More enemies than England: The rivalry and ruin of Seville and Cadiz over the Carrera de Indias

In mid-June 1596, the Earl of Essex embarked some 7,500 men in the Plymouth roadstead bound for the port of Cadiz , with no one quite clear about the command of the powerful Anglo-Dutch naval fleet - made up of 128 ships led by Admiral Sir Charles Howard of Effingham - whether to disembark the troops outside the port and attack by land or launch themselves directly into the bay. After two weeks of sailing and after rounding Cape St. Vincent, with so many future joys and misfortunes for the Spanish Armada , a decision by the merchant ships of the Carrera de Indias anchored in the port of Cadiz would facilitate the attack . They were there because they had to leave shortly, completing the second annual voyage to New Spain.

Not even ten years had passed since Sir Francis Drake 's first attempt at Cadiz , which devastated all the ships in the bay although he did not take the city, nor since the disaster of the Spanish Armada , both of which occurred in 1588, nor since the setback of the English Counter Armada the following year off La Coruña and Lisbon: the war at sea with England was still in full swing . Admiral Sir Charles de Effingham, later Earl of Nottingham and cousin of Queen Elizabeth of England , had in fact been one of the outstanding sailors at that time of the victory against Philip II , and both naval punishments, Armada and Counter Armada, were fresh in everyone's memory, no matter how much England later covered up the history of its own disaster.

Thus, on June 30, the English fleet was sighted in Cadiz: "The most beautiful galleons," wrote the chronicler Friar Pedro de Abreu , "all had their sails full of flags, the topsails and sterns and it was a most beautiful sight; it looked like a mountain of trees in the sea, and thus in the order in which they came they emerged at the Caleta de Santa Catalina," as Pedro de Abreu himself records in his History of the Sack of Cadiz by the English in 1596 .

The opposite view was of the bay line closed by the Spanish galleons San Felipe, Santo Andrés, Santo Tomás and San Mateo, the galleys and the merchant ships from the Indies, so the Anglo-Dutch decided to land at La Caleta. However, the strong waves, which sank several boats, together with the timely arrival of the cavalry from Jerez and Medina-Sidonia, which made the landing attempt difficult, made them desist in favor of the option of a naval attack in the bay .

That same afternoon both fleets fired on each other without much consequence, but the following morning, after holding a council on board the Ark Royal , the English admiral ordered at dawn on the 1st that "a division of the fleet formed by the Nonpareil , the Warspite , the Rainbow , the Mary Rose , the Vanguard , the Lion , the Dreadnought and the Swiftsure , with some merchant ships and the Dutch warships, attack the Spanish ships, while the rest of the fleet remained on standby." This was recounted by the historian Francisco Ponce Cordones in The Attack on Cádiz in 1596 according to the diary of the Mary Rose, where he also reported on the erroneous decision of the Indies ships to take shelter at the bottom of the bay, which would have disrupted the line of defense and allowed the English ships to get right in.

During the battle, the war galleons San Felipe and Santo Tomás, which followed the merchant ships as they turned inward following the intense English bombardment, ran aground in the channel near present-day Trocadero. Their admirals burned them to prevent them from falling into enemy hands, while the San Andrés and San Mateo were captured. The entire Spanish naval defense was shattered.

Unhindered by the bay, the Earl of Essex's men landed in the port and, despite a fierce but disorderly defense, the city was engulfed by the attackers. Illustrious prisoners were taken, among them none other than Pedro Gutiérrez de Flores , president of the Casa de Contratación, which was actually based in Seville, and the Judge of the Indies, Pedro de Castilla : both of them were there precisely to dispatch the fleet that was to leave for New Spain.

There is hardly any historiographical doubt about what happened in Cádiz: the conflicting chronicles of Friar Pedro de Abreu, written at the time and forgotten until 1866, and that of the Artillery Commander George Carew and his logbook of the Mary Rose coincide in almost everything . Moreover, Pedro de Abreu did not spare criticism of the actions of the Cádiz authorities during the defense, increasing their credibility if possible, although he excused the decision of the galleons to retreat to the bottom of the bay: "This decision has been widely condemned, although those in the navy have their reasons, and one is that fighting one against a hundred is not for the brave but for the reckless and crazy."

The attack and capture of Cadiz was an unmitigated disaster and reopened the bloody rivalry between the people of Seville and Cadiz, dragged along the sandbanks of the Guadalquivir and the pillars of Bonanza to the Island of León: a century of reproaches, suspicions, setbacks and traps. Was it advisable to establish the House of Trade in Cadiz, to load them, and above all, to unload the gold of New Spain in a bay exposed to the enemy opposite the sheltered port on the Guadalquivir?

