Vejer and the start of the Spanish Civil War

The proclamation of the Republic on the Plaza de España, February 1936

   Since I’ve been writing about the history of Vejer, people have often asked me for information about what happened here in the Civil War (1936-1939). After Franco died, most Spanish people preferred to concentrate on building a new, democratic nation, and avoided dwelling on the past. In recent years, however, a new generation has insisted on knowing more about their grandparents' war.

The facts are fairly simple. On July 18th 1936, General Franco’s Nationalist followers instigated a rebellion again the elected Republican government. The cities of Cadiz and Seville declared their support for the Nationalist rebels. The government retained control of Málaga, Jaen and Almería. Control of the smaller towns east of Cadiz, including Vejer, was established over the following few days.

Bernabé Muñoz Brenes of Conil, one of the many who disappeared during the Civil War

  Writing in the early 1970s, with the Francoist régime still in place, though in its last throes, Antonio Morillo’s poetic history ‘Vejer de la Frontera y su comarca: aportaciones a su historia’ (1974) is magnificently informative about many aspects of local history. Morillo believed that ‘the knowledge of history is currently a desire awakened more in the visitor than in the resident’. He stated that ‘the history of Vejer  and its surroundings is a simple and straightforward story’, but bemoaned the loss of important records ‘owing to the ignorance and carelessness of past generations’.

   Morillo, who became Vejer’s Mayor and remained in office for many years, wrote an evocative description of the events surrounding Vejer’s subjection by Nationalist forces. What follows is a translation of his account:

  ‘In the first months of 1936, the situation was chaotic. The elections of February, with the triumph of the National Front, hardened opinions on both sides. Quarrels were threatened between the parties in the coalition. The atmosphere breathed menace. On April 14th, 40 people from Vejer and Barbate were imprisoned in Chiclana, though fortunately they were set free within a short space of time.

  ‘Passions began to overflow on 18th and 19th July, when the first alarming news was received of an invasion from Morocco. Groups of people armed with sticks and stones began to gather on the streets, breaking windows and terrifying the people trapped inside. Fear and distress prevailed as everyone braced themselves for worse violence. 

The hated Guardia Civil, a paramilitary police force which enforced Nationalist control

  ‘At dawn that Sunday, the first bell rang for Mass. As the sound died away, several men entered the church. As the priest began the service, they demanded to search the church for hidden weapons. Don Angel Caballero tried to persuade them at least to allow the mass to be concluded, but they did not consent and the church was closed.

  ‘The following night, the priests and the sacristan were imprisoned in the town jail, and a heated debate was held about which to burn - the church or the houses of the rich. The first was decided upon. That same night, the altars were sacked and defiled, the parochial archives thrown out onto the street, sacred statues flung onto the floor and images torn up in the street. A bonfire was lit to burn it all.

  ‘The church of Vejer was a sad sight, with its magnificent images and works of art destroyed, including many antique paintings like the priceless ‘Virgen de Gracia’, along with ornaments, gilding and all the books in the archive. Everything was lost in the flames. ‘It’s been a busy night’, as some commentators remarked, emerging sweating from the ransacked church.

Friend of the church assess the damage after a night of destruction.

  ‘It was a doleful picture, which, out of respect and shame, I will not dwell on in all its details. In telling this history, I prefer to take the position of a bystander, and not to allow opinion to cloud the facts. But it was a degrading spectacle and leaving ideology aside - religious ones included - works of art always deserve respect. They are not the property of any time or place and under no circumstances should they be destroyed. The same goes for the archives, an authentic amassing of history over centuries, destroyed for the sake of the resentments of a single moment in history.

Damage to the interior of the church

  ‘Once the burning was over, a meeting was held in the usual place, the patio San Francisco. The most enthusiastic participants wanted to continue with the looting, but Don García Pérez, the local head of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), managed to calm the crowd down, assuring them that they had achieved their objectives, and they returned to their houses. 

  ‘The following day, even the nuns joined in ringing the bells when, from the bell tower came the shout ‘¡the Moors, the Moors!’ Thanks to a telephone operator from Vejer, news of the conflagration in the church had reached Cádiz. 

  ‘A lorry had been sent immediately with twenty four Moroccans soldiers, which at the command of the lieutenant of the regulars, drove up the hill towards Los Remedios. However, anticipating their arrival, the extremists had felled a giant Eucalyptus tree across the road and the way was blocked. The soldiers turned around and ascended via San Miguel. They arrived in warlike mode, commencing their advance through the town with weapons at the ready for the least suspicion of resistance. They met with no more than a few isolated shots.

Falangist women collecting cigarettes for Nationalist rebel fighters

  ‘The rioters and incendiaries, who had apparently vanished into thin air, lurked around La Barca like souls awaiting the Devil. The ‘Moors’ continued to advance through the town, firing into every balcony and open window, most of which were protected by woollen blankets. Five people died, one of them shot through the keyhole by which she was observing the spectacle. Several people were wounded, but only one seriously, and these were brought to the building which is now the Hotel San Francisco on the Plazuela.

