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Spain began as a composite monarchy when Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile in 1469. With the Ottomans controlling overland routes to Asia and Portugal winning the 1478 Battle of Guinea and the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas, Spain gambled on Christopher Columbus in 1492, and the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas gave it the lands west of an Atlantic line. Conquest ran through the encomienda system, alliances with peoples who resented the Aztecs and Incas, and smallpox, which killed the Inca emperor before Francisco Pizarro arrived. At its late 18th century peak the empire claimed about 13.7 million square kilometers.

Silver from Potosí and Zacatecas paid the royal fifth, audited through the crown’s monopoly on the mercury needed for amalgamation, and crossed in flota convoys captured whole only once, by Piet Hein in 1628. The flood of silver fed inflation, cheap imports and Habsburg wars financed by Genoese bankers, ending in repeated bankruptcies. Bourbon reforms tripled silver output but angered criollos passed over for peninsulares, and when Napoleon forced Ferdinand VII to abdicate in 1808, colonial juntas moved toward independence under leaders like Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín. Spain lost Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898.

• A French traveler in 1603 remarked that everything in Spain was dear except silver.
• The Habsburg crown borrowed against silver shipments that had not yet been mined.
• Bourbon reforms pushed Mexican peasants off communal land as estates expanded.
• By the 1820s Spain’s mainland American territories had split into roughly 20 republics.
• Manila galleons traded silver for Chinese silk and porcelain, making the piece of eight the first global currency.