User:Ecemaml/Selected quotations about Gibraltar

 The following quotations, taken from copyrighted sources, are shown here with the only purpose to be easily referenced in the debates over the content of the Gibraltar article content. It does not intend to bleach copyright and are shown here only for a limited time (while the current mediation process is open; when it's settled down, it will be removed). Please, don't hesitate to contact me if you think that even with the provided rationale, the presence of this text is considered unacceptable.
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Exodus of Gibraltar
Although Article V promised freedom or religion and full civil rights to all Spaniards who wished to stay in Hapsburg Gibraltar, few decided to run the risk of remaining in the town. Fortresses changed hands quite frequently in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The English hold on Gibraltar might be only temporary. When the fortunes of war changed, the Spanish citizens would be able to re-occupy their property and rebuild their lives. English atrocities at Cádiz and elsewhere and the behaviour of the English sailors in the first days after the surrender suggested that if they stayed they might not live to see that day. Hesse's and Rooke's senior officers did their utmost to impose discipline, but the inhabitants worst fears were confirmed: women were insulted and outraged; Roman Catholic churches and institutions were taken over as stores and for other military purposes (except for the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Crowned that was protected successfully by its staunch vicar, Juan Romero, his curate, and his bell-ringer); and the whole town suffered at the hands of the ship's crew and marines who came ashore. Many body reprisals were taken by inhabitants before they left, bodies of murdered Englishmen and Dutchmen being thrown down wells and cesspits. By the time discipline was fully restored, few of the inhabitants wished or dared to remain.
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Byng's [English Rear-Admiral George Byng] chaplain Pocock [Rev. Thomas Pocock] went ashore on 6 August and walked 'all over the town'. 'Great disorders', he found, had been 'committed by the boats' crews that came on shore and marines; but the General Officers took great care to prevent them, by continually patrolling with their sergeants, and sending them on board their ships and punishing the marines; one of which was hanged after he had thrown dice with a Dutchman who had 10, and the Englishman 9.'[note 58: Where several soldiers of sailors were sentenced to death at the same time, it was not uncommon for a proportion only to be hanged, the condemned throwing dice to decide who would die] Such was the behaviour not only of the men but their officers that the worst fears of the population were confirmed. There were 'disorders involving persons of the weaker sex with gave rise to secret bloody acts of vengeance'. In consequence, 'the vanquished deprived many of life and threw the corpses in wells and cesspools'.[note 59: Ignacio López de Ayala, 'Historia de Gibraltar', p. 289, quoting from Romero's lost MS. account of the capture] What shocked Spaniards most was the profanation by the Englishmen of places of worship and their mockery of religious objects. If such were the allies of the King of Spain alternative to Philip V, they would have none of him, unpopular though the Duke of Anjou was already becoming with his nation-wide appointment of Frenchmen over Spaniards. Accordingly, when the garrison and City Council marched out on 7 August under the terms of surrender, all but 70 of the inhabitants of the 1,200 houses in the city took what they could carry of what had not yet been plundered, and then filed through the gate towards the ruins of ancient Carteia.
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Después del fuego devastador, asaltada al fin la ciudad, sin la mayor parte de sus defensas y con soldados ingleses en sus calles, la confusión se adueñó de la población y se hizo presente la sed de botín y venganza de los soldados. El hecho más grave (un "desafortunado incidente" para la historiografía inglesa) fue el ataque a la población refugiada en la ermita de la Virgen de Europa, donde habían encontrado cobijo mujeres y niños, portando las pertenencias más valiosas de sus hogares; al igual que sucedió en los pueblos aledaños a Cádiz dos años antes, la soldadesca se entregó a la profanación y saqueo del templo, al robo de todos los objetos de valor de los refugiados y, lo más grave, a la vejación y violación de algunas mujeres. El paroxismo de su actuación lo alcanzó el ataque contra la imagen mariana, apuñalada, arrancada la cabeza del Niño que portaba en sus manos y, finalmente, arrojada a los acantilados de la Punta de Europa.
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[...] A pesar de tener garantizada su seguridad y el disfrute de sus derechos civiles, la mayor parte de la población militar y civil de Gibraltar optó por abandonar la ciudad. Fue una decisión que a largo plazo tuvo una gran trascendencia, pues la ausencia de una población autóctona facilitó extraordinariamente el asentamiento inglés. Su presencia hubiese sido, por el contrario, un elemento de primera importancia en el posterior asalto e incluso en manos de la diplomacia hubiera facilitado (como ocurriera en Menorca) las negociaciones para su recuperación. Pero si política, militar y diplomáticamente el autoexilio gibraltareño fue perjudicial para España, desde el punto de vista humanitario y en el contexto de la guerra estaba razonado: los temores a las atrocidades de las tropas inglesas en los alrededores de Cádiz habían sido ratificados por su comportamiento desde el mismo día del asalto, siendo los oficiales incapaces de dominar los desmanes de su tropa e incluso participando algunos de ellos en la rapiña generalizada; incluso el concedido respeto a la libertad religiosa estaba en entredicho al ser utilizados como cuarteles y depósitos militares todos los recintos católicos, excepto la Catedral de Santa María, donde su párroco Juan Romero de Figueroa se opuso resueltamente al saqueo.

