Disarmotization

The Spanish confiscation was the Spanish government's seizure and sale of property, including from the Catholic Church, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. It was a long historical, economic, and social process beginning with the so-called "Confiscation of Godoy" in 1798—although there was an earlier precedent during the reign of Charles III of Spain—and ending on 16 December 1924.

Confiscation consisted of the forced expropriation of land and property from the "mortmains" (i.e., the Catholic Church and religious orders, which had accumulated it from grants, wills, and intestates) and from municipalities. The government then sold the property on the market or through public auctions. A similar phenomenon occurred in other countries, such as Mexico.For example, in Mexico, the ''Law of confiscation of the rural and urban properties of the civil and religious corporations of Mexico'', nicknamed the lerdo law, was issued on 25 June 1856 by President Ignacio Comonfort

500 years of Mexico in documents: Lerdo Law. Law of confiscation of properties of the church and corporations

The principal goal in Spain was to obtain money to pay off the public debt securities, known as ''vales reales,'' that the state issued to finance itself. The government also hoped to increase national wealth, to create a bourgeoisie and a middle class of farmers who owned the lands they cultivated, and to foster capitalist conditions (e.g., privatization and a strong financial system) so that the state could collect more taxes. Confiscation was one of the political weapons with which Spanish liberals modified the system of ownership of the Ancien Régime during the first half of the 19th century.

Confiscation in the Ancien Régime

Proposals of Olavide and Jovellanos

Officials attributed the struggles of Spanish agriculture during the Ancien Régime to the amount of amortized property held by the "mortmains" (primarily the Church and municipalities). These lands were generally poorly cultivated and remained outside the market because they were inalienable—that is, they could not be sold, mortgaged or given away. This led to an increase in the price of "free" land, and the amortized property was not taxable because of the privileges of its owners. In a report in 1787, José Moñino, the 1st Count of Floridablanca and minister to Charles III, complained of "major damages of the amortization".

Pablo de Olavide and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos both proposed selling disused solars: uncultivated and uninhabited municipal lands that were generally used as pasture for cattle.

Olavide viewed the protection given to livestock as a cause of agricultural backwardness and argued that "all the lands should be put to work". Under his proposal, disused solars would be sold mainly to the rich, because they had the means to cultivate the land, with a smaller number reserved for farmers who had two pairs of oxen. The proceeds would be used to establish a provincial savings bank that would provide funds for public works such as roads, canals and bridges.
Jovellanos's proposal was much more radical, because unlike Olavide—who called for the sale only of disused solars, thereby respecting municipal resources—he suggested privatizing "council lands", including municipal properties that brought in tax revenue. Jovellanos, a fervent supporter of economic liberalism, defended the "free and absolute" sale of these properties, with no distinctions among the potential buyers. Unlike Olavide, he was not worried about the possibility that the land would pass into the hands of a few magnates, because, as noted by Francisco Tomás y Valiente, he considered the "liberation" of disused solars and council lands to be "a good in itself". Jovellanos's ideas, which were widely disseminated through his 1795 ''Report on Agrarian Law'', influenced the liberals who launched the confiscations of the 19th century much more than Olavide's proposals, which were not as well publicized.

Olavide and Jovellanos did not advocate the confiscation of Church property, but they suggested limiting, by peaceful means, the acquisition of more land for ecclesiastical institutions. This proposal was rejected by the Church and by most members of the Royal Council when it was put to a vote in June 1766. Two leaflets defending it were included in the ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' of the Spanish Inquisition: ''Report on Agrarian Law'' (1795), by Jovellanos, and ''Treaty of the Royalty Payment of Amortization'' (1765), by Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes.

Charles III

In an effort to quell the Esquilache Riots in the spring of 1766, the corregidor- intendente of Badajoz ordered the renting of city property to "needy neighbors", with priority given to day laborers who could work the land. The 10th Count of Aranda, newly appointed by Charles III, extended the measure by royal decree to all of Extremadura on 2 May 1766, and to the whole kingdom the following year. A subsequent order in 1768 explained that the measure was intended to serve the poorest farmers and laborers, to promote the "common good". However, the measure was repealed on 26 May 1770.

Strictly speaking, this measure was not a confiscation, because the land in question was not sold; it was leased and remained the property of the municipalities. The royal decree that replaced it prioritized leases "to the laborers of one, two and three yokes", thus abandoning the initial social purpose. To justify the change, the government alluded to "problems that have followed in the practice of the various provisions issued earlier about distribution of lands", referring to the fact that many laborers and poor peasants who had received plots of lands had been unable to cultivate them properly and lacked the means to pay the censuses, since the original decree was not accompanied by loans.

Olavide—who had openly criticized the first measures because he believed the beneficiaries lacked the means to put the land to full use—went on to direct projects in Andalusia and the Sierra Morena region, in which settlers received enough money to begin to cultivate the land they were granted, and were initially exempt from taxes and censuses.

As Francisco Tomás y Valiente noted, the actions of Charles III were driven more by economic concerns (the need to farm uncultivated land) than by a desire for social reform. However, they were connected to a wider goal of reforming Spain's agricultural economy.