  ‘Meanwhile, the streets were patrolled and order was restored, Residents were asked to open their windows, and the call ‘¡Abrir, Abrir! was heard all over town. The priests were released from jail and did their best to calm the people.

  'The soldiers left at four in the afternoon the same day, having organised patrols of volunteers to mount guard at the most strategic points in the town, such as the belltower of the church, using the few weapons they had. Three days later, new rifles arrived, together with some old revolvers. José Mera remained in Vejer as head of the militia and Antonio Muñoz as head of the Falange.

  ‘Voluntary and novice guards continued to police Vejer, and as the tragedy faded, regular soldiers often made jokes at their expense. One day, while on watch, the regulars threw a cooking pot into the Plazuela, where the casino once was, and in a panic, the volunteers dispersed the crowd, believing it to be a bomb. 

  ‘A little later, the same volunteers were on guard when they heard voices crying for help. The chief of the guard, believing a severe military emergency to be at hand, mobilised his men, covering the square as far as the street Nuestra Señora de las Olivas. from where the cries came. Investigating a little further, however, they discovered that all the cries came from one window, and were the lament of a woman whose brother had just died. 

The Falange maintained authority with a powerful military presence

  ‘While the situation gave rise to some comical situations like these, some of the families of the town were overwhelmed by tragedy. Many of the former extremists had been jailed, filling the municipal prison to its limits. Some were shot in subsequent expeditions made by lorry between the outskirts of Chiclana, or along the highway to Medina. Every morning, prisoners' wives took coffee to the jail on Calle de la Fuente only to find that their menfolk had been shot and buried at dawn. They returned to their houses inconsolate and tearful, announcing to their neighbours the sad news. Many died in this way, whose only crime had been ignorance or the recklessness of youth.

  ‘The nationalist rebels continued their northward march, conquering territories as they went. The first Vejeriegos to be recruited to fight in the Nationalist campaign were enlisted into the ‘Lions of Benamaoma’ battalion in August 1936. On September 11th, an expedition left for Algeciras, encountering its first armed conflict at Manilva. The first Vejeriego to die in action on the Nationalist side was José Castrillón Shelly.'

  The Civil War was ‘won’ by the Nationalists in 1939, though many historians believe that Franco deliberately delayed the conquest of Madrid until he had the rest of the country under control. Franco did not need the support of the people. He believed he ruled 'by the will of God'. Over the next three years, many Spanish people would lose their lives in the conflict. However, Republican resistance did not end there, and until well into the 1950s, the ‘Maquis’ guerillas put up a spirited resistance, a topic which I will explore in my next post.

Local youth was indoctrinated with Nationalist ideology. Here seen drilling on the Corredera.

The church, the muzak and the tourist dollar...

  

Vejer's church is the ultimate landmark

This blog doesn’t aim to be controversial, but something has been preying on my mind for a while, and maybe this is the place to voice my doubts. 

  Half way through last summer, feeling exhausted and in need of peace, I decided to pay a visit to Vejer’s beautiful church, La Iglesia del Divino Salvador. I can see the church from my roof terrace; its bells chime melodically through my day, marking the passing hours. I love the interior, and find something new there to enjoy every time I visit.

A calm interior

  But this time, something was wrong. Instead of the comfortable smell of old incense, my nostrils were assailed by the odour of fresh paint. My favourite painting, ‘The Martyrdom of San Sebastian’, was missing. Worst of all, through the air came the sound, not of psalms or plainsong, but of muzak, the kind of sickly, anonymous music we hate when we hear it in lifts or shopping arcades. Unexpectedly, I found myself weeping with disappointment. My refuge from the world had been cheapened.

The Martyrdom of San Sebastian

  I’m lucky enough to have a choice of refuges and half an hour’s reflection was enough to tell me that I’d been overdoing things and needed to take it easy. Still, some doubts persisted. Churches must be painted, of course, like other buildings, and my friend San Sebastian had probably been whisked out of harm’s way while the work continued. Yet I couldn’t help wondering why piped music had been allowed so inappropriately into a place of worship. Could it be something to do with that more modern religion, ‘El Turismo?’

  Vejer’s church has survived many centuries and seen far worse things than tourism. It’s very likely that there has been a place of worship in that spot for millennia, and some of its stones have no doubt seen service as temple and mosque before regrouping in the late 15th century into a new and specifically Christian edifice. Within its walls, there is evidence of Christian, Gothic and Arab art, and it is commonly believed that the first phase, in Mudéjar style, the Islamic-influenced architecture of medieval Spain, was constructed on the site of a former mosque. 

