The Interprovincial Council of Asturias and León was born on 6 September 1936, as an agreement between anarchists and socialists, and with representation of all the Republican faction in Asturias. On 23 December 1936, the Second Spanish Republic government recognized the Interprovincial Council of Asturias and León as well as other councils in the country (the Regional Defence Council of Aragon and the Interprovincial Council of Santander, Palencia and Burgos) as autonomous entities. Independence was declared on 24 August 1937, when the city of Santander fell to Nationalist forces, leaving the remaining republican forces in Asturias isolated several hundred miles from those republican forces in the southern and eastern parts of Spain. The leaders of the new nation claimed that declaring the independence should not be considered as a defiance against the Republican government, but rather an attempt to concentrate the local defense against Franco's forces in the War in the North campaign. The Sovereign Council issued its own currency as there was not enough from Spain due to the isolation of Asturias. These bills were popularly known as "belarminos", the name of Belarmino Tomás, President of the Sovereign Council.