La mano negra - Facts

 The book mainly focuses on the events happening in Jerez, which led to many labourers to be accused to belong to La Mano Negra, a secret society. The Black Hand (Spanish: La Mano Negra) was a presumed secret, anarchist organization based in the Andalusian region of Spain and best known as the perpetrators of murders, arson, and crop fires in the early 1880s. The events associated with the Black Hand took place in 1882 and 1883 amidst class struggle in the Andalusian countryside, the spread of anarcho-communism distinct from collectivist anarchism, and differences between legalists and insurrectionists in the Federación de Trabajadores de la Región Española.

Many of the characters in the novel were real people:

Pedro Corbacho is one of the main characters in the book. He was a thirty-two-year-old peasant and married to Soledad.

Francisco Corbacho was Pedro's eldest brother. He was married to Melchora, and he had four children. 

Juan Ruiz El Maestrillo was about 50. He came from Ecija and used to teach the peasant's children to read and write. He was with his partner, Maria, and three children. 

Cayetano Espósito is portrayed in the book as a snitch. During the months he was imprisoned, he was in solitary confinement because everyone recriminated to have been the reason why they were arrested. When he learnt he was going to be executed, he blew a basket and was livid for days. Then he appeared hanged in his cell. It is not clear whether he committed suicide or was murdered. 

José Oliver was the captain of the Civil Guard. He was sent to the province of Cadiz in 1882 to deal with the anarchist faction called The Black Hand. He arrested several members of the organization.

Tomás Pérez de Monforte was a key figure in the suppression of the alleged anarchist organization "La Mano Negra" (The Black Hand).  As commander and chief officer of the Rural Guard of Jerez, he played an active role in the arrests and the dismantling of this group in the Jerez and Cádiz areas. 

 Alongside Captain José Oliver y Vidal, Pérez de Monforte led Civil Guard operations to arrest hundreds of alleged members of La Mano Negra in late 1882.

Monforte was the commander of the Rural Guard in Jerez. In Jerez de la Frontera, the surveillance of the extensive rural district during the 19th century was marked by social unrest, banditry, and the need to protect the wine industry. Created in the mid-19th century, this Rural Guard operated specifically in the fields of Jerez. Its primary function was to protect farmhouses (cortijos), vineyards, and roads, as well as to prevent theft and crop fraud. They wore specific uniforms and worked in coordination with private field guards.

The Seville Congress was the Second Congress of the newly created Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region, held in Seville (Spain) in September 1882 during the reign of Alfonso XII. The Congress was held between September 24 and 26, 1882, at the Cervantes Theater in Seville. It was attended by 251 delegates representing 8 trade unions—the most important being the Field Workers' Union, which had 20,915 members, followed by the Manufacturers' Union, with 10,000—and 218 local federations. More than half of these federations were from Andalusia.

The book describes some fictitious crimes but some are based on history.

The crime of parrilla refers to the death of Bartolomé Gago Blanco de Benaocaz. He  was the man whose death was central in the arrest of all those men supposedly belonging to the Black hand. His body was actually found buried near San José del Valle, on 4 February 1882. This was known as the crime of la parrilla. 

The crime in Arcos related to the death of Fernando Olivera (who in the book is named Ojeda). The assassination of Fernando Olivera Montero occurred on August 11, 1882, in Arcos de la Frontera (Cádiz) and was one of the key crimes used to construct the narrative about the alleged violent anarchist organization known as La Mano Negra (The Black Hand) in Andalusia. The murder was attributed to La Mano Negra because Fernando Olivera allegedly knew secrets of the organization and had refused to join it, or had threatened to reveal information.

In the crime of the ventorillo Rufino Nuñez and María Labrador were murdered. The term "crimen del ventorrillo" (the inn crime) is historically linked to a series of brutal murders that occurred in the early 1880s, which were attributed to the alleged anarchist organization known as La Mano Negra (The Black Hand).  The Murder of the Innkeeper: A highly publicized case was the murder of María Labrador, the innkeeper of the "Ventorrillo de Núñez" (or the inn on the road from Jerez to Cartuja). It was a crime characterized by extreme cruelty and was a major puzzle for the authorities of the time.

Another crime was named of el Empate. An inn keeper, Antonio Calato, was murdered. 

