Why didn't Spain and Portugal Continue the Reconquista in Africa?

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♦ In 1492 Granada fell, and seven centuries of Reconquista ended in victory. Spain and Portugal had the armies, the momentum, the crusading justification, and a coastline in sight across the strait. North Africa had been worth holding to the Romans. Nothing obvious stood in the way. Not for lack of trying, exactly. Portugal had already stormed Ceuta in 1415, the beginning of its overseas empire, and spent decades afterwards picking off coastal cities: Alcácer Ceguer, Safi, Azemmour. Spain took Tripoli in 1510. But look closely at what those operations were. Ports, seized and garrisoned, linked to trade routes. Not conquest in the Iberian sense, with territory held, administered, settled, and governed. Tangier in 1437 showed the limits: the siege failed, and Henry the Navigator had to hand over his own brother as a hostage to get his army out. Then the ground shifted twice. Columbus came back with news of the Americas, and Portugal opened the route to the Indies, and suddenly the wealth worth chasing lay west and east rather than directly south. And the Ottomans pushed into North Africa from the other direction, so that any campaign into the interior now meant fighting a rising empire rather than a fragmented one.

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♦Music by Epidemic Sound

00:00 Why Stop at Granada?
01:23 Seven Centuries, Then 1492
02:25 Ceuta and the First Foothold
03:48 Ports, Not Provinces
05:02 The New World Takes Over
06:25 Sebastian's Crusade
07:16 Alcácer Quibir
08:27 The Ottoman Shadow

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