A Spanish Dreyfus Affair: The Anarchist Human Rights Campaign to Save Francisco Ferrer

In 1909 the Catalan anarchist pedagogue and founder of the Modern School in Barcelona was accused of masterminding the Tragic Week Rebellion against conscription for a colonial war in Morocco. After his imprisonment, an international campaign mounted across Europe, the Americas, North Africa and the Middle East in defense of a figure that activists claimed was being targeted merely for teaching “rationalist education” in “Inquisitorial Spain.” This paper will examine the pivotal role of anarchist activists from France, Cuba, Argentina, Germany, the United States and elsewhere in forging a transnational coalition that came to encapsulate a diverse array of allies, from English pastors to Dutch freemasons, in what I argue ought to be interpreted as a groundbreaking human rights movement. Therefore, I will situate the Ferrer campaign of 1909 within a broader periodization of turn of the twentieth century international rights campaigning, including the movements against the “new slaveries” in Africa and the Amazon and opposition to hacienda slavery in Mexico. Most importantly, however, was the influential echo of the Dreyfus Affair which stretched across Europe and beyond to develop a powerful template for mobilizing in defense of a wrongfully accused individual.