Spanish confiscation: Difference between revisions

File:Apse of San Martin at Fuentidueñas.jpg

Apse of the Romanesque Iglesia de San Martín at Fuentidueña (Segovia) (c. 1175–1200), given to the Americans (for the anniversary of the New York Met Museum and financed by Rockefeller Jr.), and dismantled by them stone by stone, and now is in The Cloisters, New York, product of the Spanish confiscation. Now, due to the dismantle, the rest of the church in Fuentidueña is in ruins.

The sepulchre of Ermengol X (1274–1314), Count of Urgell and Viscount of Àger, sold in the 19th century and now The Cloisters, New York, as a result of the Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal.

Renaissance courtyard of the Castle of Vélez-Blanco (c. 16th century), given, during the liberal consfication, in 1903, to the Americans and now is in The Cloisters, New York.

The Spanish confiscation was a long historical, economic and social process, which began in the late 18th century with the so-called "Confiscation of Godoy" (1798), although there was a precedent in the reign of Charles III of Spain, and ended well into the 20th century (16 December 1924). It consisted of putting on the market, previous forced expropriation and through a public auction, the lands and properties (including landmarks) that previously could not alienate (sell, mortgage or lease) and were in the hands of the called "mortmains" ie, the Catholic Church and the religious orders which had accumulated as usual beneficiaries of grants, wills and intestates, and the called 'without use solars' (baldíos) and communal lands of the municipalities, which served as a complement to the fragile economy of the peasants. In the words of Francisco Tomás y Valiente, the Spanish confiscation presented "the following features: appropriation by the State and by its unilateral decision of real estate properties belonging to "mortmains", selling them and assignment of the obtained ammount proceeds with the sells to the amortization of debt securities".

In other countries (as Mexico) there occured a phenomenon of more or less similar characteristics. The priority aim of the confiscation taken in Spain was to get extra income to pay off the public debt securities -singularly vales reales- that issued the State to finance itself, or extinguish it because on some occasion also be admitted as payment in auctions. It also chased increase the national wealth and create a bourgeoisie and middle class of farmers who were owners of the plots they cultivated and create capitalist conditions (privatization, strong financial system) so that the State could raise more and better taxes.

The confiscation was one of the political weapons with which the liberals modified the system of ownership of Ancien Régime to implement the new Liberal state during the first half of the 19th century.

The confiscation during the Ancien Régime

The proposals of the enlighteneds

Portrait of Pablo de Olavide, by Juan Moreno Tejada before 1805.

The enlightened showed a great concern for the backwardness of Spanish agriculture and virtually all who dealt with the issue agreed that one of the main causes of it was the huge expanse in Spain of the amortized property held by the "mortmains" -the Church and the municipalities, primarily- because the lands that were held were generally poorly cultivated, in addition to remaining outside the market because these could not alienate, nor sold, nor mortgaged or budge, with the consequent increase in the price of the "free" land, and not taxed at the Royal Finance by the privileges of its owners The Count of Floridablanca, Minister of Charles III, in his famous reserved Report of 1787 he complained of "major damages of the amortization".

The less hassle, although not be small, is that such [amortizated] properties it evade to the taxes; for there are other two major, which are recharge to other subjects and get the amortized properties liable to deteriorate and lose after then the holders can not cultivate or are disengaged or poors, as it experience and seen with pain everywhere, for not there land, houses or real estate more abandoned and destroyed than the chaplain sites and other perpetual foundations, with immeasurable injury against the State.

One of the proposals that made the enlightenments, especially Pablo de Olavide and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, was to put up for sale the disused solars. These were uncultivated and uninhabited lands belonging "in any way" to the city halls and was generally assigned as pasture for cattle. For Olavide the protection that had been given until then to livestock was one of the causes of agricultural backwardness, which advocated that "all the lands should be reduced to work" and therefore disused solars would to be sold first to the rich, because they have the means to cultivate, although some should be reserved for the farmers who had two pairs of oxen. The money obtained would establish a "Provincial caja" (provincial saving bank) that would serve for the construction of public works -roads, canals, bridges...-. Thus will be achieved "useful, rooted and taxpayers neighbors, while achieving the extension of tillage, the increase of the population and the abundance of the produces".

Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, portrayed by Goya

.

The Jovellanos's proposal regarding the properties of the city halls was much more radical, because unlike Olavide that only proposed the sale of without use solars thereby respecting the most important part of the resources of the city halls, this also included the privatization of the "council lands", so it is understood that also include the properties of the city halls that give taxes, which were the lands sought more income to municipal funds. Jovellanos, a fervent supporter of the economic liberalism -"the job of the laws... should not be excite or direct, but only protect the interests of its agents naturally active and well run to its goal" he affirmed-, defended the "free and absolute" sale of these properties, without making distinctions between the potential buyers -he not worried as Olavide that these lands passed into the hands of a few magnates- because, as noted by Francisco Tomás y Valiente, for Jovellanos "the liberation of without use solars and and council lands is a good in itself, for at stop being such lands amortized, become dependent for the "individual interest" and can be immediately placed in crop". Jovellanos's ideas influence notably in the liberals who launched the confiscations of the 19th century thanks to the enormous spread that had its Report on the agrarian law, published in 1795, much higher than the "Plan" of Olavide, which was only partially known in the "Adjusted memorial" in 1784.

