Basque Fact of the Week, History, People

Basque Fact of the Week: Simón Bolívar, the Liberator, had Roots in Bizkaia

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Known as the Liberator, Simón Bolívar is a national hero to many South American countries. Under his leadership, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama gained their independence from Spain. He also became president of what was then called Grand Columbia, encompassing the modern countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. Inspired by the American and French revolutions, he envisioned a united Spanish America, though felt that it needed a stronger central government than the United States because of the more varied peoples. Though Bolívar dreamed of a united Spanish America, his dream failed, in part due to the political ambitious of others as well as the fear that he was establishing a dictatorship with him at the helm. He died in 1830 of tuberculosis, at the age of 47.

Statue of Bolívar in Washington, D.C., photo taken by Blas Uberuaga.
  • Simón Bolívar was born into a wealthy family in Caracas in what is modern day Venezuela in the year 1783. His ancestor, Simón de Bolívar, from the village of Bolibar in Bizkaia, left for Santo Domingo, in what is now the Dominican Republic, sometime around 1559. In 1569, Simón de Bolívar moved to Venezuela. The wealth of the family came from a large number of estates and plantations. Simón Bolívar, the Liberator, dedicating his personal wealth to the cause of liberation and revolution, died a poor man.
  • The Bolívar name comes from the small village of Bolibar (current spelling in Euskara) in the heart of Bizkaia. There is a museum dedicated to the history of Bizkaia in the Middle Ages and to Simón Bolívar himself. Bolibar is only kilometers away from where my dad was born, but I have yet to visit the museum. The name comes from the Basque words “bolu” (mill) and “ibar” (valley), meaning “valley of the mill.” The country Bolivia gets it’s name from Bolívar.
  • Bolibar, the village, is very close to the neighborhood of Zenarruza, famous for the Collegiate Church of Cenarruza, which was an important stop on the Camino de Santiago. Zenarruza is a name familiar to Idahoans, belonging to long-time Idaho politician Pete Cenarrusa.

Primary source: Wikipedia.

Basque Fact of the Week, History, People

Basque Fact of the Week: The First Person to (Intentionally) Sail Around the World was Basque

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In the United States, at least when I was a kid, we learned that the first person to circumnavigate the globe — to sail around the world — was Ferdinand Magellan. In reality, however, Magellan died in the Philippines, and he never made it all the way. He left Spain with 5 ships but only one ship, the Victoria, returned successfully to Spain. After many changes of leadership, it was Juan Sebastián Elcano who was leading the ship and the expedition when it finally arrived. For his efforts, in addition to a monetary reward, he was awarded a coat-of-arms with the slogan “primus circumdedisti me.”

Image of Elcano, from Auñamendi Encyclopedia .
  • Magellan was essentially spurred on by Rajah Humabon of Cebu, one of the rulers of one of the islands in the Philippines, to attack his enemy Datu Lapu-Lapu, on the nearby island of Mactan. Magellan, who had already converted Rajah Humabon to Christianity, wanted to do the same to Lapu-Lapu but failed. In an ensuing battle, Magellan, attacking the island almost single handedly, confident in the superiority of European weaponry, was felled, initially struck by a bamboo spear.
  • Elcano was born on the coastal city Getaria, Gipuzkoa, in 1487. Before participating in Magellan’s expedition, Elcano was part of campaigns in Algiers and Italy. He got into some trouble for surrendering an armed ship to foreign powers. In his later life, he was persecuted for, seemingly, having many love affairs.
  • During the voyage, Magellan’s leadership was questioned and, along with others, Elcano participated in a mutiny against their leader. This was near the southern tip of South America, before they found the passage that would lead them to the Pacific Ocean that is now known as the Straight of Magellan. The mutiny was defeated. Elcano was spared and, after five months of hard labor, restored to a leadership position in the voyage.
  • Elcano may have been the first person to intentionally sail around the world, but he may not have been the first person to do it at all. Laurence Bergreen, author of Over the Edge of the World, notes that one of Magellan’s slaves, Enrique of Malacca, seems to have understood the language of the Philippine’s, suggesting he was originally from there. He may have made his way to Europe as a part of either the spice trade or dealings with Arabs. Thus, the expedition would have taken him near home and possibly made him the first person, though unintentionally, to sail around the world.
Random Bits of Basqueness

Random Bits of Basqueness

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There is a sapling of the Tree of Gernika planted on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The planting was sponsored by Rep. John Garamendi in 2016. It took me a long time to find it, so here is a map for anyone else who wants to find it.

Basque Fact of the Week, History

Basque Fact of the Week: Basques Immigrated to Wales

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We are all familiar with the large waves of Basque migration to the Americas and Australia. But there was also a small group of Basques who immigrated to Wales, in the United Kingdom. They were recruited to the city of Dowlais, some 60 miles from Cardiff. They came to the region because of the steel industry, recruited because of their experience and expertise working in the Basque Country. A small neighborhood was established for them on Alphonso Street and their descendants are still a part of the community.

