The Cortes of Cádiz was a revival of the traditional cortes (Spanish parliament), which as an institution had not functioned for many years, but it met as a single body, rather than divided into estates as with previous ones.[1]
The Cortes of Cádiz was seen then, and by historians today, as a major step towards liberalism and democracy in the history of Spain and Spanish America. The liberal Cortes drafted and ratified the Spanish Constitution of 1812, which established a constitutional monarchy and eliminated many institutions that privileged some groups over others.[5]
Napoleon's armies invaded Portugal (1807) and then Spain (1808), upending the Bourbon monarchy. At the time of the invasion, Charles IV had been at serious odds with his son and heir Ferdinand VII. In March 1808, the Tumult of Aranjuez, first forced Charles IV's first minister Manuel Godoy to be sacked; and then Charles IV himself was forced to abdicate under pressure. French armies were occupying Portugal and Spain, with some 50,000 in the capital Madrid, so that whoever was on the throne of Spain, the monarch had to contend with French troops. Napoleon saw the opportunity to bring down the dysfunctional and weak Bourbon monarchy by pitting father and son against each other further, to his own advantage. He invited Ferdinand VII to Bayonne, France, where Ferdinand thought that Napoleon was going to affirm him as Spain's legitimate ruler. His father Charles and mother María Luisa were also separately called to Bayonne.
After the Dos de Mayo Uprising (2 May) 1808, Napoleon forced Ferdinand to abdicate the throne in favor of his father, who had abdicated under pressure. Because Charles hated his son so much that he did not want him to be his heir, he then abdicated in favor of Napoleon himself. Napoleon turned over the throne of Spain to his older brother Joseph Napoleon, who was crowned in July 1808. Napoleon thought that a reformist regime would be welcomed by the Spanish people, but they chose loyalty to Ferdinand VII. In order to further shore up French dominance and implement structural changes, Napoleon brought together as many aristocrats as possible to Bayonne, where they ratified "the first written constitution of the Spanish-speaking world." This document is variously called the Bayonne Statute and the Bayonne Constitution. It abolished privileges fueros, the inquisition, and preserved the Cortes. Catholicism was kept as the sole religion. It is said that all but a few pro-French Spaniards rejected this document.[6]
From the first days of the Peninsular War, which erupted in Spain; in resistance to the French invasion and occupation of the peninsula, local ruling bodies or juntas appeared as the underground opposition to the French-imposed government. They were established by army commanders, guerrilla leaders or local civilian groups. Convinced that unity was needed to co-ordinate efforts against the French and to deal with British aid, several provincial juntas, in Murcia, Valencia, Seville and Castile and León, called for the formation of a central body. After a series of negotiations that included the discredited Council of Castile, a Supreme Central Junta met in Aranjuez on 25 September 1808.[7] Serving as surrogate for the absent royal government, it called for representatives from local provinces and overseas territories to meet in an "Extraordinary and General Cortes of the Spanish Nation." It was so called because it would be both the legislative body for the empire and the body that would write a constitution for it. By the beginning of 1810, the forces under the Junta's command had suffered serious military reverses at the battles of Ocaña and Alba de Tormes. The French inflicted large losses on the Spanish, took control of southern Spain and forced the government to retreat to Cádiz, its last available redoubt on Spanish soil.
Convoking the Cortes
Deputies of Cádiz Cortes by territories
The Supreme Central Junta dissolved itself on 29 January 1810 and set up a five-person Regency, charged with convening the Cortes. The Regency drew up a list of American-born Spaniards already present in Spain. By the time the delegates were to be chosen, some of Spain's American territories had successfully established their own juntas. These did not recognize the authority of either the central junta or the regency and so did not send representatives although many other regions in America did. The Regency made the decision to have the Americans elect representatives from their regions to attend the Cortes. Since part of Spanish America was in open revolt, this question of representatives from those regions was fraught. It was argued that the process was illegal, but the Regency decided it was better to have some American representation than none at all. The Regency set electoral procedures for delegates and the number of seats from each region. There were to be 30 representatives from Spanish America: 15 from northern Spanish America plus the Philippines (which was under the administrative jurisdiction of New Spain). New Spain was allocated 7 suplentes: Guatemala, 2; Cuba, 2; the Philippines, 2; Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, 1; Spanish South America got 15: Peru, 5; Santa Fé, 3; Buenos Aires, 3; Venezuela, 2; and Chile, 2. Those eligible to serve were to be at least 25 years old and from the place they would represent.[8] Not made explicit was that only males were eligible to serve.
