1876 - Political Events

Political Events

Spain's Carlist civil war ends in February (see 1874). General Arsenio Martínez Campos has signed agreements protecting the lives of prisoners and of the wounded, offering humane terms to the insurgents; a new constitution written by the prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, 48, restores the Bourbon monarchy.

Russia annexes the Central Asian khanate of Kokand February 19 (see 1873). Troops under the command of General Konstantin P. Kaufmann occupied the khanate northeast of Bukhara last year with help from his brilliant aide Mikhail Dmitryevich Skobelev, now 32, and renames it province of Fergana, promoting Skobolev to major general and making him Fergana's first Russian governor general. But Britain fears encroachment on her interests in Afghanistan, London protests Russian expansion in Turkistan, Aleksandr II rejects Kaufmann's plans for further expansion, and the general turns his attention to land reform and other reforms as he devotes his efforts to becoming an able administrator.

A Bulgarian insurrection begins in May with encouragement from the Russian minister to Constantinople Nikolai, Graf Ignatiev. Turkish irregulars are sent in to quell the uprising. The Ottoman sultan Abdul Aziz dismisses his highly unpopular grand vizier Mahmud Nedim, whose policy has been heavily influenced by advice from Graf Ignatiev; to mollify public opinion, the sultan replaces Nedim with the former grand vizier Midhat, but is himself deposed May 29 at age 46 after a 15-year reign and dies at Constantinople 4 days later, probably by his own hand. His 35-year-old nephew has been imprisoned for 15 years but reigns for 3 months as Murad V before being declared insane. Murad's 33-year-old brother then becomes sultan and will reign until 1909 as Abdul Hamid II.

Russian anarchist Mikhail A. Bakunin dies at Bern, Switzerland, July 1 at age 62. An opponent of Karl Marx, he has maintained that the theoretical "withering away of the state" under communism was essential as a means toward the ultimate goal of anarchism.

Serbia declares war on the Ottoman Empire June 30, again with encouragement from Graf Ignatiev; Montenegro follows suit July 2, but the Serbs are completely defeated at Alexinatz September 1, and Turkish forces slaughter Bulgarians by the thousands to suppress their insurrection, which is ended in September. "The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East" by former British prime minister William E. Gladstone appears September 6; the pamphlet arouses Britons against the Turks as Russia prepares for war against the Serene Port (Constantinople) (see 1877).

A Turkish constitution proclaimed December 23 by the grand vizier Midhat, now 54, declares the indivisibility of the Ottoman Empire and provides for parliamentary government based on representation of all groups in society (but see 1877).

Japan recognizes Korean independence from China February 26 in the Treaty of Kanghwa, which opens three Korean ports to Japanese trade, permits Japan to have a resident at Seoul, and draws no protest from China (see 1874). A Japanese envoy has held protracted discussions with Korean officials at Pusan, and Japanese warships have exchanged gunfire with a Korean island fort in Kanghwa Bay, but Korea finally agrees to open herself to the West for the first time in her history, and foreign powers will soon vie for position in gaining dominance on the peninsula. Korea remains a Chinese vassal state, and although the Chinese insist that Korea is independent they try to increase their influence and open the country even further to the United States, efforts that run into xenophobic opposition from Koreans (see 1894; anti-Japanese demonstrations, 1882).

The new British viceroy for India arrives at Bombay (Mumbai) April 7. Robert Lytton, 45-year-old son of the late novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, is accompanied by his wife, Edith (née Liddell), 34, who is unsettled by the immorality she finds among colonial bureaucrats and their memsahibs (see 1877). The Royal Titles Bill passed by Parliament in April over the protests of former prime minister William E. Gladstone makes Queen Victoria Empress of India. The queen elevates Prime Minister Disraeli to the peerage in August, making him earl of Beaconsfield.

The Indian Association founded in Bengal pursues the cause of self-government. Calling the British Indian Association a reactionary tool of industrialists and landlords, founders Surendranath Banerjea and Ananda Mohan Bose attract a following among young professionals and intellectuals, and although their organization will spread beyond Bengal it will remain strongly Bengali in spirit.

