Idiomas
Accesos directos
Buscador
The Contemporary Age: the nineteenth century
The nineteenth century
As the nineteenth century began, life in the valley was not particularly different from that recorded during the previous century. However, something soon happened, the effects of which were not immediately obvious in the Mena Valley, but which would bring about a national political and social crisis from which Mena could not be exempt. The defeat of the Franco-Spanish squadron by the British at Trafalgar left Spain without the indispensable naval protection necessary to maintain the old and crumbling Empire overseas.
Soon the disputed Franco-Spanish alliance fell into a total crisis that ended with a popular rising against the occupying French, one which had particularly tragic results in Mena. A few months after the famous popular rising of 2nd May 1808 in Madrid, the great military event affecting Mena took place. The Spanish Army reinforcements, usually stationed in the environs of Espinosa, arrived in Santander on their return form North Europe under the command of General Vivanco, Abbott of Vivanco and a resident of Mena. They planned to reach Espinosa as quickly as possible with the aim of stopping the French advance into northern Cantabria, to then proceed to re-take Bilbao and to seize control of the whole Cantabrian coast. The confrontation with the French started only a few days after their arrival in Espinosa and lasted four days by the end of which the Spanish troops had suffered many losses, among them that of General Vivanco himself. The Spanish were forced to retreat as far as Reinosa, abandoning in their rush many supplies and their fallen comrades, who would be burned at the inn in Espinosa.
The harshness of the conflict in Mena was extreme. The area fell victim to guerilla raids, pillaging and demands for supplies. Villasana became a virtual ghost town and the old Church of the Assumption was ransacked and the now non-existent building almost destroyed by the French who were barracked there.
The war over, the valley had suffered terribly from the presence not only of the invaders but also of the guerillas. Much was lost including some of the records from the municipal archives in Mercadillo.
It did not take long for further discord to return to Spain. Mena was once again affected - worse than before, if that were possible - by military action. This time the first Carlist War of 1833 had arrived. The siege of Villasana, Mercadillo and the undefeated garrison of Villanueva, which would resist all the Carlist attacks of the war, marked the beginning of conflict in Mena, an area which was becoming ever more committed to the liberal cause. Two companies of soldiers were formed, called the ‘Urbanos’ and the ‘Cristinos’, which took part in truly heroic actions, often under the command of Don Alvaro de la Quintana, a hero of the war in Mena and a focal figure in the future of the Valley. During this conflict, as during the French occupation, the valley was mercilessly sucked dry by first one and then another, as even the Carlists, on arrival, set about the sacking, pillaging and humiliation of the local population of Mena.
The century came to an end, and Villasana became the seat of local government for the Mena Valley; the old Council building in Mercadillo having been destroyed and then burned during the French and Carlist conflicts, and its ancient archives almost totally lost.
The new Town Hall was to be a modern building constructed between the River Cadagua and the northern town wall.
The second Carlist War brought back the worst memories of the previous conflict. The Carlist occupation of Mena over a year and a half once again bled the Council and local population dry, and only came finally to an end with the arrival of a strong liberal contingent from Burgos. The Mena Council hurriedly prepared a defence in the face of possible further eruptions of Carlist action – which eventually occurred in August 1875. The Pendo fort and these defences, placed right across the north of Villasana as far as Caniego, proved to be powerful enough for the liberal Mena Valley population to force a strong contingent of enemy troops to withdraw, ending once and for all the final Carlist attempt to occupy the Mena Valley.
The rest of the century was characterised by the political struggle between liberal and conservative factions through fierce debate and largely domestic conflict.
Web Menú
Services menu
Special Events
Patrocinadores:
OFICINA DE TURISMO VALLE DE MENA
- C/ Eladio Bustamente, s/n.
09580 Villasana de Mena - Tlf y fax:
947 141 341