Liberalism and Reaction

The Spanish nineteenth century is a period of struggle between Liberalism and Reaction, between the emerging middle classes and the stalwarts of the Old Regime, and of moderate economic development, whose performance, however, pales compared to those of the northern European nations. Aside from parliamentary skirmishes and military coups, the struggle materialized in the protracted ‘Carlist wars’, which took the form of a persistent dynastic conflict between a reactionary branch of the Bourbon family and the liberal parties coalescing around Queen Isabel II. It also was the period when Catalonia, after the loss of the Spanish American empire in 1824, got clearly ahead thanks to the protective tariff which Spain erected in favor of the textile industry, which was almost exclusively Catalan. The increasing economic and social gap between Catalonia and the rest of Spain contributed to the appearance, at the end of the century, of a Catalan autonomist movement, which would eventually become nationalist in the twentieth century. There were paradoxical elements in this movement, because these Catalan autonomists were voluntarily reduced to selling their wares in the Spanish ‘national market’. The situation had parallels with the separatist movement today, which makes continuous calls for economic support from the central state.