Banditry in 19th-century Spain did not sprout from a vacuum. It was the direct consequence of devastating agrarian policies enacted in Madrid.
Between 1836 and 1855, liberal politicians executed the Desamortizaciones, sweeping expropriation acts led by ministers Juan Álvarez Mendizábal and Pascual Madoz. The stated goal was modernizing the economy by seizing monastic estates and municipal common lands, putting them up for public auction. The reality was catastrophic for rural workers.
Wealthy urban oligarchs snapped up the auctions at bargain prices, fencing off forests, pastures, and scrublands that had kept landless Andalusian peasants alive for centuries. Overnight, gathering firewood, hunting rabbit, or grazing a family goat became criminal offenses. Wages for field labor collapsed to starvation levels.
Faced with hunger or the whip of private estate guards, dozens of young men took to the hills. Sociologist Eric Hobsbawm famously characterized this dynamic as "social banditry": a primitive form of class resistance where populations crushed by rapid modernization celebrate the outlaw because he dares to defy the legal framework that destroyed their lives. The Botijas were products of this dislocation.
