Loja uprising

The clandestine liberal Democratic Party, established in 1849, found significant support from labourers and peasants in rural Andalucia where there was widespread social inequality.

[1] On 28 June 1861 Rafael Pérez del Álamo [es], a local blacksmith and leader in the Democratic Party, led 600 men to nearby Iznájar and took the town with little resistance.

Similar uprisings took place in nearby locales Archidona and Alhama de Granada, in part aided by secret Carbonari societies and loosely inspired by Garibaldi's recent successes in Italy.

[1] Pérez had hoped that the Loja uprising would inspire similar insurrections from Democratic Party members throughout Spain but a larger national revolution failed to materialize.

[citation needed] In the wake of the Loja uprising, Queen Isabella visited the region in 1862 in an effort to quell republican sedition by granting amnesty to all surviving insurrectionaries.