Desamortizacion and the Mendizabal Reform

David Ringrose said “the way in which access to land is defined, and the social constraints imposed on its use, play a major role in the modernization process of any country.” Spain in 1836 underwent a land reform under its Prime Minister Juan Alvarez Mendizabal which many hailed as a “revolution.” But was it such an event worthy of the praise it received in many studies of Spain’s industrialization? How did it affect Spain?

Juan Alvarez Mendizabal

Spain’s lands and agriculture by the 1830s

The said reform by Prime Minister Mendizabal resulted from centuries old inefficiency in Spain’s agriculture. Nature played a part just as the pattern of the land ownership in the kingdom. The low productivity then cultivated calls for reform.

Spain’s low agricultural productivity came as a result of the country’s geography and nature, factors which 18th century Spanish statesman and economic thinker Gaspar Melchor Jovellanos labelled as “physical obstacles.” The Iberian Kingdom’s Mediterranean soil prevented massive cultivation of cereal, especially wheat. Besides the soil, another factor credited laid on the size of cultivated lands and ownership.

“Moral and political obstacles” as Jovellanos said referred to the massive sizes of uncultivated lands under the hands of institutions, in particular the Catholic Church, Municipalities, nobility, and guilds. Most of these unproductive land-owning institutions came to be known as Manos Muertas or Dead Hands in Spanish as they took an inactive approach to their estates. Moreover, most of these lands characterized as entailments, or lands cannot be sold away by heirs or be divided, restricting change in ownership. More than half of Spain’s land fell under such ownership.

Spain possessed an unproductive agriculture due to nature exacerbated by absentee ownership. Unfortunately, despite the low productivity, Spain’s population continued to grow faster than its capacity to feed them. Hangry people, angry and hungry people, tended to cut off heads of government officials in a massive social unrest just as France witnessed in 1789 with the French Revolution. Madrid understood this and attempted to solve the problems.

Desamortizacion

Desamortizacion became synonymous with the process of disentailment where the state takes over entailed lands for privatization and officials influenced by Enlightenment liberal economic ideas in Madrid turned to this for solution. Of course the elites opposed, but they achieved some progress in low key fashion. So much so, it made the 1836 Mendizabal Reform the icing on top of a cake of land reforms.

Several expropriation of lands, especially by the church, happened in the 18th century and prior. England during the reign of King Henry VIII dissolved monasteries and expropriated their lands. The French revolution also witnessed similar expropriation of lands owned by both the clergy and the aristocracy. Several examples thus preceded Spain’s attempt during the late 1700s.

Officials in Madrid viewed desamortizacion and disentailment to empower the peasantry and incentivize them to be productive at the expense of the church and municipalities. They anchored their principles on the idea that farmers who owned their land would be driven with entrepreneurial spirit to produce and profit more. Individualism and capitalism formed their point.

Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos

But practical needs trumped theoretical point of views. Spanish Bourbon Kings supported only the program because of the critical need for cold hard cash. Spain continuous abysmal treasury forced reluctant Kings to approve such measures

In 1737, a concordat prevented the expansion of church lands. Municipalities too sold their lands to pay taxes by Madrid to maintain the army. Another factor included renting out uncultivated lands to prevent the growth of locust population in unused areas which began only with 1 to 2 year rent but extended more than that.

King Carlos III (Charles III) made a famous move to expropriate lands owned by churches and municipalities. He wanted to fill up state coffers as well as improve food security by expanding cereal cultivation. He then started to take and sell lands from churches and municipalities, but gave them compensation.

Carlos III (Charles III)

By the end of the 18th century, a de facto desamortizacion already begun to be implemented in Spain under the Bourbon Reforms. The implementation came less due to “liberal ideas” and more of practicality and the need of the hour, especially in financial matters. This applied to both local and nationwide levels.

Manuel Godoy made another significant attempt to enact desamortizacion expropriating church lands, this time without compensation. His measures resulted from 1798 to 1808 proceeds to state coffers amounting to 1.6 million reales from selling 1/7 of church’s land.

