Plaza del General Maroto

Rafael Maroto Yserns, a soldier born in Lorca in 1783, left his signature on the end of a war that split Spain in two. As a young man he fought in the Peninsular War, where he was wounded and captured at Zaragoza, and later crossed the Atlantic to fight against Chile’s independence. His name became tied to the First Carlist War. Don Carlos made him commander of the Army of the North, but his leaning towards a deal with the enemy earned him foes within Carlism itself. In 1839 he negotiated the end of the conflict with Baldomero Espartero, sealed before the troops with the gesture history remembers as the Embrace of Vergara. To some a peacemaker; to others, a traitor to the cause. The square sits beside the old Slaughterhouse, cut by the Paseo de la Chopera, where Jaime el Conquistador and Guillermo de Osma meet.