Spanish "colonies"a term forged in the Hispanic-Anglosphere

Resumen

This chapter traces how and how far the word ‘colonies’ managed to root itself into a global Hispanic context. The legal codes of the Spanish Monarchy never employed the term ‘colonias’ to refer to its overseas dominions, and the absence from the Spanish juridical lexicon had wider implications. The colonial rebellion in North America generated a revival of Irish patriotism and ignited interest in other monarchies that were understood to have territories in a similar predicament. The gradual definition of the American territories of the Spanish Monarchy as colonies coincided with the revitalization of anti-Spanish tropes and of pejorative representations of three centuries of Spanish rule in the Americas. The understanding of the Hispanic New World as a collection of Spanish colonies even crept into the discourse of Irish individuals who offered their services to the Spanish crown during the independence period to try to counteract the propaganda being distributed in the British Isles in favour of the insurgents.