tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7037709769321605402024-03-13T09:43:45.916+01:00La Vida AlcalaínaAn account of life past and present in Alcalá de Los Gazules, a small town in the Province of Cádiz in the bottom left-hand corner of Spain.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger188125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-50473520718944329622023-11-18T12:35:00.001+01:002023-11-18T12:35:39.057+01:00Alcalá in the clouds<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3GcEK_g88T1y4XTZco0Q2TLYES6Ugau8fiPKhGB1sJ54LoHzWtPxmlFnrARguuSSecHFhyphenhyphenW0wvfyPonUEuIoTruMYEC9Uw0_R2EoNQp4g4_V9b9dGWd-_5hfMWHum6DWjZWlDCtK5zAhku5y7utqegoHm3agu2zxS6Ei6E4r5gzRXE1osp2zYFrEyuSE0/s1920/Pedro%20Jim%C3%A9nez%20G%C3%B3mez%20prizewinning%20photo%202023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3GcEK_g88T1y4XTZco0Q2TLYES6Ugau8fiPKhGB1sJ54LoHzWtPxmlFnrARguuSSecHFhyphenhyphenW0wvfyPonUEuIoTruMYEC9Uw0_R2EoNQp4g4_V9b9dGWd-_5hfMWHum6DWjZWlDCtK5zAhku5y7utqegoHm3agu2zxS6Ei6E4r5gzRXE1osp2zYFrEyuSE0/w640-h360/Pedro%20Jim%C3%A9nez%20G%C3%B3mez%20prizewinning%20photo%202023.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> This stunning aerial view of Alcalá was captured by Pedro A. Jiménez Gómez a couple of years ago. It has just won first prize in a photography contest organised by the Mancomunidad de la Janda, and has gone viral across Spain. The national newspaper <i><a href="https://www.larazon.es/andalucia/cadiz/onirica-foto-nubes-pueblo-cadiz-que-esta-dando-vuelta-mundo_202311066549118bb2761500019cd2cb.html?fbclid=IwAR0nNIGF0ITLXqZ9nExLhSi2ERc8yX7EvRPMNTX7HR_ZCB5WBNyj7Gxnt8g">La Razón</a></i> claims it as evidence that Alcalá is one of the most beautiful towns in the country. Can't argue with that!<p></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-40545194396971321422023-11-17T13:33:00.003+01:002023-11-17T13:33:21.058+01:00Six thousand steps, with songbirds<p> In an attempt to do something about the lamentable state of my 71-year-old body I recently acquired one of those "smart watches" that nags you to do regular exercise. I now go for a brisk walk most mornings, with a target of 6,000 steps (I know they say you should aim for 10,000 but you have to start somewhere). </p><p>Fortunately Alcalá has plenty of hills and dales to get the circulation going. My favourite route is across the valley opposite my house, saying good morning to the horses and mules that graze there, past the ancient wells on Los Pozos, and along the (almost traffic-free) road which leads into the Parque Natural los Alcornocales. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvG0k0B4ByatdAMAWtQFjpgRBinzmnJILthSPqEDVzsB72E1NWNQLmdFrHKn8Qg1QrZJsxCynYmwpxN1LtasDtCr45NotSwAKuGM3GZDeFNjPYerFcGolWXscQuCsLJPwzpQSrW5pcBF-C1NGdDFg7TTSibH3oCnZBgRpJoY-T2VeEfvgFwRDYDNVPGun-/s2592/Carretera%20Patriste.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1145" data-original-width="2592" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvG0k0B4ByatdAMAWtQFjpgRBinzmnJILthSPqEDVzsB72E1NWNQLmdFrHKn8Qg1QrZJsxCynYmwpxN1LtasDtCr45NotSwAKuGM3GZDeFNjPYerFcGolWXscQuCsLJPwzpQSrW5pcBF-C1NGdDFg7TTSibH3oCnZBgRpJoY-T2VeEfvgFwRDYDNVPGun-/w400-h176/Carretera%20Patriste.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of Alcalá from the Patriste road.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>While many people who indulge in this activity plug their ears in order to listen to music or a podcast, I remain unplugged so I can enjoy the song of the numerous birds that line this route. Although I am useless at identifying most of them by sight as they flit in and out of the trees and bushes, thanks to the wonderful <a href="https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/" target="_blank">Merlin Bird ID app</a> I can whip at my phone and ID them by their song. In the last month I have built up quite a list: robin, song-thrush, stonechat, great tit, siskin, chaffinch, goldfinch, chiffchaff, Sardinian warbler, and even the tiny firecrest. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPstZuBfZZaM3VY29iGyOlfgDGJOrwSCOZOhyphenhyphenhOCuY9VcWwxCdf_zBwAnMUbqFuRAtZitRfM-Ez8qSahc9ixPeJqEv6QyK_dtFPQvH8HVbQ9_oK4Z4AhR-_5t5gJt0tEZxvIbDa7opLSojIpqlxnmMiS6-DN11cAjSx_W6VGudfIGlxoeH0x69eCX-kSjz/s575/Firecrest%20Regulus%20ignicapillus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="575" height="353" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPstZuBfZZaM3VY29iGyOlfgDGJOrwSCOZOhyphenhyphenhOCuY9VcWwxCdf_zBwAnMUbqFuRAtZitRfM-Ez8qSahc9ixPeJqEv6QyK_dtFPQvH8HVbQ9_oK4Z4AhR-_5t5gJt0tEZxvIbDa7opLSojIpqlxnmMiS6-DN11cAjSx_W6VGudfIGlxoeH0x69eCX-kSjz/w400-h353/Firecrest%20Regulus%20ignicapillus.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Firecrest - heard but sadly not seen</td></tr></tbody></table><p>At this time of year the most prolific songster is the Eurasian blackcap. Yesterday their melodious warbling accompanied me for about 2 km along the lane, on all sides - there must have been hundreds of them. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-n_eA4S-has" width="320" youtube-src-id="-n_eA4S-has"></iframe></div><p>Last week the griffon vultures were on the move and about fifty of them flew over my head, so low that I could hear the beat of their wings. They nest during the winter months in the crags further up the valley, and take flight once the air warms up and they can use the thermals to gain height. Some people find such close contact with these magnificent creatures intimidating, but they still give me a thrill even after all these years. Back in 2010 I wrote a blog post about them, including details of one that lost its way and landed in the Calle Real back in the 1940s - <a href="https://gazules.blogspot.com/2010/10/vulture-culture.html">Vulture Culture</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr1_6SDHa1vjQTum9x6LKzxVTgloskqRJ1e2TpkG4oJyKjnqADBjjo-Zb7mzyN1MBtfKZoJJPcRSBGwwgtZfpeM4FMCuEFE4RD6XeQpqH_y_euTQ50qoOeNdlKNZIwgNp3dFPH2yEO2FrEJD1bZvaYzGeHib9Xyqf9T1XfG0NNlfh6Dtka0yZyxv95qBwi/s667/Buitres-zona-Picacho_1435366682_116621941_667x375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="667" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr1_6SDHa1vjQTum9x6LKzxVTgloskqRJ1e2TpkG4oJyKjnqADBjjo-Zb7mzyN1MBtfKZoJJPcRSBGwwgtZfpeM4FMCuEFE4RD6XeQpqH_y_euTQ50qoOeNdlKNZIwgNp3dFPH2yEO2FrEJD1bZvaYzGeHib9Xyqf9T1XfG0NNlfh6Dtka0yZyxv95qBwi/w400-h225/Buitres-zona-Picacho_1435366682_116621941_667x375.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMkHaSHqVy5-frYR4-ZHNzMuWSlSUk8OxdT3dLfmU2D_kkSXx-Xa-T2DsYbbaFL6Xn8ecl8-6IHyuMOxay_Jfq-eAnRmCATm-o2K251pB9rhBu4iJPVgQ87t0yOuHu-24zTwx0T5imJfq3090zK7NPUUoKpSPD7BE7najdZTsikQDOixulBJFGesNT3kKU/s320/Vultures%20nesting.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="320" height="359" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMkHaSHqVy5-frYR4-ZHNzMuWSlSUk8OxdT3dLfmU2D_kkSXx-Xa-T2DsYbbaFL6Xn8ecl8-6IHyuMOxay_Jfq-eAnRmCATm-o2K251pB9rhBu4iJPVgQ87t0yOuHu-24zTwx0T5imJfq3090zK7NPUUoKpSPD7BE7najdZTsikQDOixulBJFGesNT3kKU/w400-h359/Vultures%20nesting.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-28143874599341782392023-11-16T12:20:00.006+01:002023-11-16T12:26:20.633+01:00Not so much a retail opportunity, more a way of life<div><i>I wrote this post in 2010, two years after we moved to Alcalá. I'm reposting it now because most of it is still true, and recent arrivals to the pueblo might find it entertaining, if not informative ...<br /></i><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">************</div><br /><br /></div>
A few years ago, while still a wage-slave in the UK, I made a list of all the reasons why I didn’t want to live there any more. Near the top of the list was Big Bad Supermarkets: their crimes included driving small shops and farmers out of business, seducing us into buying microwave ready-meals packed with additives, selling tasteless meat alongside jars of goo that supposedly turn it into something a celebrity chef would be proud to serve, wrapping fruit and veg in umpteen layers of plastic and then charging us for carrier bags “to help protect the environment” ... you know what I’m on about. And as for 24-hour opening, I’m not even going to go there, it’s the road to madness.<br />
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To cut a long story short, I now live in Alcalá de los Gazules in the province of Cádiz. Shopping for food here is not like it was in England. Oh no. Not one bit. I love it.<br />
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Alcalá has around 5,600 inhabitants and at least 40 food shops, including five butchers, three greengrocers, two fishmongers and six confectioners/bakers. There may be more, lurking in backstreets I haven’t ventured into yet. This works out at one shop per 140 people; in the UK, the ratio is one per 1700 people (<a href="http://www.euromonitor.com/">www.euromonitor.com</a>). Then we have four bazaars (including the awesome Bazar Chino), three ironmongers, two saddlers, two chemists, half a dozen shops selling clothes and shoes, a fabric shop, a haberdashery that also sells ladies' underwear, two gunsmiths and an amazing agricultural emporium which sells everything from flea powder to live partridges.<br />
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Many of these shops are just a room in a someone’s house, with goods spilling out onto the pavement. Sure, we have supermarkets too, the largest being Día; I go there occasionally to buy butter, as it seems to be the only place in town that sells it; others innocently offer you Tulipan margarine when you ask for <i>mantequilla</i>, which just doesn’t do it for me on a nice crusty baguette. There are rarely more than a dozen people in Día. Conversely, Jacinta's shop at the top of our street measures approximately 8 square metres and is almost always overflowing with customers. It sells pretty well everything Día does (except butter, and the Wines & Spirits selection is somewhat limited). The shelves are stacked up to the ceiling, the chiller cabinet is bursting at the seams, hams and chorizos hang round your ears, a tray of free-range eggs balances precariously on a shelf, fruit spills out of wicker baskets that you trip over blindly as you go in out of the bright sunlight. Fresh bread is delivered twice a day. Pictures of Nuestra Señora and her son are bluetacked to the walls wherever there´s a gap.<br />
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These little shops can be daunting at first. At 5’6” I tower over the rest of the clientele, which makes me feel like a large clumsy hippo. Then there is the queuing system; at first sight it looks totally random, but the trick is to ask “¿Quién es la última?” (“who came in last?”) and then dive in as soon they’ve been served. Or you can stand there for 20 minutes clutching a couple of lemons and pretending to be fascinated by the fourteen different types of lentil on the shelves until the shopkeeper takes pity on you, or everyone else has gone home.<br />
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Twice a week we have a fruit and veg market in the street, which is amazingly cheap. I can fill a shopping trolley (yes, I have a shopping trolley, lugging it up the hill is cheaper than joining a gym and just as effective) with top-quality seasonal produce for less than €10. Competition for service at the market is fierce and the “¿Quién es la última?” stunt doesn’t always work. The senior alcalainas, despite their lack of stature, have sharp elbows and the strength and agility of Jack Russell terriers. They also know all the stall-holders by name and can spend five or ten minutes asking the price of everything before they start actually buying things. On my first few visits, I still had a residual aversion to wasting time and after being ignored for ten minutes I would slip off to the little supermarket over the road, ending up with a few ageing bananas and wrinkled nectarines. Now I elbow my way in shamelessly with the rest of them. Trolleys at noon!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDZZ8T0sdTiEe9oc8Q7RetYfgpXpfaY-xFXlR85LGDU0lRliLshIQD0Gd2Dd8tNV78mv4KzgBJiF4Hs0C0XKxN3YTpPIrB4_5FrM0WU2UAZpKXIoI41mAFeb1OOPAQ3mIwveUy-UYVcN53/s1600/Bargains.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDZZ8T0sdTiEe9oc8Q7RetYfgpXpfaY-xFXlR85LGDU0lRliLshIQD0Gd2Dd8tNV78mv4KzgBJiF4Hs0C0XKxN3YTpPIrB4_5FrM0WU2UAZpKXIoI41mAFeb1OOPAQ3mIwveUy-UYVcN53/s320/Bargains.jpg" /></a></div><br />
A lot of people have <i>huertos</i> or produce gardens and bring their fruit and vegetables in to town to sell them on the street. Others gather edible plants such as wild asparagus from the countryside. It is not unusual to be sitting outside the pub on a Friday night and be offered a sack of ripe figs.<br />
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The Spanish seem to be obsessed with plastic bags. Left to their own devices they will put bananas, oranges and apples each in separate bags and then put them all into a larger bag. When I ask them to put everything straight into my trolley they look at me as if I had ordered them to strip naked. I try to explain the ecological drawbacks of a world full of plastic, but this concept hasn’t quite reached Alcalá yet, at least not the older generation. And I must admit the bags are useful when cleaning out the cat-litter tray.<br />
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The butchers’ shops are a carnivore’s heaven. Pigs’ ears, bulls’ testicles? No problem. Pork dripping for your morning <i>tostada</i>? Three different flavours. In the UK I used to read recipe books that said things like “Ask your butcher to ...” Ever try that in Tesco’s? Here, it’s the norm. The butchers will lovingly fillet a chicken breast into eight slices, so thin they are almost transparent. They don’t sell prepared mince; choose your meat and they will mince it to the consistency you need. This all takes time of course; I soon learned not to go on Saturday mornings, when the <i>amas de casa</i> are shopping to feed for a family of twelve over the weekend. Hours can pass. <br />
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These corner shops are more than just for buying things; they are little community centres in their own right. Listening to the locals gossiping gives you good opportunity to improve your Spanish and to tune in to the daunting local accent. Of course they assume you don’t understand a word (they are usually right) so they often talk about you. My husband was collecting his prescriptions in the Farmacia once and heard a couple of old dears ask the pharmacist what pills he was getting. Astonishingly, the pharmacist told them; they then discussed his various ailments, right there in front of him! Being a decent sort of chap he didn’t embarrass them by letting them know he knew.<br />
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Walking to the local shops and buying fresh food on a daily basis gives me so much more pleasure than driving to an out-of-town hypermarket once a week. It’s cheaper, it’s good exercise, it helps you get to know your neighbours, the fresh produce is tastier, and I’d rather hand over my meagre pension to local businesses than to some multinational corporation. Notwithstanding I must confess to the occasional trip to Mercadona to stock up on cat litter and beer, friends who shop at Morrisons in Gibraltar bring back decent teabags for us.<br />
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Of course things are changing. Rural Spain is edging inexorably towards larger retail outlets and processed food (“<i>comida basura</i>” as they so elegantly put it). But I have my fingers crossed that the tide of change will take a long while to sweep away the little front-room shops in the <i>pueblo</i>s. Not so much a retail opportunity, more a way of life ...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-32123700002559653162023-11-16T11:09:00.000+01:002023-11-16T12:02:43.595+01:00The ever-changing street names of AlcaláMost of the streets and squares in Alcalá have had several different names over the years. Indeed some are still referred to locally by their old names, causing confusion for visitors, postmen and delivery drivers. <div><br /></div><div>The renaming often followed drastic changes in the country’s government, notably: <br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The declaration of the 2nd Republic in 1931, when Spain was governed by elected representatives following the abdication of the King and the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera;</li><li>The military-civilian coup of July 1936, when the Falange party took over the government of Alcalá at the beginning of the Civil War;</li><li>The transition to democracy following the death of Franco - the first local elections were held in 1979.</li></ul>The following list, in alphabetical order, was compiled from the series <i>Las calles de Alcalá y sus nombres: Evolución Histórica I-VII</i> on the blog <a href="https://historiadealcaladelosgazules.blogspot.com/">Historia de Alcalá de los Gazules</a>, and <i>Por las calles viejas de Alcalá I-IV</i> on <a href="http://mialcala.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Mi Alcalá</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK40MZPyJy7M8Xwks6cEWpqYBXAoFHnjFOd81ZJF5dhkgfkqIpxE2UoWLctrzCDC1bLynkAZrL368wlwM4PkXfVKt4lNSh0Nqq0xXodMpFvUMWGc2C70awy1gZDIfRdxAQ3fj9FUQ-zL3NRVxfpzJw2GA39xAUdafEtvsOkZBG-IjbwIaIvp6Rxs81lQ/s576/Map%20from%20ForoCiudad%20amended.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="576" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK40MZPyJy7M8Xwks6cEWpqYBXAoFHnjFOd81ZJF5dhkgfkqIpxE2UoWLctrzCDC1bLynkAZrL368wlwM4PkXfVKt4lNSh0Nqq0xXodMpFvUMWGc2C70awy1gZDIfRdxAQ3fj9FUQ-zL3NRVxfpzJw2GA39xAUdafEtvsOkZBG-IjbwIaIvp6Rxs81lQ/w400-h288/Map%20from%20ForoCiudad%20amended.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><b>Alameda de la Cruz:</b> The open space at the eastern end of Calle Real dates from the mid 16th century, when it was known as Plazuela de los Mesones. In the 1570s it was renamed Plaza de la Vera Cruz, after a monastery which was located there. This endured until 1895, when it was renamed Plaza Montes de Oca after the man who made many improvements to the town including the introduction of piped water. During the 2nd Republic it became Plaza de Fermín Galán y García Hernández, two soldiers who led an uprising against the monarchy in 1930 and were subsequently executed. Following the coup in 1936 it became Plaza del Generalísimo Franco, and after the return to democracy it was given the name we know today.<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-_gT1JJsFYrJK8sJOYQO4xMyxAZVqcY2RiAXt-6VSgCiVYSYsZDM0RhDrjxv_dmpYA8N3uc6K7FjDXMtB-HDg0_MPY5b5mTI9dEMSwep3K-5riNp8ht7Y23DjvzBGPwxWpt0snlmbEMW93tt-M76nGHwVZ1BOLyGJyPej-E7wN7mXtxCzEj-4BIiJw/s1752/Plaza%20de%20Fermin%20Galan%20y%20Garcia%20Hernandez%20(Alameda)%201930s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1121" data-original-width="1752" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-_gT1JJsFYrJK8sJOYQO4xMyxAZVqcY2RiAXt-6VSgCiVYSYsZDM0RhDrjxv_dmpYA8N3uc6K7FjDXMtB-HDg0_MPY5b5mTI9dEMSwep3K-5riNp8ht7Y23DjvzBGPwxWpt0snlmbEMW93tt-M76nGHwVZ1BOLyGJyPej-E7wN7mXtxCzEj-4BIiJw/w400-h256/Plaza%20de%20Fermin%20Galan%20y%20Garcia%20Hernandez%20(Alameda)%201930s.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alameda de la Cruz</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><div><div><b>C/ Alonso el Sabio: </b>Named after King Alfonso (or Alonso) X, "the Wise", who reclaimed Alcalá from the Moors in the 13th century and declared it a Villa. At some point in the 19th century it was renamed C/ del Padre Félix after the Bishop of Cadiz, but the name didn't stick.<br /><br /><b>Plaza Arcipreste Roa:</b> Originally known as Plaza de San Juan, this little square was renamed after a priest in 1899. <br /><br /><b>C/ Cádiz:</b> originally C/ Cruz del Manchego, this street was given its current name in 1907 as it leads from the old town to the main route to the provincial capital. </div><div><br /><b>C/ Diego Centeno:</b> The old Calzada de San Antonio, site of a now-demolished monastery of that name, was renamed after a local politician in 1907. <br /><br /><b>Callejón del Gato:</b> "Cat Alley" was renamed Callejón de Lugo in 1824 after José María Lugo, the liberal mayor of Alcalá between 1820 and 1823. It is not known when it reverted to its original name. <br /><br /><b>C/ Galán Caballero:</b> This street was known during most of the 19th century as Segunda Cárcel Vieja (to differentiate it from the first old prison in C/ Miguel Tizón). In 1884 it was named C/ Alonso Cárdeno after the founder of the Franciscan monastery on the Alameda. In 1902 it was renamed following the death of a popular mayor of Alcalá, Juan Galán Caballero. <br /><br /><b>C/ Juan María de Castro:</b> Still popularly known by its original name, C/ Amiga, it was renamed after José Moreno de Mora, founder of a provincial hospital, in 1900 and given the name of another Alcalá mayor in 1907. <br /><br /><b>C/ las Brozas:</b> One of the town’s earliest recorded street names. There is a document referring to C/ de Juan de las Brozas dated 1638, but no mention of who he was. Early in the 19th century it was known as C/ Cruz Verde, and in 1877 it was renamed after Eduardo Garrido Estrada, a local MP. During the 2nd Republic it briefly bore the name of Mariana Pineda, heroine of the Liberalist movement executed in Granada in 1831. Following the Falangist coup in 1936 it was renamed after José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of that party, but a year later his name was allocated to a more significant thoroughfare, now the Paseo de la Playa, and las Brozas was renamed C/ Capitán Cortes after a Civil Guard who fought against the Republicans in the Civil War. It reverted to its original name after Franco’s death. <br /><br /><b>C/ Ildefonso Romero:</b> Originally C/ Villa Abajo because it led from the old heart of Alcalá around the Plaza Alta into the newer part further down the hill. In 1884 it was renamed after C/ Luis Cameros, an Alcalá man who became Archbishop of Valencia, and was given its current name to commemorate a local lawyer in 1907.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>C/ Mancebía: </b> Until relatively recently this was the town's red light district (<i>mancebía</i> = brothel). An unsuccessful attempt was made in the early 20th century to rename it C/ la Gloria.<br /><br /><b>C/ Maura:</b> Originally part of C/ Río Verde, in 1899 after the construction of the Barrio de las Flores (see below) it was given the name C/ Posadilla. in 1907 it was renamed after the liberal politician Antonio Maura.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>C/ Miguel Tizón:</b> Formerly C/ de Cárcel Vieja, site of the old prison, and renamed in the 19th century after an Alcalá man who fought in the Cuban war of independence. His brother José is commemorated in an alley leading through an arch off the Alameda.<br /><br /><b>C/ las Monjas:</b> The first section of this lengthy street, from the Plaza Alta to the corner of C/ Villegas, used to be called C/ de los Toros due to the fact that bulls were run down it on festival days. In 1884 it was renamed C/ Pedro Mirabal after the local bishop. The rest of the street was known as Las Monjas because of its proximity to the Convent of Santa Clara, but in 1907 the name of Pedro Mirabal was replaced by that of Manuel Espinosa, the mayor who obtained city status for Alcalá in 1876. This fell out of use during the 20th century and now the whole street is known as Las Monjas. <br /><br /><b>C/ Nuestra Señora de los Santos:</b> One of the oldest roads leading from the countryside into the town, it known as C/ de la Salada because of the springs of mineral water located on it. It was officially given its current name in 1898 although it is still commonly known as “La Salá”. <br /><br /><b>C/ los Pozos:</b> In the 16th century, possibly even earlier, this road was known as the Camino de los Pozos because of the public wells which were located along it. In 1877 it was named C/ Montes de Oca, after the businessman who brought piped water to Alcalá (see section above on the Alameda), but ten years later it became C/ Sagasta after a politician who awarded a contract to build cruise ships to the city of Cádiz. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1931) it became C/ Capitán Cadalso, after a military hero. Then came the Republic and it was changed to honour the politician who gave Alcalá a grant to improve the water supply, Diputado García Atance. After the electoral success of the Popular Front in 1936 it was changed yet again, becoming C/ 16 de febrero, the date of the election. Following the coup in July that year it briefly bore the name of General Franco, but in 1937 the dictator’s name was given to the Alameda and los Pozos became C/ General Mola, after another fascist general. It returned to its original name after the transition to democracy. <br /><br /><b>Paseo de la Playa</b>: Before this area officially became a street at the beginning of the 20th century after the construction of the Barrio de las Flores it was known as Lerma, after a stream which ran through it. It was named C/ Algeciras in 1905, but in 1907 it was renamed C/ Marqués de Mochales, after a senator from Jerez, and then Paseo Toscano Dalmau, a local politician. In the 2nd Republic it became the Paseo de la República, and during the dictatorship it took the name of the founder of the Falange, José Antonio Primo de Rivera. Following the Transition it was given its current name, which confuses visitors as there is definitely no beach in Alcalá. It was probably named after a bar located there, though no-one is sure why the bar was so called. One theory is that prior to being paved, the area used to be covered in sand.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju89TVjpDqrvT6yS7O-mtbRvvudohpK4XRR2tgdf5u-EAnHMb8_gA3I0RUHK-BCMexV3vHS14NallTUac9oiwtEK17uW65iIPDzZPRbVnVnIJ935oV1UTnoz9VMqxTBBNtwpswvodLRJ1NJwCjf5Pr2mxVU81sztsw851e-eftGcbaD5JEVaJtTBXd0A/s863/Alcala_Archive012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="863" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju89TVjpDqrvT6yS7O-mtbRvvudohpK4XRR2tgdf5u-EAnHMb8_gA3I0RUHK-BCMexV3vHS14NallTUac9oiwtEK17uW65iIPDzZPRbVnVnIJ935oV1UTnoz9VMqxTBBNtwpswvodLRJ1NJwCjf5Pr2mxVU81sztsw851e-eftGcbaD5JEVaJtTBXd0A/w400-h240/Alcala_Archive012.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paseo de la Playa</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b>La Plazuela:</b> The area at the western end of the Calle Real used to be the location of an open-air produce market, and was referred as Plazuela de la Carnicería in 1826. In 1894 it became Plaza Duque de Almodóvar del Río, after a politician who completed the paved road from Alcalá to Medina, but three years later it took the name of Canóvas del Castillo after the recently assassinated president. In 1923 it became Plaza Alfonso XIII and with the arrival of the 2nd Republic it was renamed after Nicolas Salmerón, president during the 1st Republic in 1873. When the fascists took over the town in 1936 they gave it the name Plaza Calvo Sotelo, the right-wing politician whose assassination helped spark the coup. It became La Plazuela following the Transition and in 2015 this was extended to Plazuela de los Emigrantes in honour of the many alcalaínos who had to leave their home town to find work.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7brn81TomII6-6u21qT0KReGS2YvYKMHrKso2Z5pzzvVvYuls1jvHBjdu5jJZ1OjrHHjZv-vn1zl9RkOR5z_MRs-MyyowwstVvVpoSgfkGkTBWNjIDeTK6QgsxexbUCXMvKFmLT7ft-37H2qo89OuXe-JMeMBhxSXzV4nHtB45-3vbJ7apGki4q7DVw/s1710/Plaza%20N%20Salmeron%20(Plazuela)%201930s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="1710" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7brn81TomII6-6u21qT0KReGS2YvYKMHrKso2Z5pzzvVvYuls1jvHBjdu5jJZ1OjrHHjZv-vn1zl9RkOR5z_MRs-MyyowwstVvVpoSgfkGkTBWNjIDeTK6QgsxexbUCXMvKFmLT7ft-37H2qo89OuXe-JMeMBhxSXzV4nHtB45-3vbJ7apGki4q7DVw/w400-h254/Plaza%20N%20Salmeron%20(Plazuela)%201930s.