Francisco Espoz y Mina

(Francisco Mina the Elder). Born June 17, 1781, in Idocin; died Dec. 13, 1836, in Barcelona. Spanish bourgeois revolutionary.

Espoz y Mina commanded a guerrilla force in the struggle against the French occupation. In 1813 he became a general. With the establishment of the absolutist rule of Ferdinand VII, he attempted in September 1814 to mount an uprising in Pamplona to restore the 1812 constitution. Failing, he fled to France, where he remained until the Spanish revolution of 1820–23. Returning to his homeland, he headed the armed forces opposing the absolutist uprising in Catalonia. In 1823 he led the struggle against French interventionists in Catalonia. After the defeat of the revolution he emigrated. Invading Spain with a group of his followers, he tried between 1830 and 1832 to renew the struggle for the 1812 constitution. Returning to Spain after the 1833 amnesty, in 1834 he was appointed commander in chief of the Northern Army to fight the Carlists, but a year later he resigned. In 1835 he was appointed commander of the troops in Catalonia. In 1836, shortly before his death, he came out against the regent Maria Cristina, declaring the 1812 constitution to be the basic law of Spain.