page_title: Civil Guard (Spain)
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Civil Guard (Spain) / History / Origin
caption_attribution_description: Positivo sobre cartulina - reportaje fotográfico sobre la construcción del ferrocarril de Santander a Alar del Rey (Palencia)
context_page_description: The Civil Guard is the oldest law enforcement agency in Spain and is one of two national police forces. As a gendarmerie force, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the authority of both the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence. The role of the Ministry Defence is limited except in times of war when the Ministry has exclusive authority. The corps is colloquially known as the benemérita. In annual surveys, it generally ranks as the national institution most valued by Spaniards, closely followed by other law enforcement agencies and the military.
  It has both a regular national role and undertakes specific foreign peacekeeping missions and is part of the European Gendarmerie Force. As a national gendarmerie force, the Guardia Civil was modeled on the French National Gendarmerie and has many similarities.
  As part of its daily duties, the Guardia Civil patrols and investigates crimes in rural areas, including highways and ports, whilst the Policía Nacional deals with safety in urban situations. Most cities also have a Policia Municipal. The three forces are nationally co-ordinated by the Ministry of the Interior.
context_section_description: The Guardia Civil was founded as a national police force in 1844 during the reign of Queen Isabel II of Spain by the 2nd Duke of Ahumada and 5th Marquess of Amarillas, an 11th generation descendant of Aztec emperor Moctezuma II. Previously, law enforcement had been the responsibility of the "Holy Brotherhood", an organization of municipal leagues.  Corruption was pervasive in the Brotherhood, where officials were constantly subject to local political influence, and the system was largely ineffective outside the major towns and cities.  Criminals could often escape justice by simply moving from one district to another.  The first Guardia police academy was established in the town of Valdemoro, south of Madrid, in 1855.  Graduates were given the Guardia's now famous tricorne or Cavaliers hat as part of their duty dress uniform.
  The Guardia was initially charged with putting an end to brigandage on the nation's highways, particularly in the province of Andalusia, which had become notorious for numerous robberies and holdups of businessmen, peddlers, travelers, and even foreign tourists.  Banditry in this region was so endemic that the Guardia found it difficult to eradicate it completely. As late as 1884, one traveler of the day reported that it still existed in and around the city of Málaga:
  
  The favorite and original method of the Malagueño highwayman is to creep up quietly behind his victim, muffle his head and arms in a cloak, and then relieve him of his valuables.  Should he resist, he is instantly disembowelled with the dexterous thrust of a knife...[The Spanish highwayman] wears a profusion of amulets and charms...all of undoubted efficacy against the dagger of an adversary or the rifle of a Civil Guard.
  The Guardia Civil was also given the political task of restoring and maintaining land ownership and servitude among the peasantry of Spain by the King, who desired to stop the spread of anti-monarchist movements inspired by the French Revolution. The end of the First Carlist War combined with the unequal distribution of land that resulted from prime minister Juan Álvarez Mendizábal's first Desamortización (1836-1837) had left the Spanish landscape scarred by the destruction of civil war and social unrest, and the government was forced to take drastic action to suppress spontaneous revolts by a restive peasantry. Based on the model of light infantry used by Napoléon in his European campaigns, the Guardia Civil was transformed into a military force of high mobility that could be deployed irrespective of inhospitable conditions, able to patrol and pacify large areas of the countryside.  Its members, called 'guardias', maintain to this day a basic patrol unit formed by two agents, usually called a "pareja" (a pair), in which one of the 'guardias' will initiate the intervention while the second 'guardia' serves as a backup to the first.
caption: First ever photograph taken of a Guardia Civil, somewhere between 1855 and 1857 in Reinosa, Spain.
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