Mid-nineteenth century Spain
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Reaction (1814-1820)
(r. 1814-1833)King Ferdinand VII's refusal to agree to the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 on his accession to the throne in 1814 came as little surprise to most Spaniards; the king had signed on to agreements with the clergy, the church, and with the nobility in his country to return to the earlier state of affairs even before the fall of Napoleon. The decision to abrogate the Constitution was not welcomed by all, however. Liberals in Spain felt betrayed by the king who they had decided to support, and many of the local juntas that had pronounced against the rule of Joseph Bonaparte lost confidence in the king's rule. The army, which had backed the pronouncements, had liberal leanings that made the king's position tenuous. Even so, agreements made at the Congress of Vienna starting a year later would cement international support for the old, absolutist regime in Spain.
The Spanish Empire in the New World had largely supported the cause of Ferdinand VII over the Bonapartist pretender to the throne in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars. Joseph had promised radical reform, particularly the centralization of the state, which would cost the local authorities in the American empire their autonomy from Madrid. The Spanish colonies, however, had operated with virtual independence from Madrid after their pronouncement against Joseph Bonaparte.
junta replaces the Spanish Captaincy General, 19 April 1810Already in 1810 the Caracas and Buenos Aires juntas declared their independence from the Bonapartist government in Spain and sent ambassadors to the United Kingdom. The British blockade against Spain had also moved most of the Latin American colonies out of the Spanish economic sphere and into the British sphere, with whom extensive trade relations were developed. When Ferdinand's rule was restored, these juntas were cautious of abandoning their autonomy, and an alliance between local elites, merchant interests, nationalists, and liberals opposed to the abrogation of the Constitution of 1812 rose up against the Spanish in the New World.
Although Ferdinand was committed to the reconquest of the colonies, along with many of the Continental European powers, Britain was ostensibly opposed to the move which would limit her new commercial interests. British resistance to Spanish reconquest of the colonies was compounded by uncertainty in Spain itself about whether or not the colonies should be reconquered; Spanish liberals, already disdainful of the monarchy's rejection of the constitution, were opposed to the restoration of an empire that they saw as antique over the liberal revolutions in the New World with whom they sympathized.
over Spanish forces at the Battle of Chacabuco, 12 February 1817The arrival of Spanish forces in the American colonies began in 1814, and was briefly successful in restoring central control over large parts of the Empire. Simon Bolivar, the leader of revolutionary forces in New Granada, was briefly forced into exile in British-controlled Jamaica, and independent Haiti. In 1816, however, Bolivar found enough popular support that he was able to return to South America, and in a daring march from Venezuela to New Granada (Colombia), he defeated Spanish forces at the Battle of Boyaca in 1819, ending Spanish rule in Colombia, Venezuela. Argentina declared its independence in 1816 (though it had been operating with virtual independence as a British client since 1807 after resisting British seaborne landings). Chile was retaken by Spain in 1814, but lost permanently in 1817 when an army under Jose de San Martin, for the first time in history, crossed the Andes Mountains from Argentina to Chile, and went on to defeat Spanish royalist forces at the Battle of Chacabuco in 1817.
Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Central America still remained under Spanish control in 1820. King Ferdinand, however, was dissatisfied with the loss of so much of the Empire and resolved to retake it; a large expedition was assembled in Cadiz with the aim of reconquest. The army would prove to create problems of its own.
Trienio liberal (1820-1823)
See also: Spanish Civil War, 1820-1823, leader of the mutiny of 1820 at Cadiz
A conspiracy of liberal mid-ranking officers in the expedition being outfitted at Cadiz mutinied before they were shipped to the Americas. Led by Rafael del Riego, the conspirators seized their commander and led their army around Andalusia hoping to gather support; garrisons across Spain declared their support for the would-be revolutionaries. Riego and his co-conspirators demanded that the liberal Constitution of 1812 be restored. Before the coup became an outright revolution, King Ferdinand agreed to the demands of the revolutionaries and swore by the constitution. A "Progresista" (liberal) government was appointed, though the king expressed his disaffection with the new administration and constitution.
Three years of liberal rule (the Trienio liberal) followed. The Progresista government reorganized Spain into 52 provinces, and intended to reduce the regional autonomy that had been a hallmark of Spanish bureaucracy since Habsburg rule in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The opposition of the affected regions - in particular, Aragon, Navarra, and Catalonia - shared in the king's antipathy for the liberal government. The anticlerical policies of the Progresista government led to friction with the Roman Catholic Church, and the attempts to bring about industrialization alienated old trade guilds. The Inquisition - which had been halted once by Joseph Bonaparte during the French occupation - was ended again by the Progresista government, summoning up accusations of being nothing more than afrancesados (Francophiles), who only six years before had been forced out of the country. More radical liberals attempted to revolt against the entire idea of a monarchy, constitutional or otherwise, in 1821; these republicans were suppressed, though the incident served to illustrate the frail coalition that bound the Progresista government together.
'' of the Trienio Liberal (1820-1823), a period of liberal rule in Spain
The election of a radical liberal government in 1823 further destabilized Spain. The army - whose liberal leanings had brought the government to power - began to waver when the Spanish economy failed to improve, and in 1823, a mutiny in Madrid had to be suppressed. The Jesuits (who had been banned by Charles III in the eighteenth century, only to be rehabilitated by Ferdinand VII after his restoration) were banned again by the radical government. For the duration of liberal rule, King Ferdinand (though technically head of state) lived under virtual house arrest in Madrid.
