General Ramón María Narváez was the strong man of the period, which was characterized by the curtailment of liberties and rights, and by administrative centralization.
On 2 April 1846, the Zamora Regiment stationed in the provincial capital of Lugo rebelled, led by Colonel Miguel Solís y Cuetos.
The final words of his speech make clear the intention of his uprising: Galicians: all Spaniards: Long live the free Queen!
Solís and his collaborators sought to reclaim the liberties and rights abolished by Narváez and sought a more just treatment for Galicia; the University of Santiago de Compostela reconstituted the Batallón Literario, the student battalion that had last confronted the forces of Napoleonic France in the Peninsular War, viewed in Galicia as throughout Spain as a war of Spanish independence.
On 23 April, the Battle of Cacheiras began on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela; the rebels were defeated by a vastly superior force.
This monument has been the scene of various memorial tributes, such as one on 26 April 1931 just after the founding of the Second Spanish Republic; a photograph of that event shows Manuel Lugrís Freire leading the attendees.
Manuel Murguía viewed Solís Uprising as a brief spring of 24 days in which illusion and progressivism confronted the government of Narváez that, despite defining itself as liberal and moderate, was opposed by the middle and lower bourgeoisie, many students and professors, and no small number of professionals who preferred republicanism.