Yup, Motril proclaimed itself an independent republic in 1873 – it only lasted three days, mind, but what the hell; being an independent republic was not to be sniffed at.

This was the era of the First Republic and things weren’t going particularly well for the nascent state, so much so that Motril thought they were better off alone, rather than hanging on to the coat tails of Madrid where politicians were more interested in their own hides than the rest of the country – what’s changed?

Anyway, in those heady days, 143 years ago on the 22nd of July, Motril thought, “Sod it, let’s give it a whirl.”

The Town Council resigned to a man and the Republic of Motril was ushered in and directly afterwards, Juan Montero Bonachera was proclaimed President of the Cantón Independiente de Motril.

The first thing that he did was burn all the tax records, meaning nobody owed anything – certainly a vote catcher, but three days had hardly gone by when folks had second thoughts.

So, on the 25th of July, 1873, the mighty Republic of Motril voted to rejoin the First Republic of Spain and start taxing the hell out of everybody again… not much has changed since then.

Actually, its a bit more complicated than that – other towns proclaimed themselves independent cantons, too, such as Granada and Cartegena and Motril nearly went to war with one of them, so if your Spanish is up to it, have a shufty at this wiki page on the subject.

As for the accompanying photo, it’s a Motril 5-centime note…

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)