The Congress of Vienna ending the Napoleonic Wars had inaugurated the "Congress system" as an instrument of international stability in Europe. Rebuffed by the "Holy Alliance" of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in his request for help against the liberal revolutionaries in 1820, by 1822 the "Concert of Europe" was at sufficient unease with Spain's liberal government and its surprising hardiness that they were prepared to intervene on Ferdinand's behalf. In 1822, the Congress of Verona authorized France to intervene. Louis XVIII of France - himself an arch-reactionary - was only too happy to put an end to Spain's liberal experiment, and a massive army - the "100,000 Sons of Saint Louis" - was dispatched across the Pyrenees in April 1823. The Spanish army, fraught by internal divisions, proved to be little resistance to the French, who seized Madrid and reinstalled Ferdinand as absolute monarch. The liberals' hopes for a new Spanish War of Independence were not to be fulfilled.
, 9 December 1824. The defeat of the Spanish army at Ayacucho was the definitive end of Spain's empire on the American mainland.
Although Mexico had been in revolt in 1811 under Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, resistance to Spanish rule had largely been confined to small guerilla bands in the countryside. The coup in Spain put many Mexican conservatives at unease with the liberal policies of the Progresista government. In 1821, conservatives in Mexico led by Agustin de Iturbide and Vincente Guerrero presented the Plan de Iguala, calling for an indepndent Mexican monarchy, in response to fears of the liberalism and anticlericalism in Spain coming to her colonies. The liberal government - which showed less interest in the reconquest of the colonies than Ferdinand had - agreed to grant independence to Mexico with the Treaty of Córdoba.
Jose de San Martin, who had helped to liberate Chile and Argentina already, entered Peru in 1820; in 1821, the inhabitants of Lima invited him and his soldiers to the city. The viceroy fled into the interior of the country. The viceroy successfully and it was only with the arrival of Simon Bolivar and Jose Antonio de Sucre in 1823 that the Spanish royalist forces were defeated at the battles of Junin and Ayacucho, where the entire Spanish Army of Peru and the Viceroy were captured. The Battle of Ayacucho signified the end of the Spanish Empire on the American mainland.
Decada ominosa (1823-1833)
. Ferdinand VII, after his restoration as absolute monarch in 1823, took repressive measures against the liberal forces in his country.
Immediately following the restoration of absolutist rule in Spain, King Ferdinand embarked on a policy intended to restore old conservative values to government; the Jesuit Order and the Spanish Inquisition were reinstated once more, and some autonomy was again devolved to the provinces of Aragon, Navarre, and Catalonia. Although he refused to accept the loss of the American colonies, Ferdinand was prevented from taking any further action against the rebels in the Americas by the opposition of the United Kingdom and the United States, who voiced their support of the new Latin American republics in the form of the Monroe Doctrine. The recent betrayal of the army demonstrated to the king that his own government and soldiers were untrustworthy, and the need for domestic stability proved to be more important than the reconquest of the Empire abroad. As a result, the destines of Spain and her empire on the American mainland were to permanently take separate paths.
Ferdinand VII of Spain in his robes of state'', by Francisco GoyaAlthough in the interests of stability Ferdinand issued a general amnesty to all those involved in the 1820 coup and the liberal government that followed it, the original architect of the coup, Rafael del Riego, was executed. The liberal Partido Progresista, however, continued to exist as a political force, even if it was excluded from actual policymaking by Ferdinand's restored government. Riego himself hanged, though he would become a martyr for the liberal cause in Spain and would be memorialized in the anthem of the Second Spanish Republic, El Himno de Riego, more than a century later.
The remainder of Ferdinand's reign was spent restoring domestic stability and the integrity of Spain's finances, which had been in ruins since the occupation of the Napoleonic Wars. The end of the wars in the Americas improved the government's financial situation, and by the end of Ferdinand's rule the economic and fiscal situation in Spain was improving. A revolt in Catalonia was crushed in 1827, but at large the period saw an uneasy peace in Spain.
, Queen Consort (1822-1833) and Queen Regent (1833-1840) of Spain
Ferdinand's chief concern after 1823 was how to solve the problem of his own succession. He was married four times in his life, and bore two daughters in all his marriages; the succession law of Philip V of Spain, which still stood in Ferdinand's time, excluded women from the succession. By that law, Ferdinand's successor would be his brother, the Infante Carlos Maria Isidro. Don Carlos, however, was a reactionary and an authoritarian who desired the restoration of the traditional moralism of the Spanish state, the elimination of any traces of constitutionalism, and a close relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. Though surely not a liberal, Ferdinand was fearful of Don Carlos's extremism. War had broken out in neighboring Portugal in 1828 as a result of just such a conflict between reactionary and moderate forces in the royal family - the War of the Two Brothers.
In 1830, at the advice of his wife, Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Ferdinand decreed a Pragmatic Sanction that had the effect of fundamental law in Spain. As a result of the sanction, women were allowed to accede to the Spanish throne, and the succession would fall on Ferdinand's infant daughter, Isabella, rather than to his brother Carlos. Carlos - who disputed the legality of Ferdinand's ability to change the fundamental law of succession in Spain - left the country for Portugal, where he became a guest of Dom Miguel, the absolutist pretender in that country's civil war.
Ferdinand died in 1833, at the age of 49. He was succeeded by his daughter Isabella under the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction, and his wife, Maria Christina, became regent for her daughter, who at that time was only three years of age. Carlos disputed the legitimacy of Maria Christina's regency and the accession of her daughter, and declared himself to be the rightful heir to the Spanish throne. A half-century of civil war and unrest would follow.
