The Palmero Conspiracy is the name given to a failed

plot Plot or Plotting may refer to: Art, media and entertainment * Plot (narrative), the story of a piece of fiction Music * ''The Plot'' (album), a 1976 album by jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava * The Plot (band), a band formed in 2003 Other * ''Plot' ...

to overthrow the Spanish colonial government in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

1828. The Spanish government suppressed further information on this conspiracy.

Background

In 1823, a Spanish order declared that military officers commissioned in Spain would take precedence over those appointed in the colonies. This was the reaction of

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

to the series of wars against Spanish rule that was known as the

Spanish American wars of independence The Spanish American wars of independence (25 September 1808 – 29 September 1833; es, Guerras de independencia hispanoamericanas) were numerous wars in Spanish America with the aim of political independence from Spanish rule during the early ...

. Many Creole military officers were outranked by their Peninsular counterparts. An

insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregu ...

was staged by a Creole captain named

Andrés Novales Andrés Novales ( 1800 – June 2, 1823) was a Filipino captain in the Spanish Army in the Philippines, and the self-proclaimed Emperor of the Philippines. His unease about the treatment of Creole soldiers led him to start a revolt in 1823 that ...

, but was suppressed when

Fort Santiago Fort Santiago ( es, Fuerte de Santiago; fil, Kutà ng Santiago), built in 1571, is a citadel built by Spanish navigator and governor Miguel López de Legazpi for the newly established city of Manila in the Philippines. The defense fortress is lo ...

did not yield to Novales and his 800 men. Madrid did not notice the growing disaffection in the Philippines, the last major Spanish colony in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

. In 1828, matters worsened when Peninsulars replaced public officials, primarily provincial governors.

Conspiracy

In 1828, two Palmero brothers, scions of a prominent clan in the

, along with the other partisans from the military and the

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

, planned to seize the government. The Palmeros were so well-known (one of their most famous descendants was

Marcelo Azcárraga Palmero Marcelo is a given name, the Spanish and Portuguese form of Marcellus. The Italian version of the name is Marcello, differing in having an additional "l". Marcelo may refer to: * Marcelo Costa de Andrade (born 1967), Brazilian serial killer, rapi ...

) that when the Spanish government discovered the plan, they decided it would be best to keep it hidden from the public. The plot itself would embarrass the government because the conspirators were Spaniards, making it appear that Spaniards themselves would want to overthrow Spain's power in the country. The main conspirators were forced to flee.

References

{{Philippine Revolution 1828 in the Philippines Conflicts in 1828 19th-century rebellions Conspiracies Political history of the Philippines History of the Philippines (1565–1898) Philippine revolts against Spain