Image of the sun on the church ceiling

  The demolition of the mosque is a clear sign that the old Moorish culture was now thoroughly vanquished, and the new construction was probably inspired by the fall of Granada in 1492, the final phase in the Reconquista. A second phase, in Gothic style, was added in the seventeenth century and had hardly been completed when the tower was destroyed in the earthquake of 1773. 

Old pictures show the taller and more elegant church spire

  

The tower was subsequently rebuilt on a less ambitious scale, and though early images show the original as a more elegant structure than it is today, the replacement has proved durable. In 1936, the church was raided and desecrated by Republican protesters at the start of the Spanish Civil war. Compared with all this, a little muzak seems insignificant. 

Damage caused by Republican protestors

  And yet, as TS Eliot wrote, ‘This is how the world ends - not with a bang, but with a whimper.’ And now, suddenly, I’m wondering how far we can take the pursuit of the tourist euro before we begin to destroy the very thing that brought visitors here in the first place. When I first came to Vejer in 2001, I was enchanted by the purity of its white streets, the tranquillity of the summer afternoon, the sense that here was a community, complete in itself, calm beneath its ancient walls. It was manna to the soul.

Ancient attempts to deface Christian imagery

  I wasn’t the only person to think so, and over the years, I’ve watched as cafes and hotels have opened and visitors have continued to arrive, bringing their own kind of life and vitality. In the last few years, the streets have filled with cafe tables and a bustling, optimistic brightness has prevailed. I love Vejer in all the phases of its year, from the elegant silence of winter to the crowded excitement of the summer Feria. 

  Now, though, I’m beginning to notice some false notes. Not too many, but enough to produce a frisson of discomfort. A row of ugly cafe tables. Nasty purple ‘for sale’ signs which project into the street. Beach-style straw umbrellas in the Parque Los Remedios. Hints of a casino on La Corredera. And though the ‘pergolas’ along La Corredera are convenient for diners and restaurateurs, the old-fashioned parasols had more charm. Now, muzak in the church. And I wonder where it will end.

  The answer, of course, will always be that we have to attract visitors - the town needs the money. Even to say these words is to stifle all argument, and very few people ask about the real profit and loss of tourism. 

   In general, tourist income is classified as either ‘direct income’ or ‘leakage’. Leakage is the amount of money earned by tourism which does not remain in the town, and in some developing nations, as much as 90% may be lost, not merely to other areas, but to other countries. Tourism demands investment, and we have to balance what we spend with what we actually get in return.

  It means that a tourist who flies RyanAir (Ireland), hires a vehicle from Europcar (France) and stocks up at Carrefour (France) on the way to their holiday home rented via Airbnb (USA) from an owner in London (UK) doesn’t bring as much profit into Vejer as we might think. And leakage doesn’t stop there. Whenever a tourist consumes something that isn’t produced in the area, the imports required to meet their needs eat into the profits. That Bacardi (Bermuda) and Coke (USA) aren’t as profitable for Vejer as we might like, and even the ingredients for the ubiquitous Tinto de Verano usually come from elsewhere. Some local businesses work hard to counteract this effect; the Califa Group, for example, has its own market garden, but that’s not the norm.

  Least profitable of all are the groups which visit from the cruise ships in Gibraltar and Cadiz. Their expenditure is carefully managed by their tour operators, and we’re lucky if they buy so much as a cup of coffee in Vejer. They’re the classic ‘tomato tourists’, passing through, but contributing very little.

  Towns like Vejer benefit from tourism by charging tax on hotel rooms, which is spent in part on maintaining the infrastructure, severely tested by the influx of summer visitors, as well as providing facilities and opportunities for tourism. Andalucia has also promised legislation to raise taxes from self-catering accommodation in the near future, though this may be difficult to enforce.

  But most tourist money is made by businesses both large and small. Some companies own more than one business, while others are based outside Andalucia, contributing further to the leakage of revenues. For those who don’t have the opportunity to start and run a business, the benefits are not so easy to spot. While work is available through the summer, it’s heartbreaking to see the unemployment figures soar again in September, with no recovery in sight until the job vacancies begin to creep up again in April. 

The church is a significant part of the town's iconography

  Nevertheless, most potential entrepreneurs believe firmly in the powers of tourism, as much as a matter of blind faith as of economic planning, and those involved in rural development assure me that it’s almost impossible nowadays to persuade anybody to invest in anything outside the tourist industry.  This would be more understandable if tourism delivered all-round wellbeing, but as things stand, at 48%, Vejer has the sixth highest rate of unemployment in the whole of Spain. If the money’s coming in, it certainly isn’t going around.

