Isabel II Reign: Moderate Decade & Economic Shifts in Spain
Moreda-Decade
After ascending the throne in November 1843, Isabel II showed a preference for the moderates, leaving out the progressives. In May 1844, she formed a cabinet chaired by General Narvaez, the great figure of the moderates. These were the main measures adopted during the next decade:
- 1844: Creation of the Civil Guard.
- 1845: Reform of the council law of the tax system.
- 1846: Election law that sets a real oligarchic regime.
- 1851: Concordat. Agreement with the Holy See whereby the Pope recognized Isabel II as Queen and accepted the loss of church property already seized.
- 1845: Constitution. It is a moderate constitution, with shared sovereignty between the King and Cortes, a confessional state, and a reduction of individual rights.
Population and Economic Developments
The Spanish population increased throughout the period, although to a lesser extent than in most developed countries. The decline in mortality and the maintenance of a high birth rate explain this trend. Most of the population remained rural. Agriculture went through a profound reform based on the abolition of the seigneurial regime, the abolition of primogeniture, and the great confiscations of Mendizabal and Madoz. With this package, agriculture was liberalized, allowing the earth to move freely in the market, and removed the brakes that prevented the development of a market-oriented capitalist agriculture. Most of the land passed into the hands of individual private owners.
The great economic transformation of this period was the process of secularization of church property. It began in 1835 by the progressive Mendizabal, who later came to be completed by Pascual Madoz, also progressive, during the
Progressive Biennium
The seizure of assets of the municipalities. Secularization was basically the expropriation of property that was nationalized and disentailed and subsequently sold at public auction to the highest bidder. Secularization had three objectives:
- The main objective was financial: to seek income to pay the debt.
- There was also a political objective: to expand the social basis of liberalism with the purchasers of disentailed goods.
- Finally, concerns were raised, in a very timid way, about a social purpose: to create an agrarian middle class of peasant proprietors.
The results were not as positive as could have been expected:
- It did not solve the serious problem of public debt.
- Politically, liberalism gained currency, but it also created a gap that lasted a long time between liberalism and Catholic public opinion.
- In the social field, most disentailed assets were bought by nobles and the wealthy urban bourgeoisie. Poor farmers could not bid in auctions.
The desamortizacion did not serve to mitigate social inequality. In fact, many poor farmers saw how the new bourgeois owners raised rents. The church’s economic foundations of power were dismantled. The last major confiscation began in 1855, mainly affecting the lands of the municipalities, and accounted for the final liquidation of depreciated property in Spain. Its results were not very positive:
- It ruined the municipalities.
- It did not solve the perennial problem of public debt.
- It hurt the poorest neighbors.
Despite its shortcomings and mistakes, the confiscation of Madoz and Mendizabal radically changed the situation of the Spanish countryside.
Social Evolution
The main feature of this period is the gradual disappearance of an estate-based society and its replacement by a class society based on wealth.