Francisco Abad Moreno

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Francisco Abad Moreno
Portrait of Francisco Abad, etching and burin engraving by Mariano Brandi, c. 1814–1819. The print bears at its foot the inscription: "DN. FRANCISCO ABAD Y MORENO / Chaleco / Coronel de los Exercitos Nacionales de España". National Library of Spain.

Francisco Abad Moreno (Valdepeñas, April 24, 1788 – Granada, September 21, 1827) was a famous guerrilla fighter of the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain and a colonel of the regular army, nicknamed Chaleco.

Loyal to the legitimate government of the Liberal Triennium, he fought the French army of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis. After the defeat he accepted the terms of capitulation, but the royalists arrested him, accusing him of having committed murders. After spending many months in prison in Valdepeñas and Granada, he was sentenced to death and executed on September 21, 1827, in the Campo del Triunfo of Granada, where Mariana Pineda would later be executed.Fontana 2006, p. 183

Biography

He was the son of Francisco Abad Moreno and of Josefa Calvo, who was killed by the French troops together with his brother and other relatives in the Battle of Valdepeñas on June 6, 1808. Francisco Abad then took to the hills to fight the invading army.

He began his fight as a guerrilla in 1809 in the Toledo guerrilla bands of Lieutenant José Cacho in Villanueva de Bogas (Toledo), and that same year he moved to the band of José Miguel Villalobos in Valdepeñas. On February 20, 1810, he formed his own band in Cañada de los Frailes. Its members also included his comrade and lieutenant Juan Vacas and other guerrillas from Valdepeñas such as Juan Toledo, who would go on to become a General of the regular army, and Lorenzo Requena. With this band he carried out no fewer than 78 actions of war, in the course of which they came to assemble more than 400 horses. He is credited with inflicting 1,400 casualties on the French.

When the war ended, General Castaños issued him a commission as colonel of what was then called the Regiment of Cazadores Francos of La Mancha, on October 23, 1814. However, King Ferdinand VII distrusted him, and he was retired from service in 1817.

On March 3, 1820, he was arrested together with other liberals at his house in Madrid, accused of conspiracy. Sentenced to death, he was taken to the Cuartel del Pósito and from there to Valladolid, where in 1820 he was placed in the death chapel to be beheaded. He was freed by the students, who shouted "¡Viva la Constitución! ¡Viva nuestro caudillo el coronel Chaleco!" ("Long live the Constitution! Long live our leader Colonel Chaleco!"), for with the triumph of Rafael del Riego his life was saved on the very day that had been scheduled for his execution.

Under the new system he was promoted to brigadier. Appointed commanding general of La Mancha, in support of the Liberal Triennium and the Constitution of Cádiz he fought against the absolutist insurgents of the province, in particular against the band of Manuel Adame, "el Locho", whom he defeated several times. He also broke up the band of Pedro Zaldívar, who was killed by Captain Froilán Manjón in Porzuna in 1822. He joined the Secret Society of the Comuneros and was its castellan in the Merindad of La Mancha.

In 1823 the Constitutional Regime fell and he capitulated in Almedina (Ciudad Real) to Colonel Duke of Berri. Nevertheless, proceedings were brought against him for being a comunero, but he availed himself of the pardon on May 1, 1824. Shortly afterward Manuel Adame, el Locho, accused him of having murdered several people after an action at the Venta de Bienvenida, apparently falsely. But royalist hatred prevailed, and the mayors Francisco Molina and Víctor Llorente sought out false witnesses with the collaboration of the lawyer Francisco Jalón.

Taken to Granada, Francisco Abad remained in the prison of the Chancillería of Granada for more than three years, without being allowed to see his family. The Regent of the Chancillería, José Salelles y Palos, sentenced him to death, and he was hanged and then beheaded in the Plaza del Triunfo of Granada on September 21, 1827. As the military man he was, he would have been entitled to execution by firing squad, but by order of Ferdinand VII he was treated as a common criminal, and the harshest penalty was applied to him, which consisted of adding to it the penalty of infamy, as had already been done with other liberal military men, such as General Rafael del Riego and Juan Martín Díez, El Empecinado. This entailed the quartering of his corpse. In the case of Francisco Abad Moreno, his head was displayed on a wooden post in front of the Venta de la Bienvenida.

He left a widow, Sacramento Muñoz, and five young orphaned daughters (two from his first marriage and three from his second), who were harshly persecuted and mistreated after his death. The municipal museum of Valdepeñas preserves the love letters that he and his wife wrote to each other during his imprisonment, including a moving farewell letter (this letter is actually held in the Provincial Historical Archive of Ciudad Real).

His likeness, engraved by Brandi, is preserved in Junta de Iconografía Nacional, Guerra de la Independencia. Retratos. Madrid, 1908.

Other guerrillas from Valdepeñas

See also

Bibliography

  • Archivo General Militar de Segovia, Personal file A-14; marriage file.
  • Conde de Toreno, Historia del levantamiento, guerra y revolución de España, Paris, Librería Europea de Baudry, 1838;
  • J. Gómez de Arteche, Guerra de la Independencia, vols. IX and XI, Madrid, Imprenta y Litografía del Depósito de la Guerra, 1868–1903;
  • E. Vasco, Ocupación e incendio de Valdepeñas por las tropas francesas en 1808, Valdepeñas, 1908;
  • E. Vasco, Don Francisco Abad y Moreno (Chaleco), Guerrillero de la Independencia, vol. II, Zaragoza, Congreso Histórico Internacional de la Guerra de la Independencia y su época, 1909;
  • Servicio Histórico Militar, Guerra de la Independencia, vols. VII-1, VII-2, VII-3, VIII-1 and VIII-2, Madrid, Librería Editorial San Martín, 1972;
  • F. Asensio Rubio, "España entre el absolutismo y el liberalismo: Francisco Abad-Moreno Calvo, un héroe por la libertad", in Espacio, tiempo y forma. Serie V, Historia contemporánea, no. 8 (1995), pp. 65–84.
  • — (2006). De en medio del tiempo. La segunda restauración española, 1823-1834 (in español). Barcelona: Crítica. ISBN 978-84-8432-792-9.
  • Eusebio Vasco, Valdepeñeros ilustres. Apuntes biográficos. Valdepeñas: Imprenta de La Voz de Valdepeñas, 1895.
  • Diccionario Biográfico del Trienio Liberal. Madrid: el Museo Universal, 1991.
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