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Plazuela</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b>Calle Real:</b> Alcalá’s main street with its majestic buildings was not developed in its present form until the 19th century. It was referred to as Calle de los Mesones at least as far back as the 16th century because it led to the square of that name, but by 1700 it was referred to in documents as C/ Real. In 1898 it was named C/ Duque de Almodóvar del Río (the name then in use for the Plazuela). It bore the name of General Primo de Rivera when he became dictator in 1923, and in the 2nd Republic it was renamed C/ Pablo Iglesias after the founder of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, changing in 1934 to C/ Alejandro Lerroux, President and leader of the Radical Republican Party. The Falangists changed it back to C/ General Primo de Rivera, and in 1979 it reverted to its current name.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig65uGgKYcOZgRg3s5Jdm-LErUdHs0JAtdy2p52HUqDBtYUJ7DjtUbDGS1uGULJGw_u-82pBFs4fWSeqH6xVlBdc_JaqU3mG9p0UoJhSPxWCKusdUskLFpzQAy4JyAIlrne1hVx5Ao3NQW9_C75j3APllJ5bQa2dEENOkjulR5Bc_ilGTFeRUDatXY6A/s1689/Calle%20de%20Pablo%20Iglesias%20(C%20Real).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1689" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig65uGgKYcOZgRg3s5Jdm-LErUdHs0JAtdy2p52HUqDBtYUJ7DjtUbDGS1uGULJGw_u-82pBFs4fWSeqH6xVlBdc_JaqU3mG9p0UoJhSPxWCKusdUskLFpzQAy4JyAIlrne1hVx5Ao3NQW9_C75j3APllJ5bQa2dEENOkjulR5Bc_ilGTFeRUDatXY6A/w400-h249/Calle%20de%20Pablo%20Iglesias%20(C%20Real).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Calle Real</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b>C/ Río Verde</b>: This name was already in use in the 16th century, given that after heavy rain its steep slope turned it into a “green river”. In 1907 was given the name of the military commander for the region, General Bazán. In 1936 it was renamed after the fascist General Queipo de Llano, Franco’s right-hand man in Andalucía, reverting to its original name after the Transition.<div> <br /><b>C/ Sánchez Aguayo:</b> Originally C/ Carrera, as horses were raced down it during festivals on the Plaza Alta. At some point it was renamed in honour of Bartolomé Sánchez and Doña Catalina Aguayo, founders of the town's hospital, La Misericordia. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>C/ Sánchez Díaz: </b>Known as C/ Nueva as it formed part of the "Barrio Nuevo", built on the hill between the Plaza Alta and Calle Real in the 18th century. In 1899 it was given the name of a local politician, although the old name is still used by locals. <br /><br /><b>C/ Sánchez Flores:</b> Named after Miguel Sánchez Flores, the local councillor who built the Barrio de las Flores at the end of the 19th century.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi80H3qhE3pVZiMGd5PeMoqtgNSA0_jMorEJgEwedjX2qoFdkbROMPQDwlLWEaAXHTugDXD3KmlfSFJe576ahCDh84MM60-dYzcVuPye-fpUPhwqvTyjnAx_zegMaELvXG5k4I1hjlhx9RnxBFHdwP6FlLf5OO2kLqP7HU3rlwPcLZNtbmu5rijDkoEA/s348/Barrio%20Sanchez%20Flores.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="348" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi80H3qhE3pVZiMGd5PeMoqtgNSA0_jMorEJgEwedjX2qoFdkbROMPQDwlLWEaAXHTugDXD3KmlfSFJe576ahCDh84MM60-dYzcVuPye-fpUPhwqvTyjnAx_zegMaELvXG5k4I1hjlhx9RnxBFHdwP6FlLf5OO2kLqP7HU3rlwPcLZNtbmu5rijDkoEA/w400-h220/Barrio%20Sanchez%20Flores.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barrio Sánchez Flores</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b>C/ Sánchez de la Linde</b>: Originally C/ Barranco, because of its steep incline, it was named after a local doctor in 1907.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Plaza de San Jorge: </b>In the 16th century the square at the top of the town was known as Plaza Alta de San Jorge, after the church and the town's patron saint. During the period of government known as the Trienio Liberal (1820-23) it was briefly renamed Plaza de la Constitución, commemorating the first Spanish Constitution drawn up in Cádiz in 1812. Today its official name is Plaza de San Jorge, but it is universally referred to as “Plaza Alta”.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtMt6rxtjMfBuqOwtB16EzUVzNJJVXlh5TMia20AzEDmh2IEPj3NjppZZv-YZxBGa24186SmmG1VJxX2GG1lMKOKjFVtNaJve0UA8oVCv17zRaZloGZpAdxSNwrqh4xBxdaoLUa1E8BbdEwjf-lsK-MUuINtzzz7n2rb0qTHv109GuYWtZsTqUCZLLZQ/s874/Alcala_Archive006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="874" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtMt6rxtjMfBuqOwtB16EzUVzNJJVXlh5TMia20AzEDmh2IEPj3NjppZZv-YZxBGa24186SmmG1VJxX2GG1lMKOKjFVtNaJve0UA8oVCv17zRaZloGZpAdxSNwrqh4xBxdaoLUa1E8BbdEwjf-lsK-MUuINtzzz7n2rb0qTHv109GuYWtZsTqUCZLLZQ/w400-h281/Alcala_Archive006.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plaza de San Jorge (Plaza Alta)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><b>Paseo San Juan de Ribera: N</b>amed after a member of the aristocratic family who owned Alcalá for centuries, canonised in 1960. Until then it was called C/ San José, after a long-gone church of that name.</div><div><br /><b>Plaza Santo Domingo:</b> This large open area bore the name of the Santo Domingo monastery alongside it until 1899, when it was changed to Plaza de Castelar after a President during the First Republic. During the dictatorship it was renamed Plaza de General Varela, and reverted to its original name after the Transition. In 2019 it was renamed C/ Alejandro Sanz after a famous pop star whose mother, María Pizarro, came from Alcalá.</div></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgielej4-xdv6-_rocl_iqjsJWMbRfGhFInkrMKRBXEYXd7rWRvgtNu3_xRoYK4JPSMvE2FVvUCiBZpFTPIU2iYXvugbfnhNmoTqQGfmoc6UvmI3ZiqXpHXBw4VKdDubCp6pk0HgzctqCPhYfpXgeaprLHv7fxsHyg7X0Xh0b9XnurrDh6Cz9NdLdnnQ/s1687/C%20A%20Sanz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1687" data-original-width="1349" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgielej4-xdv6-_rocl_iqjsJWMbRfGhFInkrMKRBXEYXd7rWRvgtNu3_xRoYK4JPSMvE2FVvUCiBZpFTPIU2iYXvugbfnhNmoTqQGfmoc6UvmI3ZiqXpHXBw4VKdDubCp6pk0HgzctqCPhYfpXgeaprLHv7fxsHyg7X0Xh0b9XnurrDh6Cz9NdLdnnQ/w320-h400/C%20A%20Sanz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-42170000425269706992023-07-03T18:20:00.000+02:002023-07-03T18:20:09.265+02:00Social distancing in Alcalá<p>This wonderful photo by Olivia Hughes was taken in those bleak days of the Covid pandemic. I love it because it shows how the two-metre rule didn't prevent the old men of Alcalá from having their morning chinwag on the Alameda.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPh1_ofm-1MvEe-_63yk8acFEjXUJH-luzDxwPR-_YsnGh6XjvRqK7zT8-OF-3lRGo7yIHoBs-hztonw4GjkgCOn-_4aAhCTfFx4noHsfbGhH0vb443XWIxYFehbz6MrsBunf6I-59izM-o23WsWiVl_hHNWz3Oh2gsQB41udSE9rLQ53caCJ_Gry_t5Ji/s960/Social%20distancing%20in%20Alcal%C3%A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="960" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPh1_ofm-1MvEe-_63yk8acFEjXUJH-luzDxwPR-_YsnGh6XjvRqK7zT8-OF-3lRGo7yIHoBs-hztonw4GjkgCOn-_4aAhCTfFx4noHsfbGhH0vb443XWIxYFehbz6MrsBunf6I-59izM-o23WsWiVl_hHNWz3Oh2gsQB41udSE9rLQ53caCJ_Gry_t5Ji/w400-h254/Social%20distancing%20in%20Alcal%C3%A1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-42052337045998330022022-06-11T13:25:00.003+02:002022-06-11T13:26:00.385+02:00Alcalá goes potty<p>The town has recently seen an explosion of colour as hundreds of potted geraniums now adorn its white walls. Quite how long they will last I'm not sure, but in the meantime they are here for the enjoyment of all. They complement a number of ceramic plaques celebrating local trades, which were installed earlier this year.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHefxoP2DQ3t2hE1E_8EXLkVpqpKhQ76ZCqm8p5FT9m8PilCLlpf2UeZWI6zIQ6AEIBsC2KeXcSI_LNXpHN7vS7QlynNaaFuhaQn6RgASt3_dTlIqjEoeusC34ru2ETK80Frw71MakOH4B7Q-jz2uSclzhG6z9VQz7s8VZSANoSXaltEMz7z2164tZHw/s960/275961630_338432838326091_5705299150212887503_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="590" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHefxoP2DQ3t2hE1E_8EXLkVpqpKhQ76ZCqm8p5FT9m8PilCLlpf2UeZWI6zIQ6AEIBsC2KeXcSI_LNXpHN7vS7QlynNaaFuhaQn6RgASt3_dTlIqjEoeusC34ru2ETK80Frw71MakOH4B7Q-jz2uSclzhG6z9VQz7s8VZSANoSXaltEMz7z2164tZHw/w246-h400/275961630_338432838326091_5705299150212887503_n.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2XDD3HYvvZwGpIvfggNY3237MOe0WQPRFZchuYnfn1aRgIlml4RxEdWUj77L3e5f9SQIaQbTCf_OCdO9Uqx-8cgeasHGyr5M2VVt4Hvz0GmgGyfeqTWyhos6ZgSXtp12s7gLd2RjdI9NFpcsBRDGHe8R9ansBB4LvL-e78Ref_hYrCUVaDbSpc6Iq4g/w400-h300/281988251_380759304093444_1181663381239389168_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrqSAl6pRTGp0yxtkRyca3UOf12s7Qc84sFGnLMZG2vbMSKO-xtd8cYrfwigiDn_pzPqE1IwAR8asX4rKnEjqw2hUlhnzqQA_7pFPj80ZzgrNpCa4EevE-8lMdtY4aJctSs1naDDkjJ9StcG2_eLXHzVvIBXdSpcXwPZo4MN0RQY5OXfOohDVjXS5pKw/s960/282551661_380759290760112_4699882183516197956_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="960" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrqSAl6pRTGp0yxtkRyca3UOf12s7Qc84sFGnLMZG2vbMSKO-xtd8cYrfwigiDn_pzPqE1IwAR8asX4rKnEjqw2hUlhnzqQA_7pFPj80ZzgrNpCa4EevE-8lMdtY4aJctSs1naDDkjJ9StcG2_eLXHzVvIBXdSpcXwPZo4MN0RQY5OXfOohDVjXS5pKw/w400-h224/282551661_380759290760112_4699882183516197956_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDpnPQOBwW9fSfoKtFf1Qitt1g4UPQIomd6i9DrE3sy8LlTeLm2ytg811KLiNywgwp4htc0_B_UNOzWslQ-1tXYjfG6i6-1cQrhiOMgTmBQSLOes4PpUymuXRwA2V3YgrUioAx1SmhiGpvWXPc7_sllLkoEN4O4lYBiFugQdGD3XLR4lweEGtbD_--pA/s320/284424803_386214226881285_8765606952720540679_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3av2fmqMwz2WvvYai37-aSloMucjCwUd5sj9qi-ifjO0jcGtk_keYCQDnhyupkelwf4cVsxoMYjQ_elbEiksr2C1ZEuPa79D6dN3uZ8zAaIEzS6_gpEx5XeonDYOyX5-oGe6V8ovj8o9muYT-dXvDyt3AkzNFfd_COVXvR9sfqdd1-mvJ-c9po8F5fA/s925/275061752_329182002584508_3025907376594728707_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="925" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3av2fmqMwz2WvvYai37-aSloMucjCwUd5sj9qi-ifjO0jcGtk_keYCQDnhyupkelwf4cVsxoMYjQ_elbEiksr2C1ZEuPa79D6dN3uZ8zAaIEzS6_gpEx5XeonDYOyX5-oGe6V8ovj8o9muYT-dXvDyt3AkzNFfd_COVXvR9sfqdd1-mvJ-c9po8F5fA/s320/275061752_329182002584508_3025907376594728707_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-86447286612999905222022-04-16T19:38:00.004+02:002023-11-15T15:39:45.380+01:00New book about Alcalá in the 19th Century<p> I've just published a follow-up (prequel?) to my book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Winds-Change-Alcal%C3%A1-Gazules-Century/dp/B086PPLX4M/ref=pd_lpo_1?pd_rd_i=B086PPLX4M&psc=1" target="_blank">Winds of Change</a></i> about Alcalá de los Gazules in the 20th century. It covers events over the previous hundred years, including the Napoleonic Wars, and is available worldwide on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle format. </p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alcal%C3%A1-los-Gazules-19th-Century/dp/B09TWRMRC6/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1MDN2ZLXHLC8D&keywords=claire+lloyd+alcala+de+los+gazules&qid=1650130151&sprefix=alcala+de+lo%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-2" target="_blank">Alcalá de los Gazules in the 19th Century</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1BG52Mw8KVPGjOql6vh-emP0X1OjUeBTCh0OtrNDMhXJ0XcsbDw2EMc5F0CUAS25rVghScwrlODKcq28zd2CB2mxQilIdnGW94Xxcxaf8cSGBHH2Jzu9DbsvKzmukJdO581N8WvmUDeO3aDTAONg36TCXf-e3ul2cp-phqGRYIzAs2I5oDUWLOS0tnQ/s1000/COVER%20Kindle%20version.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="714" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1BG52Mw8KVPGjOql6vh-emP0X1OjUeBTCh0OtrNDMhXJ0XcsbDw2EMc5F0CUAS25rVghScwrlODKcq28zd2CB2mxQilIdnGW94Xxcxaf8cSGBHH2Jzu9DbsvKzmukJdO581N8WvmUDeO3aDTAONg36TCXf-e3ul2cp-phqGRYIzAs2I5oDUWLOS0tnQ/w456-h640/COVER%20Kindle%20version.jpg" width="456" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-16597392022408666282021-10-12T12:48:00.003+02:002021-10-13T10:47:02.587+02:00España First: the racist origins of Spain's Fiesta Nacional<p> Today, 12 October, is a public holiday in Spain. It is the date when Columbus (allegedly) discovered the Americas, and Spain reaches out to its former colonies to celebrate the notion of Spanishness. It's also the day of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_the_Pillar" target="_blank">Our Lady of the Pillar </a>(aka Pilar), patron of the armed forces and the Guardia Civil, hence the grand military parades which take place on the streets of Madrid and other large cities on this date every year.</p><p>Many people assume that the festival was invented by General Franco, and he certainly took advantage of it to promote his particular brand of nationalism. But it dates back to 1914, just sixteen years after Spain lost the final fragments of its once vast empire. It was dreamed up by Faustino Rodríguez San Pedro, Spanish politician and President of the Unión Iberoamericana, and declared a public holiday by the King in 1918 under the name <i>Fiesta de la Raza</i> - Festival of Race. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPsjRpKIgx2MxUx1T45hqDP72HVYDoFemFgo8mVDKC1YWyEDrMM5GbdsN2kgs2eZb_Dy5DntD2i4w3MqFXjrUynDQrdbRr_L59UWgFzTYnMUI_kYjLGlTmzIG96QeI6PkOJvn2_khSINXG/s1706/Map.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1706" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPsjRpKIgx2MxUx1T45hqDP72HVYDoFemFgo8mVDKC1YWyEDrMM5GbdsN2kgs2eZb_Dy5DntD2i4w3MqFXjrUynDQrdbRr_L59UWgFzTYnMUI_kYjLGlTmzIG96QeI6PkOJvn2_khSINXG/w400-h225/Map.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Spanish Empire around 1600</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>An article published in 1918 by Alcalá newspaper owner Pedro José Cohucelo, unearthed by local historian Ismael Almagro and <a href="https://historiadealcaladelosgazules.blogspot.com/2021/10/el-dia-de-la-raza.html" target="_blank">published on his blog</a>, is a fine example of the sentiments which certain Spaniards, evidently smarting from the country's diminished role in the world following the loss of its colonies, were feeling:</p><blockquote><p><i>Raise your hats, citizens! It's Columbus Day. Burn the lamp of reverent enthusiasm on the altars of the Fatherland; may the flowers of our inextinguishable love perfume the altar of our History, and the Hispanic soul sing the hymn of brotherhood. Today is the day when the blood of the noble Hesperia boils in the immense lagoon of two worlds, showing the world that there are races which do not perish, weaken or expire, thanks the immortality of its origin and the omnipotence of its faith.</i></p></blockquote><blockquote><p><i>The adverse wave of fate cannot extinguish [the Spaniard's] energetic good looks nor tame the impulses of his valiant heart ... he smiles and compassionately rejects the selfish onslaught of his rivals.</i></p></blockquote><p>There follows a lengthy comparison of Spain's situation with the fall of the Roman Empire, summarised thus: </p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Great peoples, when they are razed by force, do not face eternal death because their exploits will be a perpetual lesson that will mark the paths of victory for successive generations.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Then come several paragraphs extolling the virtues of Spanish colonialism:</p><blockquote><p><i>I have seen my race, this glorious Race of Titans, feel the holy ecstasy of pure patriarchal love, lulled by the monorhythmic rhapsody of hope ... I have admired her armed with slings in open field facing the hordes of the barbarian Alaric… I have seen her exchange the iron armour of the warrior for the toga of the jurist who legislates with utmost wisdom in the first charters ... </i></p></blockquote><blockquote><p><i>I have seen my Race merge in glorious rapture with the semi-divine soul of Columbus and the superhuman soul of the Catholic Isabella, to launch itself into the sea of prowess, and in the likeness of God, rise like a colossus that amazes by its gigantic proportions over the mysterious waves of the Atlantic, and pronounce the sovereign fiat that brings forth a new world, a shining pearl that brightened the fleurons of the crown of Spain.</i></p></blockquote><p>And so on. You get the gist. </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCIJBAyQ_cwO3NJimiKEPYVKJiZS7GzWlZZ7UfXVujC_Gg9rOIGfAzeSRNVcf0LfDnPnoQMLhfuwiBcJVqpQf_jC5kQIhQTxL3qC0PoYtKAOxWwTTpczemrf2wvVRBP0gA2EsNxMPYei0Y/s640/Colon.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCIJBAyQ_cwO3NJimiKEPYVKJiZS7GzWlZZ7UfXVujC_Gg9rOIGfAzeSRNVcf0LfDnPnoQMLhfuwiBcJVqpQf_jC5kQIhQTxL3qC0PoYtKAOxWwTTpczemrf2wvVRBP0gA2EsNxMPYei0Y/w400-h225/Colon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The master race arrives to enlighten the pagans</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>Pedro ends on a flourish:</p><blockquote><p><i>If the sun that shines in the heights sets in the political dominions of Spain, not so the sun of her loves or her hopes; that this sun, sinking into the twilight of national life, will once again illuminate the world of Christopher Columbus, to say to those brothers with the luminous language of his glory: America! Hispanic America! The mother who incubated your prowess in her womb, is tearful, dejected and eager to tighten more and more the bonds of her love for you. The vile men who ruled their destinies, wanted to undo their History by dint of indignities and infamies. Today he seeks in his daughters the regenerative and fruitful support to triumph over his assiduous and secular enemies.</i> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p><i></i></p></blockquote><p>A few days before the date of festival in 1919 he wrote urging the Alcalá town hall to splash out and celebrate, but his pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears since no expenditure on the event is recorded in the minutes for that year.</p><p>Today there are probably more demonstrations against Spanish colonialism than for it, and in Alcalá the <i>puente de Pilar</i> is little more than a half-term break. Unless your name is Pilar of course, in which case it is your Saint's Day and you are entitled to party.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9ZQLTZzcOZrnxvlFW-7QCcuVypYFBTu2TM_XgoF989eviQ-5JUKfcTtyqcmtIMqw9QWh_HYDK7yQI4wkaYAe1ddEvz06DO0BN1Rr5mVbTsL8U91jXghb2pueeHPjOw_Q1Muf4t6zSjh2/s992/desfile.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="992" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9ZQLTZzcOZrnxvlFW-7QCcuVypYFBTu2TM_XgoF989eviQ-5JUKfcTtyqcmtIMqw9QWh_HYDK7yQI4wkaYAe1ddEvz06DO0BN1Rr5mVbTsL8U91jXghb2pueeHPjOw_Q1Muf4t6zSjh2/w400-h225/desfile.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Military parade in Madrid</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrDqM3syskIj9KbEhjVSd4VLAQEWVeyXUCBuwOCUi9knZh3W-lmf4zRSyhXV6IvXPOgSG71QPsc2GTBr1_FmWzIUGwbYK5gjp0XEBgFA5pHd1J4WO4onYiJZKQURbyOu9iH-MjY3r83E_/s750/21691-mani3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="750" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrDqM3syskIj9KbEhjVSd4VLAQEWVeyXUCBuwOCUi9knZh3W-lmf4zRSyhXV6IvXPOgSG71QPsc2GTBr1_FmWzIUGwbYK5gjp0XEBgFA5pHd1J4WO4onYiJZKQURbyOu9iH-MjY3r83E_/w400-h224/21691-mani3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Protesters in Barcelona</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-69483784438129423132021-08-11T16:34:00.009+02:002021-08-11T16:53:18.419+02:00Reflections on Alcalá by a visitor from abroadAn American gentleman penned these lines during a recent stay in Alcalá de los Gazules, and has kindly allowed me to share them with you.<div><br /></div><div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Gazpacho</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;">The social climbers won't leave simple fare alone;</div><div style="text-align: center;">have somehow to corrupt and claim it as their own,</div><div style="text-align: center;">endow it with Privilege and Prestige,</div><div style="text-align: center;">attempt to slide it out of reach.</div><div style="text-align: center;">They've taken guacamole, dead easy and good</div><div style="text-align: center;">(ripe avocado, chopped onion, squeeze lemon,</div><div style="text-align: center;">dash salt, mash with fork) to come up with versions</div><div style="text-align: center;">that hinge on this or that:</div><div style="text-align: center;">a blender, paprika, sour cream, capers...</div><div style="text-align: center;">till fancy and high-strung,</div><div style="text-align: center;">it's no longer for just anyone.</div><div style="text-align: center;">They've done all they can to appropriate gazpacho.</div><div style="text-align: center;">The next time you pay through the nose for a bowl,</div><div style="text-align: center;">take time to reflect that as good a gazpacho's as ever</div><div style="text-align: center;">been made happened 80 years back at a camp in the</div><div style="text-align: center;">cork oak-forested hills northwest of Algeciras where</div><div style="text-align: center;">a crew of corcheros weeks absent from home soaked</div><div style="text-align: center;">their leftover bread in a basin with water, added</div><div style="text-align: center;">garlic, olive oil, salt. When they could they threw in</div><div style="text-align: center;">cucumber, tomato, green pepper from the huerta,</div><div style="text-align: center;">chopped, mashed, splash of vinegar; a little more oil,</div><div style="text-align: center;">a little more salt. After work the men moved in</div><div style="text-align: center;">with spoons to eat from the common bowl.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Gazpacho. It wasn't chilled or blended smooth;</div><div style="text-align: center;">in fact, it was warm with a tang of ferment,</div><div style="text-align: center;">and someone had tossed in half an onion.</div><div style="text-align: center;">It cost nothing, adhered to no plan,</div><div style="text-align: center;">bore no Michelin stars. It tasted</div><div style="text-align: center;">like a blessing from the land.</div>
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEY0mR4nISR5NsFETEKHPl7feWb4JhjXz_YAiMdT4jLUP24DQB2zc6UgTWYvHzO3VEkg2fpvxDcV4xVGlD3UgqJ8MBBNyr4U5lEaU0YyKDGdouY6OiLfeHGvG37hC9rYLHbpwzbkJTaBWv/s200/GAZPACHO-DE-ALCAL%25C3%25812.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="200" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEY0mR4nISR5NsFETEKHPl7feWb4JhjXz_YAiMdT4jLUP24DQB2zc6UgTWYvHzO3VEkg2fpvxDcV4xVGlD3UgqJ8MBBNyr4U5lEaU0YyKDGdouY6OiLfeHGvG37hC9rYLHbpwzbkJTaBWv/s0/GAZPACHO-DE-ALCAL%25C3%25812.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Old Men on the Square</b></div></b><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">My father would have liked it here;</div><div style="text-align: center;">have felt at home, have blended in.</div><div style="text-align: center;">The men on the square resemble him –</div><div style="text-align: center;">unobtrusive, unassuming, wearing</div><div style="text-align: center;">short-sleeved patterned shirts,</div><div style="text-align: center;">not too loud, machine-made, modest,</div><div style="text-align: center;">tucked in denim or polyester pants.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Men who worked the land in their day</div><div style="text-align: center;">hard and long for little pay:</div><div style="text-align: center;">corcheros, rancheros, campesinos,</div><div style="text-align: center;">rural people resting now,</div><div style="text-align: center;">sitting on benches under the trees;</div><div style="text-align: center;">not much to say, not much to do,</div><div style="text-align: center;">not far to go. Headed back to the land.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>July Evening, 2021</b></div></b><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Eight o'clock. The village still</div><div style="text-align: center;">hot and bright with sun. More</div><div style="text-align: center;">SE VENDE signs than ever</div><div style="text-align: center;">patch the faces of the houses</div><div style="text-align: center;">like some skin disease. The young</div><div style="text-align: center;">have few prospects. The old</div><div style="text-align: center;">are down to the one. A tattered</div><div style="text-align: center;">fringe of bon vivants persists in</div><div style="text-align: center;">lining the cafes; tail-end of pandemic</div><div style="text-align: center;">or just the beginning, who knows...</div><div style="text-align: center;">it can feel like the end of days;</div><div style="text-align: center;">but just for now, the good news is,</div><div style="text-align: center;">we've made it to the edge of dusk.</div><div style="text-align: center;">A trickle of masked humanity</div><div style="text-align: center;">emerges onto the Alameda. Swallows</div><div style="text-align: center;">slash the air, relentless scimitars.</div><div style="text-align: center;">A woman leads her mother by the elbow,</div><div style="text-align: center;">easy does it, slow and tender,</div><div style="text-align: center;">hunched señora taking the air.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Kestrels hang like kites, then slide,</div><div style="text-align: center;">then hang, (then slide) quartering rooftops,</div><div style="text-align: center;">gliding past bell tower topping the hill.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Not the end of days just yet,</div><div style="text-align: center;">this slow and tender end of day.</div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Jump to Conclusions</b></div></b><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">America No! is all the young man said,</div><div style="text-align: center;">before angling away into the dark.</div><div style="text-align: center;">At first I didn't understand;</div><div style="text-align: center;">slowly the words found their mark.</div><div style="text-align: center;">How did he know where I was from?</div><div style="text-align: center;">I don't exactly look the part.</div><div style="text-align: center;">In a town this size word gets around.</div><div style="text-align: center;">America No. So what did he mean?</div><div style="text-align: center;">Was it just a lark? Or maybe he bears</div><div style="text-align: center;">a chip on his shoulder; imperial swagger</div><div style="text-align: center;">makes him smolder.</div><div style="text-align: center;">He's tired of meeting extranjeros</div><div style="text-align: center;">on his evening rambles, blames</div><div style="text-align: center;">the Beacon of the Free World for</div><div style="text-align: center;">the current shambles. Fair enough.</div><div style="text-align: center;">I had a tee-shirt once read</div><div style="text-align: center;">US Out Of North America.</div><div style="text-align: center;">But wait a minute...</div><div style="text-align: center;">he was likely just saying <i>americano</i></div><div style="text-align: center;">in which event,</div><div style="text-align: center;">this rash of speculation </div><div style="text-align: center;"> is spectacularly misspent.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">© </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>John Liechty 2021</i></span></span></span></div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></p></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhfOGRbAt-kjqugcO7ok17ci3MIIT6RrvdOj1Y2OqGjg31q7RzPmygISZnvWFGAShUImO5hGCM9Dx0oUQO2MDJULFOBjNAUaMxdoMW2_eal-_rfcxovAnxN8P8SDLw8cYfwI-P34b-3p5a/s2048/Alcala+streets+and+buildings-151B.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1295" data-original-width="2048" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhfOGRbAt-kjqugcO7ok17ci3MIIT6RrvdOj1Y2OqGjg31q7RzPmygISZnvWFGAShUImO5hGCM9Dx0oUQO2MDJULFOBjNAUaMxdoMW2_eal-_rfcxovAnxN8P8SDLw8cYfwI-P34b-3p5a/w400-h253/Alcala+streets+and+buildings-151B.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-43174945007070658732021-06-14T14:01:00.167+02:002021-06-14T16:35:06.523+02:00Fermín Salvochea (Cadiz 1848-1907), Republican and Anarchist<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwHWbnUbkSj2x6hORXo089t68TjWsX21gRzIbxOpjO1_CI-L8ejaFftDwuMwk6n4igZENXQH25TqwooEeNHKRWs6TFtRD9SG1Lx67Wvafv1OAIoSZtEADsCUffAyYBb8qo69FaAWk2F3Ww/s482/Salvochea+by+Federico+Godoy+y+Castro.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwHWbnUbkSj2x6hORXo089t68TjWsX21gRzIbxOpjO1_CI-L8ejaFftDwuMwk6n4igZENXQH25TqwooEeNHKRWs6TFtRD9SG1Lx67Wvafv1OAIoSZtEADsCUffAyYBb8qo69FaAWk2F3Ww/w333-h400/Salvochea+by+Federico+Godoy+y+Castro.png" width="333" /></a></div><br />Now and again you
come across people who spend their lives fighting for magnificent but
futile causes, and their names fade from the pages of history.