An Orconera station. Image from Auñamendi Eusko Entziklopedia.
  • Dowlais Ironworks, created in 1759, was, at one time, the largest steel maker in the UK and was the first to introduce the Bessemer process, a new way of making steel by blowing air through the molten steel, removing impurities. This led to an inexpensive way to mass produce steel.
  • Dowlais imported iron ore from Bizkaia because of the special make-up of those deposits. This led to a brisk trade between the two regions and the formation of a new company, Orconera Iron Ore Company Limited, an international conglomerate in 1873 that had the goal of “vertical integration” of steel-making, from the mines to the final product. The Basque investors were Ybarra Hermanos y Compañía.
  • The Orconera Company, and the mining industry more broadly, contributed to the social conflicts of Vizcaya and in the development of the socialist movement. Miners of Orconera staged strikes, which were put down by the military. Major strikes occurred in 1890 and 1910 over issues such as a 9-hour work day.
  • The Basques in Dowlais supported their brethren back in the Basque Country by sending money during the Spanish Civil War and helping the refugee children that escaped the war to the UK. They also became involved in the political life of Wales.

Primary source: Los ‘vascos de Dowlais’, emigrantes del carbón y el hierro en Gales, Deia, un reportaje de Óscar Álvarez Gila – Sábado, 2 de Marzo de 2019 – Actualizado a las 20:22h.

Random Bits of Basqueness

Random Bits of Basqueness

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Did you know Zatarain was a Basque name? From Gipuzkoa, meaning either “over the vantage point” or “place where the elder grew.”

Random Bits of Basqueness

Random Bits of Basqueness

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I first discovered this beer a few years ago during a trip to Florida, and found it again during our recent vacation….

Random Bits of Basqueness

Random Bits of Basqueness

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An old Hagar the Horrible comic I found in the paper. Maybe not all that funny, except for where those arrows in his butt come from…

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskara, Folklore

Basque Fact of the Week: Basque Improvisational Poetry

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Bertsolaritza, or Basque Improvisational Poetry, is the art of composing, on the spot and impromptu, sung couplets about a given topic. A specific meter and rhyme must be followed. Competitions are held for the best bertsolaris, or singers of of these poems, but bertsolaris are also famous for singing impromptu at any gathering.

Image from GDKO Irratia.
  • While the exact origins of bertsolartiza are unknown, there is evidence that bertsos (the poems) were sung as far back as the 1400s, with mention in the Ancient Charter for Bizkaia, which calls out “the Women, known for being shameful, and agitators of peoples, [that] make couplets and songs in an infamous and libellous manner.”
  • The championships, the Euskal Herriko Bertsolari Txapelketa Nagusia, are held every four years. They started in 1936 but were suspended during the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent repression of Basque Culture during the Franco years.
  • The reigning champion, Maialen Lujanbio Zugaste, is the first woman to win the championship. In the first year she won, in 2009, her solo challenge was Maialen, you are a doctor. You’re observing two children suffering from cancer organising a wheelchair race in a hospital corridor. She had to compose a 42-line sung poem on the spot about this topic. Her poem can be found here.
  • Jon Lopategui Lauzirika, a famous bertsolari who won the championship in 1989, was born on this day in 1934. Not only was he one of the great bertsolaris, but he was known for his tireless work in teaching the art of bertsolaritza to the next generations.
History, Misc

A Tree of Gernika for School

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For school, my daughter’s class is studying world cultures and they were told to pick one for each of them to study in depth. My daughter chose Basque as her culture. One of their projects was to write a creative essay. She wrote her interpretation of a Basque family immigrating to America. Maybe she’ll let me share that down the road.

The other project was to create a visual about the culture. Her project was to make a representation of the Tree of Gernika and write on the leaves various facts about the Basque Country and the Basque people. Things like the first person to sail around the world was Elcano, the heaviest stone a Basque has lifted was 725 pounds, many Basques came to the US to be sheepherders. I thought the visual project turned out really nice, so thought I’d share it with everyone.

Great job, txikitxu!

Euskara

Euskara, a secret handshake

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I was in San Antonio this week for work. The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, better known as TMS to materials scientists, has an annual meeting that floats around the country, and this year it was in San Antonio. This conference brings together researchers from around the world that are advancing our understanding of materials, from more applied aspects such as how materials corrode to fundamental insights into the nature of grain boundaries — the interface regions between grains that occur in all but the most defect free of materials.

In any case, on Wednesday, my last night in San Antonio, I was returning to my hotel after a dinner on the river walk. (An aside: being from Idaho, I always class California, Texas, and Florida in these bins of “places that are horrible and I never want to visit.” However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Texas and have particularly enjoyed San Antonio the few times I’ve been there.)

Anyways, I was waiting at a crosswalk for the light to turn. A family approached the corner — the parents, a baby in a stroller and a little boy of maybe 5 or so. Suddenly, the crosswalk is going nuts: “wait,” “wait,” “wait,” blared from the speaker over and over. At some point, the parents start yelling at the boy. I suddenly notice that they are yelling at him in Euskara. My Euskara being piss-poor, I understood only a few words (“zikin” being the one that jumped out at me).

As they pulled the boy away from the button, the light changed and we crossed. As we crossed, I asked, in my broken Spanish (which is infinitely better than my piss-poor Euskara), if they were from the Basque Country. They looked at me warily and said “yes,” at which point I told them that my dad had been from there and that I lived for a year in Donosti (learning the little bit of Euskara I do know). They, coincidentally, are from Donosti.

We talked for a minute about their vacation in the Americas (starting from Mexico, going up into Texas, after which they were heading east). It was a brief conversation, lasting only a few minutes, and I never caught their names. But, it struck me how even recognizing Euskara is like being part of a secret club, where people you might not otherwise recognize as being from the Basque Country are instantly recognizable. A few words of Euskara and suddenly there is a connection.

This has happened to me before. I met a couple of guys who were speaking in Basque in a line leaving an airplane in Germany. It’s always cool to make these connections, facilitated by the strange and wonderful language of the Basque Country.