War of The Spanish Succession - Aftermath

Aftermath

Under the Peace of Utrecht, Philip was recognized as King Philip V of Spain, but renounced his place in the French line of succession, thereby precluding the union of the French and Spanish crowns (although there was some sense in France that this renunciation was illegal). He retained the Spanish overseas empire, but ceded the Southern Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia to Austria; Sicily and parts of the Milanese to Savoy; and Gibraltar and Minorca to Great Britain. Moreover, he granted the British the exclusive right to non-Spanish slave trading in Spanish America for thirty years, the so-called asiento.

With regard to the political organization of their kingdoms, Philip issued the Nueva Planta decrees, following the centralizing approach of the Bourbons in France, ending the political autonomy of the kingdoms which had made up the Crown of Aragon; territories in Spain that had supported the Archduke Charles and up to then had kept their institutions in a framework of loose dynastic union, separate from the rest of the Spanish realm. On the other hand, the Kingdom of Navarre and the Basque Provinces, having supported the king against the Habsburg pretender, did not lose their autonomy and retained their traditional differentiated institutions and laws (fueros).

No important changes were made to French territory in Europe. Grandiose imperial desires to turn back the French expansion to the Rhine which had occurred since the middle decades of the seventeenth century were not realized, nor was the French border pushed back in the Low Countries. France agreed to stop supporting the Stuart pretenders to the British throne, instead recognizing Anne as the legitimate queen. The Dutch were permitted to retain various forts in the Spanish Netherlands, and were permitted to annex a part of Spanish Guelders.

In North America, France also gave up various colonial possessions, recognizing British sovereignty over Rupert's Land and Newfoundland, and ceding Acadia and its half of Saint Kitts. The Acadian cession contained ambiguous language concerning boundaries, setting the stage for future conflicts. Since Utrecht also neglected to account for Native American claims to the same areas, the tribes of northeastern North America (Abenaki and Mi'kmaq) did not immediately make peace; some tribes signed the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth, but disputes between colonists and the northeastern tribes continued for decades afterward, notably flaring in Father Rale's War (1722-1725).

With the Peace of Utrecht, the wars to prevent French hegemony that had dominated the latter part of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century were over for the time being. However, France had permanently broken the threat of encirclement by Habsburg powers and France and Spain, both under Bourbon monarchs, remained allies during the following years. Due to the lack of necessity for privateers after the peace of Utrecht, large numbers of unemployed privateers turned to piracy —thus launching a new phase of the Golden Age of Piracy.