The war of independence in Villafáfila 1808-1814

The town of Villafáfila, after the serious demographic and economic crisis that began at the end of the 16th century [1] and lasted for the next century, had begun a period of recovery in the 18th century.

According to the Cadastre of the Marquis of Ensenada, at the beginning of 1752 it had 214 residents: 190 pecheros (including 21 widows and assimilated), 12 hidalgos (including a widow and a minor), and 12 clerics; corresponding to 877 inhabitants [2] . Checks from 1761 give a total figure of 10 more neighbors [3] . According to the data reflected in the 1787 Census, called Floridablanca, Villafáfila has 1,393 inhabitants, 628 men and 765 women [4] .

We have the data from the Resident Register of 1799 [5] , in which 333 residents appear, of which they are 13 clerics, 16 hidalgos (4 widows or assimilable) and 304 pecheros (33 of them are widows).

In the early years of the 19th century, one of the typical mortality crises of the old regime took place due to a succession of bad harvests and epidemics, with each of the years 1804 and 1805 exceeding one hundred deaths in the town alone [6] .

In 1804 the titular doctor, who had signed an assistance contract with the town council for a period of 4 years in 1801, left the town to move to Aranda de Duero, which caused a lawsuit with the council of Villafáfila, which accused him of abandonment of the sick in an epidemic situation:

" There is no doctor for three leagues around, and those who exist are salaried by the justice system and they are not allowed to come and visit this town because of the many sick people in those towns woe ";

the physician alleging a breach by the consistory of the conditions of the obligation document [7] .

During the years of occupation and war, there was also a great increase in mortality, reaching the maximum during the year 1812, when the number of deaths rose to 140, being the average for the five-year period 1809-1813, in which the town suffered from the French domination, 88 deceased per year. Apart from the natives of the town who died as a result of military actions in the regular army or in the guerrillas, and who do not appear in the data of the parish records of Villafáfila.

The economy of Villafáfila was based primarily on agriculture, with the cultivation of cereals, especially wheat and barley, and marginally rye, and the vineyard as the main activities, complemented by the raising of sheep to obtain milk, wool and meat. . Craft and service activities occupied a smaller part of the population. According to data from the 1787 census, which would not be very different from those of the early nineteenth century, the professional distribution of the 1,393 inhabitants is as follows:

For the years prior to the War of Independence, we do not have general data on the socio-professional structure of the entire town, and only partial data, referring to the parishioners of San Pedro, one of the four parishes that the town then had, for a seat of heads of families, widows and orphans over 20 years of age, in which 94 are counted (the 1799 census in that parish lists 90 neighbors). The distribution of professions among the parishioners may not be representative of the entire neighborhood (although it is a large parish that extended from the Plaza Mayor, to the church of San Andrés, current Old Cemetery), but in the absence of total data we can serve as an approximation. The day laborers were the majority with 33 parishioners, including the helpful ones, that they were farm servants with a certain degree of responsibility and hired throughout the year; there were 27 farmers, two of them widows with farming, and also two farmers complemented their agricultural activity with the trade of muleteers; shepherds 6; clerics who lived in parish 5; 2 with the main job of muleteers; 2 employees of the Royal Saltpeter Factory; 1 shoe rack; 1 tailor; 1 cutter; 1 merchant; 1 surgeon. Without trade there are 20 poor and 12 widows, four of them classified as poor 1 tailor; 1 cutter; 1 merchant; 1 surgeon. Without trade there are 20 poor and 12 widows, four of them classified as poor 1 tailor; 1 cutter; 1 merchant; 1 surgeon. Without trade there are 20 poor and 12 widows, four of them classified as poor[10] .

Since the end of the previous century, a Royal Saltpeter Factory had been established in Villafáfila on behalf of the Public Treasury Administration, but since 1801 it had been operating with more sorrow than glory, since its administration and profitability left much to be desired, although it provided permanent employment. four people (administrator, foreman , master of saltpeter and a helper), in addition to several day laborers almost all year round and some neighbors dedicated to transporting firewood and the saltpeter produced [11] . At that time, other commercial or craft establishments also operated in the town:

“ a linseed oil factory, and an iron trade owned by its owner; and likewise that of a considerable fish market which has been established here without contributing anything to the King ”,

according to what the Royal Factory employees denounce before the administrators of the Provincial Revenues, begging to keep the information secret to avoid the hostility of the neighbors in case it transcends [12] .

The town had a municipal institution of justice and regiment since the fifteenth century, formed by two mayors and four aldermen, half belonged to the noble or hidalgo estate and the other half to the pecheros or general state. In addition, there was a Solicitor General of the Common Trustee and a Mayordomo de Propios.

The elections were held on the first of January of each year (after a lawsuit in the mid-eighteenth century, what until then had been the traditional election date of Saint John's Day was moved to that day) and the mayors and aldermen had the right to vote. outgoing, with the participation of the Trustee Attorney on behalf of the public, and the representative of the jurisdictional lord of the town, the Duke of Infantado, who in the early years of the 19th century was the general administrator of income for the province of Zamora, since The position of Mayor or Mayor appointed by His Excellency did not exist since the 16th century.

The election suffered from inbreeding, since the outgoing always tried to choose between their relatives or friends, which generated numerous lawsuits before the court of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid. In 1808 the outgoing mayors D. Bernardo Costilla and José del Teso and the aldermen Don Diego de León, Don Gabriel Costilla, Manuel Torío and Ambrosio Fernández elected to succeed Don Ambrosio Díaz Costilla and Antonio Gutiérrez as mayors, and Don Pedro Manuel Costilla , Don Gregorio Costilla, Antonio Torío and Miguel Fernández as aldermen, relatives of their predecessors, which provokes the judicial claim of the Duke's administrator. The court annuls the election made in Don Ambrosio Díaz and appoints Don Francisco de Calzada as Mayor of Hijosdalgo.

I do not have the complete lists of the mayors and aldermen of the years of the French occupation, but from the partial data it can be deduced that the same families continued to occupy the positions in those years.

In 1808, an Armament or Defense Board was formed in Villafáfila to organize the possible resistance to the enemy and the enlistment of the young men to face it. We do not know who composed it but it is to be assumed that the mayors and aldermen of the year, the parish priests and some of the main neighbors would be part of it, as in June we have news of its existence [13] . By his order, a guard corps had been formed at the end of the year: “ with a corps of advanced guards, formed by order of the Villafáfila Armament Board” [14] .

During the French occupation, this Armament Board disappeared, being replaced by a Subsistence or Supply Board formed by people of certain solvency in the town, by parish priests and the members of each of the parishes as representatives of the common and people. The mayors of those times limited their activity to obtaining supplies for the troops and were under the orders of the Board of Supplies [15] :

“ then there was a Board for the good distribution of supplies; ...that one of those who composed it was Doctor Atienza, and the others were Don Manuel Rodríguez Charro, Don Bernardo Mateos and Don Gerónimo de León, the first two lawyers and the last presbyters of that neighborhood... who officiated at the Justices of Villafáfila and others from the canton to send rations... and that the mayors were mere leaders of the Junta and the French ”.

In October 1814, instructions arrived at the town for the fulfillment of the Royal Order that ordered that the offices of justice and regiment chosen by the towns or imposed by the French cease, and that those who were exercising them in the country be re-established in them. year 1808. Thus the noble mayor elected for 1814, Don Marcelino de León, sends Don Francisco de Calzada and Antonio Gutiérrez to pity, who received the rods to exercise justice on behalf of SM. Fernando VII until the new elections in January 1815 [16] .

The development and consequences of the War of Independence in the rural areas of Castile is not well known. In the case of Villafáfila, located in Tierra de Campos, but not on the main lines of communication, the first contacts with the French troops must have occurred in the summer of 1808, since on July 25 the priest of San Agustín del Well in the Baptized Book:

“ for having kept this book hidden because he was not disgraced at the entrance of the French ”,

but it is not until the beginning of January 1809 when the occupation becomes permanent. Until then the " National War " against the French would have been seen as something worrying, but without suffering the direct consequences of domination.

In the town, following the example of the provincial capital, a Defense Board had been created to organize the possible resistance to the enemy and the enlistment of the young men to face it. One of its first measures, in June, was to decree the mobilization of men, including the employees and laborers of the Royal Saltpeter Factory, which caused its administrator, Mr. Francisco Xabier Sánchez Hedrado, to present a brief before the Zamora Defense Board, complaining about these provisions. In the capital, at the meeting of the Provincial Armament Board on July 12, it was agreed to refer the administrator's request to the Captain General of Castilla la Vieja, General Cuesta, who at that time was being defeated by French troops in Pigheaded, and initiating its withdrawal towards Benavente, so that it determined the most opportune thing. Meanwhile, an order was sent from Zamora to the Junta de Villafáfila:

“ so that for no pretext does Mr. Francisco Xabier Sánchez Hedrado prevent the operations of his destiny [manufacture of refined saltpeter, to obtain gunpowder], leaving him and his precise dependents and laborers exempt from military service, mostly, when he informs that they are married, so that they can continue in it until the resolution of HE [General Cuesta] , for the purpose of leaving three thousand and five hundred reais at Hedrado's disposal for the time being, and the Board, with his intervention, decides that conduct the remaining flows with due security to the main revenue treasury of this Province, from whom the corresponding receipt will be collected ” [17] .

