Juan Martin Diez

Juan Martín Díez, known as «El Empecinado» (Castrillo de Duero, September 2, 1775-Roa, August 19, 1825) was a Spanish soldier, hero of the Spanish War of Independence, in which he participated as head of one of the legendary guerrillas that repeatedly defeated the Napoleonic army. His figure was treated by Benito Pérez Galdós in the novel Juan Martín El Empecinado , part of the Episodios Nacionales , and portrayed by Francisco de Goya.

Biography

Early Years

Juan Martín Díez, "El Empecinado", was born on September 2, 1775 in Castrillo de Duero (Valladolid). Son of a prosperous peasant, he was a farmer (today his house is preserved in his town). His baptismal certificate is in the Diocesan Archive of Valladolid, and it reads as follows:

In five days of the month of September one thousand seven hundred and seventy and five and in the parish of this village of Castrillo de Duero, I, the undersigned priest of her own, solemnly baptized Juan, legitimate son of Juan Martín and Lucia Diez, neighbors of this villa and in it married and veiled, he natural of Castro de Fuentidueña and she natural of this villa Lucia Don José de Subirán.

The natives of Castrillo were nicknamed “stubborn”, because of a stream called Botijas, full of pecina (the green slime of decomposed water) that runs through the town and is believed to come from there the nickname of this character.

Home in Castrillo de Duero

From a very young age he had a military vocation. At eighteen he enlisted in the Roussillon campaign (Guerra de la Convención, from 1793 to 1795). Those two years that the war lasted were a good apprenticeship for him in the art of war, as well as being the beginning of his animosity towards the French.

In 1796 he married Catalina de la Fuente, a native of Fuentecén (Burgos) and settled in this town as a farmer until the occupation of Spain by Napoleon's army in 1808, when he decided to go and fight the invaders. It is said that the decision was made as a result of an event that happened in his town: a girl was raped by a French soldier who was later killed by Juan Martín.

Spanish War of Independence (1808-1814)

From this event, he organized a guerrilla party made up of friends and members of his own family. At first his place of action was on the route between Madrid and Burgos. He later fought with the Spanish army at the beginning of the Spanish War of Independence: on the Cabezón de Pisuerga bridge (Valladolid) on June 12, 1808; and in Medina de Rioseco (Valladolid), a battle that was fought on July 14 of that same year. It was these lost battles and in the open field that made him think that he would obtain better results with the guerrilla system and thus he successfully began his warlike actions in Aranda de Duero, Sepúlveda, Pedraza and the entire Duero river basin.

In 1809 he was appointed captain of the cavalry. In the spring of that same year, his field of action extended through the Gredos, Ávila and Salamanca mountains, to later continue through the provinces of Cuenca and Guadalajara.

The main task of these guerrillas was to damage the lines of communication and supply of the French army, intercepting emails and messages from the enemy and seizing convoys of food, money, weapons, etc. The damage done to Napoleon's army was considerable, in such a way that General Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo was appointed as "exclusive persecutor" of the Stubborn and his people. The French general, after unsuccessfully trying to capture him, opted to arrest the guerrilla's mother and some other relatives. Juan Martín's reaction was to intensify the war actions and threaten the execution of 100 French soldiers prisoners. The mother and the others were released.

In 1810 he had to take refuge in the castle of the Salamanca city of Ciudad Rodrigo, which was laid siege by French soldiers.

In 1811 he commanded the Guadalajara hussar regiment and at that time had a party of about 6,000 men.

In 1812, after leaving Brihuega (Guadalajara) he moved to Torija (Guadalajara) he decided to blow up the Torija castle so that French troops could not fortify themselves in the area.

Torija Castle

Bronze bust in Alcalá de Henares of the Italian sculptor Carlos Nicoli of 1880.

In 1813, on May 22, he helped in the defense of the city of Alcalá de Henares and on the Zulema bridge, over the Henares river, he defeated a group of Frenchmen who doubled his number. Later, Fernando VII would give his consent for the city of Alcalá to raise a commemorative pyramid of this victory. But in 1823, this same king ordered its destruction for being a symbol of a "liberal"; although in 1879 the people of Complutense raised another monument to the Empecinado, whom they perceived as their liberator. This monument has reached our days.

