Spain's New York statue story: Liberty, equality...and mattresses

IF YOU'RE reading this from the USA, you might have just finished watched the fireworks at the end of one of the nation's biggest public holidays.

And if you're not in the USA, but have always wanted to experience the Fourth of July celebrations, travel agencies in Spain have been running 'Independence Day' holidays to New York City with guided tours and activities to enable you to enjoy the show – so no doubt you can find a decent deal for next year.

Or if not, you could admire a Manhattan skyline from the beach instead – Benidorm (Alicante province) and Cullera (Valencia province) are both famous for their high-rise coastal scenery – and, at any time of the year, you can enjoy a New York-style shopping trip without having to cross the pond. Madrid has been officially named as the world's top city for retail therapy, and Barcelona is world number six, so you're unlikely to have any difficulty in parting with your cash in either.

And Spain even has a Statue of Liberty. 

Two, in fact.

You can get a picture of both without having to lie on the ground on your back to get it all in the frame, and pose for a selfie next to them without looking like a Playmobil figurine at the foot or a full-sized human with nothing more exciting than a wall behind you.

Plus, travelling from anywhere in Spain to the beautiful, green, land-locked northern region of La Rioja is a lot cheaper than transatlantic flights (although direct airline routes from Madrid to the Big Apple started up a few years ago, with reasonably-priced and frequent connections, to cater for the ever-growing community of US-based tourists in the western Mediterranean).

Introducing La Rioja

Whilst it's certainly not Spain's only wine region – the country has literally hundreds, many you've never heard of even if you've lived here all your life – La Rioja is, arguably, the one that gets the most publicity internationally. Spanish wine suffers from lack of marketing, meaning shoppers overseas usually walk straight past it in the supermarket and grab the French, Italian, Australian or South African varieties instead.

It doesn't help that Spanish wine is normally labelled outside of Spain as just 'Spanish wine'. 

Unless it's a Rioja – in which case, everyone's heard of it, and everyone assumes it's the best, if not the only, wine to come out of the country at all.

It definitely is good. We're not going to argue with that. But it's just one of a massive list of good ones you can get in Spain. If it's a Rioja, it'll be delicious; if it's not a Rioja, though, it'll still be delicious. And as is always the case when somewhere is famous for something, there's more to it than the thing it's famous for. In the case of La Rioja, its dramatic scenery, for a start. Of course, this involves a lot of vineyards, but also mountains, rivers, and multi-coloured, orange, yellow, red and rust tinges across the horizon in autumn, bright emerald at other times of the year, ski stations – Valdezcaray being the main resort for hitting the slopes in winter – quaint villages, stately homes, majestic architecture, and rich history oozing out of every corner.

This single-province region is also quite famous for a little municipality called Ashtray.

It's called what?! The burning question

Found on the right bank of the Ebro river, home to just under 2,200 inhabitants, Cenicero's name does indeed translate as 'ashtray', and the remains of fires is thought to be the reason.

One of the most popular theories is that the village's title came from the ashes, or cenizas, left behind by nomadic shepherds after spending their winters there; another hypothesis is that it was dubbed Cinassariam in Roman times because of the huge amount of ash left over from the firewood industry. Plant-based coal was manufactured from the dense ground-oak and pines growing there prolifically and naturally.

And ashes were what residents were expected to be left with in place of an actual village when a local band of 70 men decided to take on an invading army of 5,000 soldiers deployed by the Duke of Victoria and Count of Zumalacárregui in 1834.

This was during the first of four 'Carlist Wars', the last of which is what Spain's Civil War was loosely referred to as. 

Who were the 'Carlists', and what were they warring about?

The Carlists were very right-wing, strict and rigid Christians, anti-liberal, extremely conservative and saw themselves as the upholders of tradition and all that was proper and legitimate. They sought an absolute and authoritarian monarchy, and were not happy that the country had two queens on the throne.

After King Fernando VIIs's death in 1833, his widow, María Cristina, became Regent, or 'acting queen', since the late ruler's only child was a two-year-old girl.

Queen Isabel II was, clearly, unable to do much ruling when she was barely out of nappies, so her mum stood in for her until she came of age.

The Carlists thought Royalty was a job for a man – and for Bourbon blood – and wanted Fernando VII's brother, the Infante Carlos, to reign instead.