Salvochea was one of those. He was committed to social justice for
the labouring classes at a time when they had few rights and no
political voice. The 19th century in Spain was marked by conflict
between conservatives who supported the status quo, where the
monarchy and the Catholic Church had absolute power, and liberals who
wanted reform and a voice for the emerging middle class. Those at
the bottom of the pile were largely ignored by both parties.<p></p>
Salvochea began by believing that social change could come through the existing political system, but towards the end of the century when the poor were still dying of hunger he changed tack and supported the anarchist idea that workers must take matters into their own hands and bring about change by whatever means were available to them. He died a frustrated and disillusioned man, his body exhausted by the years of incarceration he was subjected to in the struggle to achieve his utopian dream. <br /><br />One of the few 20th century historians to celebrate the life of Salvochea was Fernando Toscano de Puelles, whose family was from Alcalá. There follows a resumé of his book FERMIN SALVOCHEA: REPUBLICA Y ANARCHISMO, published in 1984.<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhW8FH2kN9cwiL-42jWIko5A0i468YaNoFY-s4TUELVoyJJ3VKVL-hB792b_atwGKxwyJK9WwYwzb8g7he11H3BG1GoQHWTY1K8HLEuwssVv_FB00d0E77DkroRreZ21MGGrA0tvD7w_z6/s1016/Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1016" data-original-width="716" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhW8FH2kN9cwiL-42jWIko5A0i468YaNoFY-s4TUELVoyJJ3VKVL-hB792b_atwGKxwyJK9WwYwzb8g7he11H3BG1GoQHWTY1K8HLEuwssVv_FB00d0E77DkroRreZ21MGGrA0tvD7w_z6/w283-h400/Cover.jpg" width="283" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />Fermín Salvochea was born into a middle-class family in the city of Cádiz in 1842. His father, a merchant in the textile industry, held strong liberal values and was concerned about the exploitation of the working class, but he was no revolutionary. He sent his son to the innovatory school of San Felipe de Neri in Cádiz, which combined business studies with other forms of learning including natural sciences, language and literature. Fermín specialised in languages and in 1858 went to London to improve his English and act as local agent for the family business. His elder brother died suddenly and the business went into decline, but Fermín stayed in England, impressed by the people’s love of independence and liberty which appeared so different to Spanish culture. He studied the works of socialist reformer and philanthropist Robert Owen, founder of the Cooperative movement, which opened his eyes to ideas of social justice and equal opportunities for the working class. <br /><br />Salvochea immersed himself in the political and philosophical debates in London clubs and societies, and became friends with the militant atheist Charles Bradlaugh, founder of the National Secular Society, under whose influence he came to despise the religious dogma which perpetuated ignorance and inequality in his own country. He remained an atheist for the rest of his life. <br /><br />On his return to Cádiz in 1861 Salvochea turned his back on commerce and entered the world of the progressive intellectual elite. The city was one of the last liberal outposts in a Europe dominated by absolutist monarchs. It had a spirit of tolerance and openness, having for centuries been a major trading port where ideas as well as goods were exchanged. Unlike much of Spain it had a powerful middle class which supported liberal ideas of free trade. Cádiz had been the natural place for the Spanish Cortes (seat of government) to move to when Napoleon Bonaparte took over the rest of the country in the early 19th century. Spain’s first Constitution was proclaimed there in 1812, establishing an electoral parliamentary system to control the power of the monarchy, with universal (male) suffrage, freedom of the press and the separation of church and state. This liberal Constitution was abolished when Fernando VII returned to power in 1814 and restored the absolute power of the monarchy. <br /><br />In the salons and cafes of this cultural melange Fermín Salvochea discussed the socialist ideas of Robert Owen with proponents of other progressive persuasions such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourierism">Fourierism</a> and anarchism (libertarian socialism). The pragmatic Salvochea dismissed these as too utopian, but he and his colleagues were united in a desire to overthrow the monarchy and restore the 1812 Constitution. This came to fruition in the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution_(Spain)">Glorious Revolution</a>” of 1868, when Queen Isabel II was deposed and replaced by a provisional government. There followed six turbulent years in which Salvochea was to play a significant part in the city and province of Cádiz. <br /><br />The revolution started in the city with a mutiny by naval forces, and quickly spread across the country. Salvochea and his colleagues believed that the provisional povernment would restore the terms of the 1812 Constitution and guarantee liberty and republicanism, but it soon became clear that this was not going to happen. In December government troops were sent to quell the revolutionary fervour which predominated in Cádiz, and the city endured several days of fierce fighting as armed volunteers and the Republican militia fought the forces of the Provisional Government across the barricades. Eventually the volunteers were worn down and a truce was declared. Salvochea was arrested and interrogated, as he was held to be the leader of the revolt. He maintained throughout that he was acting on the will of the people and therefore not guilty of any crime. <br /><br />In January 1869 there was a general election. The Progressive-Liberal Coalition won 263 seats and the Federal Democratic Republican Party 85, including Salvochea (who was still in prison). After some debate as to the legality of his candidacy he was granted an amnesty and released. <br /><br />The previous year the Cuban nationalists had revolted, various <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlism">Carlist</a> parties had re-emerged from the woodwork, Spain was facing a civil war. The government therefore decided to suspend the constitutional guarantees, much to the protest of the Federal deputies, who walked out. Salvochea was elected President of the Provincial Committee of the party and signed a federal pact for Andalucía. There followed a rallying campaign across the region to protest about the government’s U-turn, in which the Republicans were hotly pursued by government troops. When he arrived in Alcalá de los Gazules in October 1869 he was welcomed by cheers of “Long live Salvochea” and the pealing of bells. He picked up fifty new recruits ready to fight for the cause. <br /><br />The Republican volunteers were pursued and defeated by government troops in Algar, in the Sierra de Cádiz, suffering heavy losses. The survivors hid in the mountains around Ubrique before engaging again near Ronda. They were heavily outnumbered and defeated, with several leaders losing their lives. The manner of their death became a national scandal. <br /><br />Salvochea and other survivors headed to France from Gibraltar until an amnesty in 1870 allowed them to return. The Republican Party had formed its own Assembly, led by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesc_Pi_i_Margall">Pi y Margall</a>. Salvochea was one of those elected and the Party set about drawing up an alternative revolutionary constitution, inspired by the French model, to challenge the one published by the government in 1868 establishing Spain as a constitutional monarchy. Amadeus of Savoy was chosen as a suitably uncontroversial king. He was crowned in November 1870 – the Republicans had lost that battle. <br /><br />In July 1872 Fermín's father died, leaving most of his estate to his son. He became even closer to his mother, Pilar, and lived a life of austerity and celibacy, devoting all his energy to the humanitarian cause which dominated his life.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4F8zu-0HAeGOP12PfnvUzlDb1EBFoki4BaiRKHOfDPX0I3ChCKfVpkP_47kqFaug9ksod2nkDZr9H5Ey1ncpMvC0Nx5OpvPjTJTS6PxKenErzlmMi_MrTm6S4Fno-uFSGQ0GfNBLfkvmw/s985/AyuntamientoCadiz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="985" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4F8zu-0HAeGOP12PfnvUzlDb1EBFoki4BaiRKHOfDPX0I3ChCKfVpkP_47kqFaug9ksod2nkDZr9H5Ey1ncpMvC0Nx5OpvPjTJTS6PxKenErzlmMi_MrTm6S4Fno-uFSGQ0GfNBLfkvmw/w400-h240/AyuntamientoCadiz.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cadiz town hall in the Plaza San Juan de Dios, mid-19th century</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div style="text-align: left;">When Amadeus abdicated in February 1873 Spain was officially proclaimed a Republic. However the more left-wing Republicans like Salvochea feared it would not be radical enough. He was elected Mayor of Cádiz, and promised to do his best for the people despite being hampered by unjust laws from Madrid. In his manifesto he promised to destroy everything that stood in the way of democracy, make economies in non-productive expenditure, improve the conditions of workers and artisans, and abolish the hated tax on essential goods. He also promised to resign immediately if he could not meet his pledges.</div><br />The key to maintaining order, he believed, was to form an armed citizen militia. His second main objective was education for all, free for working-class children. Religious education would be banned in favour of “universal morality”. Schools would be named after principles and virtues instead of saints. New schools would be set up in disused convents, and Church properties would be auctioned off to pay for these programmes. <br /><br />The Republican government in Madrid drafted yet another Constitution but Pi y Margall, now President, insisted it could only be approved by the Cortes and would be gradually implemented across the provinces. Opponents to this policy, including Salvochea, were known as intransigentes. They wanted reforms to come from the bottom up, with an emphasis on local government (federalism), while the moderate government politicians wanted to rule from Madrid (centralism) – they were fearful of an armed revolution from the growing number of workers’ movements impatient for meaningful change. <br /><br />On 19 July 1873 Salvochea received a telegram confirming that the Province of Seville had declared itself a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonal_rebellion">federal canton</a>, free and independent of Madrid. Similar declarations had been made in cities across the country. He instantly summoned the military and civilian governors to the town hall and informed them that Cádiz would be following suit – the military governor offered his support and the civil governor resigned. <br /><br />At 6 pm the bells tolled across the city, announcing to the public that something important was happening. Soon afterwards the trumpets of the Volunteer forces sounded a call to arms. They occupied strategic points across the city in anticipation of reprisals. Red flags were flown on public buildings. <br /><br />Salvochea immediately formed the Committee of Public Health for the province of Cádiz, with the objective of saving the Federal Republic from those in power who appeared to be intent on destroying it. Measures adopted by the Committee were similar to those proposed after the 1868 Revolution – abolition of compulsory conscription and consumer taxes, public works to provide employment, separation of church and state, secular education, confiscation of church properties, and the armed forces to take orders directly from the Committee. <br /><br />Salvochea appointed himself in charge of “War, organisation, propaganda and defence”. Arms were confiscated from the HQ of the Guardia Civil, the Castle of San Sebastian and the coastguard ships. A joint military parade was held to show the unity of the Volunteers and the Army. <br /><br />One of the first tasks of the new administration was to telegraph all the mayors in the provinces asking them to join the movement. Algeciras, Tarifa and Los Barrios opted to join and Paterna de Ribera, traditionally radical, sent volunteers to the capital. Sanlúcar de Barrameda, a stronghold of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workingmen%27s_Association">Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores</a> (AIT or First International), formed its own Committee made up of militant workers. It was however opposed in Jerez, where the conservative mayor handed over power to the Military Commander. <br /><br />In nearby San Fernando civilians, the army and the volunteer militia were in favour of joining but there was strong opposition from the naval base, whose leaders remained loyal to the central government. The navy holed up in the arsenal of La Carraca and prepared for an attack by Federalist forces. The ensuing battle lasted several days, with heavy shelling from both sides. Salvochea continually offered the naval forces the chance to cease fire and support the true Republic.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8MWMSXDk2NXBdcHenm6s7Gb7pNyZ242j0f5KolVNGHlPWB5lH1mZJg5PoDc9LppM1NnSSKPQeB0-uBhAIr-sxQehXk7Jtj6-UqTKnNsVcq1if4Mum1Jf6px8NROPOnONf2oZzsuYM_xMG/s1239/Arsenal_de_la_Carraca%252C_Ruiz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="1239" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8MWMSXDk2NXBdcHenm6s7Gb7pNyZ242j0f5KolVNGHlPWB5lH1mZJg5PoDc9LppM1NnSSKPQeB0-uBhAIr-sxQehXk7Jtj6-UqTKnNsVcq1if4Mum1Jf6px8NROPOnONf2oZzsuYM_xMG/w400-h293/Arsenal_de_la_Carraca%252C_Ruiz.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Arsenal in San Fernando</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>
Eventually the government sent 8,000 troops to suppress the cantonalist rebels. Overwhelmed by force of numbers, they conceded defeat – the Paterna volunteers were among the last to surrender. Various leaders across the province were arrested and imprisoned or exiled to Argentina. Others fled to France or Portugal. Salvochea was given a life sentence to be served in the Spanish enclave of El Peñon de la Gomera, a rocky outcrop on the coast of Morocco. The governor was sympathetic to the Republican cause and gave him two good rooms and the freedom to come and go on the peninsula (including the jetty, where he swam every day). <br /><br />After two years he was transferred to the considerably less welcoming Fortaleza del Hacho in Ceuta, another Spanish enclave. He spent his time helping his fellow prisoners, teaching them to read and write, spending the money his mother sent him on improving their conditions, and even studying medicine so he could assist those who fell ill. <br /><br />It was during this time that Salvochea became increasingly sympathetic to the anarchist ideas of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin">Mikhail</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin"> Bakunin</a>, which were spreading rapidly among the agricultural labourers of Andalucía. He felt betrayed by the liberal bourgeoisie, and concluded that workers could only achieve emancipation if they stopped making pacts with groups who did not share their objectives. But he remained faithful to the Owenist form of communism, dismissing the idea of individual collectives. <br /><br />Following a failed Republican plot in which Salvochea was suspected of being involved but no evidence could be found, he was transferred back to La Gomera. His mother and colleagues in Cádiz lobbied for him to be granted a pardon, as he was the only one of the Cádiz rebels still incarcerated. When this was granted in 1882 he declined it, saying that he was held prisoner by the law of force, not the force of law - he had done nothing wrong, so could not be grateful for a meaningless gesture of forgiveness. Instead he took the decision to escape, which he did with the help of Moroccan sailors he had befriended at the jetty.<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV6bV8gj21q2E0kpvsUrW3MUFQrCl09lD5MH0YJ-lZU6dGKqYBhWAWmRwM6EUpavsMZvJhDoFfGeBTAX7Qmt8HS1MDOygwf5ALvwuYvZEsRUtG1VLRpKfff64ASZk-W4DQRrCfsM5f33x9/s275/Pe%25C3%25B1on+de_la_Gomera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="205" data-original-width="275" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV6bV8gj21q2E0kpvsUrW3MUFQrCl09lD5MH0YJ-lZU6dGKqYBhWAWmRwM6EUpavsMZvJhDoFfGeBTAX7Qmt8HS1MDOygwf5ALvwuYvZEsRUtG1VLRpKfff64ASZk-W4DQRrCfsM5f33x9/w400-h298/Pe%25C3%25B1on+de_la_Gomera.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peñon de La Gomera, near Melilla</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Aided by locals and an Arabic-French dictionary he made his way to Tetuan and thence to Gibraltar, Marseilles and Paris, where he met up with other exiles and revolutionaries including Lafargue, Marx’s son-in-law. He went to London to meet up with his old atheist friend Charles Bradlaugh, and was introduced to the Russian anarchist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin">P</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin">yotr</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin"> Kropotkin</a>, whose ideas were to have a considerable influence on him. <br /><br />Salvochea then travelled to Portugal to meet up with other exiled colleagues, but was arrested after an uprising in Badajoz in which he was claimed to have conspired. He was deported to Algeria, where he was appalled by the living conditions of the poor. <br /><br />1885 saw the death of Alfonso XII and the end of Salvochea’s period of prolonged confinement and exile. He returned to Cádiz and was dismayed to see the despair and apathy among the working-class movement, demoralised by the persecution of its members during the previous few years. In particular, anyone suspected of being involved in crimes committed by the notorious anarchist group <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><i>La Mano Negra</i> </a>(Black Hand) in the area around Jerez during 1882 and 1883 had been severely punished, despite a lack of credible evidence. One such trial culminated in the public garotting of seven men in Jerez de Frontera.<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMOOnbGBLlbBVleDcQ3fCSVd31LIHVde0lh3QUDtbmQ15v2zCw7eNpb-WtWseaRb8AoepMje7QDxXSmEKCD6Lj84Pvtu8hz2s0jNnQUynDVJjMdX0tZitLk-iihEyFNkJmP8uwJ-HFT0gj/s695/Garotte.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="485" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMOOnbGBLlbBVleDcQ3fCSVd31LIHVde0lh3QUDtbmQ15v2zCw7eNpb-WtWseaRb8AoepMje7QDxXSmEKCD6Lj84Pvtu8hz2s0jNnQUynDVJjMdX0tZitLk-iihEyFNkJmP8uwJ-HFT0gj/w279-h400/Garotte.jpeg" width="279" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br />Some historians believe the <i>Mano Negra</i> was invented by the authorities in order to justify the persecution of militant workers and give the anarchist movement a bad name. The FTRE, a nationwide federation of anarchist groups, was keen to avoid any public association with criminal elements and offered no support to those on trial, leaving the Cádiz anarchists feeling betrayed and abandoned. <br /><br />But Salvochea didn’t give up hope. He founded a fortnightly newspaper, <i>El Socialismo</i>, which included translations of works by international figures on the Left including Kropotkin, Marx, Engels and Pablo Iglesias, founder of the Spanish Socialist Party. Received coolly at first, its circulation grew steadily and helped reboot the moribund labour movement. The First of May had recently been established in the USA as International Workers’ Day, and on that date in 1890 Salvochea organised a demonstration in Cádiz, part of an international campaign for an eight-hour working day. He spoke from a balcony, denouncing modern slavery and encouraging workers to embrace the socialist doctrine. He was warmly received by the crowd. <br /><br />The following year he proposed that the demonstration be accompanied by a general strike. On 25 April police raided the office of <i>El Socialismo</i> and found a leaflet encouraging workers to “rise up and build a new society on the ruins of the old system”. He and two colleagues were arrested, accused of incitement to disrupt public order, and imprisoned. The march was cancelled under threat of armed reprisals. His behaviour at the subsequent trial is a good example of how he continually played cat-and-mouse with any laws which he considered to have no moral basis. <br /><br />Judge – Are you the author of this paper? <br />FS – Yes. <br />Judge -Were you trying to get workers to assemble in the Plaza de San Antonio and declare a strike? <br />FS – Yes. <br />Judge: Are you aware that the demonstration took place after the publication of this paper? <br />FS – The paper wasn’t published, because it was confiscated. <br /><br />The defence argued that the content of the paper had been published in local newspapers, which were not on trial – Salvochea was being prosecuted purely because of who he was and what he stood for. He was found not guilty.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgE6MOC3bTxQFN1vpMRP4qen5GtW9x6p-Glppd32uetotCICTQ22GuWx-XrHx0OXoYF_eiJPBMI30l5z7sTT1HYdLbnOVfWJaz4U4HFP3yRm1Lk3vrMhSRoaJWwMfzh2WafD7QXzV4J32/s904/El+Socialismo-1886.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="904" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgE6MOC3bTxQFN1vpMRP4qen5GtW9x6p-Glppd32uetotCICTQ22GuWx-XrHx0OXoYF_eiJPBMI30l5z7sTT1HYdLbnOVfWJaz4U4HFP3yRm1Lk3vrMhSRoaJWwMfzh2WafD7QXzV4J32/w400-h156/El+Socialismo-1886.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><br />In January 1892 hundreds of labourers from the Jerez vineyards marched into the city centre armed with shotguns, pistols and pitchforks shouting “The time has come! Long live Anarchism!” Their aim was to free comrades who had been taken prisoner a few days before, take over the barracks with the aid of sympathetic soldiers, and gather support to turn the city into a commune based on anarchist principles. By nightfall they had taken over the streets and were firing shots in the air on their way to the prison, where the guards fired on them, wounding two. They withdrew, but a small group split off from the main body and killed two men, a clerk and a wine salesman, ostensibly for being members of the bourgeoisie. The army carried out a systematic search and rounded up over three hundred suspects. <br /><br />The authorities could not accept that the march had been spontaneous, and suspected that Salvochea (still incarcerated in Cádiz) had had a hand in planning it. They asked for his immediate transfer to Jerez, which was refused as there were still cases against him in the capital. He gave a statement to a journalist from El Liberal, sent to cover the events (which had attracted national interest): <br /><blockquote><i>The causes of the whole anarchist movement are the misery and abandonment that the workers have been subjected to; it is not them who are responsible for what has occurred. There are field-workers in the province who receive a miserly wage of between 40 and 60 cents a day [around €2 today]. They live in permanent hardship. It is unthinkable that this situation should continue. </i></blockquote>Salvochea was finally transferred to Jerez in August. He refused a defence lawyer and declined to answer questions when interrogated. This silence continued throughout the trial, which went on for months, during which time he was kept in solitary confinement in a dungeon as a punishment for “contempt of court”. Finally the prosecution produced confessions, obtained under torture from other prisoners, confirming that he was the ringleader. Despite lack of any other evidence and many contradictory witness statements, he was found guilty of initiating rebellion and disturbance of public order and given the maximum sentence of 12 years. <br /><br />Salvochea was transferred to the penitentiary in Valladolid. When the warden tried to make him attend mass, despite his declared atheism, he refused. Threatened with being confined in an underground dungeon, he said that would be preferable to a church. After a while his health deteriorated due to the insanitary conditions and he attempted to commit suicide by cutting the femoral artery. A guard found him and he was taken to the infirmary, where he initially refused food. Denied contact with others, he taught himself Arabic, and read poetry such as Milton’s Paradise Lost. Subsequently he was transferred to the prison in Burgos, where he met some of the Catalan anarchists imprisoned there and exchanged ideas. <br /><br />In 1898 he was granted an amnesty and returned to Cádiz. Thousands of people were waiting to meet his train and welcome him home. He spoke to the crowd from his balcony: “Comrades, here I am amongst you again, the same as always. Long live communism!”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx1qfGRzKF5-EEWkT4p94Imb7IDjxa-gKHDEdmDKBVdxaJtouwkPVM3soNfMkHnWYt5SLLahKbnOkrShKGNds-PHIUjZMcLRNRa7DZAK0ya_6w_dJzFZkwqnANMesDjJdK5oZ9ubg5MgzN/s541/Return+to+Cadiz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="541" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx1qfGRzKF5-EEWkT4p94Imb7IDjxa-gKHDEdmDKBVdxaJtouwkPVM3soNfMkHnWYt5SLLahKbnOkrShKGNds-PHIUjZMcLRNRa7DZAK0ya_6w_dJzFZkwqnANMesDjJdK5oZ9ubg5MgzN/w400-h249/Return+to+Cadiz.