Cultural history has provided an ample base of knowledge regarding the complex and multifaceted current of political-cultural perspectives and thought known as Iberianism. This label has housed many projects, such as “annexing” or “fusing” Portugal into the Spanish state, an Iberian federation of these two states, or schemes for the creation of an Iberian League of Nations. Iberianism was a complete failure in the political realm, oscillating between aspirations for the creation of a single peninsular state and the pursuit of some other formula to accommodate the Portuguese national identity within a new Iberia or Hispania. Many Spanish adherents saw in Iberianism a magic recipe for bringing Portugal back to its historical common homeland with Spain, in hopes of restoring the shared political community of the period of dynastic union (1580–1640) and reintegrating Portugal within a single Spanish nation. Republicans, and especially federal republicans, felt that Portugal had been “amputated” from Spain with the Portuguese secession of 1640, which they blamed on the despotic rule of the Habsburg dynasty. This also implied that many Spanish republicans considered the Portuguese rebels of 1640 to be the first authentically Spanish liberals, following the path forged by the revolt of the Castilian Comuneros in 1521. This would suggest that the Portuguese had only left the Spanish political and national community to escape monarchic oppression (Rocamora).1

No matter how respectful Portuguese supporters of Iberianism were toward their own national identity and personality, more often than not they were perceived as the unwitting servants and naive companions of Spanish or Castilian imperialism in new clothes. Iberianists argued in vain for a new Iberia with a bi-national character, a real menage à deux with potential for becoming a world power (Catroga; Campos Matos). A peaceful return of Portugal to the Spanish nation was presented as a fusion of two partners, but for many it represented a threat of absorption.

Two Iberian Nations or Many Iberian Regions?

What if the project of a new Iberian state were not conceptualized as a merger of two partners but three: a ménage à trois, a tripartite Iberianism composed of Portugal (with Galicia), Castile (with the Basque Country and Andalusia) and Catalonia (with the “Catalan countries” of Valencia and the Balearic Islands)? Could such a menage à trois be expanded to tetra-national or even penta-national formulas?