As for the lands of the Church, the enlightenments did not defend the confiscation of their lands, but advocated that be limit, by "sweet and peaceful" means in the words of the Count of Floridablanca, the acquisition of more land for the ecclesiastical institutions, although this proposal as moderate was rejected by the Church and by most members of the Royal Council when was put to vote in June 1766. The two leaflets where was argued the proposal were included in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Inquisition: the Treaty of the royalty payment of Amortization by Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes, published in 1765, and the Report about the agrarian law of Jovellanos, published in 1795. "The moderation of the enlightened reformism becomes very clearly shown at this point [that only defend the limitation or stoppage in the future of the ecclesiastical amortization] and the resistance of the Church of make concessions in the economic sphere -announce its attitude in times to come- and then is very firm".

The confiscation measures of Charles III

The Confiscation timid measures agreed during the reign of Charles III have to be seen in the context of the riots that occurred in the spring of 1766 and that are known by the name of Esquilache Riots. The most important measure was an initiative of the corregidor-intendente of Badajoz that to quell the revolt ordened deliver in renting the city hall lands to the "needy neighbors, attending first to the senareros and day labors that themselves or with wages can work it, and after of them who have a load of donkeys, and farmers of a yoke, and in this order to the two yokes in preference to the three, and so respectively". The 10th Count of Aranda, the newly appointed minister by Charles III, immediately extended the measure to all Extremadura by royal decree of May 2, 1766, and the following year to the whole kingdom. In an order of 1768 that it developed, explained that the measure was intended to serve the poorest farmers and laborers, looking for the "common good".

However, this measure, -which is not really a confiscation because the lands were leased and remained the property of the municipalities- was in effect just three years, it was repealed on 26 May 1770. In the royal decree that replaced it prioritized in leases "to the laborers of one, two and three yokes", so that the initial social purpose disappeared. To justify it alluded the "problems that have followed in the practice of the various provisions issued earlier about distribution of lands", referring to that many laborers and poor peasants who had received plots of lands, not had been able to cultivate properly -failing to pay the censuses- because lacked of the means to do so, since the concessions were not accompanied of loans to enable them to acquire. The consequence of all this was that the lands of city halls became to the oligarchies of the municipalities, these "individual richs" of which it spoke in the "Plan" of Olavide, who had openly criticized the first measures because it believed that the braceros lacked the means to put into full use the lands that deliver, when the Olavide self direct the project of New Populations of Andalusia and Sierra Morena the settlers receive the minimum necessary to begin to cultivate the land that it had been granted, together with the exemption of pay taxes and censuses in the early years-.

In conclusion, as noted Francisco Tomás y Valiente, the politicians of Charles III "acted moved more by economic reasons (put in farming uncultivated lands) than by other social, that or do not appear in their plans and the legal precepts, or when arose in they were suppressed first by the lack of adequate resources for its effective implementation, and secondly (as it saw Cárdenas and Joaquín Costa) by the resistance that the "provincial plutocracy" opposed to any social reform... However... the confiscation measures of Charles III and even the correlative plans of who then it occupied of this issue have in common an important and positive feature: its connection with the wider plan of reform or regulation of the agricultural economy".

The "confiscation of Godoy"

During the reign of Charles IV the so-called "Confiscation of Godoy" took place, launched in September 1798 by Mariano Luis de Urquijo together with the Secretary of the Treasury, Miguel Cayetano Soler, who had held that position during the government of Manuel Godoy I -removed from power six months before.

In 1798 king Carlos IV obtained permission from the Vatican to expropriate the properties of the Jesuits and of pious works that, on the whole, came to be one-sixth part of the Church properties. In it was disentailed goods of the Society of Jesus, of hospitals, hospices, Houses of Mercy and of University residential colleges and also included un-operated goods of particulars.

As highlighted by Francisco Tomás y Valiente, with the "confiscation of Godoy", it gave a turning point in linking the confiscation to the problems of public debt, unlike what had happened with the confiscation measures of Charles III that sought to a very limited extent the reform of the agrarian economy. The liberal confiscations of the 19th century continued the approach of the "confiscation of Godoy" and not of the measures of Charles III.

The liberal confiscations of the 19th century

The reign of Joseph Bonaparte (1808-1813)

Joseph Bonaparte decreed on 18 August 1809 the removal of "all regular, monastic, mendicant and clerical Orders"(sic), whose assets would automatically belong to the nation. So "many religious institutions were dissolved in fact (regardless of any canon legal consideration). The mechanics of the war also produced frequently identical effects in many convents, monasterys and "houses of religion".

Joseph Bonaparte also made a small confiscation that did not imply the removal of the property, but the confiscation of its income for the fueling and war expenditure of the French troops, so they were returned in 1814.