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Return to Cadiz, 1898</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Lack of funds eventually led him to move to Madrid, where he earned a living writing and translating for the various new left-wing publications. He rented from a working-class family two narrow, sparsely-furnished rooms at the top of a block of flats, ate mainly cheese and fruit, and practised gymnastics daily. He wore cheap clothes, invariably grey, and an old black felt hat with a wide brim to protect his eyes from the sun (he wore blue-tinted glasses all his life). He attended many meetings and discussion groups, tirelessly explaining the principles of anarcho-communism and advocating the practices of personal hygiene, public health and cremation. <br /><br />In 1902 Salvochea returned to Cádiz once more. His mother was in poor health, and he was homesick. Now 60, his own health was suffering the effects of years of imprisonment, but he still bathed in the sea every day and his mind was as sharp as ever. He worked as a wine dealer (though he never drank alcohol), cared for his mother, and continued to translate important works into Spanish. Although few of his former comrades remained in the city he continued to speak his mind in political discussion groups and in print. <br /><br />Salvochea’s customary phlegmatic character burned with passion when he spoke of social injustice and inequality. His usual smile disappeared and his eyes flashed behind the blue lenses with the fire of conviction. “Hundreds of thousands of men die of hunger every year, while society pretends not to know because they aren’t dying in the streets like abandoned dogs, but in hospitals or in their hovels. Yet there is enough food in the world for everyone!” He despised charity: “What is it for? To maintain the poor in slavery, waiting for crumbs to slake their hunger momentarily and prolong their servitude. Charity is selfishness disguised as virtue, the sacrifice of a tiny amount of the surplus, distributed on a whim.” He himself drank only water and ate bread and cheese, believing while people were going hungry he had no right to more than that. <br /><br />In 1905 the writer Vicente Blasco Ibañez published a novel, La Bodega, set in Jerez. One of the leading characters, Fernando Salvatierra, is clearly based on Salvochea. He is described as “a secular saint … free of all egoism. No action was beneath him when helping the less fortunate. Nonetheless his name evoked scandal and fear among the rich … he hated violence, but preached it to the lower classes as their only means of salvation.” <br /><br />Salvochea died on 27 September 1907, fragile and confused by the failure of his dream of progress towards justice. On his deathbed, surrounded by friends and family, his mother spoke of Jesus, recalling the resurrection of Lazarus. Fermín replied that Jesus was not a good man, because he should have saved a son of the people, not a rich man like Lazarus. <br /><br />His death certificate recorded acute meningomyelitis. His funeral was attended by people of all classes - the small area of the cemetery reserved for rebels and free-thinkers could not accommodate the crowd. His mother died two years later. <br /><br />In 1910 the Town Hall named a street after him, and to commemorate the first anniversary of his death a plaque was placed on the house where he was born. At the beginning of the Second Republic in 1931 the mayor of Cádiz wanted to erect a statue to him (despite his disapproval of such things), and in 1932 his face appeared on a postage stamp. But all traces of Salvochea were expunged following the fascist uprising in 1936. Today few outside the anarchist movement are aware he ever existed, although things are changing under the city’s current left-wing government and the group <a href="http://juancejudo.blogspot.com/2018/10/haciendo-la-ruta-fermin-salvochea-juan.html"><i>Amigos de Fermín Salvochea</i></a>; there are now several plaques in the city marking places of interest in the life of this fascinating man.<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJAZ8t9YXVo34vW9y1d7WdOI1vKuOpwcaKPd24pUfUFAwaODE3060cGlow17Y7_Xewe9MnpAojYz3xzG4v41OBIBEgHTbeeCmeKXivSQ8a8l0uiNNWfYgnhex75sXgZ_xbV0nkzaiuVI70/s662/Ruta.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="662" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJAZ8t9YXVo34vW9y1d7WdOI1vKuOpwcaKPd24pUfUFAwaODE3060cGlow17Y7_Xewe9MnpAojYz3xzG4v41OBIBEgHTbeeCmeKXivSQ8a8l0uiNNWfYgnhex75sXgZ_xbV0nkzaiuVI70/w400-h400/Ruta.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"My homeland is the world, my religion is to do good,<br />and my family is the human race."</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-42815850105233766122020-10-16T12:46:00.005+02:002020-10-16T12:46:55.017+02:00R.I.P. Salustiano Gutierrez Baena<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9xzJWWzzptn-bkw4ps9a5mlRmiWqgyOzyRfInrpsWuMH1k1GL4NiXPkazQHzopXUi2k9nuQxve_ttu9HbQnTIcsds8cJXEbdpb4YD45uwFBKA3kDvHf0pehYS_-9SBZHn0cSWAgOI3SCv/s368/Salus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9xzJWWzzptn-bkw4ps9a5mlRmiWqgyOzyRfInrpsWuMH1k1GL4NiXPkazQHzopXUi2k9nuQxve_ttu9HbQnTIcsds8cJXEbdpb4YD45uwFBKA3kDvHf0pehYS_-9SBZHn0cSWAgOI3SCv/s320/Salus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Now and again you run into people who help restore your faith in humanity with their quiet dedication to making the world a better place. Salustiano Gutierrez, who succumbed to cancer last Saturday aged just 58, was one of those people.<div><br /></div><div>Born and raised in Granada, Salus came to the nearby town of Benalup-Casas Viejas in 1992 to teach at the new secondary school. He hadn't intended to stay long but soon became deeply involved with the town and its people. He was inspired by the American social anthropologist Jerome Mintz, who lived in the town for several years in the 1960s and 70s, studying the minutiae of daily life in Benalup and the surrounding villages. Salus took up the baton and continued researching the town's history and culture. He published his findings on a blog which he set up in 2007, <a href="http://historiacasasviejas.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Desde la historia de Casas Viejas</a>. The blog also includes many photos and film clips made by Mintz which give a unique insight into the daily life of past decades. Salus continued to post until days before his death, eager to complete a series on the origins of local words.</div><div><br /></div><div>Salus believed strongly in society and personal commitment to the community to which one belongs. Swimming against the rising tide of individualism, he used his teaching to pass on his values to the younger generation. He always believed that teaching was about much more than the transmission of knowledge or a way of earning professional status, it was a responsibility and a privilege. Following his death, his Facebook page received dozens of messages from former students expressing their gratitude for his role in shaping their lives.</div><div><br /><div>In 2017 Salus published a book about an event which took place in Benalup in January 1933, when a workers' uprising was brutally put down by the authorities, leaving 24 dead. <a href="https://www.diariodecadiz.es/ocio/Sucesos-Casas-Viejas-Teatro-Benalup_0_1190580958.html" target="_blank"><i>Los Sucesos de Casas Viejas - Crónica de una derrota</i></a> (<i>The Events of Casas Viejas - Chronicle of a defeat</i>) includes personal interviews and a comprehensive photographic record of this grim episode.
Like all those dedicated to bringing to light the atrocities of Spain's past after years of deliberate amnesia, he made some enemies. But in his own words, "It was necessary to make a record of social history, to put a face to the protagonists of this social movement". Today Benalup-Casas Viejas has come to terms with its past and there is an interpretation centre, a monument and a street-tour of places related to the events of 1933. </div><div><br /></div><div>Salus was actively involved in the cultural and social life of the town, participating in its famous Carnival, and a regular visitor to its local bars. He loved a good debate, and was greatly respected for his even-handedness and courtesy towards people of all classes and opinions. </div></div><p>A few weeks ago Salustiano was presented with an honorary medal by the Town Hall, something he had previously declined. In his acceptance speech he declared:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>... I want to end by emphasising how Benalup-Casas Viejas has allowed me to go deeper into its history, into that spider's web that has trapped me and given meaning to my life. I am totally convinced that in other places they would not have allowed me to do this. For this reason the award is not about whether I deserve recognition for doing what I love, it is a gift that I appreciate and value, from the people of Benalup-Casas Viejas who have my eternal and infinite gratitude.</i></p></blockquote><p>The people of Benalup will surely return that eternal gratitude.</p><p>Salustiano Gutierrez leaves behind his beloved partner Juani and their two children, who earlier this week cast his ashes over the hills of his adopted homeland.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloc2vTVovJvK26QqnI3M5m0CERwsCGCgTzznWIfS11HxFG7UMCT9zz9FA9c678TC3ofXZs_z8bs6YV4lbeAFrzooL7Te8lBfitjr2xCsqRN6jzW1fDfxa4jbhFpOZIdQ3EJAVSS3xUDTi/s611/Salus+bar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="446" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloc2vTVovJvK26QqnI3M5m0CERwsCGCgTzznWIfS11HxFG7UMCT9zz9FA9c678TC3ofXZs_z8bs6YV4lbeAFrzooL7Te8lBfitjr2xCsqRN6jzW1fDfxa4jbhFpOZIdQ3EJAVSS3xUDTi/w293-h400/Salus+bar.jpg" width="293" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Salus in his local bar, wearing his medal of honour<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-24014215819714237212020-08-01T19:08:00.012+02:002020-08-02T16:44:47.533+02:00Spain's "final solution" 1749: how they tried to get rid of the gypsies<div style="text-align: justify;">Gitano culture and language are so closely intertwined with those of Andalucía as to be almost indistinguishable. But Spain has long had an ambiguous attitude towards the Romani people, saluting them as bearers of folkloric traditions such as flamenco and sevillanas with one hand while clearing them out of their homes with the other. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUiCr58hp0fXErcltlJqkV_2RRmG9tUY1GCXesDku8LkUKXqLwx_rQW1fTgu0_P3V_QDM6u14ntTRt3VvoWqcaUkG8pNR9t-20zjIfhAnNCWPhZ-UO73MnpC727NHMhGz9yNjFeAOMeHqU/s700/un-baile-de-gitanos-para-dehodencq.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="700" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUiCr58hp0fXErcltlJqkV_2RRmG9tUY1GCXesDku8LkUKXqLwx_rQW1fTgu0_P3V_QDM6u14ntTRt3VvoWqcaUkG8pNR9t-20zjIfhAnNCWPhZ-UO73MnpC727NHMhGz9yNjFeAOMeHqU/w410-h282/un-baile-de-gitanos-para-dehodencq.jpg" width="410" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>19th century romantic stereotype of gitano culture</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The word "gitano" is derived from <i>egiptano</i>, an archaic Spanish word for Egyptian (today they use <i>egipcio</i>). The English word "gypsy" has the same root. However they originated from the Punjab region in northern India, nowhere near Egypt. The reason for the misnomer is unclear - some may have entered Europe via Egypt, or perhaps European mistook them for Egyptians because of their appearance. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first Romani arrived in Spain early in the 15th century, travelling in large family groups, and in 1425 were given a guarantee of safe conduct by the King to make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. In 1470 a group arrived in Seville and settled in Triana on the other side of the river from the city. This community was of great benefit to the government at a time of constant wars, as they produced horseshoes, cartwheels, even cannonballs for the army. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Following the "Reconquest" of Christian Spain in 1492 the Catholic monarchs expelled Jews and Muslims who wouldn't convert to Christianity, but the gitanos managed to escape such ethnic cleansing. At this time there were around 3,000 still living a nomadic existence.They had their own version of the Christian faith, being especially devoted to the Virgin Mary, so couldn't justifiably be persecuted for heresy. But what irked the authorities most was their inability to pin them down and make them pay taxes. Various edicts were issued to try and restrict their movements to no avail, and over time they acquired the reputation of being ungodly and untrustworthy vagrants.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7CSNssg_y5k3HRcfd_xZfMPjalvh2yH7IqjkC8_ArOnJ40MgMzjyXpnBfBH5rrIZZ8PjfQKQMYk4Ejh6k9gqUE_QL5s_IGno1EFpX-lZKaQx5tPCeU6jt2pPzIH9AeElwEy79QFSzm66W/s1960/Gypsy+prisoners.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1046" data-original-width="1960" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7CSNssg_y5k3HRcfd_xZfMPjalvh2yH7IqjkC8_ArOnJ40MgMzjyXpnBfBH5rrIZZ8PjfQKQMYk4Ejh6k9gqUE_QL5s_IGno1EFpX-lZKaQx5tPCeU6jt2pPzIH9AeElwEy79QFSzm66W/w410-h219/Gypsy+prisoners.jpg" width="410" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Gitano prisoners on the move</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1749 King Fernando VI, advised by the Bishop of Oviedo (then Governor of Castile), decided to take a more drastic step. The Bishop believed that since attempts to submit the gitanos to the law of the land had failed, it was necessary to expel them. The original intention was to send them to the American colonies where they would be put to work as slave labour in factories and mines, but a similar plan by Portugal the previous year had failed so this idea was dropped. Instead they decided that the most humane "final solution" (we are not barbarians!) to exterminate the gitano people would be to round them up and separate the men from the women, so they would be unable to breed and the race would die out. This operation was known as the "Gran Redada" - the Great Roundup.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Is extermination too strong a word? Judge for yourself. Fernando's confessor, the Jesuit Father Francisco Rávago, stated: “The means proposed by the Governor of Castile to root out this bad race, which is hateful to God and pernicious to man, seem good to me. The king will be making a great gift to God, Our Lord, if he manages to get rid of these people.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrj5Ska0FDeiEBSsp8PhXmNYQ4ZYbj-WcFwIKd0H0XWPonLLIohs4obQ8u9_Cb8G06c6xJuLEGSX9ivyN889w_UaaZb3MOH9icBXHzDZtYuJ267YzThe4gWxeYS0WBdaluDWFLO569XdZ7/s720/Real+Orden+1749.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="720" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrj5Ska0FDeiEBSsp8PhXmNYQ4ZYbj-WcFwIKd0H0XWPonLLIohs4obQ8u9_Cb8G06c6xJuLEGSX9ivyN889w_UaaZb3MOH9icBXHzDZtYuJ267YzThe4gWxeYS0WBdaluDWFLO569XdZ7/w410-h279/Real+Orden+1749.jpg" width="410" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Royal Order for the 'Gran Redada'</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On 30 July 1749 army officers delivered sealed envelopes to mayors across the country containing orders from the King: the following morning every man, woman and child of gitano blood must be rounded up and arrested, and their belongings seized (the sale of these assets was to pay for their maintenance and transport). Around 9,000 of the estimated 12,000 gitanos living in Spain at that time were duly rounded up. Men and women were separated and sent to different parts of the country, able-bodied men to work in naval arsenals such as the one in Cartagena (Murcia), and women to work in garment factories. This guaranteed the state a useful supply of cheap labour. Boys of up to seven years old were permitted to stay with their mothers and be taught a "useful trade" until they were 15, when they would join the men. Those too infirm to work were imprisoned.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh_9Ie5Fb9JE0gerxXV8lA7CPeMRpmWJ0a0iOYW74ifEae3CZ-T6Ys4Vj-OeWMocLci8dDuEQLF3v0CFu-fCDAFJr230bS9F2wLSjf9lwjIDMU09fgoq51wUKfJV17yocCcP_Jidp_QWj2/s980/Marine+arsenal+Cartagena.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><font size="2"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="980" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh_9Ie5Fb9JE0gerxXV8lA7CPeMRpmWJ0a0iOYW74ifEae3CZ-T6Ys4Vj-OeWMocLci8dDuEQLF3v0CFu-fCDAFJr230bS9F2wLSjf9lwjIDMU09fgoq51wUKfJV17yocCcP_Jidp_QWj2/w410-h267/Marine+arsenal+Cartagena.jpg" width="410" /></font></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The naval arsenal in Cartagena (Murcia) <br />where gitano men were used as slave labour</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Before this exercise could take place it was necessary to designate prison camps where the gitanos could be held, thus preventing them from claiming sanctuary in churches as they had done in the past, thanks to an edict from the Vatican. Some churchmen, including the chaplain of a monastery in El Puerto de Santa Maria, objected to the Great Roundup and protected gitanos from arrest. The Archbishop of Seville, where the city gates had been locked overnight without warning to prevent their escape, protested strongly and demanded assurances that the prisoners would not be ill-treated. However in other cities such as Vélez Málaga the gitanos surrendered voluntarily, much to the surprise of the soldiers. They must have thought their lives could only get better.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was little resistance among the Romani population to the Great Roundup. What there was came mainly from the women, who organised mutinies and protests. Ildefonso Falcones' novel <i>The Barefoot Queen</i> (La Reina Descalza) brings these events to life in vivid detail.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqlCQ_jI8CG6DL4Z8FkHq0Xrk_v2c9qSrelKXfzt00nS2x0uOM2DOboJc-yl03RT6vqAjUz0_iF1d5q9t6bBQHAzkn2_zGF65SJ5PsgzR6EJG-axuR9awglArP7H2IJXFqj4hzBDwpKTFo/s475/Barefoot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqlCQ_jI8CG6DL4Z8FkHq0Xrk_v2c9qSrelKXfzt00nS2x0uOM2DOboJc-yl03RT6vqAjUz0_iF1d5q9t6bBQHAzkn2_zGF65SJ5PsgzR6EJG-axuR9awglArP7H2IJXFqj4hzBDwpKTFo/s0/Barefoot.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It soon became evident that the scope of the project was beyond the means of the authorities, who had insufficient places to hold the detainees and insufficient funds to maintain them. In October 1749 they released all the gitanos who could demonstrate a "good way of life", promising to give up their nomadic ways and become integrated into society. Many registered with their Town Hall as official residents and held regular jobs, such as blacksmiths and potters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The less compliant gitanos remained in captivity until 1765, when they were pardoned (although guilty of no crime other than their ethnicity) by the new king Carlos III. These included a handful of men unable to work who had been locked up in Santa Catalina, Cadiz, for sixteen years. In 1783 an edict was issued by the Prime Minister confirming that the gitano people did not come from an "infected root" and the persecutions officially ended.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcMKPhO4fQd6n3cocGHz_anG5NFm7qAYKiEJgEGpiiyRcdROciit4pEX-rTZblV1erEPWZHpvFf9vQqN1O68YVr4oy6CKg5-1IdhzBbRhEbDimT_gs4pCp5GaeYmrOkL508kzSZkX1YTKx/s980/Castillo+Santa+Catalina+Cadiz+for+men+who+couldn%2527t+work.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="739" data-original-width="980" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcMKPhO4fQd6n3cocGHz_anG5NFm7qAYKiEJgEGpiiyRcdROciit4pEX-rTZblV1erEPWZHpvFf9vQqN1O68YVr4oy6CKg5-1IdhzBbRhEbDimT_gs4pCp5GaeYmrOkL508kzSZkX1YTKx/w391-h295/Castillo+Santa+Catalina+Cadiz+for+men+who+couldn%2527t+work.jpg" title="Santa Catalina prison, Cadiz" width="391" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Santa Catalina prison, Cádiz</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During the 19th Century Spain fell back in love with its gitano communities, as can be seen in the endless scenes of bucolic charm produced by the Romantic artists, and the acclaim given to gitano singers, dancers and bullfighters. Flamenco was hailed as essentially Spanish in an era when nationalism became more important than ever. The Triana community became a focal point for flamenco culture, with gitano families singing and dancing in their shared patios for themselves and and in "cafés cantantes" for the public. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlK8TRne2lYB5ifsGQs6oz0sQ3A2Afe8NQR3_08kRVprSEc4Bu-fLzTRBCZHyFHnDBnABEHEqktZgNWJyg34EaCABSzS8zmWb_mH3BTDhIhIs3USNEiC7wHaFhOaic6SG5vrXj-O2bJwSq/s660/pachon_0001_Capa-11.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="660" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlK8TRne2lYB5ifsGQs6oz0sQ3A2Afe8NQR3_08kRVprSEc4Bu-fLzTRBCZHyFHnDBnABEHEqktZgNWJyg34EaCABSzS8zmWb_mH3BTDhIhIs3USNEiC7wHaFhOaic6SG5vrXj-O2bJwSq/w410-h268/pachon_0001_Capa-11.jpg" width="410" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Communal patio in Triana</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But in the middle of the 20th century the Civil Governor of Seville decided that Triana was too valuable a piece of real estate to be left unexploited. In 1957, in a cruel echo of the 1749 Great Roundup, the gitanos were forced out of their homes to be rehoused in prefabricated slums on the outskirts of the city. These remain areas of intense social deprivation to this day, while Triana exists as a gentrified parody of its gitano heritage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrdDgEFBAzNKnxlZBu59Ppr_pTFENMUTxTAo0yl8dQX2J35_AObrVsfLS1denTkGzo2eWCbovPBsyUttxwJx3DQQrABGo_NMqciG1-1xVa90wYI0VWd22ub8gSWOwPjn_x8e0pldb6dxH2/s660/Evacuation+of+Triana.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="660" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrdDgEFBAzNKnxlZBu59Ppr_pTFENMUTxTAo0yl8dQX2J35_AObrVsfLS1denTkGzo2eWCbovPBsyUttxwJx3DQQrABGo_NMqciG1-1xVa90wYI0VWd22ub8gSWOwPjn_x8e0pldb6dxH2/w410-h268/Evacuation+of+Triana.jpg" width="410" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Forced evacuation of Triana, 1957</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-7039787076382117732020-04-18T20:08:00.000+02:002020-04-25T13:38:30.020+02:00Lockdown 1800: the yellow fever epidemic in AlcaláAs we approach week 6 of confinement in an effort to stop the spread of a deadly virus, it seems timely to take a look at another virus that devastated the population of Alcalá over two hundred years ago, killing over a fifth of the population. Information on that epidemic comes from an article in Spanish by Ismael Almagro Montes de Oca on his blog <a href="http://historiadealcaladelosgazules.blogspot.com/2020/03/alcala-1800-historia-de-la-epidemia-de.html" target="_blank">Historia de Alcalá de los Gazules</a>.<br />
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Yellow fever is spread when a mosquito feeds on blood from an infected person and transfers the virus to its next meal. However at the time of the 1800 epidemic in Spain contagious diseases were believed to originate in "miasmas", toxic vapours emanating from decaying matter, then passed directly from one human to another. Viruses were not identified until the late 19th century, the first vaccines arrived soon after, and the discovery of the role of the mosquito in propagating yellow fever was made in 1900.<br />
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Symptoms of yellow fever start to appear within about five days. These include fever, nausea, headache, muscle pain and vomiting. Most people recover after a few days but around 15% move to a second, far more dangerous stage with liver damage and gastrointestinal bleeding. Once jaundice sets in the skin turns yellow, giving the disease its common name. It is also known as <i>vómito negro</i> in Spanish, due to bloodstained vomit.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sZAZyuGy59oZf8E8dw5qiNFAJmvQK_Bshz_3HluLnTcV8kYOgzIuTsTSLbIDyGIdTHDQMuCjZDg7KM8VGjCsRHVvZWQDLhl-RWuFHL96r8uxj5oeIE74RQVWKw_u9u_wxERvmnt_N_ED/s1600/A_man_leaning_over_the_side_of_a_bed_vomiting%252C_from_a_broadside_entitled_%2527Death_of_Aurelio_Caballero_due_to_yellow_fever_in_Veracruz%2527_MET_DP869598.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="1024" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sZAZyuGy59oZf8E8dw5qiNFAJmvQK_Bshz_3HluLnTcV8kYOgzIuTsTSLbIDyGIdTHDQMuCjZDg7KM8VGjCsRHVvZWQDLhl-RWuFHL96r8uxj5oeIE74RQVWKw_u9u_wxERvmnt_N_ED/s400/A_man_leaning_over_the_side_of_a_bed_vomiting%252C_from_a_broadside_entitled_%2527Death_of_Aurelio_Caballero_due_to_yellow_fever_in_Veracruz%2527_MET_DP869598.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The virus originated in Africa, probably passing from primates to humans, and the mosquitoes which carried it were transferred to the Americas and the Caribbean via slave ships when mosquitoes bred in kegs of water stored on board. The first recorded outbreak was in the Yucatan Peninsula in 1649 and it gradually spread northwards into the USA via river or coastal traffic. In Philadelphia in 1793 it killed 5,000 people, ten per cent of the population. Large numbers of British soldiers sent to Haiti in the 1790s succumbed to it, and it also ravaged Napoleon's troops sent there in 1802 to suppress the slave revolt. The virus found its way into Europe in the 18th century via ships arriving in Spanish and Portuguese ports from the Americas. In 1730 there was an outbreak in the port city of Cádiz with 2,200 reported deaths.<br />
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The epidemic which devastated Alcalá along with the rest of southern Spain in 1800 was probably down to a ship from Cuba which docked in Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 30 June. Several crew members had died during the crossing; others made their way to the capital and elsewhere in the province. As it had not been seen in the area for 70 years local doctors were unfamiliar with the disease and did not know whether it was contagious or seasonal. They treated the symptoms as best they could but did not immediately raise the alarm bells, so valuable time was lost in stopping the spread.<br />
