The first references to the town date back to 1527. In 1758, according to the Parish Memoirs, it had a population of almost a thousand who were spread out across several nearby hills and villages. In 1916, Santiago do Escoural was granted the status of a town. Settlement in the local area dates back to prehistoric times, the visible evidence of which is in the megalithic monuments in the area, especially Escoural Cave, with traces of human occupation dating back more than 50,000 years. The Escoural region was notable for mining, an activity which may date back to Roman times, hence the name Escoural, from the word escorial – a metal slag heap. Santiago do Escoural is a parish in the municipality of Montemor-o-Novo with an area of 138.93 km² and a population of 1,335.
1970s — Agrarian Reform: “João Mau-Tempo” returns as a ghost to witness the 25th April 1974 Revolution.
After the overthrow of the fascist regime, the legal framework was created for the implementation of a kind of socialism in Portugal. This period became known as the PREC – Processo Revolucionário em Curso – Revolutionary Process in Progress. The slogan “Land for those who work it!” appeared in the PCP’s clandestine manifesto in 1955 and was the most popular slogan used at the time. Agricultural unions and “Farm Estate Commissions” were set up to manage the process of the occupation of land on large estates, which involved identifying abandoned and underutilised land and its occupation by groups of workers organised into agricultural cooperatives or collective units of production (UCPs). Goods produced were sold by consumer cooperatives at affordable prices. During 1975 and 1976, 1,140,000 hectares were expropriated from the “Agrarian Reform Intervention Zone”, which covered 3,200,000 hectares. Data published by the National Statistics Institute shows that in 1979 there were about 44,000 full-time workers and 28,000 part-time workers working on farms occupied by cooperatives, accounting for 43% of all employees in the primary sector in the Alentejo region.Several cooperatives were set up in Escoural, such as Cooperativa Boa Esperança, UCP Salvador Joaquim do Pomar and UCP do Escoural. Agrarian Reform contributed significantly to improving the socioeconomic conditions of the Alentejo people through the creation of jobs that met almost everyone’s needs. In the municipality of Montemor-o-Novo in 1976, 3,867 people gained employment as a result of the Agrarian Reform (cf. Sá, 1994, p. 203).
In 1977, Law no. 77/77 of September 25th, the Agrarian Reform Framework Law, commonly known as “Barreto’s Law”, reversed the revolutionary process by returning occupied land to the former owners. The law established a framework which favoured those who held private property rights, to the detriment of the collective regime that prevailed in Alentejo as a result of the Agrarian Reform.
Type of tour:
Points of Interpretive Interest
Tour name:
The Church that was a School | The Murders of Casquinha and Caravela
Location:
38°32’27″N 8°10’05″W Largo de Santiago do Escoural
Parish:
Santiago do Escoural
County (distrito):
Montemor-o-Novo
Route:
Évora – EN114 – CM1075 – CM1079 – EM370 – EN2 – Santiago do Escoural
Type:
Walking tour
Distance:
100 m between points of interest
Average duration:
30 minutes
Type of surface:
Urban roads
Signage:
Yes
Landowners:
Public right of way
Sights to see:
Take the main Estrada Nacional 2 road into Santiago do Escoural, lined with low whitewashed houses. On the left, the Parish Church tower rises above the houses. The church was used as a school in the early 20th century, a historical episode that appears in Raised from the Ground.
All over the latifundio, one hears only the barking of dogs. They barked when, from the Minho to the Algarve, from the coast to the eastern border, the people rose up in the general’s name, and they were barking a new bark, which, in the language of ordinary folk, translated as, If you want better pay, vote Delgado on the day, this taste for rhymes goes back a long way, well, we are, after all, a nation of poets, and they barked so much that, soon, they were barking at people’s doors, it won’t be long, Father Agamedes, before they start profaning churches, that’s always the first thing they do, spitting in the face of the holy mother church, Please, Dona Clemência, don’t even talk about it, not that I’m afraid of martyrdom, but Our Lord will not allow a repetition of the kind of outrage that took place in Santiago do Escoural, where, can you imagine, they turned the church into a school, I didn’t see it with my own eyes, of course, it was before my time, but that’s what I’ve been told, It’s true, Father Agamedes, as true as we’re sitting here now, ah, the follies of the republic, which, God willing, will not be repeated, be careful when you leave, mind the dogs don’t bite you.
(Raised from the Ground, Saramago, 2018, pp. 319-320)
On the establishment of the First Republic on 5th October 1910, a republican educational policy was introduced with the aim of training citizens who aligned themselves with republican ideology. The educational programme introduced a clear division between the State on the one hand and the Church and the conservative values of the monarchy on the other hand, and was based on the principle of free education. The priority in terms of spending was primary education; however, the lack of infrastructures proved to be one of the main obstacles to the success of the project. In the face of these difficulties, the minister of justice, Afonso Costa, introduced a decree authorising measures including the nationalisation of Church properties. In 1912, under the new law, the Associação dos Trabalhadores Rurais do Escoural – Escoural Agricultural Workers Association – put forward a proposal to use the church as a primary school. The church was used as a primary school up until the 1940s (cf. Fonseca, 2018, p. 68).
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Now move into Largo de Santiago do Escoural square, where there is a red iron sculpture shaped like a carnation, in memory of the tragic murders of Casquinha and Caravela on 27th September 1979.
