Spain before the Outbreak of Civil War

Lorca was born in 1898, the same year that America defeated Spanish forces in the Spanish American War. This colonial defeat, which many considered humiliating for Spain, contributed to the increasingly turbulent Spanish political climate of the early twentieth century. Spain remained neutral in World War I, and until the 1930s engaged most of its military efforts trying to maintain control in colonial Morocco. In 1930, mainly because of growing economic problems, the Spanish dictator Primo de Rivera was forced to leave the country and the liberal Spanish Republic was born.

Lorca wrote "Gacela of the Dark Death" on a ship crossing the Atlantic in April of 1934, and he was arranging for its publication shortly before his death 1936. This time period had witnessed the buildup of widespread discontent with the Republican government. Radical political groups in the Spanish parliament were employing gangs to...