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On 29 August a letter reached the Ayuntamiento of Alcalá de los Gazules from the Commander General of the Campo de Gibraltar, under whose jurisdiction Alcalá fell, ordering the cessation of all communications with the city of Cádiz in order to stop the disease spreading. This was read and approved by the town council at a meeting on 31 August.<br />
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The first steps taken by the council, as usual in the face of calamity, was to petition the town's patroness, Nuestra Señora de los Santos, to intercede and protect her flock. However instead of making the usual pilgrimage to the Sanctuary where the Virgin resided, it was decided to bring her into Alcalá so as to avoid an influx of strangers.<br />
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Troops quickly arrived from the barracks on the Campo de Gibraltar and worked with residents to blockade all the entrances into the town. The containment measures were rigorously enforced, and notices were posted warning that the punishment for breaking the blockade was the death sentence. Soldiers were authorised to use firearms or bayonets to stop anyone entering the town. On 11 September a house in Patriste, La Gitana, was requisitioned as a quarantine station, and on 22 September further troops arrived to reinforce the <i>cordon sanitaire.</i><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizDp4w7nPsh6o_WNL3Ce7neC0t2lIoW6css2Uo55-IeqL1g_l-AWSpNH6G1ipvZXIEiMw9mXamwwyCvbm-tgZJfSo07n2xYWX68H-wRCFA5m56TSlO1CvIH-FBJQ5Pi6r3FhMHCQBDwthM/s1600/Ch+1-11+Misericordia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="442" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizDp4w7nPsh6o_WNL3Ce7neC0t2lIoW6css2Uo55-IeqL1g_l-AWSpNH6G1ipvZXIEiMw9mXamwwyCvbm-tgZJfSo07n2xYWX68H-wRCFA5m56TSlO1CvIH-FBJQ5Pi6r3FhMHCQBDwthM/s400/Ch+1-11+Misericordia.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The old hospital, La Misericordia, on the Plaza Alta</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But despite all these measures the number of cases in the town continued to rise. <i> </i>Residents who owned property in the campo, including several councillors, moved there with their families to escape the danger. The 12-bed hospital on the Plaza Alta, La Misericordia, struggled to cope with the increasing number of patients. In total 817 deaths were recorded in three months, out of a population of around 4,000.<br />
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This figure was much higher than in Medina (136) or Paterna (86). Clearly the virus had already been present in the town before the blockade was set up. The town's medical officer, José Sánchez Aznar, wrote in a report published in 1822 that early in the summer of 1800 he had treated two men recently arrived from Cádiz showing the typical symptoms, which he treated in the usual way, but he did not recognise the disease at the time. They both recovered but it wasn't until later that he realised they must have been contagious. Then he treated a man who had been sharing a hut in the campo with some muleteers; he did not recover, and soon afterwards most of his family fell sick and died.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxSyhZ7JVKZWFfjR4gpEblOGZy5H5VNuOyU-KU8L77OkPzw0CRNFinOFgoEMzT-GVqRCEvJH5P1WiAuf9lrTzPAyaQ0x6JxImkWjAtnQLr-Ux7PyocUlTey1_UlRJj7apRJOLtY9czYmbc/s1600/Arrieros.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="640" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxSyhZ7JVKZWFfjR4gpEblOGZy5H5VNuOyU-KU8L77OkPzw0CRNFinOFgoEMzT-GVqRCEvJH5P1WiAuf9lrTzPAyaQ0x6JxImkWjAtnQLr-Ux7PyocUlTey1_UlRJj7apRJOLtY9czYmbc/s400/Arrieros.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Travelling salesman c. 1800 - inadvertent carrier?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It is more than likely that the muleteers, who travelled from town to town with their goods, were unknowingly carrying the virus. The doctor also reported that there was a period of exceptionally hot and humid weather at the time which he believed must have helped the disease to become more virulent. In those days the connection between yellow fever and mosquitoes was unknown but in retrospect it is possible that these weather conditions provided ideal breeding conditions for the insect.<br />
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As numbers of victims continued to rise it became evident that the cordon sanitaire was not working. At the end of September the Commander General issued a new order, punishable by a prison sentence, preventing people from inviting outsiders into their homes. But the council was depleted because most of its members had fled to the country, and the mayor himself had given up his civic duties and locked himself into his house within the castle walls, only talking to people from upper-floor windows. The running of the town in its state of emergency was left to the few remaining councillors. Houses vacated by those who had fled to the country were being looted and the bailiff pleaded with the mayor for more resources to guard them, but his pleas were ignored. Eventually the mayor was held to account for his negligence and ingmominiously banished from the town.<br />
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The first victims of the epidemic were buried in the Pantheon where the Beaterio is now, next to the castle, but this quickly became impractical as the bodies were piling up. Five mass graves were dug around the outskirts of the pueblo, using gunpowder to break the rock and prisoners to dig the ditches.<br />
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Alcalá was hit by several more epidemics during the 19<span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">th</span> century which reduced its population. Yellow fever returned in 1802, 1804 and 1820 (60 deaths), while in 1834 cholera took 158 lives. Typhus struck in the 1840s and further cholera epidemics occurred in 1854, 1864 and 1892, following which a vaccine became available.<br />
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In 1900 research by the US military in Cuba proved that yellow fever was transmitted via mosquitoes, and soon afterwards the specific mosquito <i>Aedes aegypti</i> was identified as the carrier. A vaccine finally came into use in 1938.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixRTl43PUIU3ZI4wNRYeKGveeRrfCwEHVve1nb0tXg3yEw3kukq7dfXmGE1x3YBOhS1frAfr1zpaMpkGnkLMDUcftZsaMZQmSN9_R9ZzEZncUpfViQ-23eY5Z0SIck-wRfd8xbKAIoFQTt/s1600/Aedes_aegypti_during_blood_meal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="245" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixRTl43PUIU3ZI4wNRYeKGveeRrfCwEHVve1nb0tXg3yEw3kukq7dfXmGE1x3YBOhS1frAfr1zpaMpkGnkLMDUcftZsaMZQmSN9_R9ZzEZncUpfViQ-23eY5Z0SIck-wRfd8xbKAIoFQTt/s400/Aedes_aegypti_during_blood_meal.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-21114621507043942592020-04-14T17:31:00.003+02:002020-04-14T17:34:06.413+02:00New book about Alcalá in the 20th Century<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkZV1m6SW-mZmp6Xxor7or2hiRasyhRAsjkmwpBRcpQWdW1yEm_CbFF8Y8A-6Dv_TCMU4Qf40A8IqdkSErom-_AWmLRVJ1YPqk351YexpdrADfoGAn7qT-Cjb1qT9Iq4Fmk5QRv7cdzdPf/s1600/Ebook+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1036" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkZV1m6SW-mZmp6Xxor7or2hiRasyhRAsjkmwpBRcpQWdW1yEm_CbFF8Y8A-6Dv_TCMU4Qf40A8IqdkSErom-_AWmLRVJ1YPqk351YexpdrADfoGAn7qT-Cjb1qT9Iq4Fmk5QRv7cdzdPf/s400/Ebook+cover.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
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I'm delighted to announce that the book I've been working on for the past year, <i>Winds of Change: Alcalá de los Gazules in the 20th Century,</i> is now available worldwide on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback format, price £5 and £8.50 respectively (if you are in the UK, or the equivalent in other currencies elsewhere). Any profits will go to the Cruz Roja (Red Cross) in Spain to help run food banks for people who don't have enough to eat. </div>
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As with all the historical material on this blog, I have not done original research myself but instead translated the works of real historians who have slogged through dusty archives to bring the past to life. Until now none of their work has been available in English; my aim in publishing this book is to make the fascinating history of the pueblo during that turbulent century available to a wider audience.</div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B086PPLX4M" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">Click here</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> to read the full description,</span> download a sample, or buy a copy. Thanks!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-276923096122608342020-04-14T16:09:00.002+02:002022-04-16T19:27:40.132+02:00Why the French cut people's throats and blew up the castle: Alcalá in the War of Independence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I first came to Alcalá I learned two rather scary things about the activities of the French here during the Napoleonic occupation; firstly that they cut the throats of all its inhabitants in retaliation for a guerrilla attack, and secondly that they blew up the castle. During this period of enforced confinement I've taken the opportunity to find out a bit more about these events. What follows is extracted from detailed research on Alcalá's role in the <i>Guerra de Independencia</i> by local historian Ismael Almagro Monte<span style="text-align: left;">s de Oca (available in Spanish on
his excellent blog </span><a href="http://historiadealcaladelosgazules.blogspot.com/2012/03/la-guerra-de-la-independencia-en-alcala.html" style="text-align: left;">Historia
de Alcalá de los Gazules</a>)<span style="text-align: left;">.</span></div>
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Napoleon Bonaparte did not originally enter Spain as a hostile invader, but was invited in after a deal with King
Carlos IV in 1807 so their combined forces could invade Portugal and divide up
the spoils (including Brazil). This plan failed, thanks mainly to the
Portuguese royal family being whisked away to safety by British
ships. So Napoleon decided to concentrate his efforts on Spain and
its American colonies instead. In February 1808 he marched his <i>Grande Armée</i> across the Pyrenees, taking the Spanish by surprise as he was supposed to be their ally. He swiftly dismantled the government and installed his
brother Joseph on the throne. </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The citizens of Madrid staged an uprising against their new masters on
2 May 1808, other cities followed suit and thus began the <i>Guerra de Independencia. </i>Anyone suspected of being <i>afrancesado - </i>a supporter of French liberal values and the progressive legal framework known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code" target="_blank">Napoleonic Code</a> - was persecuted and punished. A few years earlier, Spaniards had complained about the Bourbon monarchs because of their absolute power. Now they couldn't wait to get them back.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
As soon as news of the revolt reached Alcalá a recruitment drive
was held and the town sent men and arms to support the Spanish army.
An early victory over the French at the Battle of Bailén (Jaén
province) helped boost morale, more men enlisted and the town council sent more funds and supplies. Soon
the town was left with virtually no able-bodied men, and by the end
of 1808 there were no horses or mules left either. All
blacksmiths and craftsmen were ordered to make supplies for the war
effort to the exclusion of everything else. </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The first sight of French troops in Alcalá was at the beginning of
1809, described by a local observer as follows:</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>There arrived in the pueblo at this time a large
platoon of French officers taken prisoner at Bailén, who marched
proudly through the town two by two, villainously ignoring the terms
of the surrender in which it was agreed to transfer them to France
from the port of Cádiz. They held these starving and naked wretches
in the gloomy uninhabited cloisters of the lower part of Santo
Domingo, roaring like beasts and rebuking their keepers terribly for
their inhumanity and lack of faith.</i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></blockquote>
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In December 1809 the Spanish court
moved to Cádiz, the only part of the country Napoleon hadn't taken
over. The French set up a barracks in Medina Sidonia, thousands
of soldiers arrived in the area and mounted the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_C%C3%A1diz" target="_blank">Siege of Cádiz</a>, which
lasted for for two years. When the Poniente was blowing they
could hear the cannons in Alcalá "like the death-rattle of our
dying country".
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On 10 February 1810 a squadron of two
hundred French dragoons rode into Alcalá and ordered the town
council to swear allegiance to Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain and
the Americas. They departed next day leaving a detachment
of forty soldiers. The mayor kept out of the way, unwilling to take
the oath, but the rest of the council set about making their new
guests comfortable. Given that there was barely a grain of wheat left
in the town by this time, there was considerable resentment among the
locals:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i>The misfortunes that occurred in this miserable town and its inhabitants are well-known throughout Andalucía and almost all of Spain, invaded by despotism and tyranny, and suffering cruel exactions in cash and goods ... </i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></blockquote>
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The opposition had begun forming unofficial armed groups in the mountains, which supplemented the
actions of the regular army. Known in English as guerrillas and in
Spanish as <i>guerrilleros</i>, they were fast-moving and
flexible and inflicted considerable damage on the French. The
first guerrilla attack in Alcalá was in March 1810, which council
officials Simón Baena and Pedro Toscano described thus: <span style="text-align: center;"> </span></div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>[The French squadron] withdrew leaving a limited
garrison of forty cavalry. News of this scattered people on foot into
the immediate mountain ranges [from where they] threw themselves onto
the Town and with forty or fifty shotguns united with some of the
neighbours, killing about sixteen Dragoons. The rest fled. </i></blockquote>
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The aristocrat Manuel María de
Puelles, clearly appalled by ordinary people taking matters into
their own hands, gave this more graphic description of events:</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>It was an overcast and rainy day when a band of five
or six hundred men with blunderbusses, daggers and axes silently
entered the town, led down Calle de los Pozos by others who knew the
way. Dirty, ragged and in a state of total inebriation, they quickly
spilled through the town like a band of vultures, and on approaching
the houses where the Dragoons were lodging began to slaughter them
like lambs as they appeared, half-armed, roused by a great deal of
shouting. Others came out of their lodgings and defended themselves
like lions, with their backs against some wall, forming a wide circle
with their sables and keeping the band of hyenas at bay. But the
rabble fired hails of shot from their blunderbusses and tore them
apart, breaking their throbbing Herculean hearts as they dragged them
along the cobbled streets and skewering their heads on sticks while
singing some barbaric burial song ...</i></blockquote>
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The retaliation was swift. General
Latour arrived from Medina with 2,000 infantry and 200 cavalry and
swarmed into the town. They cut the throats of anyone they found on
the streets, regardless of age or gender, then looted whatever they could lay their hands on.
However since most <span style="font-style: normal;">alcalaínos</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span> had already gone into hiding in the mountains, there were
just sixteen victims.</div>
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Geographically Alcalá was midway
between three action hotspots - Cádiz, the Campo de
Gibraltar and the Sierras. Any troops moving between Medina and
Jimena or Algeciras had to pass through the town. This made the
derelict Moorish castle, a fortified structure with panoramic views,
an ideal place for keeping an eye on things. It became a coveted
prize for both sides.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Early in 1811 five hundred Spanish troops passed through Alcalá, led by General Begines de los Ríos, as part of the campaign to break the Siege of Cádiz. Begines de los Ríos ordered the repair of the castle, with local craftsmen and labourers
working under the direction of his own military engineers, but there were
insufficient materials to finish the job.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv7D_iHwbHEKYpFcSbICAxpuM8-U5Z0yH8pDDZciulPrpxoozExJDZPJigX1llRI5ObbV2oambasp_VDzX1D6s3KZD1dWxhbugGBo8yM5WL_2UWpaIt0gqyjbqS_mAQ9PxsoxY_7TaE72F/s1600/Marshal+Soult+in+1808.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="781" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv7D_iHwbHEKYpFcSbICAxpuM8-U5Z0yH8pDDZciulPrpxoozExJDZPJigX1llRI5ObbV2oambasp_VDzX1D6s3KZD1dWxhbugGBo8yM5WL_2UWpaIt0gqyjbqS_mAQ9PxsoxY_7TaE72F/s200/Marshal+Soult+in+1808.jpg" width="154" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mariscal Jean-de-Dieu Soult</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Meanwhile in Medina Sidonia Marshal
Soult also had designs on the fortress, and in July assembled
2,000 infantry, 300 cavalry and two cannons with the aim of attacking
Alcalá. The Spanish officer in charge of the castle, Captain
Carmelet, had some warning of the impending attack and left 200 men
armed with muskets while he went off to seek reinforcements. He
also sent guerrillas to take a look at what was on the way from
Medina. There was an exchange of fire, but the French had five times
the manpower and the guerrillas were forced to slash their way
through the enemy line with bayonets and flee into the hills of Los Larios.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The enemy entered Alcalá, made their
way to the castle and ordered the men to surrender. The response
was heavy fire and 122 French soldiers were killed. After five hours
of this, and fearing that Carmelet would arrive any minute with
reinforcements, the French headed back to Medina, looting as they
went.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabVOiiAcFbBQcvxu_RPixQjiHlZSm6lcL4j_bahslhXOoPafaxWYw9GAihX6y_GqjLGb_qQUX9N2EC0FK17Ee1bbqolrIkI13N6WvbTRfQt7lHnsrKpzvRGBp-Bl2n3uec1btRrgZeeUO/s1600/Francisco_Ballesteros.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="217" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabVOiiAcFbBQcvxu_RPixQjiHlZSm6lcL4j_bahslhXOoPafaxWYw9GAihX6y_GqjLGb_qQUX9N2EC0FK17Ee1bbqolrIkI13N6WvbTRfQt7lHnsrKpzvRGBp-Bl2n3uec1btRrgZeeUO/s200/Francisco_Ballesteros.png" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">General Ballesteros</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
In August General Francisco
Ballesteros, having been appointed Commander General of the Spanish
army in Cádiz and Málaga provinces, landed in Algeciras with his
troops and immediately went on a grand tour to introduce himself and
reanimate the troops. While in Alcalá he warned the men garrisoned in the castle that more attacks were likely. He was right. The following month Marshal Soult, keen to subdue guerrilla and
military activities across the whole province, gave orders to the
commander in Medina to take the castle in Alcalá. Fortunately for
us, both the commander and the officer he placed in charge of the
attack, Colonel Combelle, kept detailed notes of events.</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>On the orders I have received from you, I took care on
the 15th of September of gathering and preparing in Chiclana
everything necessary for the siege of Alcalá. On the 16th I met in
Medina with 100 men from the eighth Company of the second Battalion
of Sappers, useful for trenches and shafts, and ladders for climbing.
I received the same day a detachment from the third Company of the
second Battalion of Miners that General Garbé sent me.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The artillery, infantry, and cavalry returned the
same day to Medina. The column was launched for Alcalá at nightfall,
in order to begin operations against this settlement, according to
your instructions, the following day at dawn.</i></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Ballesteros, on learning of the
concentration of troops in Medina, decided to withdraw immediately to
Jimena but ordered one of his best battalions of light infantry to
observe the enemy movements in Alcalá.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
On the morning of 17th September around
1500 French troops including 400 cavalry arrived on the outskirts of
Alcalá. They engaged with Ballesteros's infantry and lost 400 men
and 30 horses. They dispersed and spent the rest of the day
reconnoitring the area around the castle. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXiANn9XQonhrS9FlivWeLY3KolE9TEpLatyn2CkJ01P9a1Pp9vz0ToxXNh4KZdYcDgkXWVxG5BnhalY86Xfr2Xy4Je0SittHsCcZ1760r-DpTelMOJcq9cVf4uY6NUE5Cur9kZ2jjgAja/s1600/G+de+I+VII+-+plano+castillo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1114" data-original-width="1476" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXiANn9XQonhrS9FlivWeLY3KolE9TEpLatyn2CkJ01P9a1Pp9vz0ToxXNh4KZdYcDgkXWVxG5BnhalY86Xfr2Xy4Je0SittHsCcZ1760r-DpTelMOJcq9cVf4uY6NUE5Cur9kZ2jjgAja/s400/G+de+I+VII+-+plano+castillo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Copy of the plan used for the attack on the castle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Early the following morning Colonel Combelle led his troops up to
the Plaza Alta along Calle San Francisco: </div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The bell tower of the main church of Alcalá, next to
the castle, was occupied by a detachment of the Spanish garrison. It
was barricaded with tree trunks. The main door to the church was
lined with iron and prepared for rifle fire. The guard post blocked the approach to the castle. As it dominated the houses of the city
and covered several streets, this greatly hindered our communications.
I wanted to attack and take it by force ... so I had a corridor
opened in the attic of the council buildings (Casas Consistoriales)
that led us into the nave of the church. I made an opening in the wall
there and Captain Vernou entered at the head of his sappers.</i></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The church was full of women, children
and old people seeking refuge from the invading army. Combelle
ordered them to leave and got his miners to start tunnelling into the wall of the bell tower in order to set explosives. The soldiers
occupying it were invited to surrender or be blown to pieces.
After some resistance they did so and the French marksmen took their
places, with a direct line of fire onto the castle. At the same
time they set up posts surrounding the castle on all sides.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Two new openings were made from the
church into the disused convent buildings now known as the Beaterio,
and from there into the street leading to the castle (Calle Ángel de
Viera).
</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The sappers and miners occupied themselves with
fortifying all the walls </i><span style="font-style: normal;">[in the
Beaterio]</span><i> which had a view towards the fortress. By 8 a.m.
these battlements were finished. Marksmen were placed there and
an extremely lively exchange of fire began, stubbornly maintained on
both sides throughout the day. I believed that this kind of warfare
would work in our favour, and took the precaution of changing our
riflemen every two hours. Our enemy were inferior in number and
ability, and in my opinion should be defeated before the end of the
day, finding themselves exhausted and intimidated by the superiority
of our firepower.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Our victory was as expected. At 2 p.m. the enemy's
fire began to subside. Part of the garrison abandoned the first line
of defence </i><span style="font-style: normal;">[</span>the
courtyard of the Beaterio] <i>and went into the main tower of the
castle, </i><i>which </i><i>served as a redoubt. So I made a breach
in the house closest to the angular tower, on which I had resolved to
direct our attack. Everything was prepared to mine the nearest point
under the tower. The enemy rained down a hail of grenades on our
guards. But the terrain was very difficult and after an hour of work
the miners came to the rock face, </i><i>so</i><i> it was necessary
to give up building the tunnel rather than waste any more time there.</i></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Aware that Ballesteros and his troops
were on their way, Combelle decided drastic measures were needed if
he was to force the surrender of the garrison before they arrived. He
asked for two volunteer miners to run across open space and position
the first defences for scaling the castle wall.
