Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Extremadura has not always been the poor region it is today. The Romans settled it as part of the province of Lusitania, making the city of Augusta Merita — present-day Mérida — its capital. The Visigoths who succeeded the Romans adopted Mérida as their capital, though few traces remain of this time. In the 8th century, the Moorish conquerors again centred on Mérida, until a Moorish rebel named Abd al-Rahman Ibn Marwan founded the city of Badajoz, the strategic position of which, controlling both north-south (Castile-to-Andalusia) and east-west (Spain-to-Portugal) routes would lead to it displacing Mérida as the most important city in the region. The Arabs also rebuilt Cáceres, destroyed by the Visigoths. After the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, the Taifa Kingdom of Badajoz became one of the most important in the Iberian Peninsula, extending from Galicia down to the Algarve and even the Atlantic.

In spite of this, the Christian Spanish considered it a borderland, a land of extremos, thus giving it its name. The reconquista reached Extremadura in the 13th century, at the hands of Alphonse IX of León. Anxious to resettle the area, he gave large areas to nobles and military orders such as the Knights of Santiago, Alcantara, the Temple and Saint John. These, of course, feuded incessantly with each other and with the cities, and to make things even worse for the locals, Extremadura also figures large in the history of Spanish wars with Portugal.

In the 16th century, it produced a disproportionate number of the conquistadores, that series of extraordinary, ruthless, often cruel but undeniably brave men who extended Spanish domination over most of the Americas. The most outstanding names are Hernán Cortés, born in Medellín in Badajoz, who wrested Mexico from the Aztecs with only 700 men, or Francisco Pizarro, born in Trujillo, Cáceres, who conquered Peru with 180 men, demolishing the Inca Empire in the process. The list goes on: Pedro de Alvarado, Pedro de Valdivia, Hernando de Soto...

The wealth arriving from the New World was a mixed blessing. It allowed Spain to become the leading power in Europe, but brought inflation and depression, pushing the population into emigration, and the people of Extremadura, so active in the conquest of the America, also played a large part in its colonization. This was the beginning of the depopulation of much of Extremadura's countryside (greedy, incompetent absentee landlords have also been a traditional scourge: the draw of the New World must have been powerful indeed).

During the Peninsula War, Spain's War of Independence, Extremadura was once again frontier land. British troops had a relatively secure base in Portugal and were supplied by sea, while the French lived off the land as was their custom. The Battle of Medellín in 1809 was a disaster for the Spanish army under the unpopular General Gregorio de la Cuesta, the Battle of Albuera was an important victory for the British in 1811, and British troops led by General Hill won a significant victory at Arroyo dos Molinos later the same year. In 1812, French forces in Badajoz were besieged by the British, who successfully stormed the city only three weeks later: they endeared themselves to the population by pillaging it.

The most notable feature of the 19th and early 20th centuries for Extremadura was the total non-happening of any kind of industrial revolution. Extremadura completely missed the boat, leading to even deeper impoverishment (which has its positive side, it must be admitted, in that lack of development equals conservation). When the Spanish Civil War came, it fell to the fascist Nationalist rebels immediately. The inertia that followed the post-war period was total, and the country's industrialization and the development that took place in other regions on the back of the new Spanish tourist industry passed Extremadura by altogether.