El imperio colonial español y la República Holandesa tras la Paz de Münster

Abstract

The overseas Spanish Empire and the Dutch Republic after the Peace of Münster

This paper begins with some arguments to revise the traditional view according to which the rupture of the Iberian unity was a consequence of its disastrous results for the overseas Portuguese world. Nowadays one cannot maintain that the Hispanic Monarchy left the Portuguese colonies to their own resources. Against this background, the author explains the ways by which the Peace of Münster (especially its commercial clauses) deeply influenced economic and military Dutch strategies and achievements, begin ning a new phase (1649-1668) of relations between Spain and the Nether lands. Spaniards kept the legal control of trade in America and the Philippi nes, but the preferential treatment granted to the Dutch in 1648 made it easier for them, for example, to turn Curaçao into their main base to enter the slave traffic for the Spanish colonies, to exploit the Venezuelan salt pans of the Point of Araya and to gain control of the spice trade in the Moluccas. The Dutch obtained, by penetrating the commercial structure of Seville and Cadiz, an important participation in the Spanish trade of precious metals.