  The rush for the tourist euro has already led to some unfortunate results locally. Though Vejer has some beautiful shops and now, two art galleries, it’s already difficult to buy anything useful in the old town. The Post Office has migrated to the new part and the library will soon follow. Our two small supermarkets have disappeared, one closed and one so beautified and poshified that I hardly dare enter it for fear of what the prices might be. The electrical goods once so usefully available in one local shop have given way to the tourist trinkets and summer dresses which now seem to be on sale in every other doorway. And, if the everyday shops all close, what’s it going to be like in winter, when the souvenir shops close their doors and the old town becomes a ghost town?

  It hasn’t happened yet, and maybe that day will never come. Spain’s native culture is remarkably vibrant, after all. None of this is intended as criticism of our local tourist industry, which has done so much to enliven Vejer. I’d love to see an extended tourist season, maybe with a high-prestige arts festival in Spring or Autumn. But every town needs a balanced economy, and with all eyes fixed firmly on tourism, it seems unlikely that we’ll get one. The new business centre, planned to open this year, may help, but only if some of its users can be weaned off the tourist habit and onto something which offers year-round employment.

Seasonal unemployment has become more exaggerated in recent years

  It all seems a long way from where I started, with the music in the church. But let’s be careful, too. Vejer’s selling point is its beauty, it’s dignity, its ancient heritage, and if these go, who’s going to struggle up the hill to find what’s already available in nearby Conil, and so much closer to the beach? Tourism, the biggest industry in the world, is a good servant, but a poor master. 

Hawaiian style beach umbrellas in the park

 I don’t forget that Vejer is not really my town. Most of its summer visitors are Spanish, and the Spanish presumably know what the Spanish want. But as Coco Chanel said, ‘elegance is refusal’. Let’s just be ready to refuse the ugly and the inappropriate. Nobody will blame us or keep away because we don’t have muzak in the church, a casino or Caribbean style beach umbrellas in the park. Nobody asked for them and most probably, nobody wants them. Or do they? 

Vejer de la Frontera and the Barbary Corsairs.

  

View from the Mayorazgo Tower. Before the houses were built, the whole coastline was visible

  
When I’m asked to take visitors on a historical tour of Vejer, I like to begin at the top of the Mayorazgo tower. This building, which was not originally associated with the house in whose patio it stands, is a permanent reminder of the white slave trade, and explains in concrete terms why the town exists in the form it does today. 

  Before the houses to the south-west were built in the twentieth century, it was possible to survey the entire sweep of coastline, including, on a clear day, the North African coast on the other side of the water. 

The far coast of Africa is visible from Vejer

  Nobody could approach during the hours of daylight without being seen from afar. When intruders were sighted, the watchman would ring the bell, alerting the town’s residents, both inside and outside the wall, and all the other town bells would join in the clamour. Vejeriegos had time to get inside the walls before the invaders arrived, and once the gates were sealed, the watch was in prime position to repel unwanted visitors. The pirates never got into Vejer.

  For this reason, the town’s walls were carefully maintained, and with their protection, Vejer was able to grow and thrive as an important country town. Most of the suburbs outside the walls did not develop until the pirate threat abated in the eighteenth century, and the convents and bigger houses outside the walls were sturdily fortified. 

  Other settlements in La Janda were not so fortunate. All along the southern european coast, the threat from pirates was so great that it was not worth developing the coastal areas beyond the minimal resources needed to bring in catches of fish and deal with the traffic along the rivers. 

Barbary Corsairs - 19th century woodcut.

  This is why towns like Conil and Barbate, despite being long-established and possessing some impressive fortifications, seem relatively modern, with few historic buildings. As long as the Dukes of Medina Sidonia controlled the area, Vejer, Barbate and Conil were regarded as a single unit, all fulfilling different functions, with Vejer as the La Janda residential and administrative centre. All the business of importing and exporting goods and passengers was done at the river port of La Barca, hidden behind the hill and supplied with a good selection of caves to hide in when the bells rang out. 

 The local authorities did not rely on the walls and towers alone to keep the town safe from pirates. The Dukes of Medina Sidonia, perceiving a threat to their income, funded a system of horseback patrols, and land was sold to strengthen the town’s defences. The Juderia gate was closed for several centuries to secure the Castle area from attack via the Barranco de Almarez. 

The Judería Gate, closed for centuries to keep pirates out.

  Piracy has existed since Roman times and before, but the conditions of the sixteenth century turned an irritation into a plague. After the conquest of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, many North Africans expected a fightback and armed themselves accordingly. When the call failed to come, they turned to guerilla warfare and piracy. There was always something of the jihad in the corsairs’ attitude to Spain.

 Although the pirates were happy to plunder cattle, money and jewels, their main objective was to obtain slaves to trade in the southern mediterranean countries. They made themselves a nuisance all over Europe, and one raiding party reached as far away as Iceland. It has been calculated that around one and a quarter million Europeans were traded by North African and Turkish pirates between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Many slaves died, and many males were castrated and could not reproduce, so the demand was steady.

