Domingo Dulce y Garay (1808-1869). Guerra y política a ambos lados del Atlántico

The reign of Isabella II (1833–1868)—and, more broadly, nineteenth-century Spain—was marked by two interconnected vectors: the prominence of military actors in politics and the process of de-imperialization, set in motion by the mainland American independences and culminating in 1898. Among the possessions that survived 1824, Cuba was the most significant, and its internal dynamics decisively shaped peninsular political and social life. This dissertation examines the role of the military within the Isabelline polity, with sustained attention to the colonial sphere and, specifically, to Spain–Cuba relations, through the historical biography of Domingo Dulce y Garay (1808–1869)—a general who played a major role in the Peninsula and twice served as Captain General of Cuba. Biography is advanced here as a methodology to rethink questions such as the construction of legitimacy for military intervention in politics and the militarization of colonial government, in dialogue with metropolitan politics. The case of Dulce enables a transnational reading of hierarchies of power between 1808 and 1869, as well as of authority and the limits of imperial power in everyday practice, always in dispute and negotiation with Antillean elites. From this perspective, the trajectory—at once peninsular and colonial—of a little-studied general serves to revisit entrenched assumptions in both Spanish and Cuban historiographies. The source base combines military records, official government files in Madrid and Havana, private correspondence, speeches, and the press, alongside U.S., French, and Caribbean materials that underscore the study’s transnational character. This plurality of sources makes it possible to confirm the gap between theory and practice in the extraordinary powers of the captains general; to reconstruct how the legitimating discourse of military rebellion functioned as a shield for interests and power logics among political soldiers; and to specify the role of Cuba’s governors in disputes among the island’s competing elites. At the same time, the study shows that praetorianism and militarism do not map onto a linear sequence but rather constitute concurrent modalities of military preeminence within the same political system. In sum, this research demonstrates that applying historical biography to colonial history and to nineteenth-century political history can yield renewed, substantive conclusions about Spain’s history in transnational perspective—not by narrating peninsular and colonial developments in isolation, but by insisting on the need to build a common narrative, for which “two-shore” figures such as Domingo Dulce are especially illuminating. Likewise, the study contends that the analysis of military personalities—far from belonging to an outdated political or military history—remains a fruitful field when approached with contemporary methods and transnational lenses that enrich our understanding of the Isabelline period on both sides of the Atlantic. Such an approach foregrounds not only contests between civil and military power, but also individual inflections, networks of influence woven around specific actors, and the weight of individual decisions in the course of events. Finally, the dissertation’s findings are offered as an invitation to continue reassessing the colonial dimension in Spain’s nineteenth-century history and to underscore the affinity between the “new biography” and the complexity of Hispano-Cuban relations—two fields that, as argued here, cannot be understood apart.

Grantor dc:publisher

Universidad de La Rioja (España)

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Zúñiga Crespo, Javier

Contributors dc:contributor

• Navajas Zubeldia, Carlos (Universidad de La Rioja)

Statement dc:rights

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Language dc:language

spa

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/oaites?codigo=397080

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dialnet.unirioja.es:TES0000023213