The marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469 created a dynastic union between the Crowns of Aragon and Castile, and both realms kept their own laws, institutions, borders and currency. In 1492 the Spanish colonization of the Americas began, political power began to shift away towards Castile. Tensions between Catalan institutions and the Monarchy, alongside the economic crisis and the peasants' revolts, caused the Reapers' War (1640–1652), being briefly proclaimed a Catalan Republic. The Principality of Catalonia retained its political status, but this came to an end after the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714), in which the Crown of Aragon supported the claim of the Archduke Charles of Habsburg. Following Catalan surrender on 11 September 1714, the king Philip V of Bourbon, inspired by the model of France imposed a unifying administration across Spain, suppressing the Crown of Aragon and enacted the Nueva Planta decrees, banning the main Catalan political institutions and rights and merged into Castile as a province. These led to the eclipse of Catalan as a language of government and literature. Catalonia experienced economic growth, reinforced in the late 18th century when Cádiz's trade monopoly with American colonies ended.