Galley slaves of the Barbary pirates:1799

  Vejeriegos did not always escape the Corsairs’ attention. Some were taken while away from home and put to work as galley slaves, sex workers, soldiers or manual labourers. When they arrived in Morocco or Algeria, they often found fellow-citizens, with whom they formed groups offering mutual support.

  The wealthy were usually ransomed, and Vejer families were often hard put to to find enough money to buy back their family member. Ironically, some Spaniards mortgaged or sold their own slaves to do this. Piracy caused psychological damage to whole communities. When the King’s inspector, Luis Bravo, visited Vejer in 1577, he was horrified to discover that Vejeriegos were so afraid of the pirates that they were only willing to leave the town’s walled enclosure at the height of the afternoon. 

Mrs. Bradley, unfortunately conveyed into captivity by the Arabs

  Although the corsairs were universally hated, there is plenty of evidence that some merchants were willing to do business with them for commercial advantage. In June 1478, Antón Bernal, a Cadiz merchant, was found guilty after attacking and looting a cargo of provisions destined for Vejer. Bernal, who was an alderman of Cádiz, was not punished, merely required to repay the value of the cargo, suggesting that piracy was regarded as sharp practice rather than criminal behaviour.

  Piracy along the coasts of Europe disappeared during the eighteenth century, as navies grew more powerful. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, agreed to co-operate in suppressing the corsairs. The practice was finally ended by the French conquest of Algiers in 1830. Since then the Barbary Corsairs have been featured in hundreds of films and books, the idea of the White Slave Trade sending a delicate shudder through the bodies of many refined readers. Cruel and ruthless though they were, these pirates have nevertheless been accepted into the myth of the Romantic East, which has fascinated Europeans and Americans for almost two centuries.

The Barbary pirates and their enslaved victims have been romanticised and even sexualised for almost two centuries.

Juan Relinque, hero of the hazas.

 

Juan Relinque's protest, acted out in music and song during Carnival.

This weekend, Vejer will celebrate one of its heroes. Juan Relinque was a fifteenth-century campaigner who took on the wealthy Dukes of Medina Sidonia, and despite suffering insult and imprisonment, secured the ancient right of the people to the lands which had been allocated for public use after the Reconquista. The following is an edited extract from my book, 'Vejer de la Frontera: A History', first published in 2011.

Calle Juan Relinque was named after the town's hero

The story begins after Vejer was liberated from Islamic rule in 1264. King Sancho IV granted land to the incoming Christian population in order to help them survive in their new home. In 1307, King Fernando IV granted jurisdiction over Vejer to Alfonso Pérez de Guzmán, the first Duke of Medina Sidonia, on condition that the law regarding the hazas was respected. This condition was initially respected. However, as time went by, the nobility began to abuse their privileges. Although agriculture was the main source of income in the 15th century, much of the land granted by the Crown to the people of Vejer for pasturage had been appropriated by the Dukes for the cultivation of wheat. Much of the profit from local fisheries also went to the ducal house.

Juan Alonzo, Duke of Medina Sidonia

  As the 16th century advanced, Vejer's economy came under increasing pressure, until in 1535, the situation became unbearable. The people of had repeatedly requested the return of the rights originally granted them by the Crown, but their demands were ignored.  Meanwhile, Juan Alonzo, the current Duke of Medina Sidonia was busy enclosing public land for his own private use, imposing levies on agricultural production and monopolizing public utilities such as ovens and mills. Worst of all was the limiting of public access to farmland which had been enjoyed as communal ground since the repopulation of Vejer – the Hazas de Suerte.
  Matters came to a head when a tax on wine was announced. Juan Relinque was a talented individual who owned property, including a vineyard, on the outskirts of town. It is possible that he had some legal training, though 16th century Spain was  one of the most litigious societies in history. Illiterate peasants and even slaves went to court and did not only sue each other, but also took on their lords. Relinque was clearly well-advised on the law of the land, but there is no clear evidence of the source of his information.
 Relinque quickly realized that the Duke was not recognizing the rights the people were entitled to according to the royal charter by which the Dukes of Medina Sidonia administered the town. He officially expressed his rejection of the new demand, but the estate dismissed his document. Supported by a number of fellow citizens, Relinque took his complaint to the Royal Chancery at Granada, requesting protection for his plea against the Duke.

  A royal decree was issued, instructing the seigniorial authorities to respect his right of appeal. In December, Relinque presented his first demand, denouncing the Duke for the tax on wine, and challenging sales taxes on other goods, such as linen, on the grounds that since the Repopulation, Vejer had been entitled to the privilege of free trade. The citizens of Vejer argued that having paid the statutory ten percent to the estate, they were not liable for further charges, and claimed that Relinque had been unjustly dealt with by the authorities.   The Duke, apparently prevented by arrogance from seeing the writing on the wall, continued to maintain that the estate was his, and he would do what he wanted with it.