Spain became highly polarised as a result, with the liberal, progressive band known as the cristinos or, sometimes, as the isabelinos, supporting the Royal girls' right to rule, and the Carlists pushing for Carlos to take over.

Carlists were on the future dictator General Franco's side in the Civil War, becoming self-proclaimed 'crusaders against secularism', but although the fascist brigade were hailed the victors in 1939, the Carlists themselves did not get what they thought they were fighting for. 

They did not obtain their Bourbon monarchy – the whole country got a military ruler instead, who absorbed the Carlists troops into his Nationalist Army and their political party, the Traditionalist Communion, was forced to merge with Franco's National Movement.

Although a Bourbon King would end up back on the throne after Franco's death in 1975, having been commissioned with continuing the dictator's system on his behalf, said Bourbon – Juan Carlos I – opted to turn Spain into a secular democracy, with extensive human rights enshrined in a written Constitution, and frustrated a military coup when his own Army rebelled, opposing his plans. 

Now Juan Carlos I is living in the United Arab Emirates, and his son, Felipe VI, is King, and the television news reporter he married in 2004, Letizia Ortiz, is Queen.

Spain's next monarch will be a Queen – the first since two-year-old Isabel II – although, currently, the young lady in question, Leonor, is enjoying her summer break from sixth-form college in Wales.

You can't scare us – we've got mattresses!

Back in 1834, over October 21 and 22, the Carlist forces under Tomás de Zumalacárregui laid siege to Cenicero's tower on a detour whilst in the middle of chasing a convoy of weapons heading for La Rioja's capital, Logroño, from the cathedral city of Burgos in neighbouring Castilla y León.

Zumalacárregui's troops intended to halt the convoy and imprison the rival soldiers on board, and their round-the-houses route – part of a strategy to catch them unawares and cut off their path – took them through Cenicero.

But the rather resourceful and imaginative villagers had set up a barricade to stop the Carlists getting through, using old doors, mattresses and sacks of straw.

Creative and amateur it may have been, but it worked, since the 'mattress wall' stopped Zumalacárregui and his thousands of armed fighters from getting through the village – they had to march around the perimeter, costing them valuable time.

They did, indeed, hijack the convoy, seize the weapons for themselves and killed or imprisoned the men travelling with them, but the Carlists were vengeful by nature and, despite Cenicero's residents' having failed to thwart their mission, were highly affronted that these dreadful heathen peasants had had the gall to face up to them. I mean, just who do they think they are? Talk about getting above their station, the ill-mannered, disrespectful...

So they decided to put them in their place, take them down a peg or two, show them who's boss.

And did they?

Spoiler alert: No, they didn't. In fact, Tomás de Zumalacárregui even professed a grudging admiration for their 'heroism', calling them 'these brave folk'.

Something of an understatement, actually, given that the self-titled Cenicero Urban Militia (Milicia Urbana), a bunch of 70 or so farmers armed with just 1,800 bullets, held out for a whole 26 hours, survived their fortress being torched, got their wives involved, and dispatched over 60 soldiers from the élite Guía de Navarra regiment, leaving another 80-plus badly wounded.

Starting at around 09.00 on the morning of October 21, the 5,000-odd Carlists surrounded the village and, seeing that the feisty locals were not going to budge, turned their bellicose tactics on their mothers.

Famously, a lady known as Benita Hernáez, whose two sons had barricaded themselves in the church, was ordered to get her boys to hand in their weapons – in exchange, the Carlist soldiers would let them off the hook.

Benita Hernáez said no, and told her sons that even if she and their sisters were used as blackmail, to 'kill us rather than surrender' and to 'defend yourselves until your last breath'.

Worried about their mum and sisters, the Hernáez lads locked the women in the church with them, to keep them safe.

As night fell, the local Militia moved from the church vault to its tower, blocking the door with floor slabs they had ripped up for the purpose.

During the bloodthirsty attempts to force them out, the Guía de Navarra lost dozens of soldiers and failed spectacularly in their aims, leaving Zumalacárregui a tiny bit fed up.

He ordered his troops to set fire to the church, burn the altars, paintings, organs, and other artefacts and equipment in it, and to raid the rebels' homes for furniture to fuel the blaze.