Tasmania's four-foot-three Aborigine queen Trucanini dies at Hobart May 11 in her 60s. She saw white men stab her mother to death as a child, was raped by white convicts at age 16, and then sold herself for food at work camps until she met a white builder, who with her help recorded the customs of her tribe, whose members have now been almost entirely wiped out. Regarded by settlers as little more than pests who had to be killed or driven out, the Aborigines fought back in a low-grade guerrilla war, but their spears and other traditional weapons were no match for the settlers' guns and horses.

Japanese government official Issei Maebara leads dissident Choshu samurai against the new Meiji regime in October, announcing that he intends to "sweep traitors from the side of the emperor" (see 1874). Captured by government troops at his native Nagi in Nagato prefecture, he is executed December 3 at age 42.

Ethiopian forces defeat Egyptian troops at Gura, but the Egyptians gain a crushing victory in February as the war that began last year continues.

Spain dispatches General Arsenio Martínez Campos to crush the Cuban rebellion that began in 1868 (see 1874). The Cuban provisional government made General Tomás Estrada Palma, now 41, its president last year, but the Spaniards will capture him next year and Martínez Campos will employ humane means of ending the conflict (see 1878).

Former Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna dies at Mexico City June 21 at age 82, blind and impoverished. General Porfirio Díaz, now 46, overthrows President Lerdo de Tejada and begins to restore order in a program that will stabilize the country. A former muleteer from the state of Oaxaca, Díaz will attract foreign capital, develop industry, build railways, promote public works, liberate Mexico City from its perennial floods, and increase commerce, albeit at the expense of poor farmers (campesinos), who will be subjected to brutal treatment. Lerdo de Tejada goes into exile.

The Dominican Republic's founding father Juan Pablo Duarte dies in exile at Caracas July 15 at age 63.

The chairman of a committee on expenditures in the U.S. War Department reports to the House of Representatives March 2 that he has found "unquestioned evidence of the malfeasance in office" of Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who resigns before the Senate votes unanimously to impeach him. Now 46, Belknap is a Newburgh, New York-born Princeton graduate who was practicing law at Keokuk, Iowa, when the Civil War began in 1861; he distinguished himself in combat, won promotion to brigadier general July 30, 1864, and was named secretary of war by President Grant in 1869. He is charged with having received $24,450 since 1870 for appointing one John S. Evans to the post-tradership at Fort Sill, 35 senators vote "guilty," 22 say Belknap's resignation removed him from the Senate's jurisdiction, and his defenders say his wife may have made the arrangement and received the money without his knowledge, but the scandal further blackens the reputation of the Grant administration.

Secretary of the Treasury John H. Bristow resigns June 3 after 2 years in office and retires from public life. A conference in May at New York's Fifth Avenue Hotel has regarded him favorably as presidential timber, and his adversaries in the old Whiskey Ring have persuaded President Grant that Bristow was using his office to wangle the nomination. His former Louisville law partner John H. Harlan nominates Bristow at the party's convention in June at Cincinnati, but the party selects Ohio governor Rutherford B. (Birchard) Hayes, 54, and Bristow will soon move to New York.

Colorado enters the Union August 1 as the 38th state.

Former Confederate Army general Braxton Bragg dies at Galveston, Texas, September 27 at age 59.

The U.S. presidential election in November ends in a dispute when neither New York governor Samuel J. (Jones) Tilden, 62, nor Rutherford B. Hayes wins the necessary 185 electoral votes: Democrat Tilden has won the popular vote by at least 200,000 votes, partly because Southern Democrats have used physical intimidation and outright bribery to discourage blacks from voting (they have heretofore given overwhelming support to Republicans because Lincoln freed the slaves), although fraud is widespread on both sides; two sets of returns leave 20 electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina in dispute, and there is no constitutional provision to cover the situation (see 1877).