When the Cortes convened for the first time on 24 September 1810, 104 deputies were present, 30 representing overseas territories (interim delegates who were living in Spain at the time of the French invasion). Only one of the 36 American deputies arrived in time for the opening session, Ramón Power y Giralt. Eventually, about 300 deputies, including 63 from the Spanish America, participated. The composition of the Cortes of Cádiz was diverse, with about one-third clerical, one-sixth nobles and the remainder from the "third estate", the middle class.[4] Historians of Mexico have investigated many aspects of New Spain's representation at the Cortes.[9] Among the most prominent delegates at the Cortes were José María Couto, who served as vice president in April 1813; José María Gutiérrez de Terán, who served as secretary, vice president, and president at various points; and Miguel Ramos Arizpe.[10]
The declaration of the Constitution of 1812, the work of Salvador Viniegra (Museo de las Cortes de Cádiz)
Influences on the Cortes
The fact that the Cortes was located in Cádiz, the most important port for trade with the Americas, meant that the powerful merchant guild (consulado) of Cádiz influenced discussions in the Cortes.[11] The consulado attempted to maintain their trade advantages. The Americans wanted freer trade, but the Cortes's location gave the large merchant houses power.[12] In Cádiz, pressures grew to send Spanish troops to quell rebellions in Spanish America, which alarmed Great Britain, now Cádiz's ally against the French in the Peninsular War. Britain ordinarily would have been for the opening up of trade in Spanish America, but during the Peninsular conflict, it wanted as many troops as possible in Spain to defeat the French.[13] Britain rejected pressure to support Spain's attempt to repress rebellion in Spanish America.[14]
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, who had served as Charles IV's minister of justice but had been sidelined by Manuel Godoy, argued for the convocation of a general Cortes. Jovellanos sought precedents in Spanish history for earlier forms of constitutionalism and found them in the Visigoths. Jovellanos rejected the notion that the Cortes could fundamentally change "the essence of our ancient constitution," and was concerned that sweeping changes would open Spain to the dangers of democracy and despotism. However, he did argue for the independence of the executive, the judiciary, and the legislature, but also argued for a bicameral legislature that would have an upper house reserved for the aristocracy. He advocated voting rights based on "qualities of property, rank, and education," to limit democracy.[15]
Seville-born Joseph Blanco White had aided Jovellanos in his research into the precedents for Spanish constitutionalism. But his influence on Spanish America's view of the Cortes was considerable, since he had founded a review in London called El Español (1810–1814), which was backed by the British Foreign Office and distributed by British firms with trade in Spanish America. It became highly influential in Spanish America. The aim of the publication was to "assist the Cortes frame a moderate constitution, and, more important, to effect reconciliation between the insurgent juntas in America and Spain." He was deeply sympathetic to the Americans, publishing letters from Mexican elite Fray Servando Teresa de Mier and Buenos Aires creole patriot, Mariano Moreno, who had called for the opening of trade that would destroy the Spanish monopoly. Blanco White's El Español was denounced by one delegate to the Cortes as "an enemy of his country worse than Napoleon."[16]
In its first session, the Cortes promulgated the proposition that it, rather than the king, was the national sovereign since it represented the people. Then, the national assembly divided the government into legislative, executive and judiciary branches. Given the contingencies of war that resulted from the forced displacement of Fernando VII, the regency announced that it would act as the executive until his restoration.
