History
The Guardia Civil was founded as a national police force in 1844 during the reign of Queen Isabel II of Spain by the Basque Navarrese aristocrat Francisco Javier Girón y Ezpeleta, 2nd Duque de Ahumada and 5th Marqués de las Amarillas, an 11th generation descendant of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II. Formerly, law enforcement had been the responsibility of the Holy Hermandad, an organization of municipal leagues. Corruption was pervasive in the Hermandad, where officials were constantly subject to local political influence, and the system was largely ineffective outside the major towns and cities. Criminals could often escape justice by simply moving from one district to another. The first Guardia police academy was established in the town of Valdemoro, south of Madrid, in 1855. Graduates were given the Guardia's now famous tricorne or Cavaliers hat as part of their duty dress uniform.
The Guardia was initially charged with putting an end to brigandage on the nation's highways, particularly in the province of Andalucia, which had become notorious for numerous robberies and holdups of businessmen, peddlers, travelers, and even foreign tourists. Banditry in this region was so endemic that the Guardia found it difficult to completely eradicate. As late as 1884, one traveler of the day reported that it still existed in and around the city of Málaga:
The favorite and original method of the Malagueño highwayman is to creep up quietly behind his victim, muffle his head and arms in a cloak, and then relieve him of his valuables. Should he resist, he is instantly disembowelled with the dexterous thrust of a knife... wears a profusion of amulets and charms...all of undoubted efficacy against the dagger of an adversary or the rifle of a Civil Guard.
The Guardia was also used to interdict smuggling efforts and fight against terrorist elements nationwide, a duty which earned it the undying enmity of both Catalan and Basque separatists who supported the terrorism.
The Guardia Civil was also given the political task of restoring and maintain land ownership and servitude among the peasantry of Spain by the king, who desired to stop the spread of anti-monarchist movements inspired by the French revolution. The end of the First Carlist War had left the Spanish landscape scarred by the destruction of civil war, and the government was forced to take drastic action to suppress spontaneous revolts by a restive peasantry. Based on the model of light infantry used by Napoleon in his European campaigns, the Guardia Civil was transformed into a paramilitary force of high mobility that could be deployed irrespective of inhospitable conditions, able to patrol and pacify large areas of the countryside. Its members, called 'guardias', maintain to this day a basic patrol unit formed by two agents, usually called a "pareja" (a pair), in which one of the 'guardias' will initiate the intervention while the second 'guardia' serves as a backup to the first.
Read more about this topic: Civil Guard (Spain)
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