Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Queen Portrait

This portrait of Queen Isabella of Spain hangs in the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Museum.

ISABELLA I Born, April 22, 1451---Deceased, November 26, 1504---Reigned--- 1474—1504! She and her husband, King Ferdinand II laid the foundation for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

When her father, John II died in 1454, her older half brother Henry IV became King. When Isabella was ten, she was summoned to the court of Henry IV so she could be directly supervised by the King.

Henry tried to get Isabella married to a number of people of his choice. She dodged all these propositions. She chose Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Aragon. She married Ferdinand October 19, 1469. Years before Columbus went to the Dominican Republic

Queen Isabella rejected Christopher Columbus's plan to reach the Indies by sailing west three times before changing her mind. His conditions (the position of Admiral; governorship for him and his descendants of lands to be discovered; and ten percent of the profits) were met.

On August 3, 1492 his expedition departed and arrived in America on October 12. He returned the next year and presented his findings to the monarchs, bringing natives and gold under a hero's welcome

Isabella received with her husband the title of Reina Católica by Pope Alexander VI, a pope of whose secularism Isabella did not approve. Along with the physical unification of Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand embarked on a process of spiritual unification, trying to bring the country under one faith (Roman Catholicism). As most people in the Dominican Republic are Catholic.

Isabella and her husband had created an empire and in later years were consumed with administration and politics; they were concerned with the succession and worked to link the Spanish crown to the other rulers in Europe.

Isabella and her husband established highly effective co regency under equal terms. They utilized a prenuptial agreement to lay down their terms.

During their reign they supported each other effectively in accordance to their joint motto of equality "They amount to the same, Isabella and Ferdinand.

Isabella and Ferdinand's achievements are remarkable - Spain was united, the crown power was centralized, the reconquista was successfully concluded, the groundwork for the most dominant military machine of the next century and a half was laid, a legal framework was created, the church reformed.

Even without the benefit of the American expansion, Spain would have been a major European power. Columbus' discovery set the country on the course for the first modern world power

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