THE phrase ‘bandit’ usually evokes a picture of a stealthy robber in black, stealing cash and different treasures.

However in Andalucia in the course of the 18th and nineteenth centuries, bandits have been a lot extra. They have been flamenco dancers, bull-fighters, smugglers and travellers.

The bandits performed dangerously alongside the road of separating good and evil and terrorizing and relieving individuals all of sudden. Though they might present no mercy to their victims, many bandits would then redistribute the stolen items to the poor who have been denied justice by the regulation. They established their very own sense of justice at a time when widespread poverty and wealth inequality infested Spain.

Sierra de Ronda

The mountain vary of Andalucia was the proper playground for these rebels who defied conference and transversed ethical and moral boundaries. In his ebook Historical past of the Islamic Spain, the historian Reinhardt Dozy calls the mountains essentially the most romantic a part of Andalucia the place majestic forests within the chain of mountains encourage a form of poetic terror.

The bandistry in Spain goes means again to the Roman instances. The time period ‘bandit’ was first used as a nickname for Viriathus, a Lusitanian chief who resisted the Roman rule and was branded as a brigand. Then there have been the Almogavars of the Christian Iberian kingdoms and Monfíes in the course of the Moorish rule. Lastly, after the French invasion within the early nineteenth century and the resultant civil unrest in Spain, the final era, and maybe essentially the most well-known, of bandits thrived within the steep mountains of Andalucia.

Smuggled items & tradition

Absolutely built-in into these huge Andalucian terrains, the bandits had the highways of the dense woods within the palms of their palms. Their experience supplied the proper platform for not solely housebreaking, but in addition smuggling. Smuggled items from the southern hemisphere of the world entered Europe by way of Gibraltar and have been transported by way of the various routes alongside the mountainous areas. Together with tobacco and textiles – essentially the most sought-after items- tradition, information and concepts unfold by way of these smuggling paths.

Well-known bandits

One in all Andalucia’s most well-known bandits was José Maria Hinojosa Cabacho, referred to as ‘el Tempranillo’, or the Early Chicken. His fame has grown to the purpose that a lot of his historical past can’t be separated from legend. Nicknamed the King of the Sierra Morena, el Tempranillo was an early Spanish Robin Hood, stealing from the wealthy and giving to the poor. Throughout his time, he was identified for being charming and well mannered, even within the midst of a heist, a lot in order that English traveller John Ford wrote that the bandit was the ‘love of Andalucia.’ No matter his reputation, el Tempranillo was not a person to be messed with. By 13, he had killed a person and joined a gang of bandits to keep away from arrest. However by 27, he was pardoned by the king and named the commander in chief of Spain’s police. Mockingly, or maybe appropriately, el Tempranillo

met his finish on the hand of one other bandit as a police officer in pursuit.

Sevilla-born Joaquín Camargo Gómez, “el Vivillo,” was one other Robin Hood bandit. A tobacco smuggler, he’s identified for an exploit close to Setenil, throughout which he certain, gagged and robbed 25 retailers coming from a good. Regardless, el Vivillo was a well-respected and admired captain of a gang of bandits, however after accumulating a fortune from his escapades, he embraced a extra righteous way of life as a picador, one of many horsemen in Spanish bullfights, garnering for himself extra fame. He would later transfer to Buenos Aires together with his household and, in response to stories on the time, develop into a businessman. On July 16, 1929, the household man misplaced his spouse and took his personal life out of sorrow.

However not all bandits have been so warm-hearted and loving. Francisco Ríos González, who glided by “el Pernales,” was chilly and heartless. He minimize down anybody and everybody in his means, and mistreated these in his household. For him, banditry was not a chance for social justice exterior of the regulation, however slightly a method to fulfill his need for violence. A pastor turned legal, el Pernales had no sense of loyalty, murdering fellow bandits and delivering their our bodies to the Guardia Civil to reap the advantages. Ultimately, nevertheless, he was shot by the Guardia Civil as he was fleeing to Valencia in hopes of at some point reaching Mexico.

Juan José Mingolla Gallardo, or “Pasos Largos” (Lengthy Legs), had the consideration of being Andalucia’s final bandolero. After spending his time as a soldier within the conflict between the USA, Spain, and Cuba, he turned to searching and stealing- each unlawful on the time- to make a dwelling. After being caught by the Guardia Civil and serving time in jail, he sought revenge, killing the park guardian who reported him to the Guardia Civil in addition to his son. Maneuvering by way of the countryside, he was in a position to evade seize together with his charisma and

information of the land, up till the unlucky second the Guardia Civil discovered and shot him within the chest. Whereas Pasos Largos escaped, following remedy for his wound and regardless of the protests of the general public, he was introduced again to jail. At 59, his reputation led to a pardon, just for him to return to searching and return to jail after working because the guardian of the property of a person he robbed years in the past. It was two years later within the caves of Sierra Blanquilla that Andalucia stated goodbye to its final beloved bandit.

However the legacy of Pasos Largos, together with the tales of these earlier than him, outlive the lifespans of those thrill seekers.

Lasting impacts

The reminiscences of bandits are engraved eternally in historical past by way of the humanities. From the 18th to early twentieth century, many artists fascinated by the phenomenon of banditry flocked to Andalucia to seize its grand, mountainous panorama. The drawings present a window to the covert, adventurous way of life of bandits and the distant and dangerous paths they travelled on.

From the Nineteen Forties to the 80s, bandits made frequent appearances on the display as the journey style took off within the Spanish cinema. José María “El Tempranillo” got here again to life by way of the thrilling efficiency of Paco Rabal within the movie Llanto por un bandido. Furthermore, the lives of bandits have been dropped at houses by way of the favored Spanish drama collection Curro Jiménez set within the mountains of Ronda.

Residing on the sting of the great and the dangerous, Andalucia’s bandoleros have been immortalized by the inventive scribes who recorded the dangerous escapades of bandits, romantic travellers who witnessed their exploits firsthand and guests right this moment who nonetheless head to the rocky terrains of Ronda to hint again the steps of the bandits. Their legacy lives on.