Armadas, Consulados y Casas de la Contrataciónla lucha hispana por el desarrollo de nuevos mercados y la creación de instituciones supremas del mercantilismo (1503-1529)

Zusammenfassung

In 1522 Juan Sebastian Elcano, returned to Spain with the survivors of the Magellan expedition. It was a changing world that witnessed the first globalization of mankind after the first circumnavigation voyage, sixty years before Drake repeated it with the Golden Hind. Prior to the Magellan experience the Portuguese and the Castilians had been racing to discover the route to the Spice Islands. When the Spaniards stepped them the Portuguese had already landed and traded there. In Spain, the Flemish vassals of Emperor Charles V did their best to influence the members of the Royal Council to move the Trade House of Seville (Casa de la Contratación) to Corunna, in Northern Spain. For them and their German partners it was an opportunity to dismantle the Southern Spanish trade of gold and spices from the New World, and then Asia, to benefit the English and the Low Countries. Specially they had in mind London, Bruges and Antwerp, the traditional seaport markets of the Northern Sea. The Treaty of Saragossa with Portugal in 1529, that prevented a war between Spain and Portugal, put an end to such ambitions and claims with the renounce of Spain to the Maluku trade route, resting in Portuguese dominion.