page_title: First Spanish Republic
section_title: The government of Pi i Margall
hierarchical_section_title: First Spanish Republic / The government of Pi i Margall
caption_attribution_description: Sublevación cantonal de 1873.
context_page_description: The Spanish Republic, commonly known as the First Spanish Republic to distinguish it from the Spanish Republic of 1931–39, was the short-lived political regime that existed in Spain between the parliamentary proclamation on 11 February 1873 and 29 December 1874 when General Arsenio Martínez Campos's pronunciamiento marked the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration in Spain. The Republic's founding started with the abdication as King on 10 February 1873 of Amadeo I, following the Hidalgo Affair, when he had been required by the radical government to sign a decree against the artillery officers. The next day, 11 February, the republic was declared by a parliamentary majority made up of radicals, republicans and democrats.
context_section_description: After Figueras' flight to France, the power vacuum created was tempting general Manuel Sodas into starting a pronunciamiento when a Civil Guard colonel, José de la Iglesia, showed up at Congress and declared that nobody would leave until a new President was elected. Figueras' fellow federalist and government minister Francisco Pi y Margall was elected on 11 June, but on his speech to the Assembly he declared he was at a complete loss and without a program. The main efforts of the new government focused on the drafting of the new Constitution and some social character-related bills:
  Apportionment of disamortized lands among lessees, settlers and aparceros.
  Reestablishment of the regular Army, with mandatory conscription.
  Separation of Church and State, which had been deeply intertwined under Ferdinand VII and only slightly separated by Isabella II.
  Abolition of slavery throughout the nation. Though the 1812 Cádiz Constitution had already taken some steps on the issue, the colonies remained opposed to the move from mainland Spain. Also, plans were made to limit child labor.
  Establishment of a system ensuring free and compulsory education.
  Legalization of the right of syndication, creation of mixed workers-managers juries and establishment of the 8 hours work day.
  On 16 June a 25-member Committee was set up by the Cortes to study the draft Constitution of the Federal Republic of Spain, the redaction of which is mainly attributed to Emilio Castelar, with debate starting the following day. On 28 June Pi i Margall renewed the composition of his government, but due to the slow pace of the constitutional debates in the Cortes, events came crashing down on the government at a stunning pace. On 30 June the City Council of Seville passed a motion declaring the town a Social Republic, and the next day many federalist deputies left the Cortes in protest. About a week later, on 9 July Alcoy followed suit, in the midst of a wave of murders sparked by a revolutionary strike directed by local leaders of the First International. It was just the beginning: shortly after, the cantonal revolution swept across Spain with strikes, murders of officers by soldiers, lynching of city mayors and over a hundred casualties.
   The federalist sentiment did not give rise to autonomous states as intended but into a constellation of independent cantons instead. Uprisings were daily news in the south-eastern area of Levante and Andalusia. Some cantons were provincial in nature, like Valencia or Málaga, but most comprised just a city and its surroundings, like the more localised cantons of Alcoy, Cartagena, Seville, Cádiz, Almansa, Torrevieja, Castellón, Granada, Salamanca, Bailén, Andújar, Tarifa and Algeciras. Even smaller were the village-based cantons of Camuñas (in Albacete) and Jumilla (in Murcia). The latter is said to have issued a manifesto stating:
  La nación jumillana desea vivir en paz con todas las naciones vecinas y, sobre todo, con la nación murciana, su vecina; pero si la nación murciana, su vecina, se atreve a desconocer su autonomía y a traspasar sus fronteras, Jumilla se defenderá, como los héroes del Dos de Mayo, y triunfará en la demanda, resuelta completamente a llegar, en sus justísimos desquites, hasta Murcia, y a no dejar en Murcia piedra sobre piedra.
  The Jumillan nation wishes to live in peace with all nearby nations, and particularly with the nation of Murcia, her neighbor; but should the nation of Murcia dare not to recognize its autonomy and violate its borders, Jumilla will fight back like the heroes of May 2, and shall be victorious in her demands, ready to arrive at Murcia, in its most just retribution, itself and leave no stone standing upon another.
  There is, however, no record of such a manifesto, nor of any similar declaration, in the municipal archives; and the proceedings of the time seemed to be within normality. This has motivated several historians to deny the authenticity of the manifesto and even the very existence of the Jumilla canton, stating that its invention was merely a form of anti-republican propaganda.
  The
caption: The Cantonal Revolution spread through southern and central Spain, but the traditionalist pro-Carlist northern regions of Catalonia, Aragon and the Basque Country were involved in the Third Carlist War.
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