  Nevertheless, support for Relinque and his followers continued to grow, and the Duke appealed to Granada for the right to punish the rebels. On Corpus Christi day, 1536, the town crier announced on behalf of the estate that communal lands were to be sold to pay estate expenses. Relinque and some of his supporters, meeting on the Plaza de España, confronted the estate office, causing ‘scandal and commotion’. Relinque and his people were removed to Sanlúcar de Barrameda and imprisoned there. 
  In November of the same year, the Duke’s Procurator requested that the prisoners should remain under lock and key. However, Relinque was permitted to leave jail in order to plead his case, and far from being intimidated, as the Duke presumably intended, took up the cause with renewed enthusiasm. In May 1537, a royal decree recognized six separate abuses which had been carried out by the Duke. 
  Not yet satisfied, Relinque continued to press his case, despite an attack of cold feet on the part of some of his supporters, and obtained permission to proceed with a demand for fiscal equality, on the understanding that his case would be prosecuted for the general good, and not for the benefit of any individual.
During this period, several attempts were made to intimidate Relinque and his followers. Faced with the unaccustomed expenses that Relinque's demands inevitably involved, some powerful families in the town found themselves out of pocket, and attempted to resist the changes. The authorities, however, were prepared to make no exceptions, and ordered them to pay. Finally, the Mayor, Tebedeo Velázquez, and several other wealthy citizens, surprised Relinque as he was walking through the churchyard, and threatened him. Relinque replied coolly that he merely sought justice, and Velázquez retreated to his house in a fury.

Juan Relinque's story is told on this ceramic plaque over the Arco de la Segur.

  During the next four years, Relinque and his supporters pressed for comprehensive reforms and a definitive shift in the balance of power. Their strength was the legality of their claims. Although in 1307, Fernando IV had given the administration of Vejer, with its castle and fortifications, and its existing and future population, to Alfonso Pérez de Gúzman, this did not imply that Gúzmán had proprietorial and seigniorial rights over the town. As part of the agreement, Gúzmán had been bound to observe existing property rights and privileges.        In 1539, Relinque presented the courts with a demand for full restitution of all rights.  expressed in fifteen different points. The Duke responded with bluster, repeating his assertion of ownership, and showing complete ignorance of the law. Evidence of Fernando’s decree was produced, and the Duke’s arguments were dismissed. Years later, he was still muttering about ‘time immemorial’ and ‘ancient laws and customs.’
  The Duke’s party, aware that the point was lost, attempted to stop the process by an agreement with the people of Vejer, and collected some signatures in their support. In 1542, the people of Vejer went back to court to challenge the agreement, which, as Relinque pointed out, was divisive. The court agreed that no agreement could cancel out the rights of the citizens of Vejer, but the issue rumbled on until 1565, when Relinque's interpretation of the law was finally ratified. 

The Tourist Office has devised a walking route devoted to the Hazas de Suerte.

  By this time, both Duke Juan Alonzo and Relinque himself had died. In 1566, the judges of the King’s court issued a condemnation of the ducal house of Medina Sidonia, and ratified all fifteen points of Relinque’s plea of 1536. Although the Dukes dragged their feet when it came to putting the decrees into effect, making further rulings necessary in 1569, and even as late as 1627, the point was won.
  The Dukes of Medina Sidonia were not financially ruined by the new arrangements and continued to be the richest family in Spain, with significant influence on the monarch and his government. Alfonso’s grandson, Alonzo, commanded the Spanish Armada in 1588, and was disgraced when it failed; his subsequent withdrawal from public life had a negative effect on trade in the area.  

Alonzo was disgraced after the defeat of the Spanish Armada

  Juan Relinque García died in 1554. He comes down to us as a Robin Hood of his time, one who used the law to defend his people’s rights against a grasping aristocracy. Little is known about him, but what we do know suggests a man of conscience and a firm will. Although he seems not to have had children of his own, in 1541, he adopted a foundling child, a girl whom he named after his wife, Leonor. The girl is not mentioned in his will, suggesting that she died young.
   Juan Relinque was clearly a man of parts, a skilled and intelligent interpreter of the law, and an obstinate defender of justice. He was also a man of religion, whose final wish was that he should be buried in the parish church of El Divino Salvador. His bequests were small, but included a few vines, some land, an ass and eight doves. His legacy, the freedom and prosperity of the people of Vejer, is incalculable.

  The Hazas are allocated via a sorteo (lottery), which takes place on December 22nd every four years. The next one will take place next year, in 2016. The sorteo might have disappeared when the Church and nobility lost their privileges in 1835. Administration of local lands fell to the local authority, and might have produced a handsome income. However, the Mayor, José de Luna, recognised that the sorteo was an ancient tradition and part of the town's patrimony, and insisted that the sorteo should be retained as the most equitable way of allocating the Hazas among Vejer's citizens.

