-speaking world, for there is no conclusive evidence that Spain ever saw lands south of Tierra del Fuego. Antarctica, and more specifically the South Pole, would also mark the conclusion of Chile's expansion southward, at least in terms of claims. But if Chile stretches its coastline all the way to Alaska, as the joke goes, then Chile has a lot of expansion it could do to the north.

For Argentina, its claim on Antarctica is naturally tied up with its claims on the neighboring British islands. Even in Antarctica, Argentine claims overlapped with British ones. Regardless, Argentina started asserting its own claim to the part of Antarctica closest to South America in the 1940s, which overlaps not just with the British claim but the Chilean one as well. In the decades that followed, Argentina started to contemplate taking the neighboring British islands by force. After all, the United Kingdom was reeling from World War II, and it was also granting most of its colonies independence. Argentina was waiting for a decent chance to strike. Meanwhile, Argentina was also establishing research stations in Antarctica (as were Chile and the U.K.) The first person born in Antarctica, Emilio Palma (in 1978), is an Argentine citizen.

For whatever reason, 1982 is the year Argentina chose to try capturing the Falkland Islands and the other British islands nearby. If Argentina was a great power and the United Kingdom was not, maybe Argentina could have won, but the Falklands War went about as one would expect. After invading the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island, Argentina was able to briefly occupy both territories. However, once the British Empire sent reinforcements from England and Gibraltar, the Argentine invasion force was soon defeated. I guess Argentina didn't understand that Britannia still ruled the waves, even if the Falkland Islands are much closer to Argentina than England. It took just over two months before the war was over. 

After the end of the Falklands War, little has changed as far as Chilean and Argentine expansion goes. Argentina is in a tough spot for taking the Falkland Islands, not just because the United Kingdom is still a great power with a formidable navy, but also because over 99% of Falklanders voted to stay as a British territory in 2013. (A democratic referendum is rarely that one-sided!) Meanwhile, both Chile and Argentina have established new Antarctic research stations every now and then, with Chile operating a total of 12 right now and Argentina operating 14. All of those are within Chile's and Argentina's claims, but those claims have been on hold since 1959 because of the Antarctic Treaty. Even so, Chile and Argentina both have one research station with civilians living alongside researchers. By comparison, the United Kingdom has 4 research stations (all in its own claim) and no civilian settlements of any kind, so while the United Kingdom has the upper hand in other areas near Argentina, it seems that Argentina and Chile both have a stronger presence in Antarctica.

What does the future hold for these two empires? For now, it seems that not much will change. I'm not aware of any serious independence movements within Argentina or Chile that would make either country lose territory, and it seems also unlikely that Chile or Argentina will gain new territory until the United Kingdom is no longer a great power and until Chile's or Argentina's claim on Antarctica is recognized. As with Patagonia, assuming both Argentina and Chile are allowed to enforce their Antarctic claims, the two countries might have to split their claims to avoid conflict. Maybe they could choose a meridian, or maybe they'll take either side of a mountain range like in Patagonia. What we do know is that the Antarctic Treaty can be revised in 2048, so if it is revised, that could bring some new developments. Either way, it looks like Antarctica is the new frontier that both countries have chosen in their southward expansion.

The Four Stages of the Decline of the Spanish Empire

As some of you know, I've had an interest in the history of the Spanish Empire for years. In studying this history, there is an interesting pattern to the decline of the Spanish Empire that isn't found in the declines of other empires. Some empires, such as Britain and France, still have overseas colonies with their declines mostly being just attributed to the independence of colonies, given one at a time in full (in France's case) or very gradually (in Britain's case, as seen in commonwealth realms). Spain's empire, on the other hand, was different. It seems that Spain lost groups of colonies at a time to different causes. There also appear to be four different stages of these losses, four different blows to the Spanish Empire. I will present each of them in this post.

Map of the Spanish Empire with different colors corresponding mostly to the four stages of Spain's territorial losses. Courtesy of the user "Trasamundo" on Wikimedia Commons.

Stage 1: The War of the Spanish Succession

The year was 1714. While Spain still held a vast empire including much of the Americas from California to Chile, as well as other overseas colonies, the Treaty of Utrecht that ended the War of the Spanish Succession doomed the Spanish Empire's colonies in Europe itself. Previously, Spain had much land in Europe as part of its Habsburg monarchy. This included the Low Countries and about half of Italy, as well as a little bit of France. The War of the Spanish Succession was fought over who should succeed the previous King of Spain, but I think one could also say that this was a war about the Spanish succession, that is, whether Spain would successfully hold its colonies! In the Treaty of Utrecht, Spain failed to even defend its homeland, because two pieces of it were given to Britain. One was Gibraltar, which remains British to this day, and the other was Menorca, which Spain was able to take back by the end of the century. As for Spain's Habsburg lands, these were transferred to the Austrian Empire (though the Netherlands previously gained independence from Spain decades earlier).