Confiscation of Godoy

During the reign of Charles IV, in September 1798, the Confiscation of Godoy was launched by Mariano Luis de Urquijo and Miguel Cayetano Soler, the Secretary of the Treasury (who had held that position during the government of Manuel Godoy, removed from power six months before). Charles IV obtained permission from the Vatican to expropriate land belonging to the Jesuits and other religious entities, including hospitals, hospices and residential colleges. Altogether, the confiscations accounted for one-sixth of the Church's property.

Francisco Tomás y Valiente called the Confiscation of Godoy a turning point in linking confiscation to the problems of public debt, unlike the approach taken by Charles III, who presented confiscation as a way to reform (to a very limited extent) the agrarian economy. The subsequent liberal confiscations of the 19th century continued the approach of the Confiscation of Godoy, not that of Charles III.

Confiscation in the 19th century

Joseph Bonaparte (1808–13)

On 18 August 1809, Joseph Bonaparte ordered the removal of "all regular, monastic, mendicant and clerical Orders", whose assets would automatically belong to the nation. Many religious institutions were thus dissolved with no consideration of canon law.

Bonaparte also ordered a lesser confiscation, which did not seize property, but rather the income derived from property. The money went to support the French troops in the Napoleonic Wars. This confiscation ended in 1814.

Cortes of Cádiz (1810–14)

In March 1811, the deputies of the Cortes of Cádiz (the Spanish national assembly) recognized the huge debt accumulated in the form of ''vales reales'' during the reign of Charles IV—a debt that the acting treasury secretary, José Canga Argüelles, estimated to be 7 billion reales. After rejecting the argument that the ''vales reales'' should only be recognized for their market value—which was well below their nominal value, and would have bankrupted the holders and made it impossible to obtain new loans—the Cortes of Cádiz approved a proposal made by Argüelles. The proposal called for the confiscation of certain goods from the mortmains, which would then be auctioned. Two-thirds of the auction price would go toward the payment of national debt securities, which included the ''vales reales'' of the previous reign as well as new "notes of liquidated credit", which were issued from 1808 on to defray the expenses of the War of Spanish Independence. The remainder of the auction proceeds was dedicated to the payment of interest and the capital of the national debt.

A decree on 4 January 1813 called for the confiscation of all disused solars in order to provide "relief" to non-landowning citizens and "an award for the meritorious defenders of the homeland". To achieve three purposes at once—fiscal, patriotic and social—it divided the confiscated property in half. The first portion would be sold at auction, and the proceeds used to pay the national debt. The second would be divided into lots of land to be given for free to people who had served in the war, and for a fee to landless citizens. If the latter recipients failed to pay the fee, they lost the assigned lot, which diminished the social aim proclaimed in the decree.

In a decree on 13 September 1813, which included the Argüelles proposal, the term "national goods" was applied to the properties that were to be confiscated. The targets of the confiscation included supporters of Manuel Godoy, the French, the Knights Hospitaller and four Spanish military orders (the Order of Santiago, Order of Alcántara, Order of Calatrava and Order of Montesa); the convents and monasteries suppressed or destroyed during the war; the farms of the Crown, except sites intended for the service and recreation of the king; and half of the disused municipal solars. This decree was never carried out because of the return of Ferdinand VII and the absolute state, according to Francisco Tomás y Valiente, but it established the legal principles and mechanisms of subsequent confiscations.

Trienio Liberal (1820–23)

In 1820, after the Constitution of 1812 was restored, the Trienio Liberal once again faced the problem of the national debt, which had not been resolved during six years of absolutist rule (1814–20). On 9 August 1820, the new courts revalidated the Cortes of Cádiz's decree of 13 September 1813, but added properties obtained in the Spanish Inquisition to the list of confiscation targets. The new decree differed from previous ones in that it measured ''vales reales'' by their nominal value, which was much higher than the market value.

Because the market value of debt securities was so low compared with their nominal value, the cash paid by buyers was much lower than the appraised price—in some cases, less than 15 percent of the nominal value. As a result, in 1823, some deputies proposed suspending the confiscation decree and the delivering ownership of the properties in question to their tenants. One of these deputies declared that "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 the criticism, the confiscation process continued unchanged.

By an order of 8 November 1820 (which would be replaced by another decree on 29 June 1822), the Trienio revived the Cortes of Cádiz's decree of 4 January 1813 on the sale of unused lands and goods from the municipalities. A decree on 1 October 1820 also included ecclesiastical confiscation, which the Cortes of Cádiz had not addressed. This decree concerned the monasteries of the monastic orders; the regular canons of Saint Benedict, St. Augustine and the Premonstratensians; the convents and colleges of the military orders, the Knights Hospitaller, and the Orders of Saint John of God and the Bethlehemite Brothers; and "all other hospitals of any kind". Their goods and immovable properties were "applied to the public credit" as "national assets" subject to immediate confiscation. A few days later, on 11 October 1820, a law was issued prohibiting real estate purchases by mortmains, a measure first advocated in the 18th century by Rodríguez and Jovellanos.

Confiscation of Mendizábal (1836–37)

Juan Álvarez Mendizábal (prime minister of Queen Regent Maria Christina) and Pascual Madoz (finance minister of Queen Isabel II) were responsible for the two most important liberal confiscations. The 1836 Ecclesiastical Confiscation of Mendizábal

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