The sorteo of 1988, Antonio Morillo presiding.

  Nowadays, Vejer possesses 232 hazas, distributed between thirteen areas, amounting in total to 3,489.80 hectares. These are administered by the Hazas Committee, which consists of 17 councillors and 17 representatives of Vejer society, presided over by the Mayor. The current administration is seeking recognition of the sorteo as an example of the Intangible Heritage of Mankind. Tour group 'Las Marimantas' run a walking tour of Vejer which includes the story of the Hazas de Suerte.

The link below shows one of Vejer's Carnival groups' representing the story of the Hazas in song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVu0g0bytX0

The Names of Spain

Manólo 'El señorito' (the lordling) wears his nickname with pride at the recent Dia Internacionál del Lomo en Manteca in Vejer. The festival celebrates the annual pig-killing and the creation of manteca, a speciality made of flavoured pork lard.

 Most people know about the Spanish system of nicknames in which first names are shortened, combined or adapted, so that Juan Pedro becomes ‘Juanpe’, Francisco is ‘Paco’ and José is ‘Pepe’, among a multitude of others. Nachos, Quiques, Chanos and Chemas abound throughout Spain and these shortened forms are recognised everywhere, but there’s another system of nicknames, local and personal, which you only understand when you know the people and live in the place.

Conil: on the extreme right, Juan Muñoz Leal 'Perragorda', literally 'fat bitch'.

   An early reader of this blog pointed out, quite correctly, that nicknames have existed and continue to exist in all human societies, and without wanting to write an essay on social anthropology, I should explain that I'm talking here about a phenomenon which ethnologists describe as a 'nickname system'. In other words, the use of nicknames has a distinct social function and follows certain rules, which have evolved over time. Nickname systems are typical of the kind of traditional society which has now almost died out in most of Western Europe, and it's interesting to find evidence that some of these customs persist in our part of Spain.

  One of the things which intrigued me when I lived in a Cornish seaside town was the rich fund of nicknames the local people used for their friends and family, which almost amounted to a parallel naming system. It’s often been argued that these local nicknames are given when many people share the same name. Naming traditions were often very conservative, with sons named after their fathers and daughters after their mothers, and so within a few generations, a new method of distinguishing different individuals was required. Nicknames were therefore used to differentiate different famiies with the same surname, so for example, if you belonged to one branch of the Stephens family, you were a ‘Cush’, if to another, you were a ‘Blue’.

 María, 'La Gavanilla' buys coal from Diego, the 'Carbonero', while María 'La Cara' passes by.

  This explanation is very appealing and undoubtedly explains in part the widespread use of nicknames which, as I soon discovered, is a feature of all societies, and not limited to Cornwall, or even to Europe. However, as nicknames are also used in communities where a wide range of surnames exists, it’s clear that they are also related to an older naming tradition than the one we use now. 

One of Juan 'Camacha's' remarkable photographs of 

Conil fishermen.

  Writing in 1892, John Hobson Matthews declared that ‘They (nicknames) are a relic of a primitive state of society, and flourish only where primitive ideas still prevail’, and though his dismissal of nicknames as ‘primitive’ is inaccurate, he is probably right to say that the roots of the custom lie deep in the past. 

   Just as in other countries, nobody in Spain chose to have an official family name or names. The necessity to find one was imposed by law at the end of the 16th century, when the population was growing fast and the Council of Trent judged it necessary to register every individual.

  Faced with this requirement, the Spanish people drew on a number of traditions to equip themselves with a legal identity. Many people had previously used the patronymic system, adding an ‘ez’ to their father’s name and writing it after their own. This tradition, which dates back to the Visigoths, meant that Gonzalo, son of Alvaro, would be Gonzalo Alvarez, and that his son, named after the grandfather, would be Alvaro González. After the law changed, Alvaro would also have had to give the name González to his own children.

   Other traditions included naming people after physical characteristics, (Calvo - bald headed), place of origin (de Córdoba) or occupation (Herrera - blacksmith). All these surnames persist today, among many others, and some were clearly based on nicknames which had been awarded to an individual, only to be passed on to his children when surnames became compulsory. And as Spanish naming customs require that every child is baptised with first its father's and then its mother's surname, and religious custom involved adding at baptism the name of the parish patron saint, official names were often lengthy and cumbersome, as in the case of the painter Pablo Picasso, who was baptised Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. In cases like this. some kind of simplification is both desirable and inevitable.

  Nicknames arose from speech, not from legislators or bureaucrats, and so they form part of the oral tradition which is an essential part of every culture. Not surprisingly, once surnames became formalised, they lost their power to express close identity and personal knowledge, as well as their usefulness as a vehicle for wit and invention. In a culture which was already rich before writing and reading became universal pursuits, nicknames expressed both individuality and social cohesion. 