In 1814, Juan Martín was promoted to field marshal, and he earned the right to officially sign as el Empecinado, by Royal Order of October 9.

The Hundred Days (March-June 1815)

During the so-called Hundred Days period (between the return of Napoleon from his exile in Elba and his defeat at Waterloo and second abdication), El Empecinado remained in command of different forces located in the Pyrenees, among them, the companies of the Burgos Infantry Regiment deployed in the Broto Valley (Huesca), a town where he lived in July 1815 and where, among his customs, was bear hunting in the nearby Bujaruelo Valley, in the town of Torla.

Restoration and Liberal Triennium (1820-1823)

When King Ferdinand VII returned to Spain and restored absolutism, he took action against what he considered liberal enemies, including El Empecinado, who was banished to Valladolid. In 1820 the pronouncement of the military Rafael de Riego took place and the Empecinado returned to arms, but this time against the royalist troops of Fernando VII. During the following years, the Liberal Triennium, he was appointed military governor of Zamora and finally, Captain General.

Apparently, King Ferdinand VII tried to get El Empecinado to join his cause (despite having previously sworn to the Constitution of Cádiz) and join the "One Hundred Thousand Sons of San Luis"; he offered to grant him a noble title and a large amount of money, a million reales. The Stubborn's response was: «Tell the king that if he did not want the constitution, that he would not have sworn it; that the Stubborn swore it and will never commit the infamy of breaking his oaths ».

In 1823 the liberal regime ended. Juan Martín then went into exile in Portugal. Decreed amnesty on May 1, 1824, he asked for permission to return safely, permission that was granted. But Fernando VII was not willing to submit his hatred to the benevolence of the decree and on May 23 he had ordered: "It is time to take Ballesteros and dispatch Chaleco and the Empecinado to the other world." The Empecinado returned to his land With about sixty of his men who had accompanied him as an escort to Portugal, he was arrested in the town of Olmos de Peñafiel along with his companions by the Royalist Volunteers of the region.

The prisoners were taken to Nava de Roa, they were handed over to the mayor of Roa, Gregorio González Arranz, who transferred them to this town, «...on foot, in front of my steed and I carrying the end of the rope with which His arms were tied". Upon arrival, the mob, without having received an order from any superior, had set up a stage in the Plaza Mayor and the prisoner was taken up there, where he was insulted and stoned. He was locked up with his companions in an old tower where, according to Gregorio González, "...I did not forget to look for a person who would be in charge of preparing food for the prisoners, finding one who offered to provide it at a rate of thirteen reales per the food of the Stubborn, and thirteen cuartos —amount of the ration of military stage— for that of each one of the others. This arrangement was not a matter of a short time, it lasted until the Stubborn took his life."

Representation of the moments before the execution of the Empecinado in the work History of Spain in the nineteenth century (1902). When he was at the foot of the loaf he was able to break the shackles that held him and tried to catch the sword of the head of the group of realistic volunteers, but they swooped over him and climbed him to the perlso dragged with a rope. Mayor Roa thus recounted his hanging: “The last order was given and he was so violently hung that one of the campfires was to stop two hundred steps away, above the people. And he stayed at the moment as black as coal."

The case should have been taken to the Royal Chancellery of Valladolid, where the liberal soldier Leopoldo O'Donnell would have managed to have him tried benevolently, but the corregidor of the region Domingo Fuentenebro, the prisoner's personal enemy, reported to the king who appointed him royal commissioner to form the cause in Roa that was concluded on April 20, 1825. Which "...placed in the hands of His Majesty...approved the sentence handed down in which the Stubborn was condemned to be hanged in the Plaza Mayor de Roa...". The execution took place on August 19, 1825. He died by hanging instead of being shot.

