Canton of Cartagena

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Canton of Cartagena
Cantón de Cartagena (Spanish)
1873–1874
Flag of Canton of Cartagena
Flag
CapitalCartagena
GovernmentCommune (junta)
Historical eraSexenio Democrático
• Established
July 12, 1873
• Disestablished
January 12, 1874
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
First Spanish Republic
First Spanish Republic
Today part ofSpain

The Canton of Cartagena (

Spanish history known as the Sexenio Democrático
.

History

Map of the Cantonal rebellions in 1873 showing Cartagena and the precursor revolution in Alcoy.

Background

With King

Spanish Cortes.  After winning power in the republic's May 1873 elections, President of the Executive Power, Francesc Pi i Margall, signaled that the republic would transition from a unitary state to a federation following the completion and adoption of a new constitution for Spain.[1]
: 203 

In southern Spain, federalist sentiment was strong and tied to the concept of autonomous cantons or communes.  At the time,

1872 Hague Congress, the FRE-AIT associated with the anarchist wing of the International.  President Francesc Pi himself was a Proudhonist who was interested in establishing a decentralized Spanish political network.[3]

During the first chaotic months of the Spanish Republic following the 1873 election, the FRE-AIT sensed an opportunity to organize a general strike in

Alcoy, one of the most industrialized cities in Spain at the time.[3]  The organized workers' revolt began on July 9, 1873 and escalated quickly into the Petroleum Revolution, so-named because it involved workers torching Alcoy City Hall with petroleum.  The rebellion was suppressed by the federal government within four days.[4]

Establishment

With the success of Francesc Pi's Federal Democratic Republican Party in the 1873 election, many Spaniards saw the decentralization of Spain into federated cantons as an inevitable outcome. President Pi's government believed that decentralization would need to be top-down in order to legally establish the autonomy of individual cantons. By July 1873, tensions were growing in southern Spain with more radical federalists (known as "intransigents") believing that the election's results had provided a mandate to establish autonomous cantons from the bottom-up.[1]: 268-269 

Hoisting of the blood-stained red flag above the Castle of Galeras.

Cartagena, on the southern

flag of the Ottoman Empire above the castle to declare the canton's independence.[1]: 243 [5]
: 165–166 

A provisional junta was quickly established in Cartagena City Hall, led by Manuel Cárceles Sabater.[6]: 296  Antonio Gálvez Arce [es] was proclaimed general of the canton's military forces and was able to persuade the naval garrison situated in the port to side with the cantonal rebels, thus providing the junta with its own fleet.[1]: 261-262  The Committee of Public Health sent Juan Contreras y Román [es] from Madrid to help organize the rebel troops in Cartagena. Barcia would soon follow Contreras to Cartagena after the intransigents were purged from Madrid. Originally called the Canton of Murcia, the junta hoped that the entire Region of Murcia would join the autonomous canton.[6]: 296  Though inspired by the Petroleum Revolution in Alcoy, the FRE-AIT did not take part in the organization of the canton.[3]

Expansion

Within days of the insurrection in Cartagena, uprisings spread throughout Murcia and southern Spain leading to the larger Cantonal rebellion. Many communities in Murcia declared their allegiance with the Murcian Canton while other communities declared their own autonomous cantons. President Francesc Pi, sympathetic to the cantonal cause, attempted to negotiate with the provisional junta in Cartagena. Unsuccessful, Pi was forced to resign on July 18 and was replaced by the moderate Nicolás Salmerón y Alonso.[1]: 252  Salmerón, unlike Pi, made it known he was willing to suppress rebellious cantons with force if necessary.[1]: 256 

Cartagena was quick to mobilize both its navy and army in spreading the cantonal movement. Galvez, in command of the frigate

Malaga instead where the expedition was captured on August 1 by a small German and British naval force that had declared the cantonal forces to be pirates.[1]: 257 [8]: 162  A second land expedition left Cartagena for Orihuela on July 30 and after the Battle of Orihuela, brought the city to the cantonalists side.[9] A third land expedition of 3,000 men left in early August for Chinchilla where Galvez hoped to cut off the railway line between Madrid and Valencia, which had recently declared itself the Valencian Canton. The cantonal forces were defeated on August 10 in the Battle of Chinchilla and Galvez was forced to retreat back to Murcia.[5]
: 209 

Defeat

Political characture of Emilio Castelar in 1873 caught between the Carlist revolt in Navarre and the cantonal insurrection in Cartagena

After the Battle of Chinchilla, Salmerón was able to re-establish republican control in much of southern Spain under the command of General

Emilio Castelar y Ripoll as President of the Executive Power.[1]: 292  Pressured by the cantonal rebellion in the south and a monarchist Carlist war in the north, Castelar was granted emergency executive powers by the Cortes to bring all of Spain back into the First Republic's control.[1]
: 295 

Castelar's first attempt to besiege Cartagena by sea was thwarted on October 16 during the

American flag in the canton in order to avoid the bombing, without it finally being carried out.[10]

The First Spanish Republic based in Madrid was unable to maintain its loose grip on control and on January 3, 1874, the federal government was overthrown in a coup led by Manuel Pavía establishing a military dictatorship.[1]: 326  Any hope in Cartagena for recognition of the cantonal system was lost after Pavia's coup. On January 7, an explosion at an artillery storehouse in Cartagena killed over 300, mostly civilians. Finally, on January 12, the City surrendered and the remaining cantonal leaders with approximately 500 refugees fled by frigate to Algeria.[8]: 419-422  The next day, government troops entered Cartagena.[1]: 299 

Aftermath

With most intransigents either killed or escaped, Cartagena was easily pacified. The city was largely devastated after the siege and it is estimated that approximately 70% of the city's buildings were destroyed.

Not only did the radical cantonal movement collapse with the fall of Cartagena, so too did hope for the stability of republicanism in Spain. Later that same year, the Bourbon monarchy was restored. The Second Spanish Republic was established 57 years later and would also precede a period of radicalism in Spain. Anarcho-syndicalism in the spirit of the cantonal movement would be revived by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in Catalonia in the 1930s.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Brandt, Joseph A. (1933). Toward the New Spain. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
  2. ISBN 9788484320586
    .
  3. ^ a b c Woodcock, George (1962). Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Cleveland, OH: The World Publishing Company.
  4. ^ Engels, Friedrich (1873). "The Bakuninists at Work".
  5. ^
    ISBN 9788474928969
    .
  6. ^ a b Pérez Crespo, Antonio (1994). "Incidencia en la región murciana del fenómeno cantonalista". Anales de Historia Contemporánea (in Spanish). 10. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  7. ISBN 9788400054021
    .
  8. ^
    ISBN 9788487408205
    .
  9. ISBN 978-84-7564-021-1
    .
  10. ^ Egea, Manu (18 January 2016). "Barras y estrellas para Cartagena". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 21 May 2021.
  11. ISBN 9780914156147
    .
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