Spanish American Independence & 19th-Century Spain

The Independence of Spanish America

In the last years of the reign of Ferdinand VII, the independence of the Spanish colonies in America took place. The process was advanced by the criollos, dissatisfied with their political marginalization, the high taxes, and the social discrimination they faced compared to peninsular Spaniards. It was driven by the spread of European liberal and revolutionary ideas and by military aid from the United States and the United Kingdom. It was carried out in two stages:

• The first stage (1810-1814) coincided with the War of Independence, during which revolutionary juntas displayed tendencies that favored independence, led by Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín. They were repressed after the return of Ferdinand VII to Spain.
• The second stage (1815-1825). Ferdinand VII refused to grant any autonomy to the colonies. Thanks to British and American support, Spain was defeated at Pichincha (1822) and Ayacucho (1824), and its colonial empire was reduced to Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Americas and the Philippines in Asia. The new republics that arose after independence did not manage to unite and remained in the hands of military leaders.

The Glorious Revolution (1868-1874)

In 1868, a new revolution prevailed, known as the Glorious Revolution, and the queen went into exile. A Provisional Government was then formed that promulgated the Constitution of 1868. More democratic in character, it recognized freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to meet and to associate, national sovereignty, separation of powers, and, for the first time in Spanish history, universal suffrage for men. This was followed by two periods with a different form of State.

• Democratic monarchy (1871-1873) fell to the Italian Amadeo of Savoy. He faced the political opposition of the Republicans, those in favor of the Bourbons, and several military insurrections. Faced with this situation, Amadeo abdicated in 1873, and the First Republic was proclaimed.
• First Republic (1873-1874) was a period of considerable political instability. The Republicans were divided between unionists, those in favor of a centralist State; and federalists, who defended a decentralized State. In addition, a new Carlist war, the war in Cuba, and the insurrection of certain municipalities like Cartagena, that declared independent cantons or republics, caused several government crises. This situation favored the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1874.

Disentailment

The liberals ordered the disentailment or sale of amortized assets, that is, those tied to certain institutions like the nobility, the clergy, or municipalities, which until then could not be sold.

The first disentailment measures were approved in the Cortes of Cadiz and the Liberal Triennium, but the process received its definitive push during the reign of Isabella II. In subsequent laws, the State confiscated and auctioned off the assets of the clergy and abolished the entailed estates of the nobility (Mendizábal’s disentailment) and ordered the sale of common lands, of the personal assets of the city councils, and all the other amortized or mortmain assets (Madoz’s law of general disentailment).

The objective of these laws was to obtain resources for the State and facilitate access to land ownership. But the results were not as expected. The system of sale by auction benefited the nobility and the bourgeoisie, who created large estates, and it hurt small landowners, who could not buy land and who were ruined after the sale of municipal land. Tenants and day laborers were also hurt, as the new proprietors hardened their working conditions.