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Hello everybody! Welcome to History for Sixth Graders. I am Alba and this is the first chapter

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of our trip through the history of Spain. Today we are going to talk about the War of

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Independence. We are at the beginning of the 19th century and Carlos IV was the king of

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Spain at that moment. He was an absolute monarch, that means he had all the power. The queen

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María Luisa helped the king to govern the country and also the prime minister Manuel

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Godoy. People in the country said that Manuel and María Luisa had an affair, but we are not

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sure about that. In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of France, wanted to occupy Portugal,

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but to do that he had to cross through Spain, so he asked Carlos IV for help to invade Portugal.

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Carlos allowed him to go through the territories of Spain, but Napoleon was cheating on him and

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on his way to Portugal he invaded some Spanish cities. The population was very angry because

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Carlos IV had left France troops to invade Spain, so the minister Godoy told the kings to exile to

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America to be safer and to wait until the things were better. To get prepared to go to America,

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they stopped in Aranjuez and the people in the city rebelled against Carlos IV and made

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him abdicate on his son Fernando VII. Remember that abdicate is to renounce the crown into another

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person. That rebellion is called the Motín de Aranjuez and it happened the 17th of March 1808.

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After that rebellion, Napoleon cheated again Carlos IV and also Fernando VII. He forced

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Fernando VII, who was the king, to abdicate into his father Carlos IV again and then he made Carlos

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renounce the crown to finally get the crown to himself, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Napoleon gave it

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to his brother José Bonaparte. Finally, José Bonaparte was proclaimed king José I.

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The population of Spain was divided between those who supported José I, who were called

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afrancesados and thought that the liberalist idea of France were better for Spain,

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and those who didn't accept it and still thought that Fernando VII was the king of Spain.

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This made the war of independence to start, the 2nd of May 1808. That day, the population of

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Madrid reigned against the French occupation. The following day, the 3rd of May, the French troops

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made lots of executions. Both days, the 2nd and the 3rd of May, are very well represented in some

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very famous Goya paintings. After that, the war spread through all the territory of Spain.

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During the war, the Spanish parliament, the one who supported Fernando VII,

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moved to Cádiz. In 1812, they signed the first constitution of Spain. It was called La Pepa

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because it was signed the 19th of March, that was the day of San José, and people went out

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to the streets shouting ¡Viva la Pepa! The constitution proclaimed Fernando VII as the

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king of Spain. It said that it was a parliamentary monarchy and gave some rights to citizens,

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like the right to vote and other important rights, and also representation of the population in the

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courts. So, the absolute monarchy finished. At the end of 1813, Napoleón Bonaparte had to take

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his troops out of Spain because he had a very important fight in Russia. This marked the

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beginning of the end of the war, that finished in 1814, when finally the French were defeated

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and Fernando VII was finally proclaimed king for all the Spanish territory. In 1814,

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when Fernando was the king, he abolished the Cádiz constitution and established an absolute

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monarchy. But that's a story I will tell you in our next History for 6th graders. Bye-bye!