</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Immediately the miners arrive, they place the first
beams against the tower. The sappers rival each other in zeal and
rush to follow them. The first shelter (a kind of parapet made of
beams) is forced in place despite the live fire of the musketeers and
the grenades. A stone block rolls from the top of the tower, crushing
it and injuring several sappers. Other beams replace those that have
just broken. It continues raining stones. The structure is knocked
down a second time. Then I order the timbers to be raised so they
are almost standing upright against the tower. From that moment the
falling stones only served to sink it into the ground and to
strengthen the armour.</i></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The
sappers then dug a tunnel to place explosives under the tower. The
Spanish hurled insults at them from above, but once they heard
the explosions and felt the tower begin to shake, their attitude
changed. Combelle invited them to surrender. Their leader, Lt Col
Matildo Monasterio, agreed, requesting that his men be allowed to
leave early next morning to rejoin the Spanish army, leaving
behind their weapons but taking their personal belongings. He also
asked that their wives and the prisoners held in the castle be
respected. Commander Legentil, on behalf of Combelle,
replied as follows:</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The garrison of the fortress of Alcalá de los Gazules
will be prisoners of war and will receive from the troops of his
majesty the emperor and King all the considerations due to men of
honour. The garrison must surrender immediately. Officers and
soldiers will keep their baggage. The former will keep their swords,
the latter will lay down their weapons at the castle gate. The </i><i>men</i><i>
and their families will be protected and any prisoners found guilty
by the government </i><span style="font-style: normal;">[i.e. the
administration loyal to the government in Cádiz]</span><i> will be
granted amnesty.</i></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The men, around 230 in all, were given
half an hour to vacate the castle and taken as prisoners of war to
Chiclana. The castle was immediately occupied by the French, who
found it well supplied with everything except water.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The following day, while Legantil's
team was repairing the damage to the castle, Ballesteros rolled up
with 8,000 men. Combelle's troops were greatly outnumbered and
were forced to retreat to Medina, leaving just two companies at the
castle. He was ordered by Marshal Victor to return the
next day with reinforcements, but there was a change of plan when
they learned of the situation on the ground. Victor ordered the
destruction of the castle on 22 September 1811 before Ballesteros
returned from Jimena. This was only partially achieved, because
according to a local newspaper:</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<i>It should be clarified that the French dynamited the
wall that forms the entrance courtyard and the rear or side
courtyard, so that the troops could not take refuge in it, leaving
intact the keep, which after all is only a house. </i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But whether this was by accident or design is not clear.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
There were several more engagements in
and around Alcalá until Napoleon finally withdrew from the region in
August 1812. On learning that the invaders had left for good, the
people of Alcalá celebrated with bell-ringing, bullfights and
various other festivities. Spain's new liberal <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Constitution_of_1812" target="_blank">Constitution</a> from the Cádiz Cortes was read aloud outside
the town hall on the Plaza Alta. The party went on for at least
a week - after two and a half years of death and looting, they were
finally free.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-48262543621209201882019-12-17T17:33:00.000+01:002019-12-17T19:21:08.491+01:00Zambomba in Bar Cristobal (now el Piojo) around 2006-2007<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-31026570800873591182019-10-13T16:21:00.000+02:002019-11-02T17:35:13.880+01:00Francisca Pizarro Torres 1910-1989<i>In the brutal suppression of civilians that followed the Nationalist uprising in July 1936, women were not spared. It was enough simply to be related to a Republican sympathiser. This is the story of an incredibly courageous Alcalá woman who saw her family members gunned down by firing squad and who only survived by the skin of her teeth. It was written by her granddaughter, Juana María Malia Vera, and published in </i>Apuntes Históricos de Alcalá de los Gazules 2006<i>. The original is also available on the blog </i><a href="http://historiadealcaladelosgazules.blogspot.com/2019/10/francisca-pizarro-torres-1910-1989-y-ii.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Historia de Alcalá de los Gazules</a><i>.</i><br />
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My grandmother Francisca was born in Alcalá in August 1910 to Francisca Torres Amador and Antonio Pizarro
Álvarez. She had three brothers, José, Antonio and Francisco, and one sister, Maria. Her mother died when Francisca was only nine years old, leaving her in charge of the household and her four siblings. The youngest, Maria, was only two. At that point she started to wear black, remaining in mourning for the rest of her life, and started work in her godmother’s bakery, peeling and crushing almonds.<br />
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Manuel Vera Jiménez, a young man a few years older than Francisca, fell in love with her. Like almost everyone in Alcalá, he worked in cork production. He was the son of Manuel Vera and Juana Jiménez (la Espejita). He had two brothers, Juan and Rafael, and a sister, Maria.<br />
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Manuel and Francisca were married in 1926, when she was 16. They were overjoyed when their first son was born, but he died a few days later, which was a hard blow for them. Later came Francisca, Manuel, Juana Antonia and José.<br />
<br />
My grandfather was a man of the Left, a Republican, and wrote books on those topics, as did my grandmother’s brother Francisco, a shoemaker and a member of the CNT [the Anarchist union]. Everything was going well, with the real hope of better times in Spain, until one night in the summer of 1936.<br />
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The Civil War was already a reality across Spain, but even so, the majority of people in Alcalá were trying to return to their day-to-day lives. Then the relative peace they had enjoyed for just a few short days began to collapse. Suddenly people from the town itself, fanatical supporters of the new regime, took up arms and with much hatred began what would be a most tragic period for Alcalá, the most atrocious and cruel repression anyone had ever known. My grandmother said that it was rare for morning to break without some dead body thrown onto the street.<br />
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Within this group was a particular “gentleman” (whose name I will not reveal, out of respect for his family) who caused so much harm to my grandmother and her kin that many years later, on his deathbed, he called out her name saying that when he closed his eyes he saw corpses and blood on all sides, and in the agony of death he begged for her to come and forgive him. Of course he died without seeing her; I don’t know if she would have ever found it in her heart to forgive him.<br />
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My grandfather Manuel Vera Jiménez, his brother Juan, and my uncle Francisco Pizarro were “sentenced”, as was Manuel's mother Juana Jiménez, “la Espejita”. On one occasion they warned her “Juana, shut up or we’ll come and kill you”.<br />
<br />
My grandfather was advised to gather his family together and go far away from Alcalá, but he said that he had never done harm to anybody and that he would leave, but only to work on the cork as he had always done.<br />
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One day a bomb fell from a plane and landed right in the Calle Real. My aunt Francisca Vera remembers this event clearly, in spite of only being six years old at the time. She tells how people went running all over the place, not knowing where to go. She herself was with her mother in the bakery where she worked, and they ran out to find the rest of the family.<br />
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My grandmother was warned that they were asking the whereabouts of her husband in order to arrest him. That same afternoon she, along with her sister Maria and their children, went off to look for him without knowing exactly which farm he was working on. Nightfall found them in La Palmosa, and they slept in the open air, huddled together under a tree. The next morning they carried on walking, asking the workers on their way home if anyone knew where Manuel Jiménez was. Someone told them he was in Las Cobatillas, so they set off in that direction.<br />
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On the way they met a lorry loaded with Moroccans who were coming to assist Franco. Many were the barbaric deeds they committed. When they saw Maria, so pretty and just 16 years old, they called at her, wolf-whistling, and almost forced her into boarding the lorry. It could have been disastrous. She screamed and sobbed, resisting. My grandmother fell to her knees, begging them tearfully to leave them in peace. Fortunately another lorry arrived, and one of their superiors ordered them in their own language to let Maria go.<br />
<br />
My grandfather froze with shock when he saw them arrive. That was when he realised how bad things were in Alcalá, and that he had no alternative but to flee far away, before they found him and shot him along with the others. They decided that it would be the best thing for all of them.<br />
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My grandmother, with her sister and the children, set off for La Bovedilla to rejoin her in-laws. They had a shack there where they all stayed for a while, until some Falangist thugs turned up and arrested Juana Jiménez and her son Juan.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detention record for Juana Jiménez, from the municipal archive.<br />
Prisoners would never give their address: "No lo dice".</td></tr>
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Francisca stayed there with the others, but soon another armed gang arrived, interrogating her about her husband. They took her to the prison in Alcalá to be held until Manuel Jiménez showed up. The whole family implored the men to leave her with them, but their tears were to no avail as they separated them with the butts of their shotguns. When I asked my aunt about this time, she still remembered how much her stomach hurt from the blows. She was just a little girl. They took Francisca and her little daughter to the jail in Alcalá, but as the days passed and my grandfather Manuel didn’t appear, they decided to transfer them to La Linea de la Concepción.<br />
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Maria, now in charge of everyone, put her pain to one side and set about speaking to anyone who might be able to help her sister return home safely. She also contacted her brothers to let them know the situation, with the hope that they might help resolve the tragic situation.<br />
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Her brother Antonio was doing military service in the Legion when war broke out, and was caught in the Nationalist zone, so he could do nothing to help. Francisco, “Faico” as he was known, remained in Alcalá. Faico was a real worry for María, in constant fear of being arrested and shot, which would indeed happen a few days later. It would be José who eventually helped secure Francisca's release.<br />
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In prison at La Línea, my grandmother realised straight away that neither her mother-in-law Juana nor her brother-in-law Juan were there, and when she asked about them she was told they had been moved to the bullring. They explained that was where they took people to be be shot by firing squad.<br />
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I can imagine the terror and desperation with which Francisca received this news, which would be aggravated even further a few days later when she herself and her sickly little daughter were taken to the bullring. When they arrived she saw how all the prisoners were packed together sitting on the ground. Straight away she saw Juana and Juan, and they embraced each other weeping, not understanding why she had been arrested too.<br />
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My grandmother remembered with real panic how names were constantly being called out, sometimes to be interrogated and sometimes to be executed. They interrogated her about the whereabouts of her husband, and she kept repeating that she didn't know. When she asked what whould happen to her daughter after she had been killed they told her not to worry, as there was a soldier prepared to adopt her.<br />
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I remember when I was very small, at the end of the programmes broadcast by the two television channels we had then, around midnight, they would show a photo of Franco and play the national anthem. My grandmother would have a panic attack on hearing it, and always asked us to turn off the set. Later when she told me her life story for the first time, everything that had happened to her, I understood why: when they executed someone in the bullring they would play the national anthem. This happened the day they called Juan Vera Jiménez. They told his mother to say goodbye to her son, as he was about to be shot. Juana Jiménez ran towards him; they shot her as well. My grandmother always said that the two of them died embracing each other. She heard the shots.<br />
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When they took away the bodies they realised that Juana, executed for the crime of being a Communist, was carrying in her pocket a bunch of holy saints' medals attached to a pin.<br />
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With almost all hope lost, there came the news that her brother José had managed to obtain a pardon for Francisca. At that time he was working in the bakery of Agustin Pérez, a gentleman with some influence. Without much explanation they let her go. She walked from La Línea de la Concepción to Algeciras, carrying her daughter in her arms. From there she took the bus to Alcalá.<br />
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On her return she discovered that her brother Francisco, “Faico”, was being held in custody. They wouldn’t let her see him. The jailer took pity on my grandmother with everything she had gone through, and told her to come back in the morning when he would let her in. One morning she was told he was no longer there. The same answer must have been heard by many other families of execution victims. They had taken him the previous night to Casas Viejas.<br />
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There were witnesses to his execution, most notably a woman who lived nearby and saw how they shot him in the legs, leaving him badly injured. This woman said that when he asked for water, he was told to go to the river. This he did, dragging himself along, finally managing to reach the river where he bled to death.<br />
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Of my grandfather Manuel Jiménez little is known, I imagine he was hiding out in the mountains. He stayed there for some time, once coming down to Alcalá in the early morning despite the risk he ran. A friend of his who during the war was taken prisoner by the Republicans, told my grandmother that he had seen him wearing a captain’s uniform. We don’t know how he died. There are various different versions: that he died trying to pass into France, or that he died of an injury in Valencia and is buried somewhere there.<br />
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One morning there appeared painted on a neighbour's door the name of the owner of the house, followed by the word “murderer”. They blamed my aunt María and took her to the cells. Sometimes luck is on the side of the victims. María Pizarro did not know how to write; it could not have been her. She decided to go and work in Algeciras. My uncles and my mother told me that they used to go crazy with joy when she returned at weekends and they would meet her off the bus, loaded with presents for everyone, especially for the littlest ones, who always adored her.<br />
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Little by little things started to get better. My grandmother started to make confectionery, getting more and more orders over time. She set up a sweet-shop on the Calle Real, and my mother used to serve behind the counter.<br />
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Before she herself passed away, Francisca had to endure the great pain of losing her siblings José and María, her niece Margarita and her own daughter Antonia, my mother, that sickly little girl who was with my grandmother during her stay in the prison at La Línea.<br />
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I am amazed by what an incredible woman my grandmother was, and how she found the strength to get up each morning trying to find a chink of light in her life to keep her from going under and taking her whole family with her. I admire her even more on remembering how she would mask over all the hardships she had endured with such special grace, sometimes bad-tempered, but always wonderful and affectionate.<br />
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My grandmother FRANCISCA PIZARRO TORRES died in Alcalá de los Gazules, the place where she always said she wanted to die. She was 79 years old.<br />
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She never wanted us to raise our arms in a Francoist salute, even in play. She was terrified and immediately raised her left fist in the Republican salute, sometimes singing a verse from some song of protest.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-38525620209791327152019-09-14T14:01:00.000+02:002019-09-14T16:09:46.274+02:00Miguel Fernández Tizón: "El Cartucho"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the early 20th century in Alcalá de los Gazules, Antonio and María had five sons and a daughter. Then in July 1936 the country was torn apart by a nationalist uprising and a civil war, which inflicted tragedy on this family as on countless others. One son died at the Front in a bomb blast. One escaped to France and never returned. One was executed by firing squad. One had to hide out in the hills for years. One, Miguel, spent most of his adult life in prison - this is his story. Of the daughter, nothing is known except her name, Catalina.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">L-R: Miguel, Cristóbal, Francisco</td></tr>
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"Miguelillo", born in 1915, was the youngest and most daring of the brothers. He used to say he had so many narrow escapes on and off the battlefield he must have had his own guardian angel. The nickname Cartucho (rifle cartridge) was inherited from his grandfather, who as a boy had liked to hide and explode cartridges to frighten the girls. Miguel adopted it when he joined the Resistance and it was too dangerous to use your real name.<br />
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Miguel was a member of the CNT, an anarchist union with a large following among the exploited agricultural labourers of Andalucia. After the July 1936 uprising, members of the CNT were high on the fascists' hit-list. Miguel fled with many of his colleagues to hide out in the rough scrubland and forest in the hills between Alcalá and Jimena, now the Alcornocales Natural Park. He and his comrades were involved in several raids on farmsteads looking for food, which he would pay for dearly later in life.<br />
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From there he headed to Málaga, where he joined the Republican army first as a volunteer then, following the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_M%C3%A1laga_(1937)">fall of that city</a> to the fascists in February 1937, as a member of the 79th Infantry Brigade. Along with three hundred thousand others, he walked the notorious "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1laga%E2%80%93Almer%C3%ADa_road_massacre">Road of Death</a>" to Almería (which was still Republican territory), pursued by Italian tanks, bombed by German aircraft, and shelled by Nationalist ships. In April 1938 while fighting in Valencia he helped save the life of his fellow <i>alcalaíno</i> <a href="http://gazules.blogspot.com/2016/08/juan-perales-leon-anarchist-of-alcala.html">Juan Perales León</a>, badly injured after being shot in the face.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Refugees on the "Road of Death"</td></tr>
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Shortly afterwards Miguel was arrested, accused of taking part in armed attacks by Marxist gangs on farmsteads in the hills outside Alcalá, and of defecting to the Republican army because of his Marxist beliefs (the fascists defined everyone on the left as Marxists). Miguel responded that he fled from Alcalá because his membership of the CNT put his life in danger, and that he had only ever carried the arms issued to him as a member of the Infantry. Nevertheless he was found guilty of Adhesion to the Rebellion and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment, later commuted to 20 years.<br />
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In June 1943 Miguel managed to escape from the penitentiary in Guadalajara, and returned to the Alcalá area. He joined the <i>maquis</i>, the underground resistance movement, in a group run by Pedro Moya from Casas Viejas (now Benalup):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Miguel Fernández Tizón (Cartucho), between 1945 and 1946, along with two men from Benalup and two from Medina, were in hiding in the La Janda area, living off the land and petty theft when it became too dangerous for their friends and family to help them any more. In summer they stole grain and sold it to black marketeers. One night they were caught in the act, and split up. Two were subsequently shot by the Guardia Civil ... but Miguel, with the aid of the CNT, escaped to Tangiers. </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(2)</span></blockquote>
Unlike some other <i>maquis</i> groups, they do not appear to have resorted to kidnapping to obtain funds<i>.</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> (3)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
Cartucho's escape to Tangiers in August 1947 was organised by colleagues from the CNT in La Línea and Gibraltar. He was to go for a swim at a specific place on the beach, where a motor boat would pick him up and take him to the ferry in Gibraltar. Spanish sailors helped him enter Tangiers without being detected. There he met up with Pedro Moya, who had arrived a few months earlier. After the two of them were implicated in an armed robbery on a gas station, Miguel was tricked into returning to Spain by the promise of an amnesty. He was arrested as soon as he set foot on Spanish soil.<br />
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Miguel spent many years incarcerated in Madrid and in Valencia, where he learned upholstery and shoe-making. He sent home shoes for his nieces and nephews, and an armchair for his mother. He twice appealed against his sentence, on the basis of a Decree issued in 1945 pardoning crimes committed during the Civil War, but his misdemeanours were considered to be outside the scope of the amnesty.</div>
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When he was finally released he returned to Cadíz, took up with a widow called Carmen, and worked as an upholsterer in the Teatro Falla. His friends Alfonso and Juan Perales testified to his military rank, but he never managed to get a service pension. After Carmen's death he went to live with his niece Juana. He died of diabetes-related conditions, some time after 1988.</div>
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<b>Miguel's brothers </b><br />
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Before July 1936 <b>Francisco Tizón</b>, married with two sons, had been president of the Alcalá branch of the CNT. When war broke out he fought at the Front and reached the rank of captain. When the Republican government finally collapsed in 1939, he and half a million others went to France to seek refuge from the inevitable reprisals. He never returned to his homeland; while working as a bricklayer he fell off a scaffold and died from his injuries. But he did send letters home:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0.5cm;">
H<i>ere in exile I write to my family with advice to pass on from parents to children. Of all the wars I have known, the Spanish one was the worst because we killed our own brothers, destroyed towns and left cities in ruins. While we were killing each other, when I arrived with the mail </i>[he had worked for the forces’ postal service] <i>they would be having coffee together and arguing about the terrain with toy soldiers which represented ourselves, and while they were drinking coffee, we were killing each other. </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(1)</span></blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">La Retirada - Republican soldiers head for France to escape Franco's revenge</td></tr>
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The name of <b>José Fernández Tizón</b> is recorded in a book written clandestinely in the vaults of a church in San Fernando, documenting the executions which took place there between July 1936 and May 1940. </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>On 15 December they took six prisoners from La Cacería, who went in silence to face the firing squad with total submissiveness, such as should characterise them as innocent. Once again the lunatic who took their names didn’t bother to record their age, marital status, profession etc. – nothing, just as if they were dogs. They were executed …</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> (4)</span></blockquote>
José was one of the six.<br />
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<b>Cristóbal Fernández Tizón </b>was deaf, which prevented him going to the Front, but he acted as cook for the Alcalá men who hid in the hills after the Falangists took over the town. Once when he was collecting some charcoal to cook with, he was caught by the Civil Guard, tied to a tree and tortured. Fortunately one of them was a relative and he was released, but he spent two years hiding out, sleeping in caves, frightened, hungry and out of contact with his family who had no idea whether he was alive or dead.<br />
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His wife earned a living doing laundry for the wealthy. One of her friends there used to sing about the social revolution promised by the left-wing Popular Front government: "Now we are on our way, now they are going to pay". For this, she was tortured and had her head shaved.<br />
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<b>REFERENCES</b><br />
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1. J. Carlos Perales Pizarro: Los Cartuchos: Mi Homenaje y Reconocimientos, <i>Apuntes Históricos y y de Nuestro Patrimonio 2018</i> (annual collection of essays and research papers produced by the Ayuntamiento of Alcalá de los Gazules).<br />
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2. Desde la historia de Casas Viejas - un blog de Salustiano Gutiérrez Baena. <a href="http://historiacasasviejas.blogspot.com/2013/06/los-maquis-en-casas-viejas-la-derrota.html" target="_blank">Los maquis en Casas Viejas. La Derrota. - La huida a Tanger </a><br />
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3. CNT Puerto Real: Bibliografias Anarquistas. <a href="http://puertoreal.cnt.es/bilbiografias-anarquistas/6537-luchadores-anarquistas-durante-el-franquismo-la-partida-del-moyita.html" target="_blank">Luchadores anarquistas durante el Franquismo: La partida del Moyita</a><br />
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4. José Casado Montado, <i>Trigo Tronzado: crónicas silenciadas y comentarios, </i>1992, San Fernando, self-published.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-30705389685897925862019-08-26T15:35:00.003+02:002019-08-26T16:08:07.063+02:00Homage to the Muleteers of Alcalá<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Alcornocales Natural Park is one of the last places in Europe where mules still work for a living. During the cork harvest, which takes place in the summer months, they are used to carry the strips of cork down steep narrow tracks through dense woodland to a clearing where it can be loaded onto lorries. The rest of the year they graze peacefully on patches of open space in and around the town. They are cared for year-round by a dedicated team of <i>arrieros</i> (the dictionary translation of that word is muleteer, but as you will see, the are more than just drovers). <br />
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Last weekend during the feria, the <i>arrieros </i>of Alcalá were honoured at a special event in the<i> caseta la Gloria</i>. Here are some extracts from the tribute speech, written and presented by local anthropologist Agustin Coca.<br />
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"Today ... we acknowledge the professionalism and wisdom of a handful of people who weave their lives in with those of their animals, through good times and bad, through rain, wind and heat ... We are a rarity in Europe, or to put it another way you, the <i>arrieros</i>, maintain a reservoir of wisdom that is transmitted down through the generations.<br />
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Behind a beast of burden such as a mule, there is an entire lifetime of learning ... The dialogue with the animal starts from childhood and will never end. The job involves pampering and caring for the animal. It eats before you do, you love it as if it were part of the family, you must care for it whether it is working or not, and be as attentive to it as if it were a child ... Inside every <i>arriero</i> is a surgeon, a vet, one who knows about remedies, herbs and potions. He is also a blacksmith and a saddler, always ready out in the forest to do a repair job. He is an expert at finding his way around the densest woodland, by day or night, with our without moonlight. He knows about knots and packing, and a thousand ways to load up the cargo ... He knows about contracts and business deals, reaching agreements in good times and bad, and has a family which extends beyond the home among comrades, forming a network of solidarity and mutual help ...<br />
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The women also carry this knowledge, the mothers, wives and daughters of the <i>arrieros</i> who used to carry bundles from farm to farm, looking after the men, the children and the animals, taking care of their food, clothes and other needs, quietly working alongside the men as they do today ... And now is the time to acknowledge their value.<br />
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The <i>arrieros</i> are the professors in the world of beasts of burden; their knowledge is becoming extinct, and we are fighting to preserve it in Andalucía ... This is why we are here today, with the local authorities and representatives of ACOAN [Asociación de Corcheros y Arrieros de Andalucía]. We must demand that everything possible is done to defend this profession ... a mule is more eco-friendly than a tractor and ideally suited for any kind of work in the forest. To defend this collective means that the sector must be professionalised, the breeding of mules must be supported, and ways must be found to make the job of <i>arriero</i> attractive to future generations, a job which although difficult and labourious must be treasured by Andalucian society and protected by its institutions.<br />
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Today the Alcornocales Natural Park has many problems. But to resolve them we must depend on these experts amongst us ... Your knowledge must be passed on via dialogue with those who learn about the forest from books, not on a daily basis since childhood.<br />
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Now is the time to act, for if not, tomorrow there will be neither cork-oak forest nor people to work in it."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Returning to town after the cork harvest</td></tr>
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Watch the <i>corcheros</i> and <i>arrieros</i> in action in this video clip:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HfXbtPCQXDs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HfXbtPCQXDs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-33615871205789330542019-08-16T13:05:00.000+02:002019-08-16T13:57:50.302+02:00Diego Valle and the birth of socialism in Alcalá<i>The source of material for this article is a paper by Ismael Almagro Montes de Oca, "El Movimiento Obrero en Alcalá de los Gazules en el Último Tercio del Siglo XIX", published in </i>Apuntes Históricos y de Nuestro Patrimonio 2019<i>, and online at </i><a href="http://historiadealcaladelosgazules.blogspot.com/" style="font-style: italic;">historiadealcaladelosgazules.blogspot.com</a><i>.</i><br />
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Alcalá de los Gazules is known as the “<a href="http://gazules.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-bit-of-political-history-alcala-clan.html" target="_blank">cradle of Andalusian socialism</a>” mainly because of the work of those who rebuilt the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) in the dying days of the Franco dictatorship. But its socialist history dates back to the 19th century, with the <i>Agrupación Socialista</i> founded by Diego Valle Regife and his comrades in 1886. It was only the <a href="https://www.psoeandalucia.com/home_texts/1886/" target="_blank">second such group in the whole of Andalucía</a>, and the first in a rural context.<br />