Ines de Montalvo lived in Ribadavia Palace in the book, based on the palace of the Counts of Puerto Hermoso. The Palace of the Counts of Puerto Hermoso is a neoclassical palace located in Jerez de la Frontera (Andalusia, Spain). Projected in 1873 on the Plaza del Arroyo, it served as a residence for prominent local families and even as a royal residence in 1925.

The book starts with the murder of a blacksmith living in Medina Sidonia. Medina Sidonia is a city  in the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia. Considered by some to be the oldest city in Europe, it is used as a military defence location because of its elevation.

Fernando, another murdered man, was from Arcos de la Frontera.  Arcos is located on the right bank of the Guadalete river, which flows at the foot of towering vertical cliffs, to Jerez and on to the Bay of Cádiz. The town commands a fine vista atop a sandstone ridge, from which the peak of Sierra de San Cristóbal and the Guadalete Valley can be seen.

Higinio, who was also murdered, was from Bornos. 

The first time we see Rodrigo Quirós he is Las Injurias in Madrid, trying to buy morphine for his addiction. Las Injurias was a neighbourhood located in the south of 19th-century Madrid, near the Manzanares River. Classified by the Madrid City Council as a shantytown, it was evicted in 1906, and the structures that made it up were destroyed.

Rodrigo is summoned to see his boss in the Palace of the Salesas Reales. The Palace of Las Salesas is an 18th-century architectural complex located in the Justicia neighbourhood of the Centro district. It is also known as the Palace of Justice, as it has housed the Supreme Court since the late 19th century. 

When we first meet Inés de Montalvo, she is at the funeral of her husband at the Church of St Dionisio. It was built in the late 15th century in Gothic-Mudéjar style, although its interior was later renovated in Baroque style (18th century) by architects Diego Antonio Díaz and Pedro de Silva. The parish was established by Alfonso X the Wise in the name of Dionysius the Areopagite as the city was turned to Christian rule on Saint Denis's Day in 1264.

In the book Juana has just arrived from London where she has been studying. She is an admirer of Eliza Cook. Eliza Cook (24 December 1818 – 23 September 1889) was an English author and poet associated with the Chartist movement. She was a proponent of political freedom for women, and believed in the ideology of self-improvement through education, something she called "levelling up." This made her hugely popular with the working class public in both England and America.

We learn that in 1882 Spain had a census suffrage. Householder Franchise or census suffrage is where a homeowner has the right to vote in an election. This is a limited form of suffrage, but different from equal voting because, to borrow a dictum, householder franchise is one Household, one vote because it entitles only the householder one vote. Census suffrage (or restricted suffrage) in Spain limited the right to vote and to be elected exclusively to a minority of adult males who met certain requirements of wealth, tax contribution, or level of education.

Alfonso XII was the king in 1882. Alfonso XII ( 28 November 1857 – 25 November 1885), also known as El Pacificador, was King of Spain from 29 December 1874 to his death in 1885.

Alfonso had a meeting with Mateo Praxedes Sagasta, the president of the cabinet, and Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, leader of the opposition about the problem in Jerez.

Práxedes Mariano Mateo Sagasta y Escolar (21 July 1825 – 5 January 1903) was a Spanish civil engineer and politician who served as Prime Minister on eight occasions between 1870 and 1902—always in charge of the Liberal Party—as part of the turno pacifico, alternating with the Conservative leader Antonio Cánovas. He was known as an excellent orator.

Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (8 February 1828 – 8 August 1897) was a Spanish politician and historian known principally for serving six terms as prime minister and his overarching role as "architect" of the regime that ensued with the 1874 restoration of the Bourbon monarchy.

The meeting took place in the Royal Palace in Madrid. The Royal Palace of Madrid is the official residence of the Spanish royal family. With over 135,000 m2  of floor space and 3,418 rooms, the Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest palace in Western Europe, the largest royal palace in Europe, and among the largest palaces in the world.

There is another scene with the king in El Pardo Palace. The Royal Palace of El Pardo  is one of the official residences of the Spanish royal family and one of the oldest, being used by the Spanish monarchs since Henry III of Castile in the 15th century. 