The transfer of these funds to Zamora must have been carried out afterwards, but the three thousand five hundred that remained at the disposal of the administrator were requisitioned by the Villafáfila Defense Board, surely so that they would not fall into the hands of the French or to defray the first expenses for the defense of the town in 1808 [18] :

“ Through a document that is found in the aforementioned cash register of the aforementioned Royal Saltpeter Factory of Villafáfila and signed by the Justice and individuals of the Board of said town from the year 1808, it is stated that he owes said Royal Factory of the money that it has removed or extracted from said coffer: three thousand seven hundred and sixty reais”.

That summer-autumn, after the defeat of the Spanish troops in the battle of Medina de Rioseco in July, part of the troops took refuge in Benavente to await the French advance, and the passage of the scattered elements through the town was left feel about the need for room and board [19] :

“ The state of being and the people being dismayed and afflicted by the consequences that the national war against the French has brought, the majority going to the army, others expatriating and suffering considerable penalties to contribute to the subsistence and relief of those, step and transit of unarmed and fugitive troops, and mainly the French located at that time in Benavente and Mayorga and pipelines to Guadarrama”

Even the domination by the French, after the battle, of the entire region of Campos began to make itself felt in the form of contributions for the troops, as the priest of San Salvador noted in his 1809 accounts:

“ The year that Don Ambrosio Díaz and Antonio Gutiérrez were mayors, each one for his state, they took 300 reais from the Memory of the Orphans, for Rioseco for the French troops ”

Many young residents joined the Spanish army, following, among others, a Royal Order of the Central Board of November 18, which ordered the enlistment of all single young men from sixteen to forty years of age and widowers childless. In its provision IV, the City Councils and Justices were ordered to invite the offspring to enlist voluntarily and serve as distinguished soldiers or cadets, but if they did not do so voluntarily, they would be drawn to fulfill the contingent assigned to each population, in which case they would serve without any distinction, except their jurisdiction for ordinance penalties.

Thus we know the case of several noblemen of the town: Pedro Manuel Costilla, a cadet in the Benavente regiment in 1810, Juan de León in 1812 was " in the service of the nation " and retired as second lieutenant, Silvestre de León was lieutenant of Cavalry of the Batallón de Cazadores de Castilla in 1813.

Other neighbors, with origin or family in lands free from the French invasion, were absent from the town, such as the priest of Santa María, Don Juan Antonio Monasterio del Palacio, who in 1808 left for his homeland in Asturias, without informing the church council of which he was a member, and some others, such as the merchant Ambrosio Jiménez, spend their money to get their son declared exempt from general enlistment [20] :

" By decree of the Board, Antonio Xímenez is declared useless for the Royal Service, so the court will replace him with the next of the second lot ."

On November 20, 1808, the first contributions to the maintenance of the French troops located in Benavente and Mayorga are already mentioned, on account of the wheat that existed in the panera del Pósito Real, where the debtor neighbors had not repaid the grains of their loans, due to the poor previous harvest:

“...the next harvest was very short, for which reason and it has not been possible to verify the reimbursement of the 528 bushels and 7 bushels and ¾ of wheat that said deposit is made up of, obtaining only 128 bushels”

Probably due to concealment of the few cereals available by the neighbors. The parish priests of the town certify that the harvest has been very scarce. To prevent it from being requisitioned by the invaders, on December 6, a license was requested from the authorities of the capital for the distribution of the stock in the panera del Real Pósito with the excuse of needing it to sow [21] :

“ ... the entry into the town of considerable French people and its surroundings and in the current circumstances that have resulted in the sterility of their neighbors for planting their lands and through the fact that in the deposit of said town there are 128 bushels of wheat are seen in the precision of resorting to Mr. Corregidor so that he deigns to grant his license for the dation of said grain among the farmers and senareros of the city

The end of the year 1808 coincided with the so-called Battle of Castrogonzalo, when the French army, led by Napoleon, crossed the Esla in pursuit of the Spanish-British troops led by General Moore.

The towns through which they passed suffered the inconveniences to a greater extent, as was the case of Cerecinos de Campos, where practically the entire population fled, or Castrogonzalo, which suffered major fires in its buildings. Some of the displaced took refuge in nearby towns, thus in the Book of the Dead of Revellinos he notes several deaths:

“January 12, a dispersed soldier of the King's Immemorial Regiment dies, in a haystack, he seemed Galician ,

... January 22 Estanislao de Vega de Cerecinos retired in this town due to the persecution of the French .”

Some of the residents of Villafáfila participated as observers or spies in the actions that took place nearby on those days. Thus Don Segundo Trabadillo, a 25-year-old lawyer, already with two children, who practiced his trade in Villafáfila, in a list of merits that he sent to the court in 1815, refers to his participation in some rearguard actions that even without specifying the dates , for the context, they can refer to the first days of January 1809 [22] :

"That, driven by his noble enthusiasm, he took on his assignment with the greatest courage the risky commission of going to Rioseco and Mayorga to reconnoiter the enemy's position and from there to the outskirts of Benavente with a body of advanced guards, formed from the order of the Board of Armament of Villafáfila, by which four dragoons and orderlies were taken prisoner, who, with documents from the Emperor Napoleon and General Lapisse, went with a scribe from Benavente to Toro.

That having been one of those in charge of driving the aforementioned prisoners and seized correspondence, he delivered it to the capital at dawn the day after the event, but the city was blocked by enemy troops and all foreign communication was cut off, he took up arms with the natives and other patriots, remaining in defense of its walls until the multitude of enemies and their atrocious threats destroyed the forces of the good and brave who defended it.”

Throughout the war, he maintained a position of opposition to the French, maintaining contacts with the Spanish armies, which operated in the western part of the province:

“ He maintained in the years 1811, 12 and 13, continuous and useful correspondence with don Simón Manso, colonel of the Royal Armies, who was with the important task of covering the points of the Esla and Órbigo rivers, to whom he provided the most exact news, as well as the strength of the enemies, as well as their marches and counter-marches through the provinces of Zamora, Ciudad Rodrigo, Valladolid, Palencia and others” .

" Until the hasty retreat of the enemy on May 3, 13, he always kept and has kept since then the same faithful and constant behavior to the Sovereign and the Homeland, having suffered military pressure, prisons and other humiliations for his notorious adherence and for being a brother of Don Ángel Trabadillo, one of the chiefs of the Observation Army on the other side of the Esla, with whom he maintained the closest correspondence ” [23] .

The French armies lived on the ground and the towns and cities through which they passed or stopped had to contribute to their maintenance. The presence and transit of abundant troops in the month of January through Villafáfila, since from Castrogonzalo and Benavente they went to Zamora y Toro for their occupation, on their way to Ciudad Rodrigo and Portugal, resulted in an increase in the maintenance needs of the same. [24] :

“The 128 bushels that were found in the panera of the pósito in the month of December 1808 to help the residents of this town with the greatest needs, which has not been verified due to the fact that they were given to the imperial troops, the some by virtue of the order of Mr. Mayor of Zamora, and others in grain and bread for the troops that have existed in this town and its surroundings because the neighbors lack it for the continuous contributions that have been demanded daily, leaving the most of the neighbors constituted in the greatest need without having to lay hands, giving themselves a margin to not have been able to sow all their lands many of them due to lack of grains.” .

But not only did they occupy the grains deposited in the panera del Pósito Real, but orders immediately arrived to requisition all the grains belonging to religious institutions and others [25] :

" The grains of the third party of the bishop of Astorga and San Marcos, Casas Dezmeras, and Nono Real were claimed as National Goods for the capital ."

The grains of the third parties and other bread baskets were seized by the City Council as a result of the orders of both governments, and that later by the intruding government they were considered National Assets, and said products were reported to the administrator of said branch, Mr. Luís Ojero. , all noted down in the Order Book .

Dispositions of the intruding government, especially the Decree that they call of January 9, 811, for the payment of the only contribution allowing the peoples to use all their own Taxes, National Compensations and everything else of whatever denomination they were, and also in the orders issued by the Exmo Mr. Cuesta and the Probincial Armament Board of Zamora, addressed to that of this town that, in order to concur to save the Homeland and offend the enemy, empowered in equal terms” .

These requisitions of grains brought as a consequence that, after the war, their owners claimed against the municipalities of that time so that they reimbursed them the amount of the same:

" Don Pedro Casado, a resident of Benavente, as a tenant of the third of San Marcos of four hundred and a few bushels of grain and other fruits corresponding to said years eight and nine, and through the mediation of men, reduced the debt to one half and granted an obligation by the Xª and City Hall to be paid in two installments.

Mr. Luís Aguado Muñoz, a resident of Perilla, for 10,000 reais for the value of the grains that in the year 11 were deeded to him, reduced to accounts for the contribution owed during the war, said debt has been reduced to 4,088 reales and 27 bushels of barley

Mr. Tomás Álvarez, a resident of Astorga, has a lawsuit pending for the tithes of the parishes of San Martín and Santa María, which are vacant, against the City Council for the year 9 ”.