San Roque
All bar about 70 of the 4000 inhabitants elected to leave, crossing the isthmus with whatever possession they could carry and seeking shelter over a wide area of Andalucia (..) Many settled in San Roque and the museum there has many mementoes of this troubled period; the town was granted formal recognition by Philip V in 1706 as 'My city of Gibraltar in the fields'. Other travelled as far afield as Ronda and Malaga.
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On 7 August a dejected procession filed out of the Land Port with Queen Isabella's banner at their head, followed by the city council, the garrison with their three brass cannon, the religious orders, and all the inhabitants who did not wish to take the oath of allegiance to Charles III. Some four thousand people left the city; only about seventy of the original Spanish inhabitants took the risk of staying behind in the town that at the time had twelve hundred dwellings. (..) Then they disperses into the Campo seeking temporary homes. One of the leading city councillors offered to keep Isabella's banner and the city records in this country house. Some people travelled as far as Medina Sidonia, Ronda, and Malaga to find refuge. Most of the fishermen and their families moved into the ruins of Algeciras and restarted not only their own lives there but the life of Algeciras. Other families settled nearby at Los Barrios that had grown into a small town by 1716. Members of the religious orders found havens in the monasteries and nunneries throughout southern Andalucia. But the most important settlement to be established was around the Hermitage of San Roque, which, in 1706 Philip V addressed as "My City of Gibraltar resident in its Campo." The city council, banner, and records were moved there, and San Roque become Spanish Gibraltar as the Rock was gradually transformed into British Gibraltar.
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Accordingly, when the garrison and City Council marched out on 7 August under the terms of surrender, all but 70 of the inhabitants of the 1,200 houses in the city took what they could carry of what had not yet been plundered, and then filed through the gate towards the ruins of ancient Carteia. The number of refugees was probably about 4,000. Some found shelter in the mountain villages and towns as far as Medina Sidonia, Ronda and Malaga. The wealthier refugees owned property within the extensive city boundaries beyond the isthmus. One of them, the regidor (town councillor), Bartolomé Luis Varela, gave houseroom in his country mansion to the city's standard and records; the City Council continued to meet there, and in 1706 obtained royal authority for the Gibraltarian refugees to establish themselves round the hermitage of San Roque. Philip V, in granting the authority and in subsequent communications, addressed them always as My City of Gibraltar resident in its Campo.
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(..) a consequence of the allied occupation of the peninsula in 1704 was to break the established connections with the people and resources of the mainland. Compounding this diffi culty, the allied occupation in 1704 prompted the exodus from Gibraltar of virtually all the resident civilian population. True, such departures had happened on previous occasions in Gibraltar’s history when new regimes took over after successful sieges, as in 1309 and 1333. But this time the civilian population’s concerns for their safety under British control were compounded by not unreasonable fears of mistreatment by Protestant troops. Most Catholics, perhaps 1,500 families, maybe 5,000–6,000 people, transported themselves and their movables across the new frontier to the Campo de Gibraltar, and especially to San Roque. A British officer listed the names of those few Spanish who remained and were still resident in 1712. There were twenty-five family groups and sixteen individuals, including a couple of friars and two Catholic priests, possibly as few as 70 people, or 120 at most (..)
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Tras la salida de la ciudad, unos cuatro mil gibraltareños se asentaron en los alrededores. Aunque algunos viajaron a las grandes ciudades de Sevilla y Málaga, los más quedaron cerca de donde pensaban pronto volver: algunos pescadores gibraltareños se instalaron en las ruinas de Algeciras, un grupo más numeroso creó el núcleo de Los Barrios, aunque el grueso de la población y el concejo se constituyó de nuevo en la cercana ermita de San Roque, que había sido fundada en 1640 a media legua de las ruinas de Carteia; el nuevo pueblo, a quién nadie tuvo la tentación de llamar Nuevo Gibraltar ante lo que se esperaba pronto retorno, ya fue reconocido en 1706 por Felipe V como "Mi ciudad de Gibraltar en ese Campo", y pasó a ser el heredero directo y continuador institucional de Gibraltar con su ayuntamiento, el archivo y el pendón que la reina Isabel la Católica había concedido a la ciudad "llave de estos reinos"
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