The national assembly restructured the government while prosecuting a war in Spain and maintaining control overseas. Once deliberations started, the delegates split into liberal and conservative factions. Conservative Spaniards saw the Cortes at Cádiz as, at best, an interim solution until "the Desired One", as Fernando VII was called by his supporters, could be restored to the throne. Most monarchists, however, did not admit that a parliamentary body could legislate in the absence of a king. The liberals carried on the reformist philosophy of Carlos III and added to it many of the ideas of the French Revolution. They wanted equality before the law, a centralized government, an efficient civil service, a reform of the tax system, the replacement of feudal privileges by freedom of contract and the recognition of property rights. As the liberals were the majority, they were able to transform the assembly from an interim government to a constitutional convention.
The product of the Cortes' deliberations reflected the liberals' dominance. The Spanish Constitution of 1812 came to be the "sacred code" of liberalism, and during the 19th century, it served as a model for liberal constitutions of Latin nations. The national assembly created a unitary state with equal laws across the Spanish Empire. The principal aim of the new constitution was the prevention of arbitrary and corrupt royal rule; it provided for a limited monarchy that governed through ministers subject to parliamentary control. It established that the unicameral legislature would meet annually in the capital. The constitution maintained that suffrage was not to be determined by property qualifications, and it favoured the position of the commercial class in the new parliament since there was no special provision for the Catholic Church or the nobility.[17] The constitution set up a rational and efficient centralised administrative system, based on newly formed provinces and municipalities, rather than following historic boundaries. The repeal of traditional property restrictions gave the liberals the freer economy that they wanted. However, the Spanish Constitution of 1812 denied people of African ancestry political rights and representation.[4]
Its first regulation includes one of the first examples of a seasonally adjusted schedule, a practice which led to the adoption of daylight savings time a century later.[18][19]
Aftermath
A revolutionary document, the Spanish Constitution of 1812 marked the initiation of the Spanish tradition of liberalism, and when Fernando VII was restored to the throne in 1814, he refused to recognize it. He dismissed the Cortes Generales on 4 May and ruled as an absolute monarch. These events foreshadowed the long conflict between liberals and traditionalists that marked Spanish history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Cádiz Cortes declared that the people of Spain have the sovereignty of all kingdoms of the Monarchy of Spain (including those of the Crown of Castile in the Americas) and proclaimed the extinction of the system of kingdoms and provinces of Spain and the Indies. The majority of the Criollo people of Spanish America rejected the pretensions of the Spaniards and assumed the sovereignty of the former American kingdoms of the Crown of Castile, over which the King of Spain had been sovereign.[20]
Spain's American colonies took advantage of the postwar chaos to proclaim their independence. Most established republican governments. The fact that the Constitution was considered too liberal by the conservative elements in the colonies only precipitated their decision to join the effort for independence from Spain. When Ferdinand was restored to the throne in Madrid, he expended wealth and manpower in a vain effort to reassert control over the colonies. The move was unpopular among liberal officers assigned to the American wars. By the second half of 1826 only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under the Spanish flag in the Americas, with the Philippines and Guam also under Spanish rule in Asia.
Ferdinand VII was King of Spain during the early 19th century. He reigned briefly in 1808 and then again from 1813 to his death in 1833. Before 1813 he was known as el Deseado, and after, as el ReyFelón.
Charles IV was King of Spain and ruler of the Spanish Empire from 1788 to 1808.
Joseph Blanco White, born José María Blanco y Crespo, was an Anglo-Spanish political thinker, theologian, and poet.
The Trienio Liberal or Three Liberal Years was a period of three years in the modern history of Spain between 1820 and 1823, when a liberal government ruled Spain after a military uprising in January 1820 by the lieutenant-colonel Rafael de Riego against the absolutist rule of Ferdinand VII.
Captain Ramón Power y Giralt was, according to Puerto Rican historian Lidio Cruz Monclova, among the first native-born Puerto Ricans to refer to himself as a "Puerto Rican" and to fight for the equal representation of Puerto Rico before the Cortes of Cádiz, the parliamentary government of Spain at the time.
The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy, also known as the Constitution of Cádiz and as La Pepa, was the first Constitution of Spain and one of the earliest codified constitutions in world history. The Constitution was ratified on 19 March 1812 by the Cortes of Cádiz, the first Spanish legislature that included delegates from the entire nation and its possessions, including Spanish America and the Philippines. "It defined Spanish and Spanish American liberalism for the early 19th century."