If the complaints about the precarious situation of the neighborhood at the beginning of 1809 were already manifest, the calamities of the war had only just begun. Not only were the grains requisitioned, but the towns had to deliver the silver from the churches as an advance on what was demanded by the French, under penalty of seeing the authorities and landowners of the town imprisoned and mistreated. The contributions for the maintenance of the French troops and the operation of the new state organisms that were imposing themselves in the capital of Zamora became more suffocating every day. The first great war contribution was General Lapisse's imposition, after the capture of Zamora on January 10, of four million reales to the province, of which Villafáfila corresponded to more than forty-one thousand reales:

“ In the book of minutes and agreements of 1809, the Lords of Justice, City Council and Municipal Board...was waged against this town and its inhabitants by the Knight Mayor of the Province of Zamora on January 17, 1809, a quota of 41,535 reais of the four million contribution from the province, and since Justice was restricted to the earliest payment and that the capital had agreed to take into account the money from the churches, it was agreed with respect to those of this town that the parish priests and vicars they were franked for the common benefit, under the positions of responsibility and in effect, these and the justice with the other capitulants were uniformly left in the one held on February 5, and on the following day they appeared before the City Council and proceeded to hand over of said silver jewelry by the parish priests. From San Martín they took the two crosses, a foot of a chalice, 2 cruets with their saucer and an incense burner with its box, weighing 182 and a half ounces” .

Dated 17-IX-1811, it is recorded and signed by the clerk in the San Martín Factory Book, at a time when the French occupation was beginning to lighten.

In the summer of that first year of French occupation, the new provincial rulers imposed by the invaders, mainly the Knight Mayor of Zamora, demanded that the towns in their jurisdiction deliver the grains of the recent harvest belonging to religious institutions or to the lords of the same [26] :

" Forcing the mayors of Villafáfila by force, under their responsibility and being treated with all the rigor that corresponds, to hand over the grains of Mr. Duke, as is the result of the office directed by Mr. Pedro González Álvarez, Mayor of Zamora , dated July twenty-nine, eight hundred and nine ”.

The attitude of the French towards the inhabitants of the towns must have been one of abuse and subjugation, from the beginning, as these two reviews of the Pósito Real accounts of 1809 [27] indicate :

“ To the master locksmith for composing the door of the panera for the imperial troops having demolished it in the month of July of last year at the passage and transit that 16 reals made in this.

106 reais for the repair of the breaking of a wall that the troops made through the corral of the house of Manuel Horduña under the pretext that materials were entering ”.

The imperial troops that passed through or settled in Villafáfila were accompanied by some women, thus in October 1809 [28] was born :

“ a child of Francisco Guío and Josefa Echebarría, of the French army, stands in this town” .

The ordinary activities of the neighbors had to be greatly affected as a result of the war. In addition to the exile or incorporation into the troops of many young people, there was a relative abandonment of agricultural activities [29] :

" In those warlike and troubled times, many estates were uncultivated and there was no one who wanted to cultivate them ."

and in the Book of the Dead of the parish of San Salvador corresponding to the year 1810 it is outlined:

“ Antonia González made a will before witnesses because of the occupation and impediment of the notary public due to the French ”.

And as the disposition of the natives towards them would be manifest hostility, the abuses continued throughout the occupation, and thus in the 1810 contribution register it is noted [31] :

“ to the bouquet of ortalizas and fruits, because it is a public and notorious good that the fences have been assaulted and insulted ”.

This year the requisitions of grains from the bread basket of the town continued, receiving the justice and the regiment orders to transfer them to the capital [32] :

"aAs a consequence of the order circulated because of the concurrence of the Towns with the extraordinary Grains, without exception or privilege of paneras, the Justice of this Vª was presented before the Mayor of the Capital exposing him there were no others than that of the Pósito Real and that of his Exª. The Hon. Duke of the Infantry, kidnapped by the Imperial Commission, for which reason a part was passed on to the War Commissioner, of which order and from the Governor, a statement was given to the Commander of the Infantry Battalion, who was under pressure of the towns, for the readiness of the requisitions that had to be directed to the capital by whom the breaded grain was demanded from the SE reduced to 208 f of tº and 220 of cª that led towns of the circumference: Villalba, San Agustín, Pajares, Revellinos, Villarrín de Campos and Arquillinos”

This must have happened in the first months of the year 1810, since there are various receipts for the delivery of quantities of wheat and barley by Ambrosio Ximénez, in charge of the Duke's bread basket, during the month of March to the justices of the surrounding towns to conduct them to the paneras of the Royal Provisions of Zamora, by order of the commander of requisitions.

But the requests for contributions did not stop and as the notary Vitacarros declared years later, who refers to having it written down in his Book of Orders [33] :

“ Another order came down from the capital dated May 13, 1810 by the intendant Don Pedro González, ordering that before the 18th this town had to have 300 fanegas of wheat and 220 of barley placed in the warehouses of the capital, which they had fit the quota of 3,350 of wheat and 2,481 of barley ordered by the General Governor of that plaza on the towns and places of this district of Pan; and on July 25 of that year another 240 fanegas of wheat and the same of barley were distributed with 50 sheep for the same capital ”.

In September 1810 the town was pending the payment of one of the numerous war contributions to which the French subjected the occupied towns and an exhaustive list of taxpayers was carried out, both grains from the senara and money from the utilities of cattle and other profits in order to have the amount demanded ready to avoid reprisals [34] :

" As an urgent executive for the exact fulfillment of the requisitions and freeing the town and neighborhood from a very expensive military constraint ."

With the proceeds, it is a question of coping, not only with the distribution of contributions, but also with the expenses that arose when trying to obtain a reduction in them:

“1040 reais that fit this population in the expense made by the commissioners of the Province in request of the reduction of millions that were thrown as a contribution ”.

That year of 1810, the requests for war contributions had occurred between March and June for millions of reais, a large part of which were for the enrichment of the generals who commanded the province, which caused the taking of hostages among the representatives of the ecclesial estates, or the wealthy of the capital until they get the contributions. Representatives of the city were sometimes commissioned to appear before the High Chiefs . [35]

In addition, Villafáfila had been able to pay the amount of three thousand reais as a forced loan and had to face:

“ Three thousand five grands reais to pay for the requisition of fifty wool cattle recently sent to the capital, and for not being able to reach it, spent in the large, sudden, frequent transit of troops that we have suffered and more expenses that have been caused .”

The lords of justice, the parish priests and the members of the Board made the most equitable distribution they knew:

“ As it is necessary that in every contribution the possible respective equality between the taxpayers be observed, which would not be verified if one were exempted ”,

They try to make a detailed analysis of the income of the different neighbors by carrying out three registers, one personal, another for Senara and another for the rest of the utilities, leaving excluded for the moment:

“ The wine branch, due to the unevenness of the Payments, lack of demonstrated fruit, and contingencies to which the fruit continues to be exposed until its harvest, is reserved for when the harvest is calibrated ”.

For sheep, after considering income and expenses, they assign two reais per head; Farm cattle are regulated in the grain register as this is their only return.

The branch of vegetables is calculated in a prudential manner more analogous to the quality of each farm.

“ To the guild of mule drivers and because not all trade in the same style, species and places so that there is a general rule with all and possible equality, the utility of twelve reais per week is regulated and contributes with a fifth .

Only the summer season is considered useful to the day laborers' guild, since in it they have food for sure, the other seasons it is considered that their personal sweat hardly pays for the food of each one and that of their family. It is estimated that summers can earn about 400 reais, “more as these are considered necessary for the honest clothing of himself and his family, they are not charged any contribution.

For artisans and craftsmen, a wage of five reais a day is regulated for half the year, the other half being computed as compensation for festivities and casual distraction. This prudent calculation is justified by that of a tailor, who is fed daily and a daily wage of 5 reais ”.

Sow cattle are assigned a contribution of 4 r. per head of fattening, two for each rancher and a half for the rearing.

The distribution is made by a Board created for this purpose and formed by the lords of justice, that is, the two mayors and the aldermen, the parish priests and two members of the parishes, representatives of the common and people.

The collection exceeded the amounts owed at that time, so the remainder is deposited in the person of Don Agustín Atienza so that he has it until it is necessary to resort to him. This doctor of law, originally from Villanueva de los Caballeros, and married in Villafáfila in 1807, must have been a solvent character who had the support of the occupants, since during the following years he would be the main member of the Board of Supplies. After the war, he continued to have the confidence of the military governor of the province, so it is assumed that he would collaborate in some way with the Spanish military during the occupation. And during the Liberal Triennium he was proposed by the Council of State in the list for judge of first instance of Peñafiel.

“ Although a neighborhood combocatory edict was set so that each taxpayer respectively would be informed of what fits him in this necessary and very useful common and equal contribution, no one has felt sorry for alleging injury; Nor do the authorizing gentlemen contemplate him, assuming the perdition and common equality and clear style with which he has acted ”.

This year of 1810 was one of the most burdensome of the invasion. In October, a large number of troops moved through Villafáfila, thousands of soldiers according to testimonies, causing much damage [36] :

“The undersigned gentlemen of justice and notaries of the years nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen that we wrote this, certify by seeing it and being notorious to all the inhabitants of this town, that having passed and spent the night in this town, in the In the month of October 1810, the divisions of the French generals Solignac and Lacroix, ran over with their dragoons and artillerymen in the dark of the night that the last arrived, the bread basket of the Pósito Real under the pretext of not having proportion in the lodgings to gather the horses and train, and that the 250 fanegas of wheat that had been reintegrated into the panera in September of that year due to military pressure, nothing was found at the time of his departure from here to Zamora and Salamanca other than he was outraged with said horses without probecho some;discovering the theft and removal of said wheat, informing those of said train and carriage that transported it and the vagabonds and others of their trapping that accompanied them, and for the record and cause the effects that it agrees with the Subdelegation of the capital. ..

