Spain and the United States - Real Instituto Elcano

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SPAIN AND THE UNITED STATES
Independence and was the third US president (1801-09), introduced modern
languages, including Spanish, into the curriculum of the College of William
and Mary. Jefferson urged his nephew who was travelling in Europe to visit
Lisbon and Madrid because “knowledge of their language, manners and
situation, might eventually and even probably become more useful to yourself
and country than that of any other place you will have seen. The womb of time
is big with events to take place between us and them, and a little knowledge of
them will give you great advantage over those who have none at all.” He did
not elaborate on what was the “advantage” but it is assumed he was referring
to trade with Spain’s and Portugal’s American colonies and the day when they
would become independent and move closer to the US sphere of influence – in
other words, self-interest. 5
It was Washington Irving (1783-1859) who brought Spain to the general
public’s attention; his Romantic image of the country (bullfights, flamenco and
gypsies) persists today. For Irving “the most miserable inn is as full of
adventure as an enchanted castle” and “poverty is no disgrace. It sits upon the
Spaniard with a grandiose style, like his ragged cloak. He is an hidalgo even
when in rags.” As a result of his two stays in Spain (in 1842-46 he was envoy
extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary), Irving wrote A History of the Life
and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, The Conquest of Granada and
Alhambra, which enjoyed a huge success (116 editions and reprintings in its
first 80 years). Better known today as Legends of the Alhambra, it is still in
print. His books were standard texts in US universities throughout the
nineteenth century (Harvard University established the Smith Professorship of
French and Spanish in 1817).
Another influential American Hispanist was William Hickling Prescott
(1796-1859), who wrote The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella
(1837), followed by books on the Spanish conquest of Mexico (1843) and Peru
(1847) and a biography of Philip II (1855). Prescott juxtaposed the new (the
United States) and the old (Spain) and focused on Spain as a failed nation that
had allowed progress to slip through its hands. 6 The British Hispanist Martin
5. The start of World War I on August 5, 1914, and the passage that very same day of the first US cargocarrying
ship through the Panama Canal, which reduced Europe’s trade ties with Latin America and boosted the
US’s, produced a surge in the teaching of Spanish. A Spaniard who witnessed the wartime expansion of Spanish
wrote to his colleagues in Spain: “Since 1916 the study of Spanish has grown with such speed and in such
proportion that it cannot be measured by the criteria we are accustomed to in Europe.” Quoted in “Latin America
and Spain in US Hispanism” by James Fernández in Spain in America, The Origins of Hispanism in the United
States, edited by Richard Kagan (University of Illinois Press, 2002).
6. The contemporary American Hispanist Richard Kagan studied this and came up with what he calls
“Prescott’s paradigm”, defined as “an understanding of Spain as America’s antithesis.” “America was the future
– republican, enterprising, rational; while Spain – monarchical, indolent, fanatic – represented the past.”
(“Prescott’s Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the Decline of Spain”, American Historical Review
101, April 1996 by Richard Kagan).