Spain in the 19th century was a country in turmoil. Occupied by Napoleon from 1808 to 1814, a massively destructive "liberation war" ensued. Following the Spanish Constitution of 1812, Spain was divided between the 1812 constitution's liberal principles and the absolutism personified by the rule of Ferdinand VII, who repealed the 1812 Constitution for the first time in 1814, only to be forced to swear over the constitution again in 1820 after a liberal pronunciamiento, giving way to the brief Trienio Liberal (1820–1823).
The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, earlier known as the United Provinces of South America, was a name adopted in 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán for the region of South America that declared independence in 1816, with the Sovereign Congress taking place in 1813, during the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818) that began with the May Revolution in 1810. It originally comprised rebellious territories of the former Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata dependencies and had Buenos Aires as its capital.
The First Republic of Venezuela was the first independent government of Venezuela, lasting from 5 July 1811, to 25 July 1812. The period of the First Republic began with the overthrow of the Spanish colonial authorities and the establishment of the Junta Suprema de Caracas on 19 April 1810, initiating the Venezuelan War of Independence, and ended with the surrender of the republican forces to the Spanish Captain Domingo de Monteverde. The congress of Venezuela declared the nation's independence on 5 July 1811, and later wrote a constitution for it. In doing so, Venezuela is notable for being the first Spanish American colony to declare its independence.
The First Republic of New Granada, known despectively as the Foolish Fatherland, is the period in the history of Colombia immediately following the declaration of independence from Spain in 1810 and until the Spanish reconquest in 1816. The period between 1810 and 1816 in the Viceroyalty of New Granada was marked by such intense conflicts over the nature of the new government or governments that it became known as la Patria Boba. Constant fighting between federalists and centralists gave rise to a prolonged period of instability that eventually favored Spanish reconquest. Similar developments can be seen at the same time in the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. Each province, and even some cities, set up its own autonomous junta, which declared themselves sovereign from each other.
In the Napoleonic era, junta was the name chosen by several local administrations formed in Spain during the Peninsular War as a patriotic alternative to the official administration toppled by the French invaders. The juntas were usually formed by adding prominent members of society, such as prelates, to the already-existing ayuntamientos. The juntas of the capitals of the traditional peninsular kingdoms of Spain styled themselves "Supreme Juntas", to differentiate themselves from, and claim authority over, provincial juntas. Juntas were also formed in Spanish America during this period in reaction to the developments in Spain.
The royalists were the people of Hispanic America and Europeans that fought to preserve the integrity of the Spanish monarchy during the Spanish American wars of independence.
The Spanish American wars of independence took place throughout Spanish America during the early 19th century, with the aim of political independence from Spanish rule. Struggles for sovereignty in both hemispheres began shortly after the outbreak of the Peninsular War as a front in the larger Napoleonic Wars, between royalists who favored a unitary monarchy, and patriots who favored either plural monarchies or republics. Thus, the strict period of military campaigns would go from the Battle of Chacaltaya (1809), in present-day Bolivia, to the Battle of Tampico (1829) in Mexico.
The Supreme Central and Governing Junta of Spain and the Indies was the Spanish organ (junta) that assumed the executive and legislative powers of the Kingdom of Spain during the Peninsular War and the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. It was established on 25 September 1808 following the Spanish victory at the Battle of Bailén and after the Council of Castile declared null and void the abdications of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII at Bayonne earlier in May. It was active until 30 January 1810. It was initially formed by the representatives of the provincial juntas and first met in Aranjuez chaired by the Count of Floridablanca, with 35 members in total.
Napoleonic Spain was the part of Spain loyal to Joseph I during the Peninsular War (1808–1813), forming a Bonapartist client state officially known as the Kingdom of Spain after the country was partially occupied by forces of the First French Empire.