... In October 1810 the troops of Generals Solinar and Lacrox for Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo... were robbed without the justice being able to prevent it because it was at night and they found themselves in the confusion of having to house and prepare supplies for as many thousands of men as the attached certificate accredits . ”

In the nearby towns, the demands of the French were no less pressing, and before that the lack of means of the town councils, and to avoid excessively taxing the neighborhood, some communal lands were sold, which were acquired by various residents of the town. Thus, in 1810, the town hall of Villarrín de Campos sold the council's quiñones to pay for food rations for the French troops [37] :

The town of Otero and the town of Villarrín must contribute tomorrow with the supply of rations for 735 soldiers, 21 officers and 1 commander.

The residents of Otero, who were going through times of scarcity of resources with which to contribute to this maintenance, sold several threshing floors that belonged to the council to some wealthy neighbors [38] :

“ Because of the current circumstances, your neighborhood is in the most miserable state and without resources to be able to attend to the payment of contributions and other essential expenses for the supply of the troops .”

This small town near Villafáfila with few neighbors is one of those that suffered the most during the years of the French occupation, despite the kinship of some of its main neighbors, Mr. Manuel Ojero, with the Administrator of National Assets. Likewise, on January 26, 1811, D. Manuel Calzada, a resident of Otero [39] , took office as Attorney General for the Villas del Pan in the Municipality of Zamora .

In 1811 those of Villarrín continue with the sale of the council quiñones for which the neighbors grant power to the city council of that year:

“ That due to the current circumstances and that all the resources of the inhabitants of this town have been exhausted, and exposed due to lack of them to suffer prisons and looting as they have already suffered, it is essential for them to use the resources that can remedy them in such need. urgent ”.

1811 is the year that we possibly have more references to the situation of Villafáfila during the War of Independence due to two lawsuits that took place in the following years before the Royal Chancery of Valladolid. One [40] deals with a claim made by the ordinary mayor for the general status of that year, Blas Tejedor , to the town requesting that they pay him the amounts he had to advance from his private treasury to meet the payments they demanded. the French; In another lawsuit, [41] a resident of Cerecinos claims the amount of an ox that was requisitioned in the field to supply meat rations to the troops when Blas Tejedor was mayor.

From the very beginning, this merchant and trajinero, who from the town of Tiedra had married in Villafáfila at the end of the previous century with the niece and heiress of the priest of Santa María, wrote down the expenses he incurred in his books:

“ Knowing how difficult it would be at a time like that to give an exact account and without embarrassment to the grantor or the town, he made his notebook of the expenses that he was supplying on the seventh day of January of said year in which he was sworn in and managed by this means give the most precise reason for what was received and spent throughout the year in which he exercised his employment .

On September 14 of that year, he appealed to the Mayor of Zamora to review the accounts, and he decreed that the City Council and the Trustee Prosecutor examine them. They were approved on December 27, and the town reached 11,000 reales, but they were not sent to the Mayor of Zamora until April 8, 1813, and some council terms were recognized, measured and appraised to pay the debt, but later they were they took from him to pay several other creditors of equal right.

The task of the mayors, especially that of the general state, during the years of the occupation was mainly to get supplies for the troops passing through Villafáfila or staying in neighboring towns, especially Castrogonzalo and Benavente, mainly rations of baked bread, wine, oxen, hams), chickens and eggs, which were sometimes delivered by the neighbors and others were bought by the mayor. In addition, the grains that were kept in the bread baskets of the Duke or the Pósito Real, or those from the so-called National Assets or from foreign landowners, served to contribute to the distributions that were periodically made to the town; and when oxen were scarce in the town they had to go to other towns (Villaveza, Valdunquillo, Valencia de D. Juan) to acquire them for meat rations for the troops. In addition to such a thankless task, they were subjected to the discretion of the French officers, suffering humiliation and aggression [42] :

" In the last year of eight hundred and eleven, being and expecting in Villafáfila a large number of French troops, the latter specified and ordered the Subsistence Board to all the individuals of justice, to go out to the immediate towns to requisition rations for the said troop. Mayor Blas Tejedor, together with Alderman Fernando Rodríguez and the field guards, went to the towns of San Agustín and Revellinos and, together with the justices in the field, gave us two bovine cattle that were found there, ... these two cattle they were handed over to the board that ordered that they be appraised and given to the troops,... that day the troops beat Mayor Blas Tejedor and threatened him with death, which he believed to be the last day of his life ...

...a French officer beat Blas Tejedor and threatened to kill him with a drawn sword” .

When there was some military pressure, either for extraordinary contributions, or for supplies for the troops, given the difficulties of collection, the first ones who were held hostage were the aldermen, clerks and the main residents of the town and during that year of 1811 it is testified on several occasions:

“ The French from the first convoy took prisoner Alejo Alonso, Mr. Vitacarros [public notary] , the supplier and Liles to Castronuevo.

“ An assistant of Castrogonzalo came for the pressure of the rations and took prisoner the notary public and others that they caught.

From these accounts we know the transfer of the French troops through the town and the expenses they generated, not only for maintenance, but also for " coal for the forge for the ironwork of the dragoons and comboy", and even works for the accommodation of the horses. : “ some mangers in the paneras of SE, de la Villa and others ”.

From his annotations we get an idea of the continuous transit of troops, serve as an example:

“... from January 7 to 13, a commander and several officers stayed at the house of Onesimo del Pozo, who had to be supported and paid the commander 800 reais for their monthly allowance.

On February 4 and 5, the hunters of the 20th regiment and a party of dragoons from Benavente stayed at the villa, and the two commanders and officers of the dragoons and the hunters ate chicken, butter, sugar, azeyte, tozino, eggs and black pepper.

In order to keep the occupants happy, various snacks were made during the carnival festivities: Expenditure of chickens and meat on the night of the Antruejo .

On April 11 and 12, troops commanded by Juan Guerido came and on the 14th they marched and drank wine and took to the road. On April 18 cavalry troops arrived [43] ; On May 24, the 22nd Chasseurs Regiment and a battalion from the 2nd Light Infantry Regiment arrived in the village. On June 28 the cavalry troop came and the commander stayed at the house of Onesimo del Pozo. Sometimes the number of soldiers reached 800. The marches from Benavente used to have Zamora or Salamanca as their destination, where the troops passed on July 20. In other cases, such as on September 14 the troop went from Toro to Benavente with food for the commander and officers, on the 15 they returned from Benavente to Toro.

In addition to supporting passers-by, the towns had to make continuous contributions to supply the troops concentrated in strategic places, in our case in Benavente or Castrogonzalo, and the notes leave numerous testimonies. The contributions of wine or bread baked in loaves for the troops housed in Benavente or Castrogonzalo are continuous:

“ On February 21, he came to the regiment of dragoons that was in Benavente.

...on the 10th of August a commander and three hundred or more men from Castrogonzalo arrived at this town, and they were supplied with what they took to Castro, six hundred and thirty two-pound rations, two hundred and forty of which were provided by the Provedor, and I only carried 390”.

Between August 10 and September 18 loaves of bread were being sent to Castrogonzalo, the number of which fluctuates according to the day, thus from August 11 to 18 400 daily rations, in September 7 fanegas.

“On January 15 they took 5 pitchers of wine to give to General Serás who was in Benavente.

In May a commander came to the village for the wheat pressing, and they gave him “two haunches and a half arroba of cheese . On another occasion, a party from Zamora came with a commander to requisition the grains and they spent the night in Villarrín " because this town was forced by the troops and grain combos that went to Salamanca, wine expenses were incurred with the troops and at the commander: "a dozen eggs, four pounds of catfish, a cheese, a pound of butter . "

The accommodation of the officers when they were in the town was made in the houses of the richest neighbors:

“ For the commandant's table that was at Mr. Don Bernardo Costilla's house on December 11: three hens, 1 alabanco, and 3 pounds of bacon, and three and a half pitchers of wine ... two bottles of wine that we brought my partner and I at Don Bernardo's house the night he ordered us to sit at the table with Mrs. Copotillas”.

To deal with the multitude of expenses that the maintenance of the troops entailed, the city council seized various consignments of grain belonging to foreign landowners:

“ Account and Reason for the grains seized by the Justice and sequestrated in my possession, belonging to Mr. Luis Aguado, the same ones that were delivered by order of the Court ”.

But it was not only necessary to contribute to the maintenance of the French troops, apart from the guerrillas and the Spanish army they demanded their maintenance, and these expenses are also noted in the accounts:

Three fanegas of barley for the Spaniards on Wednesday night at Diego Gutiérrez's house, and at Jacoba's house, nine three-pound loaves of bread and a bottle of brandy.

On August 28, I gave 20 Spaniards two dozen eggs, 4 pounds of cheese, 5 reales of grapes, and another Spaniard 1 pound of sausage and 25 reales of bacon”

“Two bushels of barley that I have dispensed to some scattered people who separated from the Spanish troops” .

Sometimes officers of the Spanish army came to the town, surely on espionage missions, and stayed in the town, which Mayor Tejedor also testifies to: " a Spanish officer in the house of Vitacarros ", who was one of the two town scribes.