They even broke into the pepper mill and threw the un-ground grains onto the flames to stoke them up, which had the effect of pouring petrol on the fire.

If they couldn't smoke them out, the Carlists intended to burn them all alive.

It didn't work, though: The tower was partitioned off from the main church building, saving it from the fire, and the typical La Rioja west wind was a natural ally, blowing the flames in the opposite direction. 

Blow this for a game of soldiers

Now 60 men down and with 80 nursing varying degrees of cuts, bruises and missing limbs, Zumalacárregui decided to round up his troops and depart. By then, it was 11.00 on October 22 and the Cenicero Militia had been holding out for a whole 26 hours; he was concerned the combat would have attracted attention in a wider radius and that other cristinos in neighbouring towns would be arming themselves to provide back-up.

Zumalacárregui's parting words to the villagers were: “These brave folk well deserve to be rewarded and, if it was up to me, I would never let their heroism be forgotten.”

Regent María Cristina awarded them all gold medals – star-shaped ones, of which 12 bore the Isabel II cross as an extra distinction – and a crowdfunding effort raised enough cash to rebuild and refurnish the homes destroyed by the Carlists.

The Militia, now known colloquially as Los Urbanos, celebrated a commemorative festival every year on October 22 until 1936, when the Civil War broke out.

A statue built in 1897 for the price of two litres of petrol in 2022

It would be another 64 years before Los Urbanos were given their Statue of Liberty – when it was unveiled in 1897, it is unlikely many, if any, of them were still alive. 

The crowned lady bearing her torch aloft was commissioned as a commemorative monument, with the Militia's names engraved on a plaque, although unlike most war memorials, the people there listed had all survived. Not a single one of the Cenicero farmers' army perished in the siege, nor did any of their wives, mothers and sisters, who did not have to be killed by their husbands, sons and brothers instead of surrendering, and nobody had to expend their last breath in defending themselves.

Sculptor Niceto Cárcamo, from the nearby town of Briones, was given the job, and the town hall donated 300 pesetas towards it – what would now be €1.80, but was worth a lot more 125 years ago.

The Marquis of Reinosa gave 100 pesetas (60 cents), the Duke of Sagasti 250 pesetas (€1.50), and the Duke of Victoria - whose predecessor was none other than Tomás de Zumalacárregui, who had died the year after the siege aged 47 – gave another 100 pesetas, whilst the Militia Society, founded in early 1835, gave a similar amount from its membership funds.

And so it came to pass that Cenicero's €5 cast-iron Statue of Liberty was erected in the Plaza de Cantabrana – now the Plaza del Doctor San Martín – an exact replica of the much better-known one in New York.

Except the Cenicero version was only 1.5 metres (4'11”) tall, hence the bit about taking a selfie without trick photography.

When the Carlists, this time under General Franco, returned to Cenicero in 1936, they ripped down the statue and threw it in a prison cell, but the villagers campaigned for it to be rescued and set up in the square again 40 years later.

This time, the Statue of Liberty was set on a new pedestal, created by local sculptors Dalmati and Narvaiza.

Taking a Liberty

A centenary celebration was held for it in 1997 – but the statue's 100th year in the Plaza would turn out to be its last.

The monument had become badly damaged through a century of wear, tear and mistreatment by Franco's troops, so it was taken down and placed in the entrance hall of the village's Casa de Cultura, or community centre.

You can still see the original here, in the Casa de las Monjas ('Nuns' House') – and also Liberty II in the Plaza Doctor San Martín.

Or perhaps Liberty III, if we include the one in New York. 

This one, also 1.5 metres tall, is in bronze, and a carbon copy of the 1897 one that was a carbon copy of the Big Apple one. 

The Statue of Liberty made by Niceto Cárcamo would not have lasted much longer out in the open air, so was brought indoors for its protection, but the villagers were not to be deprived of their most iconic landmark, so the bronze replica sits where the 'iron lady' used to be.

But the plaque installed in 1897 is still there, with its roll-call of names as a handy reminder that a gang of pitchfork-wielding farmers behind a wall of mattresses is not to be messed with under any circumstances.

Not even if you're a Count and a Duke with a posh army of 5,000 high-ranking military men behind you.