French land reform eventually hit Spain when Joseph Bonaparte became King of Spain thanks to his brother's military. He confiscated lands from the resistance to French rule and redistributed them to supporters. Ultimately, the fall of Napoleon undone his redistributions.

Those undone included a measure passed by Cortes of Cadiz in 1813. The Cortes, dominated by liberals, approved a decree launching a massive desamortizacion program of all lands, but it failed to materialize. The reign of Fernando VII rested and prevented large attempts of desamortizacion for a while.

The need for cash forced Kings and localities to accept desamortizacion while later measures became a political tool to punish resistance and reward supporters. Desamortizacion began even before the celebrated Mendizabal Reforms in 1836. A de facto desamortizacion placed needs in front rather than ideals. It formed the cake to which Mendizabal topped with his icing reform.

Times of Mendizabal Reform

Fast forward to the 1830s, Spain descended into another political upheaval with a dynastic struggle. A war between an infant Queen and her uncle worsened a troubled treasury. Amidst this chaos emerged a solution from one Juan Alvarez Mendizabal.

In 1833, King Fernando VII passed away leaving the throne to her infant daughter Isabella with her mother Maria Cristina serving as regent. However, the dead King’s brother contested the succession and thought himself as the rightful heir triggering a civil war that came to be known as the First Carlist War. The conflict strained the already weak finances, but salvation came from an exiled Jew from Cadiz.

Maria Cristina

Born on February 25, 1790, Juan Alvarez came from the Spanish port city of Cadiz. Around his 30s he supported the liberal takeover of government in the 1820s. However, the strong reactionary forces overthrew this Enlightened movement forcing Mendizabal to flee to England where he developed a reputation as a financial wizard. By 1831, he returned to the Peninsula supporting the liberal causes in Portugal.

In 1835, Regent Maria Cristina declared an amnesty for supporters of the 1820 liberal movement allowing Mendizabal to return to Spain. He returned when Maria Cristina formed an alliance of convenience with the liberals to counter the conservative Carlists. France, England, and Portugal also backed Isabella’s stake gaining influence in politics. Liberals and England then urged the Regent to appoint Mendizabal as Prime Minister in 1835.

Battle of Irun in 1837 during the Carlist War

The Mendizabal Reform

Mendizabal needed to win the Carlist War. He looked to past solutions for financial problems with 3 variables in mind: economic, political, and current sentiments. This formed the basis of his landmark reform.

Prime Minister Mendizabal looked towards the long tradition of desamortizacion as a means of making money. In short term, he meant for the proceeds to finance the war effort against the Carlist. In the long term, he meant it to beef up Spain’s agriculture, seeing the sector important, as Gabriel Tortella said, “at least in part, to the process of capital accumulation from profits created from commercialization of the home market and from exports.” He wanted to groom the agricultural sector as a source of capital for later developments and tax revenue.

Mendizabal also subscribed to the typical capitalistic view of land and peasants. Peasants who till their own lands drove up production because they wanted a return on investment from the money they paid for their land. He relied on farmers’ entrepreneurial spirit to drive up production, profit, and then tax revenues.

Mendizabal also wanted his plan for desamortización to give political dividends as well. He wanted to form a new power base composed of “copious families” who supported the monarchy for giving them  their prosperity and land. A new class of rich land-owning peasants loyal to the crown bought by lands from the church and municipalities.

Cattle Fair in Salamanca by Francisco Iturrino

He also wanted to exploit the rising anti-clericalism brought by the war. The Catholic Church supported the Carlist faction, hence, the liberal allies of Isabella II and Regent Maria Cristina targeted them. Signs of hostility manifested in 2 instances. 

First, during the 1834 outbreak of cholera in Madrid, local militias suspected a cleric spreading the disease resulting in attacks against religious order. Second, riots broke out in 1835 in Barcelona and Zaragoza claiming the lives of friars and monks. A section of the population thus would support his measure of taking land from church for the profit of the liberal cause and peasants.

Building from these 3 premises, Mendizabal unveiled his version of Desamortizacion with a decree on February 19, 1836. It placed for sale lands belonging to “extinct” religious orders with the exception of those needed for the protection of monuments and public needs, such as charitable institutions. It set up an auction of the lands where the highest bidders wins the lot.

