Spain: Our Worldwide Spanish Class
Today, in the 21st century, where the European empires are a thing of the past and colonies are almost anywhere to be seen, it may not as obvious to notice that the country of Spain has changed a lot of this world with its former empire, such as forcing Native Americans to become Catholic so Russians wouldn’t set on the Californian areas (Maher). This world-changing county is located in southwest Europe with five official languages: Castilian Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Valencian, and Basque (Crow 2). Through the Spanish empire, Castilian Spanish was the language that was spread throughout their colonies and territories. With such power, the Spanish empire influenced language, culture, and religion in Spain itself, the Americas, and Asia.
During the early years, after Spain gained independence from the African Moors, between 1490 and 1502 there were some changes in the population of the Spanish Jews and Muslims. Spain had just become independent, and as a Catholic country, there were too many Jews and Muslims were in Spain. Thus Spain forced conversions of the Jews and Muslims (Crow 442). In 1490 there were about 200 thousand Jews and about half had to convert to Catholicism, but the other half refused to convert and left Spain (Thomas 83). In addition, in 1492 all of the remaining Jewish people were forced to leave Spain (Crow 442). Crow explains that it was the same case for the Muslims in 1502, as each Muslim person was given the choice to convert to Catholicism, or to leave Spain (442). However, these Muslims have lived in Spain for nearly 800 years and not everyone was too happy about leaving, so much of the Muslim population converted (Crow 442). Additionally, the originally Catholic Spaniards called the converted Muslims “Moriscos” (Crow 442). These were just the changes of the Europeans, and there is more to come.
When Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas for the crown of Spain in 1492, Spain as well as...