![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In the end, Don Anselmo, once a wealthy provincial gentleman, became a failed politician who abandoned both his family and his estate. Once in Madrid he spent his time and his money looking for protection and political connections, a process in which he experienced only personal humiliation and frustration. Unsatisfied with merely local power, he decided to leave his house and possessions in the hands of an administrator and emigrate to Madrid, the only place in Spain where one could achieve a brilliant political career. First, he did everything possible to attain a position of power in his town. ![]() Young, good-looking, affable, and generous, Anselmo held all the virtues and qualities that can make a man happy, except for one weakness: an overbearing ambition for becoming important. In the end, Cabrera sold some of his assets to pay the former slaves.ĭon Anselmo, the protagonist of a story by Mesonero Romanos, was a wealthy established gentleman in one of Andalusia's leading towns. Authorities recognized the mounting pressure from below, the vigilant clase jornalera. When Cabrera refused to comply with the court’s decision, the judge referred the matter to the Spanish governor, noting that the owner’s breach of his “sacred obligations” had become “the subject of unfavorable commentary against the authorities.”2 The governor and other colonial administrators in San Juan shared the local authorities’ concerns over the workers’ “disgruntled”3 state and sent reminders to all municipal authorities to pay special attention to salary payments to other newly freed workers. All agreed that Cabrera was responsible for the money. They presented their demands to the town’s mayor, the Síndico Protector de Libertos (the assistant to the Freedpeople’s Advocate), and the tribunal de juicios verbales (the municipal court for small claims). In the midst of their dispute, a group of libertos working at the hacienda mobilized to demand payment of owed wages and relief money, which they had not received at the moment of emancipation. In 1874, A group of former slaves working at the hacienda La Florida, in the town of Santa Isabel in Ponce’s administrative district, organized as laborers to demand payment for their services.1 After the death of its owner, La Florida had become the object of a legal battle between its overseer and the hacienda’s heir, Don Carlos Cabrera. ![]()
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