Stage 2: The Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath

In 1801, while Spain was just starting to make good use of Louisiana (which was given to Spain by France in the Seven Years' War), the new leader of France had other ideas. In the Treaty of Aranjuez, France offered the Spanish crown some territories in Italy in exchange for Louisiana, which was still more or less culturally French. If France could have Louisiana back, then maybe they could launch invasions of Haiti from there, which France was trying to keep from gaining independence. Spain agreed to the treaty, though ironically, the residents of Louisiana didn't know they were French citizens again until after the United States bought Louisiana as the reconquest of Haiti failed.

Although Spain was a loyal ally of Napoleon at first, Napoleon thought it would be a good idea to make his brother become the King of Spain. The Peninsular War began as the Spanish mainland fought to depose the unwanted French pretender to the throne. As the Spanish mainland was distracted by that war, nearly all the colonies in the Americas decided to declare independence. These efforts were led most famously by Simon Bolivar and Miguel Hidalgo, in Venezuela and Mexico, starting in 1810. Soon enough, nearly all the colonies in the Americas were fighting wars of independence. Although Spain's own war of independence from the Bonapartes succeeded, the wars of independence in the Americas were so far along that Spain could not hope to win in those colonies after spending so much effort on defeating Napoleon. In the middle of these conflicts in 1819, Spain decided to give all its North American colonies east of Texas to the United States and also defined the Spanish-American border that would soon be the Mexican-American border until Texas broke away from Mexico. By 1825, Spain had no land left on the American landmass, though it did have Cuba and Puerto Rico (yet the Dominican Republic, also a Caribbean colony, achieved independence with all the mainland colonies in the Americas). Speaking of Cuba and Puerto Rico...

Stage 3: The Spanish-American War

Although Spain held onto Cuba, the Philippines, and other colonies for decades after losing all its American ones, the colonies I just mentioned had a yearning for independence, too. By the mid-1890s, Cuba and the Philippines were fully rebelling against Spanish rule. The United States decided to get involved. One motive may have been aid to the rebels, but another motive for some Americans was certainly to gain colonies for themselves. In just a few months, the ever-strengthening United States defeated the ever-weakening Spanish Empire and occupied the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Cuba was awarded independence within four years, whereas Philippine independence would have to wait for 48 years. Guam and Puerto Rico, on the other hand, remain U.S. territories to this day. Spain had other archipelagoes in the Spanish East Indies not occupied by the United States, namely today's Palau, Micronesia, and Northern Mariana Islands. Since Spain had little use for these remaining small islands, Spain sold these to Germany, another emerging great power, in 1899. Therefore, by the turn of the 20th century, the only Spanish colonies left were in Africa.

Stage 4: Decolonization under Franco

The semi-fascist regime of Francisco Franco from 1939 to his death in late 1975 was somewhat ironic. Franco and his supporters hoped to restore some colonies Spain lost before or create new ones. On the other hand, Franco himself knew he could not expand the Spanish Empire unless he had lots of help from the Axis Powers during World War II, and even then, he could lose. The only new colony Spain got was Tangier, Morocco, which was only a wartime occupation by a neutral country. Another ironic thing about the Franco regime was that his support for the Spanish monarchy didn't produce a new monarch in Spain until after he died. Anyway, between World War II and the death of Franco, the vast majority of African countries gained independence. Spain didn't give up all its African colonies at once, but rather within a 30-year period, which is still within a single generation. First, Tangier was given its pre-war status as an international zone in 1945. Then, the Spanish and French protectorates were merged to form an independent Morocco in 1956. Spanish Guinea, Spain's only sub-Saharan African colony, was granted independence in 1968. The following year, Spain gave up its colony of Ifni on the Moroccan coast to be annexed to the rest of Morocco. Finally, only days before Franco died, Spain gave up its territory of Spanish Sahara but left that former colony's future uncertain. To this day, "Western Sahara" is a large piece of the desert disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a mostly unrecognized country.

Will there be a Stage 5?

When Spain gave up its protectorate in northern Morocco, it kept two cities on the Moroccan coast: Ceuta and Melilla. Despite Moroccan demands, Spain has kept these cities and has no intention of giving them to Morocco. Spain also has a tiny piece of the Moroccan coast in addition to these two cities, as well as a handful of small islands very close to the Moroccan coast. 

A map I found in Wikimedia Commons illustrating the small pieces of the Moroccan coast still under Spanish rule (author unknown).

Most might not even think of these as colonies, since they are also close to the Spanish mainland. Nonetheless, Spain only acquired these after the completion of the Reconquista and Columbus' first voyage in 1492, events which could be considered the birth of Spain and its empire. Even the Canary Islands were already Spanish when the Reconquista ended. Since I consider a colony to be any piece of land a country gained from outside that country's original boundaries, I would say the Spanish Empire is still alive (albeit barely) until Spain no longer has control of any land on the African coast and no longer has control of Navarre, which is a former Basque kingdom conquered by Spain at the same time as the Aztecs were. However, given the ability of Spain to easily resist Moroccan claims over Ceuta and Melilla so far, and its ability to suppress the Basque independence movement, I think it will be decades or even centuries before these very last colonies are taken away.