On September 11, Catalans celebrated 'La Diada', the equivalent of America’s Fourth of July. The major difference is that La Diada doesn’t celebrate independence, it commemorates the loss of the historic rights suffered by the Catalans upon the defeat and occupation of Barcelona in 1714 during the last year of the War of the Spanish Succession.
These ancient privileges dated back to the Kingdom of Aragon and the fight against the Moors; they had been slowly accumulated and defended against feudal lords and centralizing kings and ministers for centuries after the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile[1] were united in a dynastic union that gave birth to the Kingdom of Spain.
Upon the death of Charles II, the Spanish Habsburg dynasty ended without a direct heir: but there was a familial connection by marriage to the Bourbon line of Louis XIV through Phillip, Duke of Anjou, as well as the Austrian Habsburg line, put forward by the Archduke Charles. The French and Castilians backed the Bourbons; pretty much everyone else backed Charles, fearing the power of France should she have access to the still considerable wealth of Spain’s American Empire. To make a long story short, the French were defeated in Europe, but successfully installed Phillip on the Spanish throne; the Catalans, who had backed Charles, were left to their own devices after more than a decade of bloodshed in the rest of Europe. The Castilians were not gentle when they sacked Barcelona: indeed, parts of the city were razed completely and rebuilt by the occupying forces[2].