The employees of the Royal Factory also participated in dealings with the guerrillas. Twice Mayor Tejedor gives 125 reales to the factory administrator to give to the Spaniards.

The guerrilla bands that roamed the surroundings were mainly that of Francisco Nápoli, who was the most active in the region, his chief was in the house of the notary Vitacarros more than once and on one of the occasions he received 500 reales from the mayor; that of El Segoviano , to which he delivers 42 reais and a wine voucher; and that of Tío Juan , who carries a bushel of wheat.

The continuous coming and going of troops through the town would often cause looting situations, so it was necessary to bribe or reward the soldiers who were continuously in the town or had been in it for longer to avoid it, that's why in the book of accounts of the church of San Pedro is noted [44] :

“44 reais that the French troops took one night to guard the church and its bread basket so others wouldn't steal it” .

In addition to the information provided by this aforementioned lawsuit, which includes the details of the accounts for the year 1811, we have other repeated testimonies that allow us to know the continuous exaction of grains that was carried out for the capital [45] ; especially those belonging to the lord of the town, the Duke of the Infantado, who for not supporting the intruding government had had all his assets seized in favor of the state by virtue of some provisions:

" from the intrusive government, especially the Decree that they call of January 9, eight hundred and eleven for the payment of the only contribution allowing the peoples to use all their own taxes, National Compensations and everything else of whatever denomination they were",

"and also in the orders issued by the Exmo Mr. Cuesta and the Probincial Armament Board of Zamora, addressed to that of this town that, in order to concur to save the Homeland and offend the enemy, empowered in equal terms ."

By virtue of these provisions, the Intendente de Zamora, a puppet Spanish authority of the occupying forces, demands the transfer to the bread baskets of provisions of the capital the grains that at that time were in the duke's bread baskets:

“The Justice of Villafáfila will seize all the Cars, Horses and Sacks that are necessary to drive to these Warehouses all the Wheat and Barley that in Paneras of said Villa exists and belongs to the States of the Duke of the Infantry: in the understanding that the conductor size .

Faced with the difficulty of opposing the French orders, even the administrator of the Duke in the province of Zamora, aware of the transfer of the grains, only recommended patience to the justice of Villafáfila:

“The vouchers remain in my possession to deliver and liquidate them and I will collect the receipt in time, in the rest I am informed of what happened and thus be patient, which is how much I can say to you, of whom I remain your safe servant.

The order to seize all the cars for the transport of wheat and barley to Zamora seems to have entailed some difficulties, either due to the resistance of the neighbors or due to the lack of collaboration from the justice system, which is why Zamora insists on the transfer with veiled threats to it:

“The Justice of Villafáfila will take to these Warehouses all the grain that exists in it corresponding to the sequestrated house of the Duke of the Ynfantado and to National Assets. Whose conduction has to be carried out throughout the day tomorrow, penalty of being responsible for the same justice.

Despite the reiteration and intimidation, at the end of April they still hadn't brought the Duke's grains to Zamora, and they also owed the amounts corresponding to the distribution of grain made by the province, for which the Mayor urges them again, insisting on the threat of intervention by French troops:

“ I have already communicated two orders to you so that you have the grains that exist in the Villa, corresponding to the Assets seized from the Duke of the Infantry, transported to these Warehouses: it has not yet been verified and it seems that this Justice has decided not to obey any order from those that are communicated to you: I warn you for the last time that if in the precise period of 24 hours you do not have the aforementioned grains and the 195 bushels of Wheat, and 97 of Barley that correspond to the first two thirds of the distribution made, passed troop immediately to demand them and to execute in yourselves the penalties to which you have been made creditors.

A more direct ultimatum is still necessary for the mayors to enforce the order to transfer the grains to Zamora:

He will let the Justice of Villafáfila know that within a peremptory term of 24 hours one of his mayors appears before me under the fine of 200 ducats and to be taken prisoner with the help of the troops.

Through another testimony of the notary public Vitacarros of 1816 we can get an idea of the pressures suffered by the residents of Villafáfila to face the requisitions of the civil authorities of Zamora put by the French, who did not stop demanding contributions in money and grain. , to attend at the same time the maintenance needs of the troops both passing through the town and those established in Benavente and Castrogonzalo, and not confront the guerrillas and the Spanish army, which operated on the right bank of the Esla a few kilometers from the village and visited the town many nights, counting on the collaboration of their neighbors [46] :

“ In 1811, an official letter from García Patón and the Intendente claiming SE grains, which was followed by the surprise that D. Francisco Nápoli made with his troop, ordered by Lieutenant Colonel of the line of Toro, Mr. Fulano Acha, who was in the Carbajales barracks, so that this justice would prepare the 10,000 reales that he had collected for the French and had to remit to the capital; and since he could not verify it, he took Mayor Tejedor, Onesimo del Pozo and Ambrosio Ximénez in reins, the latter being in charge of the SE panera, whose event was represented to said Mayor González and was reported to Patón on the 12th and 14th of March.

On March 20, a party of 50 men from the French Infantry commanded from the General Headquarters of Benavente appeared in this town at 11 in the morning by order of Division General Conde Serás, by virtue of another of the General Governor of the sixth district, to find out about the current and previous state of the great grain store of the crown or Nationals that had been seized by the house of SE and were supposedly sold to the vrigantes [47], whose acknowledgment was carried out taking charge of his departure and existence, as well as the Justice as well as the said Ximénez as the person in charge, stating that he had been arrested and taken to Carbajales for having sold some of the grains that were in the bread box of SE until that gave satisfaction of the value of 116 fanegas of barley, collecting said French commander the insurance of 170 f of tº that was existing.

All of which is copied in the Book of Orders for years 10 and 11, which the declaring party (Vitacarros) reserves in his file, in which there is also another official letter from the interim intendant, Mr. Ramón Padilla, dated March 31, by which he sends the justice that with all promptness the grains that existed in the seized house of SE be sent to the Prohibition Warehouses of the Capital ”

In the year 1811, faced with so many demands for wheat, the grains had been transferred from the duke's bread basket to that of Onesimo del Pozo, for greater security in the face of reports of the possibility of the arrival of the guerrillas, however, which they presented in the town and proceeded to seize:

“ of one or another species was removed and extracted by the Guerrilla Troop and observation of the Esla, under whose pretext and that of being the fruits of Napoleon, they executed it in the midst of having reserved from the hands of these and the French, some individual portions and neighbors jealous at your request, and news to go down to extract it totally ”

We do not know about the clashes that would take place between the French troops and the guerrillas that operated in the vicinity of the Esla, at the height of Quintos, but there must have been some, as well as skirmishes with the irregular Spanish troops of Don Tomás García Vicente, who they had an encounter in Manganeses with the French in October 1810 [48] . In 1811, the death certificate of a French officer was recorded and mention was made of the colonel's order of compulsory attendance at his burial:

“On August twenty-second of this year , the French officer D. Juan Bautista Vigieu, a native of Perigueux, Dordogne, died on 12-VII-1787, of the 2nd Valligeros regiment of the Imperial Guard, his funeral was attended by 8 priests and the wealthy of the town, because the Lord Colonel ordered it that way” .

During the year 1812, the end of the French occupation is in sight, but it is the year of greatest suffering for a population exhausted by the calamities of war and bad harvests. Mortality, both due to hunger, of which there are abundant testimonies, and as a result of military actions, is the highest of the war period. Various items appear in the books of the deceased:

Pascual Fernández, from Riego, 16 years old, found dead in the field, his shirt, pants and stockings torn.

Domingo Durantes de Villafáfila, was buried in the oratory of Salinas because the body was found in that territory...”

Several testimonies collected in various sources give us an idea of the bankruptcy and exhaustion to which the towns had reached, both the town of Villafáfila and the nearby Otero de Sariegos or the monastery of Moreruela.

During that year the withdrawal of the troops from Portugal brought as a consequence that their transit through Villafáfila was continuous, thus in April the number of soldiers was very high: “ the town being full of troops ”; On May 20, the clerk notes in one of the lawsuits brought about in his office the transfer of Napoleonic troops [49] :

" Of course the occupations of the continuous war, stagnation and passage of imperial troops, do not allow the court and its curials the slightest freedom for the actions of their businesses..." .

and offers us a direct testimony of the misfortunes that the neighbors endured as a result of the war and hunger, as well as the compassionate attitudes of some of the soldiers:

“for the conservation of goods according to the circumstances of the present time in which everything is exposed to assault and invasion, as well with respect to the said war, as for the misery and need that surrounds the country, already seeing people die with great pain through the streets, besieged by need, that even pious enemies show compassion and offer and give alms at the doors of their lodging from the leftovers they have of their rations, despite seeing the patrons in anguish with their families in such a state, and when the Divine Providence of the Lord deigns to send peace, this judgment will be continued .”

Other testimonies coincide in the influx of French troops in the last months of that year in their withdrawal [50] :

“In November or December of the year 12, the horse artillery that had come down from Portugal remained for twenty-odd days” .

And to abound in the testimonies of the misfortunes that the neighbors had to endure, we have a review in the codicil made in March 1813 as an addition to the will signed before a notary public in 1810 by Don Bernardo Costilla, who was surely the largest landowner in the town, holder of the estate of the Costillas [51] :

" I declare that many of the jewels declared in my will do not survive because of the present war, because many of them have been stolen and others have been spent on great afflictions and payment of contributions ."

