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SESSION 6 The 19th CenturySESSION 6 The 19th Century
SPANISH CIVILIZATION AND SPANISH CIVILIZATION AND CULTURECULTURE
CEA BARCELONA GLOBAL CAMPUSCEA BARCELONA GLOBAL CAMPUSSUMMER 2007 PROGRAMMESUMMER 2007 PROGRAMME
Instructor: Victor Lapuente GineInstructor: Victor Lapuente Ginee-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]
OUTLINE OF THE SESSION
1) Consequences of the French Revolution in Spain
2) The Loss of the Spanish Empire in America
3) Liberalism vs. Conservatism in the 19th century
4) Characteristics of the Spanish political system in the 19th century
5) The Restoration (1876-)
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
1) Consequences of the French Revolution
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
-What was the Revolution?
-Which political system survived in France after the Revolution? E.g. democracy like in the US?
-Which was the slogan of the French Revolution?
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
-The War of American Independence (1775)
1779-83 Spain participates in the War of Indep of the US versus the UK
Spain obtains Florida and Minorca from the UK (previously, in 1763, it had obtained Louisiana from France)
So, by the time of the death of Charles III in 1788, Spain’s credentials as imperial power seemed restored
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
1793-1795: War France vs. Britain and Spain
1796-1802; 1804-1808: War France and Spain vs. Britain
Spain reduced to a French satellite
Long and ruinous war: The British naval blockade cut Spain off from her colonies
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
-Treaty of Fontainebleau (1807)
Spain and France decided to share Portugal between France, Spain and a principality in the Algarve for Godoy
When French troops were on the way to Portugal they occupied the fortresses of northern and central Spain.
Napoleon had resolved to convert Spain into a satellite state and offered the Spanish throne to his brother Joseph Bonaparte
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
-The War of Independence (1808-1814)Some intellectuals, the afrancesados, collaborated with the French
Most of the population resisted
Guerrilla war expanded
With the help of the British and the defeats of Napoleon in Europe, the French abandoned Spain in 1813
The son of Charles IV, Fernando VII, el deseado, restores the Bourbon rule in 1814
SESSION 7 The 19th Century
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
2) The Loss of the Spanish Empire in America
In less than 20 years all the Spanish Empire in continental America disappears
New states: Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Peru
Some islands in the Caribbean and the Philippines remain in Spanish hands
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
-The Economist article:
1. Find the similarities and differences between the independence of the British colonies in America and the Spanish ones
2. Which consequences may these differences have produced in the dissimilar historical paths of the US and Latin America?
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
3) Liberalism vs. Conservatism in the 19th century
-Consequence of the French occupation: liberal thinking entered Spain
-In the absence of Absolute kings, the improvised Cortes de Cadiz set out a liberal constitution in 1812
-The Constitution of Cadiz eliminated the basis of the Ancien Regime, like urban industrial gremios, the big latifundios and some privileges of the Catholic Church.
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
-Characteristics of the Constitution of Cadiz:1. Strong and a centralized state. It introduced the idea of the “Spanish
nation”
2. Courts elected by indirect suffrage
3. The power of the King is limited by that of the Courts
4. Equality of all the Spaniards and abolition of privileges
5. A proportional taxation system
6. The creation of public schools
7. A Judicial system in which everybody is equal and abuse and torture are forbidden
8. Freedom of expression and press
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
-The Cadiz Constitution became reference for all those constitutional governments in Europe, but it was abolished in Spain by Ferdinand VII, who restored Absolutism
-The remaining 19th century will be in Spain a fight between the supporters of liberalism versus the followers of Absolutism
SESSION 6 The 19th Century
-Carlist wars were wars between:
1) Supporters of candidate to King Prince Carlos vs. supporters of Isabella
2) The rural country, deeply religious, vs. the more liberal cities
3) The traditionalist view of Spain as compounded by almost independent entities vs. the centralist liberal view of Spain (e.g. Carlism’s strongholds were in the Northern provinces of the Basque country, Navarra, Aragon and Catalonia)
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
4) Characteristics of the Spanish political system in the 19th century
-Two main characteristics: High Political Instability and Oligarchic Nature of the Political System
a) High Political Instability: In general, the changes of government have been very
frequent in Spain during the last two centuries: 215 changes in 193 years (1808-2000). That means more than one government per year (1.12)
However, it was during the 19th century when governments were especially unstable. In some phases, like the Revolutionary Period (1868-1874), there was an average of 3.33 governments a year.