The history of the Cadiz-Seville rivalry dates back as far as 1503, when, even before the Council of the Indies existed, Charles I founded the Casa de Contratación (House of Trade). This, by Royal Decree, was established in Seville as the center of the monopoly on trade with the New World ; a key institution for the city's subsequent super-development and economic development. Little was known about the future continent, certainly nothing about the precious metal mines in Peru that would change the history of the empire. However, as soon as large-scale trade begins to be considered, Seville is well-positioned:

"At that time, at the beginning of the century, it was the hinge between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, a privileged point of union between the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, which is also the entire area of ​​Flanders, England, the Hanseatic League of Hamburg and the German cities, which are the great economic and activity poles," explains historian Fernando Olmedo to El Confidencial, who is just now publishing Seville: Gate of the World (The Sphere) with illustrations by Arturo Redondo showing the city's functioning and splendor in the 15th century. A map is worth looking at at this point:

"The great medieval ports are London, Paris, and just behind the major riverside port cities, Seville. They are inland ports, very protected from any attack. Going up the Guadalquivir to sack the city was extremely difficult: the Vikings attacked it in 844, and little else," Olmedo points out. In contrast, Cádiz in 1503 was a port exposed to attack despite being a fortress-presidio, and also one more open to the outside world, which made it easier for it to compete from the beginning of the Carrera de Indias to become that invaluable gateway.

Although in January 1529 a decree from Charles allowed ships to "set sail directly for the Indies from La Coruña and Bayonne in Galicia, Avilés in Asturias, Laredo in the Mountains, Bilbao and San Sebastián in the Basque Country, Cartagena , Málaga in Granada and Cádiz in Andalusia", according to the classic study by the Frenchman Albert Girard - The commercial and maritime rivalry between Seville and Cádiz until the end of the 18th century -, the truth is that it was hardly applied, because the keystone of the organization of trade was the monopoly of the House of Trade: both what went out and what came in had to be recorded in Seville by the officials of the house.

This is the time of the boom of a city that goes from 50,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the 15th century – already a considerable figure – to 150,000 at the end: “In its urban materiality it is an Islamic city, a city that has been transformed, that has been covered, so to speak, because there is almost an aspiration to turn it into a new political-cultural Rome and there is also a major confrontation with the Islamic world, with the Ottoman Empire, with North Africa,” comments Olmedo, “the idea is to cover it, recreate it and turn it into a new Rome. It is not a planned urban planning like that of Baron Haussmann in Paris in the 19th century, despite the fact that interventions were made in that century such as the Alameda de Hércules. In Seville you find a magnificent classical façade of a palace on a street so narrow that you can't even see it, you have to turn your head to look at it.”

The city became monumental during the second half of the century with the opening of the Carrera de Indias trade and the return of gold and silver: a new town hall was built in the Plateresque style, many of the gates in the old medieval wall were rebuilt in the classical style, the new Giralda bell tower was remodelled with Renaissance elements, and the Blood Hospital , the Court, the Royal Prison, the Merchant's Exchange (the future Archive of the Indies), the Customs House and the Mint were built, in addition to palaces, churches, convents and thousands of buildings were renovated.

Around 1543, the abundance and complexity of operations with New Spain , in which the activity was carried out by private individuals "merchants who benefited from the crown's monopoly", as defined by the historian Manuel Bustos , also led to the creation of the Consulado de Cargadores de Indias, a genuine holding company on which the Casa de la Contratación relied to organise all the trade that took place for almost a century at the very doors of the cathedral, on the steps, which aroused the wrath of the Church, which forced it to find a suitable location. The Lonja de Mercaderes was then planned on a site next to the Casa de la Moneda, which is currently the Archivo de Indias.

What happened in Cadiz, a true port city open to the Atlantic ? It began to specialize in non-American foreign trade: Europeans set up branches there, developing a significant activity that began to compete upriver with that of the Guadalquivir. However, another problem arose for Seville: in the second half of the 15th century, the increasing tonnage of the galleons made it difficult for them to navigate upriver:

"The problem of navigation on the river increases enormously, apart from the fact that the river carries its current, has its tidal regime, the wind is more difficult to capture... and the galleons begin to prefer to dock in Cádiz because they run less risks, there is the Sanlúcar bar, but that is a true marine cemetery, it is not known how many ships go down trying to reach port, but in the order of 600", points out Olmedo, who although he does not cover the rivalry in the book is not unaware of the great dispute that marked the Golden Age between the two cities.