In addition, he lowers the number of masses applied by his soul from 1000 to 750 due to the decrease in his wealth and declares his heirs:

“That from the large land that I have in Lomba, which is part of the Senda de la Horca, 5 loads of land be taken from it for the town and its taxes, with the condition that they pay my heirs the amount of 100 pitchers of It came that in the year of 9 the justice took me away to take rations to Benavente and they have not paid me anything for them” .

If the situation of the large towns was pitiful, in the small towns, where the neighbors were more defenseless in the face of lack of food and abuse of all kinds, both by the French and by Spanish guerrillas and bandits, it could be described as tragic. and serve the heartfelt testimony that the priest of Otero writes down in the Factory Book of his church:

“ In the August of one thousand eight hundred and eleven, the harvest was generally so sterile that little more than the sowing was harvested.

It came to this other misery as great or greater: namely, the war that the French were waging against us internally, that after devastating us by taking the estates and wealth of all and intercepting the businesses, they gathered with various pretexts the few grains that there were and the they stored in the cities and large towns, and then had their troops maintain the towns. Thus they called with great haste on this miserable Kingdom to famine, so that a fanega of wheat came to be worth four hundred and fifty reales and baked bread at 16, 20 and 24 rrl. the four pounds, and so respective to rye and barley. This rye and barley bread were sugar cubes even for the rich and powerful, since they were poorer in their own way than the poor themselves, because they were more persecuted and looted.

From here and from the great anarchy that these men aroused, innumerable gangs of thieves arose, some made up of scattered Spanish soldiers, others deserters and others from the towns, who, without the slightest embarrassment and many without very legitimate need, threw themselves universally to rob the farms of the countryside and those of the houses with lousy and iniquitous treatment and death of their owners. So much was the misery and unhappiness that still, even many of those who by trade were obliged to defend the country and the Religion with their weapons, converted their authority and power into enriching themselves and theirs.

From here many poor people died on the roads and towns, some from hunger, others from error.

History and public papers will give more timely news of this unfortunate catastrophe, what has been said is enough to form a confused idea of such a terrible event .

However, it is worth noting that, however, that these great and general works came from our faults, nevertheless, men every day were seen more daring, more perceptive, more stiff-necked, more arrogant, more blasphemous and more luxurious.

“But the most pious bowels of the Lord, out of respect for that blessed seed that he has left in Israel for the preservation of his church, provided a very abundant harvest to the world in August 812. Be Blessed forever. Amen".

Another example of the prevailing desolation is the situation of abandonment in which the monastic buildings of Moreruela, once splendid, were left, which resulted in the plundering of the same by the residents of the region, as reflected in the testimony of the clerk of Villafáfila of 1812 [52] :

“ Testimony of the alajas that have been brought from the Moreruela Monastery for this church and its state.

I, the undersigned clerk of the number and town hall of this town and its jurisdiction and apostolic notary of the diocese of Astorga, certify that the suppression of the monastery of Santa María de Moreruela from the horde of San Bernardo is notorious, according to the most noble provisions of the current government , is also the habandono in which it has been for a long time.

Ocularly recognized the same day of ashes at the request of Don Bernardo Matheos, parish priest of San Pedro desta said town, and especially its church and temple so recommended and brilliant when it was occupied by the ancient monks and the evicted ones, for which reason, without main doors or accessories, the people of the immediate towns have done and do a real looting and extraction.

And the priests and parish priests jealous of the divine cult, for not seeing more and more profaned said temple, its altars and tabernacles, have thought among themselves to collect in their churches as a deposit, those they have found, being among them the current vicar of San Martín desta villa, Fray Juan Trabadillo, who at the expense of the parishioners and the factory foreman have conducted and placed the following effects and goods in his office:

The altar of San Bernardo gilded placed in the main altar of this church, one of the collaterals where Santiago is, without placing.

Some gates that were at the door of the Parral. Four gilt fronts, one lectern.

All of which he has brought as a deposit in favor and honor of his church and the future fate that may befall the nominated Monastery and its Religion, under which I signed it and I sign and sign it on March 10, 1812.

Also in the book of accounts of the parish of Santa María de Villafáfila in the year 1812, 200 reals of expense are recorded for the food given to the parishioners who on holidays went with ox carts to bring spoils from the monastery of Moreruela with destination to this church, so it is to be assumed that many other pieces belonging to the monastery reached this nearby town, some of which still remain there [53] .

At the end of August 1812 the city of Zamora was evacuated by the French, where they returned in November of that same year and remained until May 31, 1813 [54] , Benavente followed the same steps and the allied troops from Alcañices by Tábara went to Benavente on May 31 and captured four hundred dragons in Castrogonzalo [55] reiterated by the testimony of Fernández Brime [56] .

At the end of September 1812, Villafáfila must have been momentarily free from French occupation, since the employees of the Royal Saltpeter Factory proceeded to make a general inventory of its buildings and equipment by order of the Mayor of Zamora [57] .

But in the following months there are numerous soldiers who spend and stay in the town when they proceed to withdraw from Portugal:

“In November or December of the year 12, the horse artillery that had come down from Portugal remained for twenty-odd days” .

Leaving the town free in May 1813 according to the testimony of Segundo Trabadillo previously cited [58] .

Free from the occupation, repairs are made to some of the damage caused by the invaders, so in the Book of Factory of the parish of San Salvador corresponding to the year 1813 there is an entry in the data for:

“to cover four or five holes in the front wall of the church... to settle the window frame that the French destroyed.”

That same year, the correspondence between the government of Cádiz and the Mayor of Zamora was resumed regarding the operation of the Royal Saltpeter Factory, claiming from the General Directorate of Revenue that it be sold or leased, as it was not profitable, and claiming by the administrator and dependents of the same that they be helped with their salaries due to the difficulty of their maintenance.

In a letter of May 1814 sent by the town clerk Felipe de Vitacarros, reporting the situation of the factory to the government, news is given of the state of the factory, of the destruction of the mountains during the war and of the effective management of the dependents of the same, avoiding its burning or destruction by the French [59] :

“ The Saltpeter Factory of the town has been paralyzed since the Revolution, of which facts that Accounting Office and Gentleman Intendant cannot ignore, as its Administrator and dependents have repeated their complaints... it has items and furniture of great interest that are unused since then,

... the miserable state in which the mountains have been left is the obstacle... so that the warned Factory cannot spread.

...that its Administrator and subordinates have been preserved by spending a thousand miseries in the hands of the enemy, and mainly said Administrator, drinking in the same Factory, has been able to achieve the conservation of said utensils and that the hull and all that has not been disassembled and burned, the way we have experienced it in homeless private homes ”

Although from the inventory of 1812 it is suggested that the manufacture had not stopped completely during the previous months, since various quantities would be inventoried:

" Three hundred and ten arrobas and ten pounds of saltpeter worked in this factory that were delivered to refine and because it is still crystallizing it cannot be weighed ."

At the end of the war and after the brief period in which the Constitution of 1812 was in force, the privileged classes tried to continue maintaining the situation of 1808. Thus, the families that enjoyed nobility (Calzada, Costilla, Díaz, de León and Orduña) claim in Royal Chancery the maintenance of their privileges [60] :

“ being in the quiet and peaceful possession of his nobility, received and recognized as such by the council of the said town where half of the trades that fall in my parts are established ... the justice of it, wanting to make the upheaval and disorder that the last war brought with it and the vicious system of the abolished Constitution last, ... continue abusively and disregarding what is established in the laws and orders of our sovereign, imposing baggage on its parts and lodgings in the same way as if there were only one state... following the rupture and freedom that motivated the last war to make the privileged members and priests contribute baggage and lodgings ” requesting a Royal Provision so that their exemptions are kept .

The same thing happened with the lord of the town, the Duke of Infantado, and his administrators, who proceeded to claim the residents of Villafáfila for various rents that they had failed to pay corresponding to the years of French occupation [61] .

He claims both the money and the grain, specifically: 15,212 reals of alcabalas from the years 1804, and from 1808-1814; 2,274 reais and 12 mrs for a master table and 1,045 reais for martiniegas. Likewise, he requires them to deliver 435 bushels, 3 bushels and two quarts of wheat, 233 bushels and 11 bushels of barley and 14 bushels of rye that were in their bread baskets and were extracted during those years.

In August 1815, the court requested a delay in the collection of the debt to His Excellency the Duke for:

“ The extreme decadence in which the destructive war left it as in all its series of years the enemies maintained a detachment in this town, and its continuous passage through the town that has to cross the troops from León, Astorga and Benavente to Toro and Zamora, ensuring the correspondence of the armies” .

The administrator García Patón from Zamora informs the Duke of the bad disposition of those from Villafáfila and makes three accusations:

The first refers to the destruction of the house-palace through its use as a barracks by the Napoleonic troops, and the dismantling of belongings and wood by the neighbors taking advantage of this period of crisis:

“These who call themselves humble vassals have been the most ungrateful without respect for the benefits they have received from the last year of 1543 to January 5, 1809 with those who have looked with the greatest contempt on the rights and royalties of His Excellency, making quarters of his palace house without respect for having it furnished with beds and other uses of his own that the majority of them preach, the bread baskets making their grains take out, serving these for the horses during the War. Lastly, there are only two and a half doors left burning all the others, and the windows ripping out the iron bars and balconies as well as demolishing the kitchen to the foundations, taking the wood from it,

...not wanting it to be remembered that at some time he had been their lord and therefore they decided, and it can be said that with accelerated steps, they went to verify the defeat and ruin of the Palace, whose fragments they took advantage of... .

