The Cortes that wrote La Pepa inside a besieged port
The Cortes opened on 24 September 1810 in a theatre on the Isla de León, now the town of San Fernando. From 24 February 1811 to 25 September 1813 the deputies sat in the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri in Cádiz itself.[7] Napoleon's troops were besieging the city and the island, and the Museo de las Cortes still keeps a room devoted to that defence.[1]
On 19 March 1812, the feast of San José and so nicknamed La Pepa, the Cortes approved a text that moved sovereignty from the king to the nation.[8][9] It was liberal on that point and conservative on another: it declared Spain a confessional state and recognised no freedom of religion.[10] That gap between a sovereign nation and a single permitted faith is the one the rest of this story keeps reopening.
6 years
Ferdinand VII repealed the Constitution on his return in 1814 and ruled as an absolutist for six years.[11] It came back with the 1820 revolution, and briefly again in 1836.[12] The Cortes's own history says its influence on national politics lasted directly until 1868, the year Cádiz rose again.[13]
Mendizábal and the 1836 sale of the convents
Juan Álvarez Mendizábal was born in Cádiz in 1790 and led the Spanish government from September 1835 to May 1836.[2][14] His name is tied to the decree of 19 February 1836, issued while he was in office, which put up for sale the property of the suppressed religious communities.[3] That measure is the desamortización (disentailment) of Spanish history books.
Its effects were physical. The sale of church property led to the disappearance of numerous convents and monasteries and to the remodelling of cities, and it helped form an enterprising middle class.[15] In Cádiz the clearest survivor is a museum. The provincial fine-arts collection that became the Museo de Cádiz began in 1835 with works from the Mendizábal disentailment and with paintings from convents whose friars had been turned out.[16]
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Museo de las Cortes de Cádiz
Free museum beside the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri with the 1777-79 Maqueta de Cádiz, Viniegra's 1812 painting and the siege room. Check th…
The family tree matters here. Mendizábal was a cousin of the mother of Fermín Salvochea, the man who in 1873 would push the same anticlerical programme much further.[17] The first of them did it by decree from Madrid; the second did it from the town hall of his own city.
1868: the fleet in the bay and the barricades
The 1868 revolution began off Cádiz. On 18 September Admiral Juan Bautista Topete's navy pronounced against Isabella II, with the generals Prim and Serrano on the army side, and the movement became known as La Gloriosa.[6] The squadron fired 21 cannon shots at the harbour mouth to declare itself in revolt.[18]
The young Fermín Salvochea had made his name two years earlier, through a plan to free political prisoners held in the casemates of the Castillo de San Sebastián and the Castillo de Santa Catalina.[19] The plot shows what those fortresses were then: sea defences that doubled as prisons for opponents of the crown.
The new order did not satisfy Cádiz's republicans. In December 1868, when Madrid ordered the Voluntarios de la Libertad disarmed, militiamen occupied the town hall and began to raise barricades.[20] Accounts of the toll differ widely, from 56 dead and 195 wounded to more than 300 dead.[21] Salvochea, an officer of the volunteers, defended the city until 11 December, when he surrendered and was locked up in the Castillo de Santa Catalina.[22]
He did not stay there long. Elected to the Constituent Cortes from his cell in January 1869, he was amnestied by the new parliament the following month, although the provisional government never recognised the election.[23]
1873: Salvochea's mayoralty and the Cantón de Cádiz
Under the First Republic Salvochea became mayor of Cádiz in March 1873, and later chaired the administrative committee of its canton. As mayor he expropriated church property and banned religious teaching.[24] His council demolished the Candelaria convent after evicting its 21 Augustinian nuns, and it seized the convent of Santa Catalina, sending its paintings, several by Murillo, to the provincial museum.[25][26]
The Cantón de Cádiz was proclaimed on 19 July 1873, in support of the federal movement that had started in Cartagena. It was dissolved on 4 August, when General Pavía's troops entered the city.[4]
Salvochea was tried by a court martial in Seville in early 1874 and sentenced to life. He served his first years in the Peñón de La Gomera and then in Ceuta.[27] Years later he wrote that after what happened in 1873 "nothing should be expected from politics".[28]
- 24 Sep 1810
Cortes open on the Isla de León
The first session is held in the Teatro Cómico, today in San Fernando.
- 19 Mar 1812
Constitution approved
The Cortes approve La Pepa on the feast of San José.
- 1814
Constitution repealed
Ferdinand VII restores absolutist rule on his return.
- 19 Feb 1836
Convent property put up for sale
The decree associated with Mendizábal declares it for sale.
- 18 Sep 1868
La Gloriosa
Topete's navy pronounces in Cádiz.
- Dec 1868
Barricades in Cádiz
Volunteers resist disarmament; Salvochea surrenders on 11 December.
- 19 Jul 1873
Cantón de Cádiz proclaimed
Salvochea's committee backs the federal movement begun in Cartagena.
- 4 Aug 1873
Canton dissolved
General Pavía's troops enter the city.
Where to see liberal Cádiz today
The liberal story is easy to follow on foot, because its main stages sit within a few streets of each other in the old town. The best starting point is the Museo de las Cortes de Cádiz, which stands beside the Oratorio where the deputies sat.[29] These are the places that carry the story:
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- Museo de las Cortes: a relief model of the city made between July 1777 and March 1779, and a huge canvas by Salvador Viniegra of the 1812 promulgation, painted from 1910 to 1912.[30][31]
- Cathedral, Sala 1812: the table of Bishop Acisclo Vera, said to be where the first copy of the Constitution was signed on 19 March 1812.[32]
- Museo de Cádiz: the collection that grew out of the 1835 disentailment, with its fine-arts rooms.[16]
- Castillo de San Sebastián and Castillo de Santa Catalina: the two fortresses of La Caleta behind Salvochea's 1866 plot and his imprisonment in December 1868.
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A sensible order follows the chronology. Begin at the Museo de las Cortes and the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri beside it for 1812, move on to the Museo de Cádiz for the convent paintings of 1835 and 1873, then finish at the two castles of La Caleta, where the 1866 plot and the 1868 imprisonment belong.
Salvochea has his own trail. A marked route of eight points runs through the city, and a plaque outside the former Cárcel Real, now the Casa de Iberoamérica, marks one of the places where he was held.[33][34] His grave is in the Cementerio de San José.[35] Check opening times at each site before you plan a day around them.