The mayor of Roa, who carried out the preparations for the execution and witnessed it, recounts the scene:

When he realized that he was going up the staircase of the cadalso, he hit so hard with his hands that he broke his wives. He threw himself on the battalion's assistant to rip off his sword, which he grabbed; but he could not stay with it because the helper did not intimidate and knew how to resist. He tried to escape then in the direction of the Colegiata and got into the ranks of the soldiers.
The confusion was terrible. The drums were played, the unarmed nations ran unpaid, and the authorities; the priests and the executioner stood as paralyzed...
Screaming realistic volunteers—who were trying to get through with the bayonets—that they didn't hurt him, that this laugh was what he wanted to do, I sent a group of soldiers to get him out of the two or three ranks he had managed to get through. [...]
At last, realistic volunteers were able to hold him and placed him in the same place where he was when he broke the wives, that is, next to the gallows.
The priests tried to exhort him, but, seeing that he did not listen to them, and, on the contrary, he seemed to mock, Brother Ramon, speaking to the public as if he cast a Christian talk, shouted: "Do not pray for this perverse, who dies condemned!"
So, to avoid struggles and jobs, a thick hammer was brought and tied through the body, and so he went up to the point where he had to do his work the executioner of justice, which, helped by some realistic volunteers, held him strong, taking him for the hair, and prepared him well the laces. [...]
The last order was given and hung with so much violence that one of the campfires went to stop two hundred steps away, above the people. And he stayed at the moment as black as a coal.

Fray Ramón de la Presentación, the same one who appears in the story, violated the sacred secret of confession by revealing to the authorities that El Empecinado had told him in confession that he had hidden 14,000 reales so that he could send them to his family, that he was going to be destitute. Fray Ramón justified it in writing, alleging that "Morality and healthy Theology" "does not want to force secrecy on the ministers of Penance, when the intention of the penitents is not to make a Sacrament, but to make a mockery of the Sacrament and a formal contempt ».

The nickname

On October 9, 1814, by Royal Order, Don Juan Martín Díez, a native of Castrillo de Duero (Valladolid), was granted the privilege of using the name of Empecinado, for himself, his children and heirs. The nickname of this historical figure has enriched our language and thus it is said to become obstinate or insist on achieving an end. However, this nickname comes from older, since it was the nickname that all those who were born in the town of Castrillo de Duero had, apparently due to the abundance of pecina (black mud) in the Botijas stream that crosses the town. The word stubborn had the sense, referring to a person, of dirty and careless. But this character definitely changed the meaning of the word, giving it greater nobility.

Legacy and Tributes

Mausoleum

Funeral monument to "El Empecinado" in Burgos.

The remains of El Empecinado are preserved in the funerary monument that was erected by popular subscription in Burgos in the middle of the XIX century.

Juan Martín "El Empecinado" Cultural Circle

The Juan Martín «el Empecinado» Cultural Circle was born due to the concern and initiative of a series of people who, feeling admirers of the Empecinado and being aware of the poor payment they had received in exchange for their loyalty to a cause worthy of better luck, they could not remain standing before the situation of oblivion in which this undefeated and illustrious character found himself. From the cultural entity they try to make this great character known. Among its various activities, the tributes that are held every year between the months of August and September in Roa de Duero and Castrillo de Duero are already traditional.

Novel

Benito Pérez Galdós makes him the central figure of Juan Martín El Empecinado, the ninth novel of the National Episodes.

Television

The TVE series Paisaje con figuras, with scripts by Antonio Gala and directed by Mario Camus, dedicated an episode to him in 1976.

In the series El ministerio del tiempo an episode is dedicated to El Empecinado during the Spanish War of Independence, and he is mentioned later in other episodes. He is played by actor Hovik Keuchkerian.

In the 1983 TVE series Los desastres de la guerra (television series), the character of Juan Martín Díez, El Empecinado, is played by Sancho Gracia.

Streets

Several streets bear his name in Madrid, Roa, Valladolid, Telde (Gran Canaria), Alcalá de Henares, Móstoles and Melilla as well as a secondary school in Aranda de Duero and a Training and Labor Insertion Unit (UFIL) in Alcalá de Henares.

Additional bibliography

• Hardman, Frederick: The Empecinado seen by an English. Madrid: Editorial Espasa and Calpe, 1973, sixth edition. ISBN 84-239-0360-5.
• Merino, Ignacio: By The Empecinate and Freedom. Madrid: Maeva Ediciones, 2003. ISBN 84-95354-91.
• González Gaulí, Ubaldo: The Empecinate in its historical environment. Madrid: Editorial Círculo Rojo, 2018. ISBN 978-84-9183-560-8