“The house of SE was not occupied for the kind of barracks and it was for the main one for the French guard by order of their commanders, as well when they were garrisoned in it, as when their divisions marched and countermarched along this cruiser and general route that they did when they came down from León Astorga and Benavente to Toro Salamanca and Zamora, if only that in two or more remissions of prisoners that they made in Asturias and El Bierzo they had them in the same house for their safety and comfort, in which time to retire and different prisoners escaped, the ceilings and partitions of the said house suffered damage and other times they occupied with the reins and justice of this town as well as those of its canton, and that in the paneras,after evicting the grain they made a quadra and in the Pósito Real of this town at the passage of the division of Dragoons and other cavalry and What permanence of his detachment for being one and another in the Public Square, ... and if the Xª and neighbors had forgotten their respect and zeal, they would have burned different times because they fell at night and did not wake up in them, leaving the bonfires lit the patio and other occupied parts, and the moment his absence was known and other times that he was under observation, he went, as this witness did, to identify the house and put out the fire that they found in it ”,

and they relate the unfortunate state in which the French left other buildings and private houses in the town:

“Also in that town there are other buildings in the same state as the Palace, and the owners, being present, consented to see them demolish, not being able to resist the strength and pride of the enemies, who, not losing anything, did everything the same, Whether the owner was one or the other, whether he was present or absent.

...And that it preyed on everything, when with the continuous passage of all kinds of troops that crossed it in the direction of various points ”.

... being so that all these buildings and others were entirely destroyed by the enemies, as is also observed in all the points of small or large population without the neighborhood having intervened in anything...

Certainly there are other testimonies of destruction, such as that of the wall of the panera del Pósito Real, which I mentioned earlier, or the repairs that appear in the San Salvador Factory Book “to settle the window frame that the French destroyed... to cover four or five holes in the front wall of the church ”.

The second accusation of the administrator is that of requisitioning the cereals from the bread basket that the Duke had in the town, and his attorney alleges the despotism and violence with which the residents of Villafáfila proceeded to extract the grains from Mr. Duke's bread baskets. to cover the requests for rations that were made to them, covering their responsibilities with what was in those paneras without having to contribute with those of the town or individuals:

“ ...that by ordering grain from the town and other towns, they themselves resorted to the authority they understood to be competent to state that there were no others who could make the request effective other than those belonging to Mr. Duke... ”.

However, according to those of Villafáfila, the kidnapping of the grains from the duke's bread boxes was ordered by the French authorities, not only with the aim of providing supplies, but also with the purpose of retaliating against the Grandees of Spain who had not wanted to collaborate with the new regime:

“ The state of the Duke was kidnapped... that determination of the Intruder that had no other purpose than to destroy the interests of the most important ones to undoubtedly attract them in this way to his iniquitous ideas...

...Dispositions of the intruding government, especially the Decree that they call of January 9, 811 for the payment of the only contribution allowing the peoples to use all their own Taxes, National Compensations and everything else of whatever denomination they were, and also in the orders issued by the Exmo Mr. Cuesta and the Probincial Armament Board of Zamora, directed to that of this town that, in order to concur to save the Homeland and offend the enemy, empowered in equal terms.

...Not the town, but the private managers of the French, disposed at their discretion and will of the revenues of those states, ...

...Of the debt of grains that is supposed to have been badly taken by force by the Justice and City Council of the years that it indicates ... it can be said that the biolence and exaction was on the part of the intruding Government under the guise of being one of the nine reserved houses, as well as for a large part that of this State of the same Exmo, and that by the mayors of the capital by repeated trades the grains were claimed or demanded and also by other orders of some Military Chiefs at sight, science and patience of the aforementioned Administrator,..."

They adduce the difficulty of being able to hide from the French the existence of such resources stored in the town due to the cooperation and information they had from the Spanish collaborators:

" The enemy force to which it could not help but succumb, mostly being protected from the astute character of some Spaniards who saw themselves placed by the same enemies in very advanced positions ."

In addition, they allege that part of the grains were extracted by the guerrillas and Spanish troops to prevent them from falling into the hands of the French:

“Apart from being one half less in the wheat item, unless said Administrator wants to charge the People with what of one kind or another was removed and extracted by the Guerrilla Troop and the observation of the Esla, under whose pretext, and the of being fruits of Napoleon, they executed it in the middle of having reserved it from the hands of these and the French, some portions of individuals and neighbors jealous at their request and news to go down to extract it completely " .

Finally, the representatives of the Duke of the Infantado, who at the time holds the position of President of the Royal and Supreme Council of Castile, reproach those of Villafáfila for having suffered less than other towns from the disasters of the occupation, in order to convince to the high court of the perfidy of the neighbors:

“The war could very well compromise and hurry their neighbors in other towns, but in the town of Villafáfila it can be said that they did not feel these evils because they always had Mr. Duke's stock with which to cover what was asked of the neighborhood” .

Reproaching them that many neighbors, with whom the town contracted debts for the contributions or provisions of the French troops, had been compensated through the delivery of communal land.

The Villafáfila attorney responds to all these arguments with testimonies from the neighbors:

“...According to the documents kept by the deponent [the notary] , he considers it to be true that in the places of the Canton of this town at that time of the war all the supplies made of Provisions and Utensils to the detachments that were garrisoned suffered. ...

...it is one of the ones that has suffered the most, that its neighbors have not yet recovered from the damage suffered” .

And not only had they received no benefit from the lord's bread baskets, but their existence in the town had brought them inconvenience:

“The damages that the same residents of Villafáfila experienced from the fact that in the same town there were grains belonging to Mr. Duque because otherwise they would not need to have their horses and sacks available for driving, losing wages and some of these effects, with known exposure of their persons”.

They insist on the excessive contributions to which the French subjected them and the money that they were forced to give to the guerrillas, without the Duke having ever been asked for any contribution for these tasks:

“and lately the People have responded to all the local and territorial contributions in sums so large that they became unbearable for the transit of the enemy and even of the Guerrillos and National troops, arbitrarily withdrawing sums of money, particularizing in their own way Ranchers and Priests, and without counting in all this with the house of His Excellency, which until now in the whole series of years of a good agreement has not contributed as it should with any contribution, despite the fact that in the years of ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen Eight to nine thousand reais were distributed at the neighbors' complaint, which the amillar dealers judged had not yet demanded a maravedí .

Those of the town deny that they would have received communal land in exchange for contributions, except in cases of loans that the city council was forced to take when the demands of the French made some contribution peremptory:

“ to comply with the French troops with rations as well as with other requests, the same as for the Spanish troops... .. It is uncertain that most of the neighbors have been paid their contributions on common land, if only that on account of supplies of meat, grains or money in the years 12 and 13, since it was already so impossible to comply and demand them, it was necessary to take the justice and city council the means of awarding these lands to said neighbors and own in the oppressions and hardships of the other years ”,

Because if the requirements were not made effective in a short time, they imprisoned the mayors and the rich:

"And if there were any shortages (of supplies) then they arrested the Xª and other individuals as landowners."

And in addition to contributing to the maintenance of the troops, they had to lodge the chiefs and soldiers in their own houses:

“and the same as the troops from SE’s house would have been quartered, since they were always housed in the houses, both the infantry and the cavalry and they only occupied the paneras when they had the great alternating guard, mainly when in November or December of the year After 12, the horse artillery that had come down from Portugal stayed for twenty-odd days, and other times when they came loose parties with mail sheets or to get rations or to give pressure on their leadership that did not stay overnight, their commanders and that there were in this square that were commonly housed in front”.

In August 1815, an agreement had been reached between the city council and the duke to reduce the total debt by a third, on the condition that it be paid before August 1816:

" Mr. Duque del Ynfantado had powerful reasons in view of what was reported by his Administrator for not granting any favors to the residents of Villafáfila, but nevertheless he agreed to make them a reduction of a third of all the grains they owed him" .

But the neighbors were not satisfied with this agreement in view, among other circumstances, of the pardon that the king had granted for the arrears of the debts to the Public Treasury according to the Royal Decree of July 9, 1816 so that the arrears are not claimed. of taxes:

“ Our August Sovereign, in consideration of the fact that in the remembered years that the enemy dominated the contributions required of the Nation were scarce, the Royal Treasury deigned to pardon his beloved Vassals from the payment of contributions, as well as he did extensively with respect to the lords of said taxes who seem not to imitate such a worthy example and consistent with the sentiments of the nation " .

The sentence given on 04-26-1817 required the payment of what was owed to the duke, but it seems that it was favorable to those of Villafáfila in terms of the payment of what was consumed during the years of occupation:

“On that they will make the account of what they owe from year 4 and from July 1, 14” .

The consequences of the War of Independence in the small towns of Castile, if we take into account the example of Villafáfila, were of two types.