Galleons are beginning to prefer docking in Cadiz because they run fewer risks.

Naval development hampers operations in Seville and its outer harbor of Sanlúcar at the mouth of the river; everything is negotiated in Seville, the ship leaves from Sanlúcar, and the gold returns to Seville after stopping over. Sanlúcar's own limitations as a town—which is also a property of the Duke of Medina Sidonia —preclude it from this other race to monopolize the increasingly lucrative trade with New Spain, in addition to the navigational risks involved due to its famous rock and mud bar at the mouth and its particular wind and wave conditions. Cádiz, where foreign capital is beginning to appear, does have the qualities to become a major commercial center , and it competes.

It was a reality; the galleons preferred to leave and return there and avoid the hassle of making the stopover in Seville to unload and disembark again. As early as 1508, return registration in Cádiz had been authorized with the obligation that an official of the Casa de Contratación certify it, but Seville deliberately stopped sending them, forcing them to go up the Guadalquivir: the royal decrees were cheated, a situation that continued until 1535 when the Juzgado de Indias was created, an organization to authorize the fleets that might eventually leave Cádiz in its function as a foreign port.

A judge of the Indies stationed in Cádiz from that date on, subordinate to the House, verifies, counts, authorizes, and certifies the cargo of the departing Fleet. This is precisely why, when the Earl of Essex ravaged the city, he took both the judge and the president of the House prisoner there: they were there to control the cargo . The English would demand an enormous sum of ducats for their ransom. However, the problem for the House of Trade in Seville was not so much the departure as the return, which was when the ships brought in the gold and silver. According to Albert Girard, in 1556 Philip II imposed the rule that all ships should return to Sanlúcar—an extension of Seville—and not to Cádiz. There were fears about precious metals, evasion, and falsified cargoes, because the Bay of Cádiz was more difficult to monitor than the Guadalquivir.

The actions of Francis Drake in 1588 and the subsequent plundering by the Anglo-Dutch fleet in 1596 had highlighted the port's security, but there was even greater risk in Sanlúcar: thus, galleons continued to enter Cádiz, either to seek refuge from an attack, due to poor maritime conditions or for other reasons, so the shippers of the Consulate of Seville imposed fines that they had to raise because they could compensate the offender.

Throughout the first half of the 16th century, these incidents continued to occur, while precisely as a result of the sack of Cádiz in 1596, the defensive system had been greatly strengthened, eventually becoming impregnable. Throughout the 17th century , abuses in Cádiz, with fleets anchoring there ignoring royal orders, multiplied . The most essential operations were now carried out between Cádiz and Puerto de Santa María, where the foreigners had also settled, but Seville refused to give in and continued to pressure the crown to force a return via Sanlúcar, which was reaffirmed in 1668, with harsher penalties. An example is that of José Centeno's fleet in 1671, as Albert Girard recounts:

"José Centeno, general of the fleet of New Spain , who had docked in Cádiz because his admiralty ship was too loaded to cross the bar and because he knew of the presence of enemy ships in the Strait of Gibraltar. Since his instructions were to head, in case of danger, to a port in Galicia or Cantabria , he was sentenced for having reached Cádiz to six years in prison in the Orán prison and a fine of 6,000 ducats. The captain of another galleon, which followed him, suffered the same fate",– The commercial and maritime rivalry between Seville and Cádiz until the end of the 18th century–.

Every attempt by Seville was in vain because the medieval port on the Guadalquivir , which had enriched and aggrandized the city with trade with the Americas, had become obsolete by the end of the 17th century compared to the thriving port of Cádiz, which had been competing since the previous century. Despite the interventions of the House of Trade with various kings, this forced the return to the Seville outer port of Sanlúcar. The technical and financial reasons for navigation were obvious, and in 1680, King Charles II ratified its becoming the center of navigation to the Americas. The final blow was the final relocation of the House of Trade in 1717.

The impact on Seville was brutal, according to Fernando Olmedo. From monumentality to empty apartments: "In the second half of the 17th century, house owners couldn't find occupants because, let's say, it had lost population; a lot of construction had taken place in the 16th century, and, let's say, many houses, many empty apartments, so to speak, remained, because there was a huge shift in activity from being an international city to becoming a mere regional center, regional in character, very agricultural." It was Cádiz's turn, which enjoyed its splendor throughout the 18th century and even part of the 19th century, now without the institution, and like Seville, it developed with great wealth, but in the end, the already weakened empire ended abruptly at the beginning of the 19th century.