Calle de Juan Martín El Empecinado

Palos de la Frontera·Delicias

Recalls Juan Martín Díez (1775–1825), the guerrilla who harried Napoleon’s troops and was hanged on the orders of Ferdinand VII.

Behind this name is a farmer from Castrillo de Duero who became a nightmare for the French troops. Juan Martín Díez (1775–1825) raised bands of peasants across the Duero basin during the War of Independence and attacked convoys, couriers and garrisons with a persistence that made him famous. The nickname comes from water. A stream ran through his village thick with pecina, the greenish sludge of stagnant water, and for that sludge the locals were called “empecinados.” The name stuck to him, and it grew so tied to his tenacity that the adjective entered common speech meaning stubborn. The end was bitter. Turned liberal during the Liberal Triennium, he fell from grace when absolutism returned. Arrested and taken to Roa de Duero, he was hanged in its main square in 1825. It is said that, already at the foot of the scaffold, he broke his handcuffs with a single blow and tried to seize a saber before being subdued.