  I first became aware of the existence of local surnames in this part of the world when my friend Adrián, from nearby Conil, told me that his father, Sebastián Brenes, was known among his friends as ‘El Plancha’ (an iron, grill or metal plate). Intriguingly, the surname ‘Brenes’ is of Celtic origin, referring to a site where metal is worked. The British equivalent is ‘Baines’. Yes, Adrián confirmed, his grandfather had also been ‘El Plancha’. And while it’s a stretch to imagine a nickname enduring from as long ago as the Iron Age, the connection is intriguing.

Vejer: Antonia 'la Matea' Mateo

  I wanted to find out if local nicknames were as common here as they are in Cornwall, and I was lucky to find ‘Conil en la Memoria’, a collection of photographs taken in that town over the past 130 years. Early pictures revealed very little. Local nicknames are the speciality of the working classes, many of whom, in the early years of this century, still did not read or write. Only the wealthy could afford to have their photos taken, and the first images show well-dressed people, formally posed with both surnames, father’s and mother’s, respectfully attached. It isn’t until the nineteen sixties that a photographer called Juan ‘Capacha’ arrives on the scene to document the lives of working people.

 ‘Capacha’ doesn’t feature on any list of famous photographers, but he was clearly passionate about recording the day-to day life of Conil. For the first time, we see María, ‘la Cubana’, Ramón ‘Cacho’ Nuñez, the gardener, Juan ‘el Sillero’, Juan Alba, ‘el Chato’ and ‘el Guaqui’, the ice-cream maker. In a beautiful picture from the 1970s, Tomás Pareja ‘Boquerón’ and Antonia Caballero ‘La Matea' haul ropes during the Jábega fishing season.

'Boqueron' and 'La Matea', apparently an unusual example of a woman working in the fishing industry. As she's not really dressed for work, and 'Boqueron' is not working too hard either, the photo was probably posed.

Some of these nicknames simply describe occupations and are easy to understand. There’s no mystery about why Chana, who made churros, should be ‘la Churrera’, though why her husband, Sebastián, should be ‘el Chulo’ is less clear. The word means ‘cute’, or, nowadays, ‘cool’, though the noun form also means ‘pimp’. A ‘cacho’ is a little piece, and this is a common nickname in Spain, but ‘Guaqui' is not in the dictionary, unless it relates to the town of the same name in Bolivia, a distant, though not inconceivable possibility. Less exotically, it's probably a diminutive of the Christian name 'Joaquín'.

I half hoped that ‘La Matea' would mean ‘killer woman’, but it seems that this is a common nickname for women with the surname ‘Mateo’. ‘Chato’ means snub-nosed, or possibly short-sighted. In other words, a nickname can derive from almost anything that marks you out as an individual, for good or bad.

 After making these discoveries, I had no doubt that nicknames would be as prevalent in Vejer as in Conil, and so it proved to be. I quickly found the butcher Pepe ‘el Perlino’ (pearly) Tello, pictured at a social occasion, Alfonso ‘La Tila’ (‘lime blossom’, but possibly referring to a site in Vejer) Melero, still at school and Antonia ‘la Matea’ Mateo. There was Morillo ‘el Curricán’ (fishing line) Basallote, José 'el Burra' Domínguez, José el Mozo, (lad) Maria 'La Lobita' (presumably from nearby 'La Lopita', though 'loba' is also a slang term for a prostitute), the young footballer Manolito ‘el Mono’ (the monkey), Joselita 'el Penumbra' (the shadow)...'El Tumba' (the tomb). Interestingly, those who remembered María ‘la Gabanilla’ spelled her nickname in several different ways, a clear indication that these nicknames proceed from a spoken, rather than a written tradition.

Vejer 1973: Manólito 'El Mono' is on the bottom row, second from the right.

  The list could go on and on, and there is scope here for serious research. Some names are specific to one individual, but as John Hobson Matthews said, ‘some names cling to these families through generations’. The system of nicknames can involve the past history as well as the present situation of every individual. 

  Nickname systems have been described by ethnologists as a means of expressing relationships of power and trust; 'to place people but also to put them in their place'. Nicknames are rarely used by families or outsiders, and so provide a mechanism for establishing new social circles outside the family group. Where nicknames are predominantly used by men, the intention is usually to exert control through verbal aggression, and though in this area, they are generally used equally by both sexes, the existence of 'apodos' like 'perragorda' - fat bitch - suggests that not every nickname is awarded in a spirit of kindliness and social cohesion.

  It’s clear that the tradition of the local nickname plays an important part in marking different levels of intimacy in a community. A visitor may know your first name and even your surname, but only an insider knows your nickname. The tradition is under threat now, as universal literacy and movement of people from the pueblos to the cities undermines so many local customs, but with luck, the nickname tradition will survive for a long while yet.