In this scene the king remembers how in 1878 and 1879 there were two attacks that endangered his life.  They were perpetrated by anarchists applying the new 'propaganda of the deed' strategy approved by the Anarchist International at the Verviers Congress held in 1877. On both occasions, King Alfonso XII was unharmed, and the respective perpetrators—the Catalan cooper Juan Oliva Moncusí, for the 1878 attempt; and the Galician pastry chef Francisco Otero González, for the 1879 attempt—were arrested, tried, and executed by means of the garrote vil.

During the reign of Alfonso XII, in February 1881, Sagasta's government allowed workers' organizations, such as the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region (FTRE), to come to light. This period marked a drastic change from the restrictive policies of previous years.

One of the spots where Juana goes to find Leandro is the casino in Calle Larga. 

Quiros stays at a pension in Calle Naranjas. The first records of Naranjas Street date back to 1589, appearing in documentation from the Hospital de la Misericordia. In earlier times, its surroundings were part of the ancient Jewish cemetery. The name comes from the daughters of Pedro Naranjo, who stood out for their charitable and pious lives, and not from the fruit of the same name.

Quiros learns some facts about sherry. For example, he discovers what flor is. Flor in winemaking, is a film of yeast on the surface of wine, important in the manufacture of some styles of sherry. The flor is formed naturally under certain winemaking conditions, from indigenous yeasts found in the region of Andalucía in southern Spain. Normally in winemaking, it is essential to keep young wines away from exposure to air by sealing them in airtight barrels, to avoid contamination by bacteria and yeasts that tend to spoil it. However, in the manufacture of sherries, the slightly porous oak barrels are deliberately filled only about five-sixths full with the young wine, leaving "the space of two fists" empty to allow the flor yeast to take form and the bung is not completely sealed.

The espirriaque  is the lowest quality grape must or the final liquid extracted by squeezing and pressing the remains of the grape mass.

Rodrigo is attacked in Rincón Malillo, which is where he meets Tana. The Rincón Malillo is a cluster of narrow alleys in the old town of Jerez de la Frontera. Located behind the Riquelme Palace, its fame stems from the various medieval legends passed down about it.

San José del Valle also appears in the novel. Framed within the region of the Campiña de Jerez, it was a district of the municipality of Jerez de la Frontera until 1995, the year it achieved its independence.

Vicente el Catalino talks to Blanco and the other men about the revolutionary congress in London in July 1881, where he had met Pitr Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta. he International Social Revolutionary Congress was an anarchist meeting in London between 14 and 20 July 1881, with the aim of founding a new International organization for anti-authoritiarian socialism (i.e., anarchists).

Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin[a] (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist political philosopher and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Kropotkin was a proponent of the idea of decentralized communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations of self-governing communities and worker-run enterprises.

Errico Malatesta (4 December 1853 – 22 July 1932) was an Italian anarchist, theorist and revolutionary socialist. He edited several radical newspapers and spent much of his life exiled and imprisoned, having been jailed and expelled from Italy, Britain, France, and Switzerland. Originally a supporter of insurrectionary propaganda by deed, Malatesta later advocated for syndicalism. 

When we are first introduced to José Oliver, he is living in Madrid, specifically in Chamberí, a district in the capital. 

He is an enthusiast for zarzuela, and hte night before he went to see "La Tempestad" by Ruperto Chapí. La tempestad (The Tempest) is a zarzuela grande—termed by its authors as a "fantastic melodrama"—in three acts, written in prose and verse. Featuring a libretto by Miguel Ramos Carrión and music by the maestro Ruperto Chapí, it premiered at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid on March 11, 1882.

A document that Jose claims is the reason to believe that there is an anarchist association called The Black Hand is the rululations of the Society of the Poor against Their Thieves and Executioners.  It was used by the authorities as evidence to justify the mass repression and executions of the labor movement. Historians and experts debate the authenticity of this text, suggesting that security forces may have fabricated it or recycled it from an earlier manifesto to dismantle agrarian anarchism.

El Alcornocalejo was where the Corbacho brothers and Juan Ruiz lived. It was an extensive meadow and natural area located within the old boundaries and mountains of Jerez de la Frontera (today part of San José del Valle). Characterized by its abundant forest cover of cork oaks, pastures, and scrubland, the site was a key location for rural life, botany, and the tense agrarian conflicts of the era. The meadow of El Alcornocalejo and its surroundings were the setting and refuge for underground peasant movements. During the wave of repression surrounding 'La Mano Negra' (the 1880s), several residents and members of secret societies from the area were accused of rebellion.

