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PREHISTORIC ERA - Cave paintings
exist in a cave in the township of Gaucín, and a major complex of caves
with paintings from 40 different paleo & neolithic cave cultures is near
Benaojan, another village in the Ronda mountains.
IBERIANS, called "bastulos poenos" by Roman commentators,
Pliny, Strabo and Ptolemy, lived in Gaucín when the Phoenicians invaded.
Ancient Iberian ceramics have been found in the castle's water deposit.
PHOENICIANS established gold mines on the nearby Sierra Bermeja and
probably controlled Gaucín during their hegemony in the region.
ROMANS found Gaucín the easiest place to access the Ronda mountain
range from the sea to penetrate the interior, and they built roads to accommodate
the traffic. The Roman road, Camino de Gibraltar, is still used, and in parts
the original stones are intact. Gaucín was a rest stop for soldiers
after the battle between Julius Caesar and the sons of Pompey, which took
place in Monda. The Romans built the castle, though nothing remains of their
construction.
VISIGOTHS
invaded Gaucín in the fifth century. They named the town Belda and
left a necropolis. In 1309 the Visigoth Guzman el Bueno, died fighting the
moors in front of the castle.
MOORS - In 714 a.d. Tarik invaded Spain through Gibraltar, using the
Roman roads for his conquest. Belda, now ruled from Damascus, was re-named
Gauzan (meaning rich village or hard rock) and as the western outpost of the
Kingdom of Granada it was the site of many battles. King Henry IV finally
liberated Gaucín in 1457.
16TH CENTURY -
The Moorish population (mudéjars) rebelled several times against the
Catholic kings, killing soldiers and priests and causing mayhem. Fearing collusion
between the mudéjars and their co-religionists in Africa, the crown
waged continual war against the malefactors. Many mudéjares crossed
back over the Straits, but some became vagrants, and the town became depopulated
and impoverished.
Gaucín was connected to the series of Coastal lookout towers built
to spot Moroccan pirates who conspired with resident mudéjars to kidnap
Christians for ransom from the Spanish crown or for the slave trade.
Ruined farmers or decommissioned soldiers turned to banditry (bandolerismo,)
hunting mudéjar vagrants to sell into slavery, and preying on the local
population.
18TH CENTURY -
The British took Gibraltar in 1704, and the local priest, fearing that
Gaucín
would be sacked, hid church treasures, but the British stayed away. By the
end of the century many British Gibraltarians were coming to the Gaucín
to spend the summers in the cool mountains.
19TH CENTURY -
The French invaded Gaucín in 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars. Experienced
mountain guerrillas, 700 strong, tried unsuccessfully to defend the castle,
but the French hauled canon up the escarpment, sacked the town, laid waste
the Carmelite convent and expropriated its treasures, razed 135 private houses
and killed citizens, and burned the municipal archives. They stripped the
Santo Niño of his costly vestments and threw the image over the cliff.
(A Spanish proverb says, "El Francés, mal vecino es." I.e.,
The Frenchman is a bad neighbor.)
The French adventure impoverished Gaucín, and bandolerismo became a
career. Bandoleros lived in caves and preyed on travellers and townsfolk,
killing and robbing with impunity. Bandoleros are to be distinguished from
the contrabandistas, smugglers who illegally imported English goods from Gibraltar.
Bandoleros and contrabandistas provided inspiration for Prosper
Merimée´s
novel that was adapted by Bizet into the opera Carmen. There is evidence to
prove that Gaucín, not Ronda, was the setting for the bandolero Act
III.
During the Carlist wars in the 1830´s the castle was repaired, fortified
and provisioned by the Crown. However, the enemy captured it, confiscated
jewelry, food stocks and savings, and imposed burdensome taxes.
At this time English settlers in Gibraltar began coming in greater numbers
to Gaucín for its cool summer air, and the hotel where they stayed
is still functioning today as a restaurant, the Hotel Nacional.
20TH CENTURY -
The Civil War: more than 50 people were shot before the nationalists captured
Gaucín in September 1936. Impoverished by war, many citizens turned
again to contrabandismo and bandolerismo. Some became rich; the Guardia Civil
shot others. Memories of this epoch are still vivid among the elderly of the
village.
Two books of Gaucín history are for sale by the gaucineño historian
Miguel Vásquez González:
'Gaucín,
Gastronomía Popular' and 'El Toro de Cuerda de Gaucín'
On sale at the Town Hall, Ethnografic Museum, Tourism Office or the Stationery
Store on Calle San Juan de Diós.
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