It also gave 2 payment terms: Cash and government securities. For cash, it asked for 20% of the price as first downpayment and 16 years for the purchase to be fully paid with 5% interest. With purchase through government bonds, it too asked for 20% of the price as first downpayment and a term of 8 years for the rest with 10% interest.

The reform took time before the country felt the effect. After 5 years from the inception, it resulted in sales amounting to 1.7 million reales. It covered around 10 million hectares which accounted for 20% of Spain’s lands. Unfortunately for Mendizabal, he failed to see the fruition of his work as Prime Minister.

Just a few months after the publication of the decree, Queen Regent Maria Cristina dismissed Mendizabal. Firstly, the liberals shoved Mendizabal to the Queen who reluctantly agreed to the assignment. Secondly, being reluctant in giving the position, the backlash from the reform gave Maria Cristina the excuse to remove Mendizabal as PM. Despite his dismissal, the Cadiz native remained active in government serving as Finance Minister in the 1840s and passing away in 1853.

The Effect of the Reform

Mendizabal’s intentions and desired effect failed to materialize. Though the reform inspired later desamortizacion reforms, it did not create a new class of prosperous farming class nor improve agricultural production for the whole of the 19th century. It eventually affected Spain’s performance during the industrial age.

Mendizabal’s reform hailed a new wave of open disentailment of land. In 1841, the new regent General Baldomero Espartero cozied up to his liberal allies by expanding the coverage of Mendizabal’s decree to include non-monastic church lands. In 1845, Pascual Madoz enacted his own desamortización targeting municipal lands. 

Mendizabal’s reforms and those who followed, however, only contributed to the strengthening of an oligarchy. Due to the auction nature of the sale, the land went to the highest bidder, usually either a local elite, a general, a member of the royal family, or an already wealthy industrialist. Raymond Carr summed it up:

The amalgam of speculators, industrialists, landowners, together with the prosperous lawyers and ennobled generals who were its political voice par excellence, constituted what democrats were beginning to call a ruling oligarchy - estimated at five hundred families.

The devouring of land by an estimated 500 families harmed Spain's agriculture and farmers. Much of the land remained unproductive and turned into a medium of speculation with its owners hoping to sell the land at a higher price. Many areas sold became open for tenant farmers, but the short lease of 1 to 2 year prevented a successful, profitable, and productive cultivation of lands.

Worst for farmers still, they lost the common lands from where they make a living for little to no cost. These common lands used to belong to municipalities which became targets of the Madoz Reform in 1845. The decline in the sector gave rise to peasant rebellions and turned them impressionable to Carlist promises.

For the farmers lucky enough to purchase a land, most remained unproductive and the hope of entrepreneurial spirit dissipated. Much of it due to the lack of capital as well as the lack of know-how of farmers to the latest techniques and methods in agriculture. Lack of dissemination of latest information contributed to the weak results of reform in turn of agricultural productivity.

Summing Up

The Mendizabal Reform, hailed as a bourgeois revolution, turned out to be an culmination of land reforms brought by need of cash. Governments before Mendizabal little by little enacted disentailment policies freeing up land and selling them to generate money. Mendzabal’s reform failed to differ on this matter.

The reform completely failed to reverse the stagnant production of Spain’s agriculture which contributed to the lack of economic development of the country in the 19th century. The failure to create a wealthy and productive farming class translated to the absence of a market for consumer goods and extra money to be capital for higher valued industries. Moreover, it further concentrated wealth to few families causing a rise in income disparity. 

Thus, the ineffectivity of the Mendizabal reforms spelled Spain’s failure to be a player in the industrial revolution.

See also:

Industrial Revolution in Spain

Industrial Revolution of France

Bibliography:

Books:

Herr, Richard. An Historical Essay on Modern Spain. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971.

Ringrose, David. Spain, Europe, and the “Spanish Miracle,” 1700-1900. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Tortella Casares, Gabriel. The Development of Modern Spain: An Economic History of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000.

General Reference:

“Mendizabal, Juan Alvarez” Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Volume III. New York, New York: Macmillan, Inc., 1974.