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The first signs of workers’ organisation in Spain came with the foundation of the <i>Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores</i> (First International) in 1864, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution_(Spain)">Glorious Revolution</a> of 1868 which led to the rapid spread of anarchism amongst the agricultural labourers of Andalucía, reduced to the most miserable existence by the custom of only being paid for the days they worked. But their hopes for a brighter future would not last long, because the First International was banned in 1874, obliging the workers’ associations to go underground.<br />
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The first recorded instance of organisation in Alcalá was in March 1883 when, following a spate of crimes committed by the infamous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hand_(Spain)" target="_blank">Mano Negra</a>, the authorities discovered a field-workers' union affiliated to the anarcho-syndicalist <i>Federación de Trabajadores de la Región Española, </i>founded in Barcelona in 1881. Nearly fifty men were arrested for belonging to an illegal organisation, but the judge could find no evidence of any connection with the Mano Negra, and the Mayor confirmed that they were all of good character, so they were released.<br />
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By March 1885 the number of affiliates had increased, and the association extended its remit beyond agriculture. The man in charge of administrative correspondence was Diego Valle Regife, one of those arrested in 1883. They opened a Centre for Instruction and Recreation for the working class, aware that one of the best ways to promote their ideas was to fight against the illiteracy of the workers, most of whom had been obliged to labour in the fields from a very early age and had thus received no formal education.<br />
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However there is no further evidence of this association after October 1885. It appears from correspondence published in the newspaper <i>El Socialista</i> in January 1887 that many of the workers of Alcalá were abandoning the anarchist current, which they found too utopian, to follow the other current which emerged from the First International – socialism and political class action.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>El Socialista</i> 44 p.3, Jan 1887 <br />(Hemeroteca de la Fundación Pablo Iglesias)</span></td></tr>
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The committee at the head of Alcalá's socialist group, formed in December 1886, comprised several of the former anarchists arrested in 1883. Diego Valle became President in June 1887. Clearly a committed and articulate man, he was the local correspondent for <i>El Socialista, </i>graphically describing the working conditions of agricultural labourers in the town:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;"><i>El Socialista</i> 41, Dec 1886, pp 3-4</span></td></tr>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>If the exploitation suffered by workers in manufacturing industries grows more insufferable by the day, imagine how the agricultural workers must suffer, not having, apart from a few exceptions, the backing of the association. Wages squeezed to the bare minimum, working days of 14 hours or more, and to top it all, the brutal and rude treatment by landowners and half-savage foremen; this is the picture of the miserable situation of the field workers, aggravated and sustained by the very position in which they find themselves, and which makes more difficult the concentration of their efforts to contain the excesses of the ferocious exploitation of which they are victims. </i></blockquote>
He wrote again in June 1887, this time signing the letter, as part of the campaign to reduce the working day to eight hours:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFusAO5LyhxY2j2d13ZYhA7tQJoAR8i2d75AudzkPv9xyuv_purJesb2CiEC-ffySfAv5QG1k5i3Wze6uH4gtdl979I0hanE4J_kQOfk1XWtCJx-rOLhqYMtIFl7jABiWgAJ-KVRBRJSqt/s1600/ES+67+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="345" data-original-width="463" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFusAO5LyhxY2j2d13ZYhA7tQJoAR8i2d75AudzkPv9xyuv_purJesb2CiEC-ffySfAv5QG1k5i3Wze6uH4gtdl979I0hanE4J_kQOfk1XWtCJx-rOLhqYMtIFl7jABiWgAJ-KVRBRJSqt/s400/ES+67+1.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>El Socialista </i>67, June 1887, p.3</span></td></tr>
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<i>The bourgeoisie of this district exploits them scandalously; the working conditions could not be worse. The daily wage is miserable in the extreme, as they are considered fortunate to be earning 75 cents in exchange for working a 16 or 18-hour day. So the workers are agitated by continuous and unsuppressed misery, cursing the monopolist society and the thieves who squander the riches that they tear from the earth.</i></blockquote>
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<i>As you can see, comrades, this ground is not so abandoned that the seeds of socialism cannot bear fruit on it. The way is open for our
ideas, and in spite of so many obstacles which we have to fight
against, we, the handful of revolutionaries who defend with love and
energy the theories of Karl Marx, are confident of organising on
solid bases the </i>Agrupación Socialista<i> in Alcalá de los Gazules, and
we also hope that in a short time the neighbouring villages will join
us in rallying round the flag of the Workers’ Party.</i> </blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7x6jqvftIET11qWDDylsc6DVaNxcTbX1hNtN9NYxk7IRathMzdeFma2KiTdo9BuwQpFzDLJstDTVYaOjLjezFvMwT3OTJzgzo3Oq86z0JgiCDAFTpz79m21U95pFpHN9DIQulHm7ryTrr/s1600/jornaleros.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="990" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7x6jqvftIET11qWDDylsc6DVaNxcTbX1hNtN9NYxk7IRathMzdeFma2KiTdo9BuwQpFzDLJstDTVYaOjLjezFvMwT3OTJzgzo3Oq86z0JgiCDAFTpz79m21U95pFpHN9DIQulHm7ryTrr/s400/jornaleros.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jornaleros near Alcalá</td></tr>
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But there were further setbacks to come. During raids on anarchist groups elsewhere, the Guardia Civil came across a reference to the <i>Agrupación Socialista</i> in Alcalá. As a result, Diego was arrested at the cork-processing factory where he worked and taken by force to his house in Alcalá, where they seized the membership book and some correspondence. Other members of the group were then arrested and they were all taken to the jail in Medina Sidonia (curiously, not the jail in Alcalá itself). They were then carted around the province, handcuffed and chained, via Chiclana, San Fernando, Puerto Real, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Jerez, Arcos, Ubrique and ultimately to Grazalema where the trial would be held - a journey of well over a month, treated like criminals and given barely enough bread and water to survive.<br />
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In Grazalema the judge ruled that they had committed no crime, as the socialist workers' party was not an illegal organisation. They were released within half an hour, and had to find their own way back to Alcalá. Nonetheless, a few weeks later other members of the group were arrested and given similar treatment.<br />
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The group dissolved temporarily, but soon reconsituted itself with a new committee, Diego Valle being re-elected as president. The revitalised group proposed organising societies of resistance for various trades - shoemakers, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, cork-workers, wine-producers, farmers, builders and horticulturalists, and setting up a night-school to educate people over thirteen years old. Diego Valle had already made his views on education known in the pages of <i>El Socialista</i>:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6u35oYy75Wz7NMVT0ZswhcMIPW-OZxlSs7a-336LrXpIu6PqTw_756Ksr-rotwloCsrx1oKahHDVxgDIcTLqaec42ERGsaNJFOL2hr7Dp8fz8mvHJG0gvDVnn1rsKgovE_uw3TACaHWRl/s1600/ES+67+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="453" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6u35oYy75Wz7NMVT0ZswhcMIPW-OZxlSs7a-336LrXpIu6PqTw_756Ksr-rotwloCsrx1oKahHDVxgDIcTLqaec42ERGsaNJFOL2hr7Dp8fz8mvHJG0gvDVnn1rsKgovE_uw3TACaHWRl/s640/ES+67+2.JPG" width="460" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>El Socialista </i>67, June 1887, p.3</span></td></tr>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>... The majority of workers here work in agriculture, they are somewhat ignorant and superstitious, qualities which they owe to the bourgeoisie. Attached to the old systems and almost totally lacking an education, it is not strange that among them fixed ideas don’t last, they are subject to a multitude of ever-changing theories which they experience when any passing orator approaches them and preaches four words empty of meaning.</i></blockquote>
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<i>Alcalá de los Gazules consists of 12,000 inhabitants. Education of women is undertaken by the Holy Mothers of the Sweet Heart of Jesus, whose establishment takes in all the young girls who have no resources to access any other form of education. At barely 15 years old they leave this sanctimonious place impregnated with religious fanaticism, deaf to humanitarian sentiments, and implacable enemies of the world and of the family.</i></blockquote>
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<i>The consequence of this appalling moral organisation is the ignorance of the working class of Alcalá who, ignoring the causes of their ills, continue to roll down the fatal slope on which religious sectarians have placed them. At the same time the Republican bourgeoisie itself, preaching a deceptive and seductive equality, continues to spìn this kind of nostalgia which overwhelms them.</i></blockquote>
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The school opened in Calle los Pozos on 1 January 1888 and within two months had more than forty adults attending classes in reading, writing, grammar and arithmetic. It was named <i>la Escuela Regeneracíón,</i> possibly as a way of restoring good relations with the leaders of the <i>Partido Republicano Progresista</i>, who had opened a masonic lodge in the town also called <i>Regeneración. </i> There had recently been some biting criticism of that party's administration of Alcalá in <i>El Socialista, </i>and although anonymous, the finger was pointed at Diego Valle. The President and Secretary turned up at the school, insulting and threatening him, saying that he was a traitor to the town.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Plaque in C/ Montesa, off C/ los Pozos</span></td></tr>
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The first few months of 1888 were especially hard for the day-workers because due to a lengthy period of heavy rain, they were unable to work and their families were starving. On 29 March a group of them petitioned the mayor for assistance, but were told there were no funds available. They then turned to the Socialist group, who interceded with the administation resulting in a payment of 50 cents per person per day, shared amongst more than 300 workers. The Socialists also shared out the money they had reserved for a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of the Paris Commune. But it was not enough, the daily rate was quickly reduced to 25 cents, and workers were reduced to begging from door to door.<br />
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From that point, there is no more documentary evidence of the Socialist group in Alcalá. No more publications in <i>El Socialista</i>, and no representative at the PSOE First National Congress in August. It is likely that, rather than being formally dissolved, it ran out of steam - partly because of a lack of funds, both within the party and among the workers themselves, and partly because its driving force Diego Valle left Alcalá to work in Jerez de la Frontera. It was certainly still in existence in late September 1889, because it was declared an illegal organisation, and the municipal judge ordered the search and capture of 27 individuals who belonged to it. Their names included all the various committee members as well as the former president of the anarchist group, Cayetano Rodríguez.<br />
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So maybe it is not surprising to see, on 13 October, a group of Alcalá families heading for Cádiz to board the steamship "Giana", bound the following day for Argentina. They had dreams of setting up their own community there, "Nueva Alcalá", and the trip had clearly been planned for some time because there is evidence of passports and permits being issued for some of the emigrants. Cayetano Rodríguez and his family were amongst them; they and most of the other families established themselves in the newly-founded city of Resistencia, in the Chaco district of Argentina, which welcomed thousands of European immigrants.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtSKz18hHLL2HrfM6t_hmj58zooyo36veOE8oJX1KvfJ8s7Oien6J-U2U7kS4tUpdnzUi7Hlb2kxAFjiQyHqj72iROcuMi67df9kG8eV7wNPfrz4Vva-MMiVJcSO8A60xA2EIPDNCF_S_/s1600/resistencia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="872" data-original-width="1013" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtSKz18hHLL2HrfM6t_hmj58zooyo36veOE8oJX1KvfJ8s7Oien6J-U2U7kS4tUpdnzUi7Hlb2kxAFjiQyHqj72iROcuMi67df9kG8eV7wNPfrz4Vva-MMiVJcSO8A60xA2EIPDNCF_S_/s320/resistencia.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monument to migrants in Resistencia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Diego Valle also emigrated at some point, but it is possible that on finding himself on the judge's hit-list he assumed the identity of his brother Eduardo. Eduardo had certainly planned to emigrate, because his passport arrived in Alcalá on 12 November, but in fact he stayed in Alcalá and eventually became secretary of another workers' group in the early years of the 20th century.<br />
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In the Argentine port-town of Paraná, on the river of the same name, there is a record of one Diego del Valle whose year of birth coincides with that of the <i>alcalaino</i>. Moreover, in the census documents for that place, the only one who filled in the box stating which religion they belonged to was Diego del Valle, who classified himself as <i>Libre Pensador</i> - Free Thinker.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzBgTJ1alSe3F83qPsjc3BDkjg7GbNNR-sLKyXxMPHSWvtBLicwQefilewOMk0RFat5khYAGnI837W84wihqu05x1WcPlEyYMxAw1bA2dDmnp1a5ywK1_jo2Ph2wdfsAHxtqqc439aZzEF/s1600/Parana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="981" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzBgTJ1alSe3F83qPsjc3BDkjg7GbNNR-sLKyXxMPHSWvtBLicwQefilewOMk0RFat5khYAGnI837W84wihqu05x1WcPlEyYMxAw1bA2dDmnp1a5ywK1_jo2Ph2wdfsAHxtqqc439aZzEF/s400/Parana.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paraná, around 1900</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-77438099190904973692019-05-18T14:57:00.000+02:002019-05-18T14:57:29.389+02:00"When I die, don't let anyone touch my things" - R.I.P. Juan Carlos Aragón<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Cadiz is mourning the death of one its best-loved <a href="http://www.andalucia.org/en/the-carnival-of-cadiz/" target="_blank">Carnival</a> characters, Juan Carlos Arágon Becerro, aged just 51. Philosopher, writer, poet, singer and musician, Aragón was the brain behind more than forty of the colourful singing groups that participated in this unique festival over the past 25 years, writing lyrics, designing costumes, and performing in many prize-winning <i>chirigotas</i> and <i>comparsas</i>. <br />
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Aragón was one of the generation that made the <i>Carnaval de Cádiz</i> famous across Spain and beyond. It's up there with Mardi Gras in terms of ingenuity, if not scale, and has now been nominated for inclusion on the UNESCO Cultural Heritage list.<br />
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It's impossible to describe the harmony and colour of a <i>comparsa</i> in full flow: the video below, his contribution to this year's Carnival, gives you a hint of the flavour.<br />
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A few years ago Aragón wrote a poem, "<a href="https://www.elplural.com/autonomias/andalucia/a-mi-muerte-que-nadie-toque-mis-cosas_216598102" target="_blank">Testamento</a>", giving instuctions on what to do after his death. I enjoyed it so much I translated it into English.<br />
<blockquote>
When I die, don’t let anyone touch my things.<br />Let them stay as they are for when I come back,<br />Just as I left them.<br /><br />The wine out of the fridge,<br />The capo on the first fret,<br />The telephone ringing,<br />The heating on,<br />The child at school,<br />The letters unopened,<br />The alarm set for seven,<br />The accounts at zero,<br />The blinds up.<br /><br />If they kill me without pain,<br />I want the number of the killer.<br />Let someone record the funeral;<br />Buy me tobacco and the newspaper,<br />Don’t wait for me to wake up,<br />Save me some tuna in case I come back in the flesh.<br />And don’t keep this verse,<br />In case I want to change the ending.<br />Ah,<br />And take out the rubbish.</blockquote>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-33781475845578365062018-11-29T17:14:00.001+01:002018-11-29T17:14:46.720+01:00Romería 1982 - festivities at the SantuarioIn 1982 the American social anthropologist Jerome Mintz, who spent a lot of time in this part of the world, made this short film at the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de los Santos during the festivities of the Romería (pilgrimage). It is subtitled in English and gives us a real flavour of the event - dancing, singing, families picnicking in the olive groves, drinking sherry and making the famous <i>gazpacho caliente</i> in a huge wooden bowl (which was, it seems, once used to wash small children in).<br />
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The most fascinating aspect for me is that, apart from the clothes and the cars, it is all pretty much the same today. The Romería in September and the Fiesta de San Jorge in April are when the <i>alcalaínos</i> and <i>alcalaínas </i>let their hair down. May that never change.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-48003564926435598132018-09-27T17:43:00.001+02:002018-09-27T17:44:53.580+02:00R.I.P. Paco Pizarro, 1936-2018<i>When we first came to Alcalá, the main watering-hole for the small colony of Brits was Pizarro's, or Pizzies as it was usually called. These days the Paseo de la Playa is full of bars and cafes, but back in 2005 there was very little choice. One of the reasons we liked to go there was the charming owner, Paco. He was still cooking then, and used to bring us out little plates of food to try, often sitting down for a chat, listening patiently to our broken Spanish. He loved meeting people, especially foreigners who had elected to visit or move permanently to his home town.</i><br />
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<i>So it was with great sadness that we learned of his death last week, at the age of 82. He'd been ill for a while, but would still come down to the bar occasionally for a game of dominoes. Just two weeks before he died, I drew a picture of him and was wondering how to give it to him as I hadn't seen him for a while...</i><br />
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<i>Paco Pizarro may be the best-known Alcalá resident of all time, by virtue of having a nephew named Alejandro Sanz. Most Brits have never heard of him, but he is one of the most successful pop stars in the Spanish-speaking world. In 2006 Paco went to stay with him in Miami, and accompanied the singer on a year-long tour throughout the Americas and Spain. He was put in charge of liaising with the fans, who christened him Tio Paco (Uncle Frank). He won them over with his gentle charm, and ended up being nearly as popular as his nephew.</i><br />
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<i>A few years ago he published an autobiography, </i>Tío Paco<i>. It's a fascinating read, and since it isn't available in English, I've extracted some of the highlights and translated them. You can read the results below.</i><br />
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<h3>
Childhood</h3>
Francisco Pizarro Medina was born in Alcalá de los Gazules on 25 February 1936, the third of seven children. His father, José Pizarro Torres, was a baker and his mother, Maria Medina Gonzales, gathered firewood for a living. They were both illiterate, not unusual at that time, but his mother was particularly keen that all her children should learn to read and write. Paco described her as a hungry she-wolf, fighting ceaselessly to raise her cubs.<br />
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Civil War broke out a few months after Paco was born. One of his uncles, who was literate, was assassinated by the nationalists for organising agricultural workers and reading them "subversive" materials. His aunt had her head shaved and was marched through the streets in a display of public humiliation, for the crime of being the sister of a Red. So it was not surprising that Paco's parents took the children and fled to the sierra. José returned to the town each night and cadged some bread from his colleagues at the bakery. One night the boss said it would be safe for them to return, so they did.<br />
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The family home, in C/ Rio Verde, consisted of just one room and a cooking area under the stairs. So José borrowed the money from his boss to buy a further room upstairs, which is where the children slept.<br />
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Work in the bakery was long and hard. José had to get up in the small hours to make the dough, light the wood-fired oven, cook the bread, and then load the loaves onto mules to sell them round the streets. So eventually he decided to open a bar. It was christened “Los Panaderos” (the bakers) and was located on the Alameda next to the church. It served whatever foods were easily available –tagarninas, wild asparagus and artichokes in spring, the meat from the <i>matanza</i> (pig-slaughter) over the winter, barbel, carp and eels during the fishing season.<br />
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Despite the cramped living conditions and poverty, Paco describes his childhood as being happy, full of laughter and solidarity amongst the neighbours. He was a mischievous and talkative child, with jet-black hair and wide eyes, and all the neighbours adored him. He didn’t do
well at school, and was frequently beaten by the teacher, Manuel
Marchante. But he was a good singer and sang in the church choir.
Once he had a sore throat and refused to sing: Marchante slammed the
boy’s head against a door, and he had to be sent home because he
was bleeding profusely, though the cut wasn't deep. His mother gave Marchante quite a mouthful.<br />
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When he was seven, Paco felt obliged to start contributing to the family’s finances. After school he would collect cigarette ends from the streets and bars: a tinful would earn 50 cents. The woman who bought them would roll them up into fresh cigarettes, making five or six from a tinful. </div>
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His next job, at the age of eight, was selling newspapers door-to-door and on the street. His father didn’t approve of this sort of child labour, but eventually gave his consent. He did well, not only selling all the papers that were delivered, but receiving small gifts from his customers, such as milk to drink, cakes and fruit. In the evenings he sold sweets at the local cinema, which meant he got to see the films. He was particularly impressed by Marlene Dietrich and Humphrey Bogart. He would also make toys for Christmas presents, such as brightly coloured hoops made out of old bicycle wheels.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaVaHFmhAJICrT1de7KwkYeS7H1cU54hEH9ujjS3XJ5NY9WELbh8h5R7xX9Gcwusej3U-Nr5J7Isv5RWyDzz7LKBQTJk_ATu06YYMt3jwI73D6WRm4LEAdpW1mHuDsphM27cJ_OjQS863u/s1600/Alcala_Archive014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="800" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaVaHFmhAJICrT1de7KwkYeS7H1cU54hEH9ujjS3XJ5NY9WELbh8h5R7xX9Gcwusej3U-Nr5J7Isv5RWyDzz7LKBQTJk_ATu06YYMt3jwI73D6WRm4LEAdpW1mHuDsphM27cJ_OjQS863u/s400/Alcala_Archive014.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C/ Rio Verde, with the church in the background. <br />
The Pizarro family home is on the left.</td></tr>
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When Paco was eleven, his mother gave birth to Luis. She contracted an infection after the birth and spent some time in hospital, leaving Paco and his sister to care for the baby, himself a sickly child. At times like this the solidarity between neighbours came to the fore. Both recovered, but there no more babies. Luis later became a distinguished socialist politician, and his son Javier is the current mayor of Alcalá. <br />
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Once the bar was up and running, Paco gave up his other jobs, going there after school to clean fish and fry sardines. He left school at 12 and went to work there full time, Another teacher, Don Antonio, recognised his artistic and dramatic talents and offered to pay for him to continue his education, but his father refused, as he needed him to work in the bar. Nonetheless, Paco became involved in amateur dramatics in his spare time and showed a special flair for impromptu comedy. This would serve him well throughout his life.<br />
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At thirteen, Paco contracted typhus when playing in the town’s sewer, and nearly died. The only treatment was to cover his stomach with a paste made of mashed cabbage leaves and vinegar, alternated with bags of ice. It took him the best part of a year to recover, during which he spent some time with an aunt in Cádiz because it was thought the sea air would do him good.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plaza Alameda de la Cruz, location of the bar "Los Panaderos"</td></tr>
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<h3>
Adolescence</h3>
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Paco lost his virginity in a brothel on the Plaza Alta, to a prostitute named “Ana la Gorda”. He and his friends weren’t officially allowed in because they were under 21, but the madam, Mari Cruz, said they could come in the afternoon when there were no other customers.. The five of them lined up and took her one after the other, and then had to clean themselves with potassium permanganate solution to avoid infection.<br />
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As a child, Paco had been close to Father Manuel, the parish priest. He used to do odd jobs round the church. and took over ringing the bells when the stairs became too much for the old man. But when he retired, things changed. The new priest, Father Jésus, not only did not want his help but would look at him strangely. The first time Paco went to him for confession, he was told he was saying it wrong. He instructed Paco to follow him into the sacristy, where he would give him a private lesson. Paco felt very uncomfortable and left the church as quickly as he could. </div>
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This experience left Paco feeling uneasy, almost fearful. The Church had enormous power in the town, on a par with the Mayor or the Guardia Civil, and this priest could make life difficult for him and his family. So he decided to go to Paris. </div>
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He and his friend Ramón went to the French capital by bus, a journey that took five days. When their savings ran out they busked, with Ramón playing guitar and Paco singing Andalusian songs. Paco was astonished by the amount of freedom enjoyed by the Parisians, kissing and holding hands on the street. Very different from Franco's Spain. He had a fling with a French girl called Anne, but just as it was starting to get serious he received a letter forwarded by his mother – his call-up papers for military service. So, after less than a year, they returned to Alcalá.</div>
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While waiting for his posting, Paco returned to working in the bar. Times were desperately hard, and there were chronic food shortages. They often handed out food to mothers who had nothing to give to their children, and gave breakfasts on credit to men with temporary jobs in the campo while they were waiting to be paid.</div>
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<h3>
The "Mili"</h3>
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Paco did his military service in Algeciras, where he was taught to be a good patriotic Spaniard and follow orders. Nonetheless his sense of mischief got the better of him on occasions. One night, on guard duty in the small hours, he applied a lipstick he had purchased for a local girl to the mouths of his comrades while they slept. Next morning on the parade ground there was mayhem. He confessed and took his punishment (two hours extra patrol outside the camp), but the girl never got her lipstick.</div>
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His official duties involved escorting soldiers returning from Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla from the ferry port to the station, and seeing them safely onto their homeward train. He also did a bit of wheeling and dealing on the black market - tobacco, stockings etc. </div>
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<h3>
The Bars on the Playa</h3>
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<div>
When Paco returned to Alcalá, his father had just taken a lease on the bar known as La Parada, right by the Algeciras-Jerez bus stop. It hadn't been doing particularly well, and Paco decided to change tradition and leave the doors open all the time. This made it more inviting for passengers getting off the bus, and also for local women who could see whether their friends were inside. On the first day of opening, he invited the bus driver in and gave him a <i>bocadillo de lomo </i>on the house. Business took off from that point, and the bar also became the local haunt of <i>estraperlistas</i> (black-marketeers) who would trade their goods there. Paco installed a jukebox, which brought in a younger clientele, and soon it was the most successful bar in the town.</div>
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After two years the lease came up for renewal and the owner asked for double the rent. They decided to renew, but started to make contingency plans and put money aside for the future. When a plot of land came up for sale that had previously been the site of the open-air cinema, they were able to purchase it for 365,000 pesetas (€92,000 at today’s value). This would become the site of the Restaurante Pizarro. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bus stopping at La Parada</td></tr>
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<h3>
Marriage and Family</h3>
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In 1964 Paco got the travel bug again and set off to San Sebastian in the Basque Country. He was taken aback by how formal the Basques were compared to Andalusians, and even encountered some prejudice against the southerners, but he soon charmed people with his good humour and his songs and got a job in a well-known hostelry, El Cleri. After a few weeks, however, the pull of home became too strong and he returned to Alcalá.</div>
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The following year he married his childhood sweetheart, the blue-eyed Francisca, fourteen years after their first date. In an attempt to restrict the congregation to close friends and family, the service took place at 6.a.m. Paco and Paca went on to have five children: José Antonio, Yolanda, Franciso Javier, Miguel Ángel and Gema. </div>
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They also had a dog, Pirri, a much loved family pet. One day they had been out in the car and stopped at a <i>venta</i> in Medina on the way back. The dog jumped out of the car and ran off, but nobody noticed he was missing till they got home. The boy Miguel Ángel was particularly upset. They went back several times but couldn’t find him.</div>
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<div>
A year later, someone spotted the dog tied up outside a warehouse. He told Paco and the whole family went over to reclaim him, but the new owner wouldn’t give him back as his young daughter had got attached to him. Eventually Paco suggested they release the dog to see which family he went to. The animal bounded straight over to Miguel Ángel and started licking his face. There was no doubt it was Pirri.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
José Pizarro died in 1976, leaving his sons Paco and Ángel to run the bar. It continued to be profitable, and to help ease his widowed mother’s loneliness, he bought her a colour television set from Radio Hogar across the road. At first she refused to believe it had been paid for, but soon came to love it. He took good care of her until she died in 1986.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Paco was fond of cats, and the restaurant was full of them. They would wait silently under the tables for titbits from the customers. He named them after the teachers at the high school, according to their observed characteristics. Then one day the pharmacist told him it was unhygienic as they might pass diseases on to the customers. Ángel, who was less sentimental and more businesslike than Paco, arranged for them to be taken off to the campo. One of them, Doña Elena (mother of all the rest) found her way back to the restaurant, but she disappeared the next day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Paco had always had a yearning to paint, and now found himself in a position to attend an art school in Cádiz. He studied there for four years, then set up a studio in his home where he continued to paint alone. His works were exhibited on several occasions, but he didn’t paint them to sell, preferring to give them to friends and family.<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Paco the Businessman</h3>