This is a timeline of events related to the Spanish American wars of independence. Numerous wars against Spanish rule in Spanish America took place during the early 19th century, from 1808 until 1829, directly related to the Napoleonic French invasion of Spain. The conflict started with short-lived governing juntas established in Chuquisaca and Quito opposing the composition of the Supreme Central Junta of Seville. When the Central Junta fell to the French, numerous new Juntas appeared all across the Americas, eventually resulting in a chain of newly independent countries stretching from Argentina and Chile in the south, to Mexico in the north. After the death of the king Ferdinand VII, in 1833, only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule, until the Spanish–American War in 1898.
Diego Vicente Cañas Portocarrero, 7th Duke of Parque, also known as Vicente María de Cañas y Portocarrero, was a Lieutenant-General and a Spanish military leader during the Peninsular War. He commanded the Spanish forces defeated at Alba de Tormes.
Junta during Spanish American independence was the type of self government as patriotic alternative to the central government of Spain during the first phase of Spanish American wars of independence. The formation of juntas was usually an urban movement. Most juntas were created out of the already-existing ayuntamientos with the addition of other prominent members of society.
General elections to the special Cortes of Cádiz were held in Spain in 1810. At stake were all 276 seats in the Cortes of Cádiz – which served as a parliamentary Regency after Ferdinand VII was deposed by Napoleon.
References
↑ Rodríguez O., Jaime E. (1998). The Independence of Spanish America. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 82.
↑ Thieseen, Heather (1996). "Cortes of Cádiz" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 2, p. 277. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
↑ Rodríguez O. The Independence of Spanish America, pp. 78–79.
↑ Benson, Nettie Lee, ed. (1971). Mexico and the Spanish Cortes, 1810–1822: Eight Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
↑ Berry, Charles R. "The Election of Mexican Delegates to the Spanish Cortes, 1810–1822" in Benson, ed. Mexico and the Spanish Cortes.
↑ Hamnett, Brian R. (2017). The End of Iberian Rule on the American Continent, 1770–1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 192–194.
↑ Anna, Timothy (1983). Spain and the Loss of America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 55, 60–62.
↑ Costeloe, Michael P. (1986). Response to Revolution. Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–1840. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 55–57.
↑ Webster, C. K. (1938). Britain and the Independence of Latin America, 1812–1830. 2 vols. London, vol. 2, 309–331.
↑ Brading, D. A. (1991). The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492–1867. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 541–543.
↑ Chiaramonte, José Carlos (2010). Fundamentos intelectuales y políticos de las independencias: Notas para una nueva historia intelectual de Iberoamérica. Teseo. ISBN978-987-1354-56-6. For Hispanic America, [...], the Creoles claimed that their political connection was with the Castilian monarchy, not the Spanish nation, and that the throne being vacant, they had recovered their sovereignty. [...] The new sovereign entities, which considered themselves heirs to the sovereignty of the Castilian crown, [...] the sovereign bodies considered representative of the cities, and the provinces, or Latin American States, rejected decisions made without their consent.
Further reading
Adelman, Jeremy (2006). Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN978-0691142777
Benson, Nettie Lee, ed. (1966). Mexico and the Spanish Cortes. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Chust, Manuel (1999). La cuestión nacional americana en la Cortes de Cádiz. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
García la Guardia, Jorge Mario (1987). La Constitución de Cádiz y su influencia en América (175 años, 1812–1987).
King, John F. (1953). "The Colored Castes and the American Representation of the Cortes of Cadiz." Hispanic American Historical Review 33:1.
Lovett, Gabriel (1965). Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Spain. New York: New York University Press.
Pérez Guilhou, Dardo (1981). Las Cortes de Cádiz frente a la emancipaciónóó hispanoamericana, 1808–1814.
Rieu-Millan, Marie Laure (1990). Los diputados americanos en las Cortes de Cádiz: Igualdad o independencia. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. ISBN978-8400070915
Rodríguez O., Jaime E. (1998). The Independence of Spanish America. Cambridge University Press. ISBN0521626730
Rodríguez, Mario (1978). The Cádiz Experiment in Central America, 1808 to 1826. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN978-0520033948
Zimmerman, A. F. (1931). "Spain and Its Colonies, 1808–1820." Hispanic American Historical Review 11:4, 439–463
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