El caciquismo en la zona norte de Murcia (1891-1910): bases sociales del poder local en los distritos electorales de Cieza, Yecla y Mula

Abstract

El trabajo muestra la evolución de la trama política general, española mediante el análisis en una zona concreta de la Región de Murcia en el período 1891-1910. La primera parte indaga en la estructura de la propiedad presentando a los grupos sociales. La segunda parte atiende expresamente a la política, mostrando la relación entre la dinámica de los poderes locales y del estado a través de la organización de las elecciones. La tesis demuestra que en el período estudiado no se produce ni una sola elección libre y democrática. Finalmente expone información sobre las revueltas sociales que se produjeron y la contundente represión en una aparente contradicción entre actitudes de paternalismo y de violencia, las dos caras definitorias del sistema caciquil. The study is centred upon the small boroughs which formed three separately named districts, in the period 1891-1910, and which formed societies of a rural charachter, in the midst of the general transformation towards capitalistic norms. These district were characterised by the unequal distribution of property, - concentrated in few hands: - those of the descendants of the established oligarchy, and those of a reduced number of merchants and landowners, these latter two grown richer by the forming of matrimonial ties with the former. Only between a quarter and a half of the individuals who comprised these rural-societes had access to the ownership ofland. The rest was made up of tenant- farmers, casual-workers, and the poor. All undergoing a new breed of property, that property associated with work, - a 'structural-proverty'; into which this study has attempted to penetrate. The division has been found to have been underlined, due to the inexistence of associations capable of representing collective interests, - the first of such movements oniy appeared during this same periodo it was within this context that universal-suffrage for men first appeared, which, in the three districts studied was so denaturalised as not to have produced a single democratic election whose voting resulted in its electors being representad by any freely- appointed parliamentarian. This being so, it has been necessary to investigase the totality of electoral resuits and returns of the three main groups, Conservative, Liberal, and Republican. In order to be able to exert such control over the popular vote, it was essential for the grand-propietors to create social-restrictions, managed by the local, party-bosses, who embodied the oligarchic sectors of the societies and who, via paternalistic measures, administered a goverment of authoritarian, repressive, charachter whose essence was the domination of local-counciis, and channels of communication with the word outside