<div>
Pizarro's bar/restaurant became well-known across the region for its good food and lively, slightly bohemian atmosphere. It was a popular meeting place for the bullfighting fraternity, and flamenco artists, many of whom were good friends of Paco. <br />
<br />
The chef, Juan Panera, was gay as was his assistant Miguel, known as Tita Ingrid because of his devotion to Ingrid Bergman. They were inveterate practical jokers and added much to the local colour.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
In 1980 Paco opened Alcalá’s first discotheque, adjacent to the restaurant. It was an instant success, being the only such enterprise for miles around, and became a friendly and safe meeting place for young people from across the province. The evening would start with lively dance music, then popular hits of the day, followed by rumbas and sevillanas, and finally they would dim the lights and play romantic ballads.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On New Year’s Eve the disco would open for all those who didn’t have family dinners to go to, serving food and doing all the trditional <i>nochevieja</i> customs, followed by dancing till dawn.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Inevitably, after a while the drug dealers moved in, followed by plain-clothes policemen; musical tastes changed in favour of “heavy” and punk. A few concerned parents started to prevent their kids going there, and complained to the authorities demanding its closure. He avoided this by keeping a close eye on everyone who came in, and discreetly ejecting anyone he suspected of dealing drugs.</div>
<br />
Paco always dressed unconventionally, which upset a few people. He liked the Elvis look; leather trousers, Cuban heel boots and waistcoat. He strongly believed that dress was a form of personal expression.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In later years, Paco explored the possibility of becoming a freemason. He received an invitation to a conference on masonry in Cádiz, and was intrigued because it had always been a taboo subject. He listened to the speakers and had many questions for them, but was frustrated because none of them were answered. He was interviewed, and told that he would have to attend a lodge meeting in Cádiz every week and be subject to an extensive background check. After some thought he decided that although he agreed with the principles of charity and brotherhood, he preferred to exercise them under his own terms.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Bvuvmce_EckINSTWOrEj6IVhawtlK0p_lcnppzP15CoUccke8BLToI61UMfdjzsLtrYfTxZ5gEK5Oj2njMVi_YioedAICm7VrSSmPXWi1ezY34GyUa8fX75PTQMu2ka3NvlZEob8EwGx/s1600/Alcala+streets+and+buildings-43.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1252" data-original-width="1600" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Bvuvmce_EckINSTWOrEj6IVhawtlK0p_lcnppzP15CoUccke8BLToI61UMfdjzsLtrYfTxZ5gEK5Oj2njMVi_YioedAICm7VrSSmPXWi1ezY34GyUa8fX75PTQMu2ka3NvlZEob8EwGx/s400/Alcala+streets+and+buildings-43.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Pizarro empire in 2006: Restaurant, disco and hostel.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
Politics and Politicians</h3>
<div>
<div>
Paco used the disco to express his political beliefs, taking the microphone to promote the policies of Felipe González and the newly reformed Spanish socialist party. This may seem odd to us, but in context, after decades of dictatorship during which no-one dared express their political views in public, it’s perhaps not so strange. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However the authorities decided that the disco could only remain open on condition that Paco stopped “indoctrinating the youth”. He was in effect barred from his own local. Word reached González himself, who wrote to Paco after his 1982 election victory: “Dear Paco, go back to the disco, for as long as there is a socialist in Spain nobody will bother you again”. That night he did just that. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
González visited Alcalá for a meeting shortly afterwards and promised to call in at the disco afterwards to meet Paco in person. However word got round and the venue was so crowded he couldn’t even reach the bar, where Paco was waiting with some refreshments. They could only wave to each other from a distance. His security team escorted him out, but he would return several times in subsequent years to meet the family and eat in the restaurant.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The day after González’s visit, the police turned up and demanded to see all the documents and licences relating to the disco. Paco had them all to hand, but they insisted that he was disobeying the order to stay away. Paco showed them the letter from Felipe González. They read it carefully then went away. The disco stayed open another twenty years, until the point when the trafficking in drugs could no longer be kept under control.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.lavozdigital.es/cadiz/20130327/local/casa-pizarro-201303270836.html" target="_blank">There is a story</a> that when the disco was in its heyday, the religious processions during Semana Santa used to lose their followers as they were enticed into the disco by the sound of Bob Marley et al. The priest asked Paco to turn the music down, which he did, but the problem continued. In the end the priest decided that the processions should not pass along the Paseo de la Playa, which remains the case to this day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When Paco was barred from his own disco, he ran the bar in the San Jorge Hotel which his father had purchased. He decorated it with coloured lights and soft music, with the occasional jazz singer and other live entertainers. It became as popular as the disco, in its own way.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
During a general election campaign, some teachers and local politicians were having lunch in Pizarro’s dining room when in walked the leader of the right-wing Allianza Popular, Manuel Fraga. Being of a somewhat different political persuasion, the locals started to heckle him until the point where Paco had to ask them to quieten down. Meanwhile Fraga. a notorious gourmand, took full advantage of the local dishes presented to him, and offered his congratulations to the chef. Seeing that his guest was somewhat the worse for wear, Paco let him use his bed to take a siesta afterwards, so he would be fresh for his meeting in the evening. The following day, people in the town shouted “fascist!” at his mother, but she countered them by saying that one should be generous to everybody, regardless of their social class, economic position or religion.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3>
The Arrogant Argentinian</h3>
<div>
Carlos Perdomo was a wealthy Argentinian businessman who in 1985 brought a finca and 1000 hectares of land in Alcalá. He and his wife ate regularly at the restaurant, and Paco started to act as a go-between between Perdomo and local tradesmen, whom Perdomo treated with disdain, stating publicly that you should never trust anyone, not even your mother. This upset Paco greatly, as it went completely against his personal philosophy. But he carried on doing favours for this odious gentleman, and they continued to ply him with expensive gifts.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Their demands became more and more bizarre; they decided they wanted some rabbits on their finca, so Paco arranged for some friends in Paterna to bring over a few sackfuls, which were duly released. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Three years after purchasing the finca, the Perdomos were away for Christmas and someone burnt their house down. The culprit was never caught. Perdomo wanted Paco to buy the land off him, and he even offered to let him pay in instalments, but it was far too expensive. So he authorised him to sell the land on his behalf, though it was Ángel who did the work, as Paco didn’t have a head for that sort of thing. They ended up with a gift of 5 million pesetas (€70,000 in today’s terms).</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Sotogrande</h3>
<div>
<div>
During the second half of the 1980s, Paco took the lease on a restaurant in Sotogrande, an upmarket resort/marina at the western end of the Costa del Sol. He sussed out the competition, and decided to model it on his successful restaurant in Alcalá, with the same name and specialising in traditional rustic dishes. He lured in the English visitors, who he knew liked to dine early, by offering free aperatifs in the early evening. He also undercut the prices of his main competitors, particularly on the wine list.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Word got round and many famous people including the King’s daughter, the Infanta Elena, came to enjoy home-cooked pheasant, partridge, wild boar and venison. Paco would go out and chat to his well-heeled guests, who of course found him totally charming. One English aristocrat who lived nearby admired his paintings, which were hung on the walls. She invited him to her studio and they became good friends. Another of the same stripe, Lady Fiona Lowsley, invited him to exhibit four of his paintings in her mansion. He was offered the job of providing artworks for a new hotel that a friend of hers was setting up. He was tempted for a while, but knew his heart was in his restaurant business and he could not do both.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In 1986 the film crew of <i>Empire of the Sun</i> visited Sotogrande to shoot some scenes. The producer asked if they could take over the restaurant for three days, using their own chefs. Paco offered a compromise; he would set aside a table for them on the terrace while he continued to service his regular customers inside. This was how Paco got to meet Stephen Spielberg, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Chrstian Bale.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Another guest introduced himself as Antonio Pizarro, a professor of medicine from New York. He wondered if they were related. Paco explained that they were probably all descendants of the conquistador of Peru, Francisco Pizarro, who came from Trujillo in Extremadura. Paco’s great-great-grandfather had married against the wishes of his family and moved from Trujillo to Alcalá, where he set up a greengrocer store in Rio Verde. The visitor said that his family had emigrated to the US from Cáceres, Extremadura, so the two of them went on a pilgrimage to discover their roots.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTUpnwjmANdJNbalawVlykW9gF9tTIYdJb3sry1ZQL8Wu7o5HFyKGzuSeacRKxZ4wibfOrjSyrQuwFozPiAuhFUfi4QcFpGcQ21euy59YAA-__ZjE16SxBCcR38FCaM6zGgAmL5BVvQZs/s1600/francisco-pizarro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTUpnwjmANdJNbalawVlykW9gF9tTIYdJb3sry1ZQL8Wu7o5HFyKGzuSeacRKxZ4wibfOrjSyrQuwFozPiAuhFUfi4QcFpGcQ21euy59YAA-__ZjE16SxBCcR38FCaM6zGgAmL5BVvQZs/s1600/francisco-pizarro.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The other Francisco Pizarro</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Peruvian connection was genuine. Previously the mayor of Alcalá had received a letter from the Peruvian government, addressed to everyone in the town named Pizarro, detailing all the land and property that was their inheritance in that country. Everyone started planning what they would spend the money on, but it turned out that the 75% inheritance tax and the large number of heirs made it not worth the effort of going to Peru to claim it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One day the owners of the restaurant arrived and offered Paco a partnership and a share of the profits. Recalling his father’s experience with La Parada, he declined their offer and continued to rent it on a monthly basis. They put the rent up every year, until after eight years it was three times as much as the original rate - 900,000 ptas (about €10,000) a month.. They knew he could afford it, he was doing well and had bought a house. But Paco had decided it was time to go home.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Return to Alcalá</h3>
<div>
So once again Paco returned to Alcalá, where for the next few years he worked in the restaurant during the day and the disco at night. He was shocked and saddened by the number of young people who had become addicted to heroin, their bright young lives destroyed. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But there were good things happening in the town as well. Paco had always been interested in the theatre, and was invited by Mercedes, Inma and Maribel from the recently established adult education centre to help put on a performance of Lorca’s play <i>Bodas de Sangre</i> (Blood Wedding). It was quite a challenge, because none of the cast had acting experience and some were barely literate. But they pulled it off, gave a memorable performance in the patio of the Sagrada Familia, and went on to take the production to other towns in the area.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHI0viCX6lY-1y-EDI6Qxw9o6hfMwBVZ7sMzqmu_ixdB_Nba8Q7pA8x7_gzn5NUrdiNjE_hJ4pJz5AN4vYKAyN2IUfuzaAuzPgxGoNWt2zkrJGri_spsh_filgLeR8qUZ-iDoUCAVxVwBj/s1600/CCI_000004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="1011" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHI0viCX6lY-1y-EDI6Qxw9o6hfMwBVZ7sMzqmu_ixdB_Nba8Q7pA8x7_gzn5NUrdiNjE_hJ4pJz5AN4vYKAyN2IUfuzaAuzPgxGoNWt2zkrJGri_spsh_filgLeR8qUZ-iDoUCAVxVwBj/s400/CCI_000004.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Directing the drama group at the Adult Education Cenre</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It was clear that the actors felt a strong emotional connection to the characters they were playing. They were invited to represent Cádiz in an Andalucia-wide amateur dramatics competition, which took place in Almeria; the cast and crew were put up in a four-star hotel, which was something beyond the wildest dreams of most of them. Despite the fact that they were competing against experienced drama companies from Seville, Malaga and all the other regional capitals, they were awarded first prize. Paco continued as drama director at the Centre for a further eight years, producing almost the entire Lorca repertoire.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3>
Miami!</h3>
</div>
<div>
One day in 2006 Paco received a call from his sister’s son Alejandro inviting him over to Miami for a couple of weeks. He accepted straight away – his children were grown up, the restaurant had good staff and would prosper without him, and he had always loved to travel. He ended up staying two years.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi7WbNiyjAikSprnEstb4gdlUa92dF_8POXW-OcgMynkz7qv6I6KLQZUbta9XrMN1mRg5Avc_ys5B_Sl7e43WB80N3IYMon6M27BcN1E7XCMhFN5n7eroxAQPW7c9FNgUQg9-o56QSf2Q1/s1600/artist-alejandro-sanz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="320" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi7WbNiyjAikSprnEstb4gdlUa92dF_8POXW-OcgMynkz7qv6I6KLQZUbta9XrMN1mRg5Avc_ys5B_Sl7e43WB80N3IYMon6M27BcN1E7XCMhFN5n7eroxAQPW7c9FNgUQg9-o56QSf2Q1/s200/artist-alejandro-sanz.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alejandro Sanz</td></tr>
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<div>
Alejandro Sanz is one of the most famous pop stars in the Spanish-speaking world, winner of countless awards and gold discs. He had lived in Miami for many years and wanted to show off his “Tío Paco” to his American friends, and vice versa. Paco was introduced to countless stars, actors, film directors, artists, musicians, politicians and businessmen, and had the time of his life. Alejandro’s famous house parties were given an Andalusian flavour by Paco's presence, and the locals loved it. Highlights of the stay including reading Jennifer Lopez’s palm, swimming naked in Shakira’s swimming pool, and dinner with the family of the late Bob Marley, where he was ordered to smoke all the ganja he was offered so as not to offend them. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When dining with David and Victoria Beckham in a restaurant, Paco asked the waiter for some lemonade to mix with his red wne, as was his custom when at home. Alejandro gave him a strange look. Later he had a glimpse at the menu and realised he’d just made <i>tinto de verano</i> with wine that cost $1,400 a bottle. Paco wasn’t terribly impressed with the tasting menu, especially some foam which exploded in the mouth. He also noted that during the whole evening Victoria only ate two broccoli florets and a couple of endive leaves, washed down with champagne.<br />
<br />
Other anecdotes were <a href="https://www.abc.es/estilo/gente/20130605/abci-alejandro-sanz-tuve-censurar-201306051350.html" target="_blank">edited out of the manuscript</a> by Alejeandro, to spare the dignity of his friends...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
The Grand Tour</h3>
<div>
In March 2007 Paco accompanied Alejamdro on a year-long tour, <i>El Tren de los Momentos</i>. This gave him a chance to satisfy his wanderlust further, as they visited countries in Central and South America as well as the USA and Spain. All the concerts were sold out well in advance. He would watch every performance from backstage, dancing and joining in the songs. While they were in Spain, he took on the role of liaising with the fan club organisers, who affectionately christened him “Tío Paco”.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Paco got see as much of the places they visited as he could. True to form, when told to avoid venturing into what were considered dangerous areas of cities such as Mexico DF, he would sneak off on his own just to see why. He also enjoyed the more usual tourist venues, including the studios of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, which affected him deeply.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Whilst in Mexico City, he noticed from his hotel window a home furnishing shop called Lienzo de los Gazules. Curious to know the origin of its name, he went in and introduced himself to the owner, who told him that his father had founded the business in Alcalá de Guadaira, near Seville, in 1991. But he didn’t like that name and looked for a different Alcalá. He liked the sound of Gazules, which had an Arabic ring to it, so he wrote to the mayor asking permission to use the name for his enterprise. He never received a reply.</div>
<h3>
<br />The Final Return</h3>
<div>
After two years, Paco decided it was time to home to his wife and family. His brother Ángel, who had been running the restaurant, was ill and there was no-one else to take over. He had thought that in America he would be able to enjoy the liberty he loved, but it turned out that people there were nothing more than numbers controlled by the authorities. This came to a head on his return journey; at Miami airport he was seized and taken to an interview room. The police were looking for a terrorist named Francisco Pizarro Medina, from Alcalá de los Gazules. Clearly, somebody had stolen his identity.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Five hours later they returned his passport and he was released with instructions to get his paperwork sorted. No explanation, no apology, no refund on his missed flight. Even though he had committed no offence, he was treated like a criminal. Eventually Alejandro managed to resolve the issue and Paco was able to leave the country. But if he hadn’t had a famous nephew, who knows what might have happened.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Back in the restaurant, playing dominoes and chatting to his old friends about his adventures, Paco knew he had made the right decision. He had made the most of his life, and was ready to enjoy his old age back where he started. And now he had a book to write.</div>
<div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiNjS28geTOU3udBuSlvv5rhS6bKzAEZ-xXbgakXYTu_93k9_7JpF7qaShLYF99cie-aRV94Cx5vntZTwYdI2N5x0QfEYCMMB_DPqVvxMIRMNGNINLSuIPOpNnpJaZIx19Yq0Ve3u02o6Z/s1600/Restaurante-Pizarro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="847" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiNjS28geTOU3udBuSlvv5rhS6bKzAEZ-xXbgakXYTu_93k9_7JpF7qaShLYF99cie-aRV94Cx5vntZTwYdI2N5x0QfEYCMMB_DPqVvxMIRMNGNINLSuIPOpNnpJaZIx19Yq0Ve3u02o6Z/s400/Restaurante-Pizarro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Epilogue</h3>
<div>
In 2010 Paco realised a long-held dream of seeing his nephew give <a href="http://gazules.blogspot.com/2010/09/alejandro-sanz-alcalas-adopted-son.html" target="_blank">a concert in Alcalá de los Gazules</a>. </div>
<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fans arrive hours early for the concert in the football ground.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The book <i>Tío Paco</i> was published in 2013. Alejandro wrote the introduction, and flew over for the launch party in Madrid.</div>
<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paco and Alejandro, reunited for the book launch.</td></tr>
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In the same year, the TV show "Diez Razones para ir a ..." (Ten reasons to go to ...) came to Alcalá. Alejandro was Reason No 3, and the programme included an interview with Paco:</div>
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Last year a Brazilian Sanz fan, Gina Clavijo, came to Alcalá to meet Paco. She made this video, which includes an interview with him in his house:</div>
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A few weeks before his death, we were walking down the Playa one night with some friends and we heard a chorus of female voices outside Restaurante Pizarro chanting “Tío Paco! Tío Paco!” It was a coach-load of Alejandro’s fans, doing a tour of their idol’s origins. They all wore black T-shirts with Tío Paco written on them. The entertainment was provided by a carnival group from Cádiz, and then they all had a meal in the restaurant. I don't know whether he was well enough to attend in person, but he would have certainly been there in spirit.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paco's fan club outside Pizzies</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-78975857808332894102018-09-17T16:52:00.000+02:002018-09-17T16:53:43.643+02:00Defecating on deities: Willy Toledo and the right to free speechSwearing in Spanish involves a fair amount of shit. <i>Me cago en la leche</i> (I shit in the milk) or <i>me cago en el mar</i> (<a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/23/inenglish/1435069292_940629.html" target="_blank">I shit in the sea</a>)<i> </i>are<i> </i>fairly mild expletives, along the lines of "Oh fuck". <i>Me cago en tus muertos/tu puta madre </i>(I shit on your dead relatives/whore of a mother) are stronger, and more likely to get you into a fight. <i>Me cago en Dios</i> (I shit on God) is in the first category - vulgar, certainly, but not likely to get you arrested.<br />
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But Spanish actor, theatrical director and left-wing activist Willy Toledo went too far for some people when he posted on Facebook last year: <i>"Yo me cago en Dios. Y me sobra mierda para cagarme en el dogma de la santidad y virginidad de la Virgen María" </i>(I shit on God, and have enough shit left over to crap on the dogma of the holiness and virginity of the Virgin Mary).<br />
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This outburst was in response to the reopening of the case against three women who in 2014 had paraded an enormous vagina around the streets of Seville in a May Day procession (1 May is international workers' day). They called it <i>El coño insumiso </i>(the insubordinate pussy). The original case against them <a href="https://elpais.com/politica/2016/02/04/actualidad/1454587175_950999.html" target="_blank">was shelved in 2016</a> when the judge decided it was a political statement and not intended to offend religious sensibilities. However the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers disagreed, and appealed against the decision.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Insubordinate Pussy</td></tr>
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That same association claimed Willy Toledo's Facebook post most certainly did offend religious sensibilities, contravening Article 525 of the Spanish Penal Code which criminalises those who offend the feelings of members of a religious faith by "publicly disparaging their dogmas, beliefs, rites or ceremonies". The same law applies to those of no religious faith.<br />
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Toledo twice failed to turn up at the court hearing, stating that as an atheist he has the right to express anti-religious opinions. He was subsequently <a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/09/04/inenglish/1536063749_831261.html?rel=mas" target="_blank">arrested for ignoring a court summons</a>. The Religious Lawyers Association claims his actions are a publicity stunt, as his acting career has been moribund for seven years (Toledo himself believes he was blacklisted for his political beliefs). They are also asking for him to be tried for hate crimes, after he stated publicly that priests killed by Republicans during the Civil War "probably deserved it", given that they openly supported the Francoist uprising.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Defiance in the face of authority</td></tr>
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Last week he was escorted by police to a court in Madrid to answer the charge of obstruction of justice. He spent the night in a cell, during which he was denied access to his lawyer, but was set free after the hearing, without bail. He was greeted outside by a crowd of supporters shouting "Me cago en Dios", and assured them that as far as he was concerned, he hadn't committed any crime and had a right to free speech.<br />
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It is not not known at this stage whether the Courts will continue with the case against him. The Christian lawyers certainly won't give up without a fight. But he has stated that he will see it through to the end, whatever that may be, in the name of free speech.<br />
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The case has certainly brought this formerly obscure law to public attention. Given the number of Spaniards who shit on God on a regular basis, one has to ask whether those right-wing Christian fundamentalist lawyers singled him out for some other reason ...<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-703770976932160540.post-83461047785958870002018-09-03T16:07:00.000+02:002018-09-03T16:15:53.748+02:00Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, the Spanish David Attenborough<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The municipal park in Alcalá, next to the Paseo de la Playa and site of the new tourist information office, is named after one Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. But few visitors from outside Spain have a clue who he was.<br />
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Félix was born in 1928 in Poza de la Sal, Burgos, into a middle-class intellectual household. During the Civil War (1936-1939) he was home-schooled, and spent a lot of time outdoors where he developed a deep passion for the natural world. At the age of ten, he was sent to a religious boarding school and lamented his lost freedom, but on a summer holiday in Santander he apparently witnessed a hawk taking a duck in flight, which led him to become interested in falconry.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At a falconry exhibition in 1955</td></tr>
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After leaving school he went to the University of Valladolid to study medicine, at his father's insistence, but he was more interested in environmental issues and was never a good student. It was there that he met and became influenced by the biologist José Antonio Valverde, who was campaigning to stop the government draining the wetlands which later became the Doñana National Park. Félix also took time out from his medical studies to research medieval texts on falconry, which hadn't been practiced in Spain for 150 years, and was a founder member of the Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO) in 1954.<br />
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Felix graduated in dentistry in 1957 but after a couple of years, following the death of his father, he decided to devote himself full-time to his true passions. In 1961 he worked as falconry advisor during the filming of El Cid, a Hollywood movie starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren, filmed mainly in Spain. He published the first of many books, The Art of Falconry, in 1964 and in the following years made a name for himself through numerous television and radio appearances as well as articles in newspapers and magazines.<br />
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In 1965 he rescued two wolf-cubs being beaten to death in a village, and took them away to raise at home with his future wife Marcelle Parmentier. He named then Sibila and Remo, and acknowledged them as his first children. It was with them that he first practiced the technique of imprinting, becoming "alpha male" in this small pack. The experience was to develop into a life-long passion for wolves.<br />
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Félix's big break came in 1970, when he produced and presented a documentary series for Spanish state television entitled <i>El Planeta Azul</i> (The Blue Planet), in black-and-white. Unlike David Attenborough's series of the same name, which appeared 30 years later, it dealt with all kinds of wildlife, not just marine life. But like Attenborough, he alternated between speaking directly to camera and narrating film footage shot in the wild. His passion and enthusiasm is clearly shown in this <a href="http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/el-planeta-azul/planeta-azul-grandes-gatos/4637720/" target="_blank">episode on big cats</a>, where he explains the relationship between the behaviour of domestic cats and kittens and their larger predatory cousins. The show ran for four years and won acclaim across the Spanish-speaking world.<br />
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In the following years he continued to produce and present documentaries on TV and radio, and edited a series of wildlife conservation volumes, <i>Enciclopedia salvat de la fauna mundial</i>, which was translated into 14 languages and sold 18 million copies worldwide.<br />
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At the same time he became involved in a number of conservationist projects. The most memorable and successful of these was the protection and reintroduction of the almost extinct Iberian wolf. This gained him respect amongst conservationists worldwide, but also the animosity of hunters and farmers. Other campaigns included the brown bear, Iberian lynx, golden eagle and Spanish imperial eagle, as well as fighting to preserve precious habitats such as Coto Doñana and the Tablas de Daimiel, which later became National Parks.<br />
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His most famous documentary series, <i>El Hombre y La Tierra</i> (The Man and the Earth) was launched in 1973 and ran till his premature death in 1980, a total of 124 episodes which can be watched online on the <a href="http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/el-hombre-y-la-tierra/" target="_blank">RTVE A la Carta archive</a>. The project was divided into three parts, covering Iberia, South America and North America. They are subtitled in Spanish, and well worth watching even if you don't speak the language because of the stunning photography. It was shot in 35mm colour film and the crew frequently had to lug bulky equipment across inhospitable terrain, but their combined efforts resulted in numerous awards and a whole new generation of fans across Spain. <br />
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Felix's "David Attenborough-with-gorillas" moment came when he used the imprinting method first devised with the cubs Sibila and Remo to make himself a member of a pack of wild wolves, in order to study and record their behaviour as if there were no humans present.<br />
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In March 1980 Felix flew to Alaska with the film crew to cover the Iditarod Trail sled dog race. He was apparently afraid of flying, and quipped on take-off “what a beautiful place to die”. Tragically the small plane on which he was travelling with two of the crew became unstable when one of its skis came loose, and crashed with no survivors, not far from the Klondike. The date was 14 March 1980, his 52nd birthday.<br />
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Felix believed passionately in a future where humans and animals could live in harmony, and dedicated his life to that goal, leaving a whole generation of Spanish children (and adults) with a new respect for the natural world. I’ve no idea whether he ever met David Attenborough, but they would certainly have got on. Had he survived, he would no doubt have been a comparable force in the fight against mankind's wilful disregard for the environment.<br />
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Statues, monuments and plaques bearing the name of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente can be found all over Spain, including Alcalá de los Gazules, located in the park which was given his name in 1983.<br />
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