A POLITICAL-FAMILY LAWSUIT IN

OTERO DE SARIEGOS, 18th CENTURY 1786

Execution of the lawsuit litigated by Manuel Ojero, a resident of Otero de Sariegos (Zamora), with Antonio Calzada, from the same neighborhood, regarding ill-treatment

In March 1786 Don Manuel Ojero, a resident of Otero de Sariegos, alderman for the state of Los Hidalgos, filed a criminal complaint with the criminal chamber of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid,

"I file a serious and criminal complaint" ,

against don Antonio Calzada, mayor for the noble status of the town of Otero de Sariegos and don Manuel Calzada, his son, for bad treatment, insults and other excesses.

In the account of the events made by his attorney, he affirms that Ojero, being a notorious hidalgo and running the job of alderman, those referred to insulted him, calling him a shoemaker, a rogue and

“Other things that cannot be voiced without blushing, giving blows and punches and breaking that could only prevent the concurrence of some supporters from continuing for a longer time for no other reason than not having agreed to sign a certain power of attorney or agreement that the said mayor composed with the council or neighbors of their faction” ,

to delimit the meadows of Santioste and La Reguera. Not happy with it

“Forgetting his quality as a nobleman, he put him in the public jail loaded with error as if he were a criminal… putting a couple of donuts on his feet” .

Take the opportunity to accuse Calzada of:

-with his cattle he enters the fields of his neighbors without being punished by the sentences he has suffered for having his cattle found grazing in fields of others,

-which acts with despotism and decrees fines without forming orders,

-which has the neighbors frightened, even,

"He had the audacity to seize his old and decrepit father on a certain occasion and to make it impossible for him to kill a mare with a shot in the eye" .

He asks that he be arrested, that his assets be seized,

“deposing him from the rod and that he be deprived of being a judge now and at all times”,

and be sentenced.

Days before, he had granted a power of attorney to a Valladolid attorney before the notary public of Villafáfila and made a report of witnesses so that they could ratify what he affirmed.

The objective of the lawsuit, in addition to restoring justice, says that it does:

"Wishing with the zeal of a good vassal and patriotic, to keep with his family and property in his house and town with all tranquility and Christianity in order to pay tribute by this means to our monarch may God guide" .

The chamber admits the complaint because it is a case of legal action, orders the defendants to leave four leagues from the town of Otero and orders Antonio Calzada to appear in court within six days under the penalty of 200 ducats.

Antonio, who would already know about the complaint, had moved to Valladolid and voluntarily presented himself before the governor and mayors of the room on April 1, and they assigned the city and its suburbs to him as a prison without being able to leave it.

They interrogate him on April 5 and he denies knowing the cause of the complaint. He recognizes Manuel Ojero as a hidalgo, who has not performed vile jobs, but when they ask him if he is peaceful and well-spoken with all kinds of people, he knows the opposite.

When asked if:

“As a mayor, who must, due to his employment and character, set an example for his subjects, he must treat them all and especially those who run jobs without insulting them in word or deed, seeking circumspection, calm, composure and tranquility in his town. ” , he replies that he always does it that way.

He denies the insults and bad treatment, says that the agreement to shorten the meadows was taken by the entire council, and that he ordered Ojero to be arrested because he did not obey the court orders, among others so that he would leave free a piece of meadow that he had cleared Ojero, and that as in Otero there is no City Hall and that there is only a public jail where all prisoners have to be, regardless of their condition.

They questioned him about the fact that, in 1982, when Francisco Pascual was mayor, he and his son had attacked Andrés Baquero, who had been sent by the mayor to see if the cattle were eating the wheat, they had split his head in three parts with sticks , and no cause had been formed by having yielded the injured part.

They ask him if he had ordered Francisco Bueno, Gervás Gutiérrez, José Ledesma and others to abandon the land they had leased under a fine of 20 ducats, which he denies.

As for the accusation of having arrested even his own father, he denies it and refers that in the year 1772, when he was mayor, at the exit of the Mass of the Kings and carrying the mayor's staff, due to the complaint that the priest said the mass "at breaking sun" for which many neighbors complained without being able to hear her, her father reprimanded her and they had a few words, and her mother slapped her on the way out, but she did not arrest them, she only said that if it were not her parents they would would have caught

They accused him that, having made quiñones of the lands of the Duke of Frías among the neighbors, approved by His Excellency, and each one put himself in possession of what corresponded to him, however, he had requested Francisco Pascual, Manuel Guayo , Manuel Ojero and Andrés Baquero so that they would not till the lands that corresponded to them under a fine of 20 ducats. He denies the facts and says that there is a lawsuit pending against them before the councilor of Otero.

