ABSTRACT

Recent historiography has persisted in its inclusion of the revolutions that took place in the Spanish Atlantic from 1810 to 1825 in the larger cycle of Atlantic revolutions initiated in 1776, in British North America (Rodríguez 1998). However, in the case of the Spanish monarchy it is virtually impossible to identify a revolutionary moment comparable to 14 July 1789 or to 4 July 1776 (Breña 2012). In 1837, when the nation’s representatives for the second time in 30 years set about drafting a national constitution—Spain was in many ways a very different country than it had been in 1807: its territory had been drastically reduced, and after two long periods of absolutist governments, liberals were about to definitively establish a constitutional government. Yet, no Spaniard in 1837 could point to a specific date or event if asked to identify the “Spanish revolution”.