Roots of Empire

John T. Wing, Ph.D. (2009), University of Minnesota, is Assistant Professor of History at the College of Staten Island, The City University of New York. He has published articles on Spanish forest history in Environmental History and the Journal of Early Modern History.

This is a complex and well-written book that presents a powerful argument about the emergence of the state in connection to local practices (the use of forests) and global activities (empire, commerce, war).- Antonio Barrera (Colgate University) American Historical Review, December 2018, 1752-1753 pp.This book provides a rich, well-presented raw narrative for anyone interested in learning about processes of central state formation in early modern Europe, the military in mercantile empires, environmental history in the early modern world economy, and of course for specialists in Spanish history. - Eva-Maria Swidler (Goddard College & The Curtis Institute of Music), Environmental History, vol 21, no 4, October 2016, 768-769 pp.[…] it should be apparent that Wing makes a major contribution to our understanding of early modern Spain, Spanish seapower, Spanish environmental history, and state formation in early modern Spain. […] His monograph [...] is also a major contribution to the burgeoning field of environmental history in all its aspects. It is founded on an impressive command of the secondary literature and of key primary (archival) source materials, above all the Guerra series in Simancas for the Habsburg era and the Marina series in the same archive for the eighteenth century. The work is the more effective for Wing’s lucidity of conceptualization, argument and expression. While Spanish seapower, forests and state formation have been explored before for different periods […] they have not been put together hitherto in this way for the entire period and in English.[...] In sum, a work to be recommended for all interested in maritime history – and others.Christopher Storrs (University of Dundee, UK), The International Journal of Maritime History 2016, Vol. 28(3) 576–600 pp.The author states several times his affinity for the area, which comes across in this engagingly written, entertaining, and informative work. Maritime historians and anyone with an interest in human interactions along the world’s waterways will find it useful reading.- Robert S. Shelton (Cleveland State University), The International Journal of Maritime History, 2016, Vol. 28(3): 635-636 pp.Forests were not only strategic resources for state navies, but also commons for local groups. John Wing’s Roots of Empire explores the process through which the Spanish monarchy gained increasing legal and effective control over littoral forests first and inland forest later. [...] Wing studies the history of forest management in relationship to the geopolitics of imperial naval expansion (or lack thereof ) during three distinct historical periods.- Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra (University of Texas at Austin), Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. LXIX, No. 4, 1495-1496 pp.

• Acknowledgements ixList of Maps, Figures, and Tables xiiiIntroducing Spanish State Forestry 1The Widow’s Oak and the Spanish State in the Valley of Carriedo 1The Politics of Wood Shortage Fears in the Early Modern World 19Spanish Forest Landscapes from Prehistory to the Reconquest 29Plan of the Work 381 A New State Forestry for the First Global Age 44Crown and Forests, Redefined 44Spanish Forest Landscapes from the Reconquest to the Habsburgs 47Medieval Forest Regulations and Naval Power in the Reign of Carlos I (1516–1556) 54A New Era of Naval Strategy in the Reign of Felipe II (1556–1598) 65Forests and the Collection of Geographic Knowledge 70The Enterprise of England: Recovery and Response 762 Forests of the Ultramar 85Colonial Forest Territoriality in the Sixteenth Century 85Geographic Knowledge Channels Across the Atlantic 87Spanish Shipbuilding in the Old and New Worlds 91Regulating Colonial Forest Use in the Sixteenth Century 96Naval Forestry and Imperial Rivalries 1163 The Struggle to Stay Afloat in the Seventeenth Century 120Transition and Persistence in Spanish Forests under the Later Habsburgs 120State Forestry in Times of Peace and Global Conflict in the Early 1600s 122To a New Generation of Forest Inspectors: Barros’s Letter to Riva Herrera 127The Formation of Forest Superintendent Dynasties 130The Waning of Spanish Imperial Might 138Toribio Perez de Bustamante’s Instrucción of 1650 141Colonial Forest Territoriality in the Seventeenth Century 145Habsburg State Forestry in an Era of Naval Decline 1564 Bottoming Out and Revival under the First Bourbon, 1700–1746 165Expansion of State Forestry in the Reign of Felipe V (1700–1746) 165Voices for Reform from the North Coast 168Patino’s Tenure and the Reestablishment of the Almirantazgo 174Forest Reconnaissance in the Naval Departments of Ferrol, Cartagena, and Cadiz 178The Forest Inspections of Juan Valdes y Castro in Segura and Catalonia 183Colonial Forest Territoriality in the Eighteenth Century 193Accomplishments of Felipe V’s Reign 2015 The Triumph of State Forestry: 1748–1754 203Ensenada’s Push for Peace and Naval Revival, 1743–1748 203Spain’s Naval Forest Conservation Ordinance of January 31, 1748 206Other Forest Legislation, 1748–1751 215Resistance to the New Legislation 219Forest Inspection Reports after 1748 222Other Reforms and Ensenada’s Fall from Power, 1749–1754 232Accomplishments of Fernando VI’s Reign (1746–1759) 236General Conclusion 240Bibliography 247Index 263