He is granted 40 days to lift his prison sentence in Valladolid and can return to Otero to continue his work.

When the 40-day period has elapsed, he asks for release from prison again, but it is no longer granted.

The witnesses presented by Ojero are questioned about whether Antonio Calzada has been:

“of intrepid, arrogant and boisterous genius, he became owner of the council pastures enjoying them with his cattle, without allowing other neighbors who have equal rights, and introduced them in his own fields if someone has claimed, doing the same with the guard if he has ever determined in compliance with his obligation to seize the cattle after not wanting to pay the penalty .

Since he wielded the rod, he has done nothing but file lawsuits with all the neighbors and demand of them, if they want to be released from prison, high costs and fines .

In the 40 days that the prison sentence was lifted, far from containing himself, he relapsed into excesses, introducing his cattle to graze where he deprived others of doing so .

When he was denied release from jail the second time:

“he had clandestinely returned to Otero, remaining hidden in his house.”

Ojero's witnesses are Francisco Pascual, Andrés Baquero, Manuel Aguayo, Diego Salagre, Andrés Ledesma, Gervás Ledesma de Otero, and Pedro Durantes and José Fernández de Villafáfila.

Antonio Calzada defends himself by accusing Manuel Ojero of being a slanderer and of having occupied and plowed part of council land, and Francisco Pascual of being his manifest enemy and having said that he will not stop until he is finished.

Calzada presents an allegation of fault lines and in the disqualifications of the witnesses he puts himself in evidence for his conflictive background:

-Of Manuel Ojero he says that he usually has pending lawsuits and complaints threatening those who do not follow his ideas with a knife or other instrument.

- He says that Francisco Pascual searched for, requested and instructed the other witnesses, between the two of them there are four or five civil and criminal lawsuits pending and he has gone out to kill him twice, once with a tornadera and once with a pistol. 

"The lawsuits between Calzada and the town have been experienced since Pascual was mayor for having intruded on his own authority in the loans of the Duke of Frías" .

-Andrés Baquero and he himself have been in lawsuits for 20 years.

- José Ledesma has enmity with him.

-Pedro Durings has proven his enmity for a lawsuit that brought him before the Villafáfila justice as a result of which they sold him 72 head of cattle and caused him more than three thousand reais in costs.

-Diego Salagre has been his opponent since he defeated him in a lawsuit over the bad choice he had made for the justice offices for which he and Andrés Baquero were sentenced to costs.

-Andrés Ledesma has been your enemy ever since a lawsuit against his son followed over his paying him 700 r that it cost him to get him out of the prison he suffered in the town of Benavente for having hit a shepherd with a club.

-Andrés Fernández wants him badly.

In turn, Calzada presents witnesses to whom he asks:

- If they know that he is a gentleman, well-spoken, peaceful and prudent, and that he has carried out his trades with the greatest utility of the people without complaints.

-That he was elected mayor and confirmed by the Duke on December 31, who sent him the title of such dated January 21, although he could not take possession until the end of February because the possessory title had been intercepted at the Benavente post office until that they saw that they could not achieve anything with the withholding because the duke sent a letter-order dated February 4 so that they would give him possession without any delay and proceed with the investigation and punishment of the one who had withheld the title from the mail, that he suspected it had been Ojero himself.

-The year in which Francisco Pascual was mayor, he was imprisoned in jail and was imprisoned for four days charged with prisons, despite the fact that the aforementioned circumstances concurred in him for no other reason than that a farm servant had been careless and had let a cow into the a wheat

-From 72 to 86 he had not been mayor again.

-Manuel Ojero and Francisco Pascual are not moved by anything other than having seen him flourish in the town with some wealth and having become mayor this year against his will.

-That this year he has only worked the same estates that he worked in the past.

-As soon as Manuel Ojero and Pascual found out that he was proposed for mayor, they made slanderous representations before the Duke of Frías, who was to confirm the appointment, discrediting his conduct in order to deprive him of his job as mayor.