From an economic point of view, there was an exhaustion of the resources of the neighbors due to the excessive contributions in money and in grains, which the occupation authorities demanded, and the obligation of the invading army to maintain the land. At the same time, both the guerrillas who operated in the area, as well as the remnants of the Spanish army settled during a large part of this period in the regions on the other side of the Esla, made incursions into the town, also demanding the delivery of supplies, food and money. . In addition, there was a decrease and even abandonment of crops in many lands, both due to the vicissitudes of the war and due to the shortage of labor, since many young people who had enlisted in the army,

This shortage of food led to a rise in the cost of basic necessities, and to situations of hunger and misery such as had not been seen for a long time, which resulted in an increase in mortality, especially in the year 1812, adding to This is a growth in violent deaths.

To make the situation worse, the French caused the destruction of numerous buildings, although it was not as widespread in the case of Villafáfila as in other nearby towns such as Castrogonzalo, and the paralysis of other economic activities such as the saltpeter factory, which was also affected by the destruction of nearby mountains.

Secondly, the transformations in the sociopolitical sphere that took place during those years are revealed less than the documentation that I have handled, but a change of attitude of the vassals with respect to the lord of the town, the Duke of the Infantado, who He suffers on his properties, especially in the palace and paneras that he has in the town, the ravages of the war itself and the robbery of some neighbors. During the years of occupation, the feudal vassalage and the jurisdictional lordship disappeared, which was restored in 1814. In addition, the operating regime of the town halls, with the emergence of Boards, both for Defense and for Supplies, in which representatives participated. of the neighbors aside from the aldermen, they resented the prerogatives enjoyed by the noblemen of the town,

Most of the residents participated in the opposition to the French occupation, some with the enlistment of their children in the Spanish army and others with functions of espionage and sabotage, even calling someone like José Orduña, a hidalgo, with the name of " the Uncle Guerrillo ”, which he transmitted to his descendants, as a consequence of his actions. I have not found in the documentation direct mentions of active collaborationist neighbors of the French.

Those who years later would be the most conspicuous representatives of the local political factions, both liberals, the Trabadillo family, and royalists or Carlists, the León and Costilla families, were active opponents of the French.

https://historiasdevillafafila.blogspot.com/2017/08/la-guerra-de-la-independencia-en-una.html

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[1] RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ E. 2002: “Villafáfila on the death of Felipe II: demographic crisis and economic ruin” STVDIA ZAMORENSIA Second Stage Volume VI.

[2] Zamora Provincial Historical Archive [AHPZa.] Ensenada Cadastre. Leg.1628.

[3] General Archive of Simancas [AGS] General Directorate of Revenue Leg.1852-21.

[4] Floridablanca census. Province of Zamora. Madrid 1989.

[5] AHPZa. Municipal. Villafáfila Leg. 25.

[6] Diocesan Archive of Zamora [ADZa.] Villafáfila. Dead Books.

[7] Archive of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid [ARCh.V.] Civil Lawsuits. Fernando Alonso Olv.596-8.

[8] Own elaboration with data from parish registers, currently in the Diocesan Archive of Zamora.

[9] Series 1 corresponds to those solemnly baptized. Series 2 includes the previous ones plus those that appear in the books of the dead as baptized in relief, and series 3 are all the registered deceased.

[10] Villafáfila Parish Archives. San Pedro Factory Book.

[11] For more detail see RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ E. 2001: “History of the salt exploitations in the Villafáfila lagoons.

[12] AGS General Directorate of Revenue. II Remittance. Leg. 2940.

[13] Gras y de Esteva R. 1909. The War of Independence in Zamora: 57

[14] Testimony of Segundo Trabadillo in the presentation of merits of the year 1815.

[15] ARCH. V. Civil Lawsuits. Fernando Alonso forget. C.653-1.

[16] ARCH.V. Civil Lawsuits. Zarandona and Wals olv. c. 3238-2.

[17] Gras and de Esteva R. 1909: 57.

[18] AHPZa. Confiscation C. 187.

[19] AHPZa. Notaries 11760.

[20] AHPZa. Municipal C.394.

[21] AHPZa. Notaries 11760

[22] Delás-Trabadillo Family Archive. Second Trabadillo Merit Memorial.

[23] Delás-Trabadillo Family Archive.

[24] AHPZa. Notaries 11760.

[25] ARCH. V. Civil Lawsuits. the door forget 2006-3.

[26] ARCH.V. Civil Lawsuits. the door forget 2006-3.

[27] AHPZa. Notaries 11760.

[28] ADZA. Villafafila. Book of Baptisms of Santa Maria.

[29] Diocesan Archive of Astorga ADA Processes II Leg. 2343, exp.1.

[30] AHPZa. Notaries 11760.

[31] AHPZa. Municipal of Villafáfila C. 25.

[32] ARCH.V. Civil Lawsuits. the door forget 2006-3.

[33] ARCH.V. Civil Lawsuits. the door forget 2006-3.

[34] AHPZa. Municipal of Villafáfila C. 25.

[35] “And note that such outrages were most of the time for the exclusive benefit of the Chiefs, who exploited their dictatorial power by demanding new sums from wealthy detainees, without the fruit of their exactions transcending the army, whose soldiers did not they refrained from writing on the walls of our cities signs with the following inscription War of Spain! The death of the soldier, the ruin of the officers, the fortune of the generals” (Gras 1909)!

[36] AHPZa. Notarial C. 11760.

[37] AHPZa. Notarial C. 6422.

[38] After the war, in 1815 they had to request the military and political governor of the province, Lieutenant General Don Carlos O'Donell, to recognize the legality of said purchase, which was recognized after the favorable report of the lawyer from Villafáfila, Don Agustín. de Atienza y Olmos, commissioned for this purpose.

[39] Grass: 186.

[40] Civil Lawsuits, Fernando Alonso olv. C.657-1.

[41] Idem olv. c. 653-1.

[42] ARCH. V. Civil Lawsuits. Fernando Alonso forget. C.653-1.

[43] General Montbrun with the 6th Regiment of Dragoons and the Light Artillery stayed 4 days in Villafáfila. François Nicolas Fririon Historical Journal of the Portuguese countryside entreprise par les Français. Paris 1841.

[44] ALONSO FARM Manuel, De la, and PEREZ BARGADO Camilo: Villafáfila. History and current situation of a Castilian-Leonese town. Zamora 1996: 294

[45] ARCH.V. Civil Lawsuits. the door forget 2006-3.

[46] ARCH.V. Civil Lawsuits Lapuerta olv. 2006-3.

[47] Guerrillas.

[48] “Another in Manganeses de la Lampreana, who although not as useful, was more glorious for having made them know that trenches, parapets, or superior forces were not enough for the soldiers of the First Legion to attack them like tigers, shamefully throwing them out of the entrenchments, our men seizing them, as they would have done their people, had they not been rescued so quickly by quadrupled forces that they had in Villafáfila, two leagues from that, dying, despite the disproportion of forces and local situation, more French than of ours, among them their commander, according to the part of the same town fighting the few Spaniards not by surprise but face to face and in open field”. GARCIA VICENTE TOMAS. Documents relating to the operations of the Castilian Legion of Honor in 1808 and 1810. Madrid 1843.

[49] AHPZa. Notarial C.11762.

[50] ARCH.V. Civil Lawsuits Lapuerta olv. 2006-3.

[51] AHPZa. Notarial C.11762.

[52] ADZA. Villafafila. San Martin Factory Book.

[53] Farm M. et al. nineteen ninety six.

[54] Gras 1909: 246, 248.

[55] Gras 1909: 252.

[56] http://www.1808-1814.org/colabora/benaven.html

[57] AHPZa. Confiscation C.187

[58] An important source for the knowledge of the actions of the French troops during the war of independence, which I have barely consulted, are the memoirs and campaign accounts of French officers, some published, for example, the Memorias Militares del Lieutenant General Count Roguet published in Paris in 1865, where on page 387 it refers to troop movements in the Villafáfila region:

“ Le general Dumoustier fit, sur ma demande, depart: 1° de Villafafilla, 800 voltigeurs du 2° regimen renforcés de 100 lanciers de Berg et commandés par le major Dehayes pour aider au travail des cantons de Villafafilla, Villalpando et Valderas; 2nd of Zamora, 800 men of the 1st voltigeurs, with 100 lanciers of Berg, sous les ordres du major Malet, pour les parties del Pan et del Vino; 3° de Benavente, 800 voltigeurs du 3* regiment, avec 200 lanciers de Berg, sous le major Cambronne, pour la partie de la Merindad de Polvorosa who found themselves on the left bank of l'Orbigo, la Merindad de Villamandor et le pays located between l'Orbigo and l'Esla, after the confluent of l'Orbigo avec dernière rivière jusqu'à Puente Lavinza, Laguna de Negrillo et Villamor; 4th from Valencia,

or “La bataille de Vitoria: el fin de l'aventure napoléonienne en Espagne” by Jean Sarramon. Paris 1985: “ the advance incited to recommend Digeon d'observer from près le cours de la rivière et de faire occuper San Cebrian pour se lier avec Curto à Villafafila ”;

or English ones such as The Peninsular Journal of Major-general Sir Benjamin D'Urban... 1808-1817, written by Benjamin D'Urban, Izac Jozua Rousseau and published by Longmans, Green and co., in 1930.

[59] AHPZa. Confiscation C. 187.

[60] AR Ch. V. Hijosdalgo C. 1693-2.

[61] ARCH.V. Civil Lawsuits Lapuerta olv. 2006-3.