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
Number of governments
Governments/year
Reign of Fernando VII (1808-1833) 26 1.04
Reign of Isabel II (1833-1868) 57 1.62
Revolutionary Period (1868-1874) 20 3.33
Reign of Alfonso XII (1874-1885) 9 0.82
Reign of Alfonso XIII (1885-1931) 58 1.26
II Republic (1931-1939) 24 2.66
Franco’s Regime (1939-1975) 10 0.27
Reign of Juan Carlos I –democracy (1975-2000)
11 0.44
Total 215 1.12
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
-Causes of the High Political Instability:
1) Under normal circumstances, Spanish Monarchs enjoyed a very discretionary power to appoint the cabinet and thus could change the government at will in any moment Monarchs used that margin of manoeuvre to keep the balance among the different oligarchic parties
2) There were several military uprisings (pronunciamientos) that either changed the political regime or the government. Those rebellions were regularly the response to Monarch’s inability to maintain the equilibrium among the main political forces.
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
b) Oligarchic Nature of the Political SystemThe Monarch had the power to choose the members of the
cabinet and gave them the all-important decree of dissolution
This decree allowed the cabinet to ‘make’ a parliamentary majority thanks to the use of electoral manipulation
Systematic election-rigging was facilitated by a census-based suffrage scheme which enabled local elites in rural areas to manipulate the right to vote and to bring many pressures to bear upon electoral results
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
-The 1868 ‘Glorious Revolution’
Isabella favoured the conservatives –called Moderates- and excluded the Progressives (Liberals) from office in her later years
Since they could not win an election without the influence of a progressive cabinet, the progressives turn to their sympathizers among the generals in order to catapult the party into power by a coup d’etat
With the backing of important military factions, the progressives seized power with the political-military revolution of September 1868
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
The revolutionary coalition of progressives decided to install a monarchical form in Spain, but a liberal monarchy.
A new Constitution, based on a compromise between a ‘monarchy with all its attributes’ and a democracy ‘with all its consequences’.
The progressives selected Amadeo of Savoy as the new King of Spain.
Internal disputes Amadeo is forced to abdicate in 1873
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
The unity of Spain seemed then in peril because of:
1) Cantonalist revolts. Radical democrats took power over the government in southern cities like Cartagena.
2) The Third Civil War against the traditionalist Carlists broke out again in the north.
3) Increasing disaffection of moderate conservatives with the progressive incumbents At last, a group of conservative Army officials headed by General Martinez Campos undertook an uprising in 1875 to restore Bourbon monarchy with Isabella II’s son, Alfonso XII.
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
5) The Restoration (1876-)
Cánovas crafted a peaceful system of alternating control through which his Conservative party and the Liberals could rotate in power thanks to a tacit acceptation of electoral manipulation.
This alternation of the two main parties was called the turno pacifico and it achieved its goal of replacing the military coup as the main instrument of political change in Spain
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
The first piece of the Restoration system, the one who made possible the rotation of parties every a certain amount of time, was the Monarch, who had to keep a scrupulous neutrality
Similar to what had previously happened with Isabella II, Alfonso XII (from 1875 to his death in 1885), Queen Regent Maria Cristina (from 1885 to 1902) and Alfonso XIII (from 1902 when he came of age) accumulated an extraordinary power.
The Monarch not only appointed ministries, but he also dismissed them. The cabinet had the capacity of enacting the decree of dissolution through which it could ‘make’ an election and count on a comfortable majority in the Cortes (Spanish legislature).
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
-The Emergence of the ‘Two Spains’:A contest between the Spain of progress and free thought
which looked to Europe –more urban- and the inward-looking Spain of traditionalist Catholic values –more rural.
Carr considers that besides the ‘two Spains’ of competing ideologies and value systems there were the two Spains of rural poverty, ignorance and illiteracy and the more volatile and educated Spain of the larger towns
Contrary to other European countries, around 1900, nearly 50 per cent of the Spanish population could not read and write.
Nevertheless, there had been a remarkable expansion of literacy during the second half of the century in larger cities and towns and it made the traditional electoral manipulation more difficult.
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
Illiteracy rates in four European countries, 1850-1910
YearSpain Belgium France England Italy
1850 75 47 42 38 75
1860 73 42 37 31 72
1870 71 36 32 24 69
1880 69 31 27 17 62
1890 61 26 22 8 55
1900 56 19 17 3 48
1910 50 15 13 0 38
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
The end of century crisis:
-The arousal of New Social Movements:
In 1879 PSOE is born and in 1888 its trade union, the UGT
Anarchists trade unions like CNT appear in 1910
In Catalonia and the Basque Country nationalist movements emerge: e.g. Lliga Catalana and the PNV.
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
-The 1898 crisis:
Spain loses its last colonies in 1898:
Cuba
Puerto Rico
Filipinas
Guam
And it prompted a general crisis in Spain…
SESSION 6. The 19th Century
-Continuous social riots and terrorist attacks (e.g. La Semana Tragica in Barcelona 1909).
-Presidents assassinated: Canovas del Castillo (1897), Jose Canalejas (1912) or Eduardo Dato (1921). Maura suffered a failed intent in 1904