He accuses that they used the priest to retain the title of appointment of mayor.

The Chamber decrees the lifting of the preventive prison sentence in Valladolid under the bail of being and paying what they sentenced him and he leaves on trust Antonio Cantero, a neighbor of Castrogonzalo.

They ask Ojero for a bail of 200 ducats for slander, of which Francisco Calzada comes out as guarantor.

The lawsuit is seen for sentencing.

"JUDGMENT

-We warn Don Antonio Calzada to treat said Ojero and all kinds of people from now on with the moderation, prudence and meekness that corresponds in deed and word, and not use any pretext of the authority of a judge to outrage them and avenge their crimes. particular resentments, under penalty of being punished with all rigor of law.

-Likewise, we warn that from now on you correct your behavior and that of your domestics and avoid the damages, annoyances and humiliations with which you have treated your neighbors up to now, not giving rise to new complaints, punished with perpetual deprivation of trades.

-We condemn all the costs of the case and we fined him 300 ducats, 50 applied to Manuel Ojero for damages and 250 to camera penalties and court costs for half

Valladolid on November 4, 1786”.

The costs of the plaintiff Manuel Ojero amount to 2005 reais, and Calzada has to pay them, in addition to the fine and its own costs.

Archive of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid,

REGISTRY OF EXECUTIVES, BOX 3545.16

Characters:

In such a small town, all the actors in this story are related.

Antonio de Calzada Ledesma (Otero de Sariegos 1740-1804 Otero de Sariegos) belonged to the first generations of Oteranos after the repopulation, eldest son of Don Francisco de Calzada Marbán (Villarrín 1712–1787 Otero de Sariegos) who was the first Calzada to arrive in Otero de Sariegos and de María de Ledesma Fernández (Villafáfila 1712-1781 Otero de Sariegos), married at the age of 20 to Josefa de Coca Bueno, had several children, among others the defendant Manuel de Calzada de Coca (Otero 1760-1815), and Francisco from Calzada de Coca (Otero de Sariegos 1765-1840 Villafáfila) first Calzada resident in Villafafila and married in Villafáfila with María Cruz Rodríguez Caballero (Villafáfila 1769-Villafáfila 1816).

Manuel Ojero Manrique de Lara (Fuentes de Ropel 1758-1810 Otero de Sariegos) married María de Calzada Ledesma (Otero Sariegos 1748-¿? Otero de Sariegos) in 1777, therefore, he is her brother-in-law. It seems that his mother-in-law was on his side since she came out as his guarantor in the lawsuit.

Francisco Pascual Gutiérrez, from Villalba, married to Micaela de Coca Bueno in 1766, is also Calzada's brother-in-law.

For this reason, although the cause appears to be a political struggle for the city council positions and the influence derived from them in terms of the use of pastures or the tilling of communal lands, family conflicts are the root of the animosity felt by the characters.

This is what Calzada himself declares:

 "The enmity with his father and brothers does not come from another cause than to ask the legitimate mother and some and others the respective parts of the costs of the lawsuit that he won in the Royal Cahcillería about half of the trades " ^[1] .

Author - Text:

Elijah Rodriguez Rodriguez.

A political-family lawsuit in Otero de Sariegos in the 18th century

https://historiasdevillafafila.blogspot.com

https://historiasdevillafafila.blogspot.com/2015/04/un-pleito-politico-familiar-de-otero-de.html

villafafila.net - http://villafafila.net/oteropleito/oteropleito.htm

Bibliography:

Execution of the lawsuit litigated by Manuel Ojero, a resident of Otero de Sariegos (Zamora), with Antonio Calzada, from the same neighborhood, about ill-treatment.

Royal Chancery of Valladolid: REGISTRY OF EXECUTIONS, BOX 3545, 16.

ES.47186.ARCHV/8.8.1//REGISTRATION OF EXECUTIVES, BOX 3545,16.

http://pares.mcu.es/ParesBusquedas20/catalogo/description/5811645?nm

Photography:

ES.47186.ARCHV/8.8.1//REGISTRATION OF EXECUTIVES, BOX 3545,16.

Images: 22294910 to 22294923.

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

Transcription and Assembly:

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

All text, photographs, transcription and montage, their rights belong to their authors, any type of use is prohibited without authorization.