In terms of chronological order, it is true that the story in Raised from the Ground ends around five years before the tragic incidents that are described. The book concludes with the occupation of large farm estates. In terms of Agrarian Reform, Santiago do Escoural provokes the most memorable events of the revolutionary process, both good and bad
And somewhere on the latifundio, history will record the exact spot, the workers occupied a piece of land. Just so as to have some work, that’s all, may my right hand wither away if I’m lying. And then other workers turned up on another estate and said, We’ve come to work. And this happened first here and then there, and just as in the spring, when a solitary daisy blooms in a field, always assuming there’s no Maria Adelaide to come along and pick it, thousands more are born on a single day, where’s the first one gone, and all of them are white, their faces turned to the sun, it’s like the earth’s bridal day. However, these people are not white, but swarthy, a colony of ants spreading over the latifundio, as if the land were covered in sugar, you’ve never seen so many ants, all with their heads raised, I’ve received bad news from my cousins and from other relatives, Father Agamedes, God did not listen to your prayers, to think the day would come when I would witness such misfortunes, that I should be put to the test like this, seeing the land of my ancestors in the hands of these thieves, it’s the end of the world when people start attacking property, the divine and profane foundation of our material and spiritual civilisation, You mean secular, my lady, not profane, and forgive me for correcting you, No, profane is the word, for what they are doing is profanation, they’ll do the same as they did in Santiago do Escoural, mark my words, but they’ll pay for it …
(Raised from the Ground, José Saramago, pp. 381-382)
José Saramago narrates the episode in the town of Santiago do Escoural when the people transformed the church into a school. A few pages later he describes the occupation of land – the landowner calls this action by the people a crime and demands revenge, “one day they will have to pay for this crime.” The coincidence that links the occupation of land to the church episode in this excerpt unfortunately foreshadows the tragedy that befell the Alentejo town – the murders of António Maria do Pomar Casquinha, aged 17, and João Geraldo, known as “Caravela”, aged 57.
Landowner Manuel Padeira arrives at the Herdade de Vale de Nobre farm estate with a delegation made up of other landowners, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and a contingent of GNR national guard police, heavily armed, commanded by Captain Matias, Captain Faria and Sergeant Maximino, “who were known for their fury, incensed by the Agrarian Reform and the workers” (in Avante no. 1715), with the aim of recuperating 713 hectares that had been taken from the landowner and handed over to Cooperativa Boa Esperança. He also aimed to recover some cattle and, finding that they were missing, declared he would take some from another property. Strong opposition to this decision was shown by the workers of Cooperativa Boa Esperança who, supported by the Escoural UCP, tried to prevent this course of action by throwing stones. In response, GNR officers fired on the crowd, wounding Florival Carvalho in the leg, and killing Casquinha and Caravela. Those responsible for the murders of these two rural workers from the Alentejo never faced justice.
Florinda Vagarinho was working in Vale de Nobre on the tragic day – 27th September 1979.
“We arrived there and reached the top of the rise. We had already heard several shots – I don’t know how many. I looked down and said to Joaquina: “Oh, look, there’s someone on the ground”. And I started running down the hill while she stayed up there, standing and watching. That’s because she was very fat, so she stayed put, but soon she joined me. I was the first to arrive where Casquinha was lying, I immediately saw that it was Casquinha and that he was dead. At that moment, I realised that he was dead. I felt … oh, my god … I don’t know how I was able to go on. At that time, I didn’t know what my daughter was doing. She ran down the hill and got through the line of people. Then I looked up and there was another man lying on the ground. I went over to see, and it was Caravela and he was dead. Those men, both from this town – dead. … And then, I confronted the guardsmen, who were in front of us, and called them murderers. And they told me to shut up or they would do the same to me. And I shouted: Oh, my god! Every time I think about it now… My whole life I never felt such fear…”
(Vagarinho, 2018).
According to Joaquim Carvalheira, in a conversation with Joaquim Guindaça, the extreme violence the GNR used is an indication of the underlying tensions that existed that went beyond the mere argument about the cattle.
“Oh, Guindaça, do you really think it was just because of a herd of cows that they opened fire?”
“They were out to get us, Chico. After that incident, it was not until over a month later that they came to take the cattle away from the farm. Those two died for the welfare of the poor. It affected a lot of people … At that time the GNR were set against the workers. They were furious with us!” (Palma, 2017).
The people protested at the tragedy by turning out in huge numbers for the funeral procession. Florinda describes her memory of that day of mourning and struggle.
“It said in the newspaper that 100,000 people were at the funeral. This street was completely full. There were so many people, so many people who were here on the day of the funeral. … We said so many times that we’d love to know who the scoundrels who did that were. They were brave enough to fire on and kill the two poor sods. Ordinary people who struggled to work and get enough to eat. Bastards …” (Vagarinho, 2018).
The secular dream of the agricultural proletariat came true, however, at such an irremediable cost. Perhaps reasons like this led the author to finish the work at the height of the struggle, at the beginning of the process of Agrarian Reform. Above all, this work was part of the struggle and provides hope for a better, more human world, because “There can be no justice as long as some have everything and others nothing.”
(Raised from the Ground, Saramago, 2014, p. 319).
