Uprising of Basque quarries
- San Lorenzo del Escorial (Madrid), 1563. The construction of the Monastery of El Escorial began, which would last for 21 years. And in those works many Basques worked, starting with the first architect of the project: Juan Bautista Toledo. It was he who laid the first stone, with the help of Pedro Tolosa, also Basque. The list of Basques is long (Labarrieta, Urkiza, Berriz, Barrutia, Alkiza, Barrena, Elorriaga...), especially the list of Basques. In the words of Fray José de Sigüenza, it was “the best and most important work” of the officers in the field to lift the building.
And theirs was also the most tumultuous anecdote of construction. According to Sigüenza, in May 1577, the mayor of El Escorial, Mr. Muñoz, arrested several Biscayan quarries for “a minor crime.” In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all Basques were called Biscayan. The mayor threatened to beat the detainees and then the Basque quarries moved to the village jail “with the intention of killing the mayor and the sheriffs.” It didn't happen because the mayor had hid himself well. The next day, the works were paralyzed and the strike began.
Strike or insurrection, as established by Carlos Vicuña in the newspaper ABC in 1963: “We say rebellion and not strike, because it was not a work strike, but a genuine uprising against the mayor of El Escorial, who was insulted by a matter of honor, noble and Basque Hidalgo.”
According to Sigüenza, "the anger of those men was terrible" and the mayor decided to release the detainees. The gatekeepers returned to their job.
But not everyone. It is said that some upright quarries escaped from El Escorial and founded a village 16 kilometers from Ávila, on the Northern Railway Route and under the fertile granite quarries. Rojo.Una time, without arriving in time to the shipment cut of granites, Felipe II met with José Txintxurreta, counter-master of the quarries. Txintxurreta, who did not know Spanish, explained to the king how the reason for the delay could be: “It’s red, sir!” The quarries' workers were sick. There are those who say that this word made the king graceful and thus baptized the people. According to others, after the anecdote, the neighbors began to say to the quarries “Minirreds” and, finally, by virtue of their use, the people took that name. In any case, currently, the municipality created by the rebel quarries is still called Mingorría.
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