Blanco de Benaocaz's parents live in Paterna de Rivera. It is situated in the region of La Janda and forms part of the Ruta del Toro (Route of the Bull). It is an eminently agricultural and livestock-rearing town, famous for being one of the places where the fighting bull is bred. 

The mayor in Jerez was José Bertemati. José de Bertemati y Troncoso (1827–1890) was a prominent politician, winemaker, and philanthropist who served as the mayor of Jerez de la Frontera. In 1888, the noble title of Marquess of Bertemati was granted to him by King Alfonso XIII (under the regency of Maria Christina).

The Church authority was Ceferino González. He was a prominent Dominican friar, philosopher, theologian, and went on to become Archbishop of Seville and Cardinal. 

The first time Francisco Corbacho is arrested, he has been tricked into going to an illegal game of cards in Calle Armas. 

He is sent to the prison in Puerto de Santa María. The Prison of El Puerto de Santa María (el Penal del Puerto) was a famous Spanish prison located in the Andalusian town of El Puerto de Santa María between 1886 and 1981. This prison occupied an old convent built in the early 16th century by the lords of the town at that time, the Dukes of Medinaceli.

Pedro, Juana and some other labourers secretly meet in a cooper's workshop in Calle Cazón. 

For most of the 19th century, the Primary Trial Courtsof Jerez were headquartered in the Cabildo Viejo building (the Old Town Hall), located in the emblematic Plaza de la Asunción—one of the most beautiful buildings in Jerez.

The men accused of belonging to the Black Hand are taken to the prison in Jerez. The former prison of the Judicial District of Jerez was located in the Plaza de Belén. The building, which originally housed the Convent of Nuestra Señora de Belén, functioned as a prison until the 19th century.

Juana communicates with Pedro, who is in prison, throwing stones wrapped up in paper. In one of the papers there is an article about the death of Karl Marx. Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, social and political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He developed the theory of historical materialism, analyzing class struggle under capitalism and predicting the system's overthrow by the proletariat in favour of communism. Marx developed a catarrh that kept him in ill health for the last 15 months of his life. It eventually brought on the bronchitis and pleurisy that killed him in London on 14 March 1883.

In March 1883 the Holy Week processions in Jerez de la Frontera were suspended due to the atmosphere of social tension and political repression caused by the events of La Mano Negra. The government declared a state of emergency and banned public demonstrations and mass gatherings to curb the peasant movements.

Monforte was strolling in Torrox when he found the priest who told him the secret of the Montalvo siblings. In the 19th century, the Laguna de Torrox (Torrox Lagoon) was a natural and seasonal wetland located in the southern area.

To print her articles, Juana used a mimeograph machine. It is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. Mimeographs, along with spirit duplicators and hectographs, were common technologies for printing small quantities of a document, as in office work, classroom materials, and church bulletins.

When Monforte died, he was buried in Santo Domingo Cementery. 

The "strike" in Jerez in June 1883 was actually the historic Mano Negra trials, where the Spanish judicial system in Jerez prosecuted hundreds of agricultural workers.

The trials took place in the Provincial Audience in Plaza del Arenal. In the 18th century, a building with a neoclassical facade was erected in the square, which originally functioned as a Courthouse and later, during the 19th century, as the House of the Corregidor.

Between June 5 and June 14, 1883, the infamous trial regarding the murder of an affiliate named Bartolomé Gago Campos (known as El Blanco de Benaocaz) took place at the Audiencia of Jerez. The tribunal linked this localized murder to a vast, shadowy, and allegedly violent anarchist society known as the Mano Negra.Sentences: The Jerez court handed down severe sentences, including multiple death penalties and long prison terms. These individuals were subsequently executed by garrote vil in the Plaza del Mercado in Jerez in June 1884.

The executions related to La Mano Negra (The Black Hand) in Jerez de la Frontera primarily occurred on June 14, 1884. The condemned were executed by garrote vil. The executions took place publicly in the Plaza del Mercado.