The Cortes de Cádiz (1810-1814)

José Canga Argüelles, portrayed by Vicente Arbiol Rodríguez.

After an intense debate that took place in March 1811, the deputies of the Cortes de Cádiz recognized the huge debt accumulated in the form of vales reales during the reign of Charles IV and that the acting Secretary of Treasury José Canga Argüelles estimated in 7000 million reales. After rejectthat the vales reales only to be recognized for its market value, well below of its nominal value -which would have meant the ruin of its holders and the inability to obtain new loans- Is approved the "Memory" presented by Canga Argüelles that proposing confiscate certain goods of "mortmains" that is put on sale. In the auctions the amount of the two thirds of the hammer price must paid in "the national debt securities" -which included the vales reales of the previous reign and the new "notes of liquidated credit" that were issued from 1808 to defray the expenses of the War of Spanish Independence-. The cash obtained in the auctions also be dedicated to the payment of interest and the capital of the "national debt".

In the decree of September 13, 1813, in which was captured the propose of Argüelles, was called "national goods" to the properties that were to be confiscated by the State to sell at public auction. It was the confiscated goods or to confiscate to the "traitors" as Manuel Godoy and his supporters, and to the "francophiles"; those of the Knights Hospitaller and of the four Spanish military orders (Order of Santiago, Order of Alcántara, Order of Calatrava and Order of Montesa; those of the convents and monasteries suppressed or destroyed during the war; the farms of the Crown, except the Royal Sites intended for service and recreation of the king and half of the without use solars and realengos of the municipalities.

However, according to Francisco Tomás y Valiente, "this decree of September 13, 1813, which in a way is the first general confiscate statute of the 19th century, could scarcely be applied due to the immediate return of Ferdinand VII and the absolute state. But along with the "Memory" of Canga Argüelles contains all the legal principles and mechanisms of subsequent consficate legislation".

Major application reached the much debated decree of the Courts of 4 January 1813, by it conficate "all the lands of without use solars or realengos and of owns and means" of the municipalities in order to provide "a relief to the needs public, an award for the meritorious defenders of the homeland, and a help to the not owner citizens". To achieve these three purposes at once (fiscal, patriotic-military and social) it divided the goods to confiscate into two halves. The first would be linked to the payment of the "national debt", which would be sold at public auction, admitted paying "for all its worth" in securities of outstanding loans from 1808 or alternatively in vales reales. The second half would be divided into lots of free lands in favor of those who had served in the war (military patriotic purpose) and the landless neighbors (social purpose), although the latter, unlike the "patriotic awards", must pay a fee and if failure to do so, they lost the assigned lot definitely, which largely invalidated the social aim proclaimed in the decree and this largely vindicated those deputies who, like José María Calatrava or Terrero, had opposed the decree, especially the sale of the goods of ownners, heritage on which rests the "economic government and the rural police of the peoples" Terrero said during one of the debates:

I oppose to the sale of owners and without use solars ... For who will be the benefit of such sales? I just heard it: for three or four powerful, that with too much little stipend would accrue with common prejudice its own interests

The Trienio Liberal (1820-1823)

After the restoration of the Constitution of 1812 in 1820, the Liberal governments of the Trienio faced again the problem of the debt during the six years absolutist restoration (1814 1820) had not been resolved. And for this the new Courts revalidated the decree of the Cortes de Cádiz of September 13, 1813 by the decree of 9 August 1820 that added the goods to confiscate the properties of the Spanish Inquisition recently extinct. Another novelty of the decree of 1820 than the 1813 was that now in the payment of the auctions not be admitted cash but only vales reales and other securities of public debt, and at its nominal value (although its market value was much lower). So Francisco Tomás y Valiente saw it as the "most extreme" decree of that linking confiscation with debt decree.

Due to the very low market value of debt securities with respect to its nominal value, "the cash disbursement made by buyers was far below to the amount of the appraised price (on some occasion it did not take 15 percent of this value) . Given these outrageous sales, there were deputies in 1823 who proposed its suspension and the delivery of the goods in property to tenants of them. One of these deputies declared "that by alienation default, the farms have been taken over by rich capitalists, and these, once they have taken possession of them, have made a new lease, generally increasing the rent to the poor farmer, threatening to spoil if they do not pay on time. "But despite those results and these criticisms , the confiscate process went ahead without modifying its approach".

By an order of 8 November 1820 (which would be replaced by a decree of June 29, 1822), the Cortes del Trienio also revived the decree of January 4, 1813 of the Cortes de Cádiz on the sale of unused lands and goods pf owners from the municipalities.

The ecclesiastical confiscation, unlike the Cortes de Cádiz that not legislated anything about it, yes it was addressed by the Cortes del Trienio in relation to the goods of the regular clergy. So the decree of October 1, 1820 abolished "all the monasteries of the monastic orders; the regular canons of Saint Benedict of the Tarraconian and cesaraugustian cloistered congregation; those of St. Augustine and premonstratensianss.