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Pasos Largos, the last bandit of Andalusia
Juan Mingolla Gallardo, alias Pasos Largos (El Burgo, May 4, 1873 - Sierra Blanquilla, March 18, 1934), was an Andalusian bandit, considered the last one to act in the Serranía de Ronda.
Biography
He inherited the nickname Pasos Largos from his father, who received it for his peculiar way of walking. His naturally taciturn character was accentuated during the military service he did in Cuba between 1895 and 1898.
Upon returning to Spain he received the news of the death of his older brother, immediately his younger brother left the family home to get married and, in 1901, his mother died. The dismemberment of his family, of which he is a great lover, turns Pasos Largos into an increasingly surly and introverted person, and he begins to devote himself to poaching, spending most of the day in the mountains.
He also becomes fond of gambling, which means that, in addition to losing all the money he gets, he is constantly involved in fights and quarrels.
Reported by the guard of the El Chopo estate as a poacher, he is arrested by the Civil Guard and beaten. Juan Mingolla then decides to take revenge and on May 8, 1916, after locating the son of the complainant, he shoots him twice in the head, after which he finishes him off with the sickle that he carries "so that he does not suffer." He then goes to find the father and kills him with the same sickle. The cruelty with which he commits the murders is evidence of the hatred and anger that dominate his personality.
Pursued by justice, he fled and took refuge in a mountain range that he knew perfectly well because of his poaching practices. The caves of Clavelino, Lifa and Sopalmillos became his refuge, and his misdeeds, exploits and legends began, presenting him as a compassionate, noble and generous bandit.
Thus it is said that on one occasion he surprised two civil guards, disarming them and setting them free so that they could return to Ronda and tell what had happened. On the way, a boy caught up with them and returned their weapons on his behalf "so that their bosses would not punish them".
His speciality was kidnapping, among which the kidnapping of Diego Villarejo, a wealthy owner of Cuevas del Becerro, stood out, from whom he obtained 100,000 reales. But since the victim was an influential person in the province of Malaga, the event reached the ears of the highest spheres of the country, who made his search and capture a priority, accentuated by the fact that his financial needs, derived from his love of gambling, led him to extort and blackmail the landowners of Ronda, among whom was the mayor of Ronda, Juan Peinado Vallejo.
On August 14, 1916, he was betrayed by the wife of a goatherd in whose cabin Pasos Largos regularly found refuge. The Civil Guard engaged the bandit in a shootout that hit him and left him seriously wounded, despite which he managed to escape, falling down a ravine, where he remained unconscious for several hours. When he regained consciousness, he could only go to Ronda, to the Café Sibajas, on the main street of the city, where he often gambled. There he decided to surrender and when the authorities arrested him, they say that the people who were there cheered him on and supported him.
Pasos Largos was sentenced to life imprisonment, serving his sentence in the Figueras prison, where the tuberculosis he had contracted during his stay in Cuba worsened. Transferred in 1932 to the Puerto de Santa María prison, he was released that same year when the Republican government granted him a pardon due to his good conduct and state of health.
When he returned to Ronda, it was Diego Villarejo, the landowner he had kidnapped, who offered him work as a guard on one of his farms. The job did not last long, since freedom in the mountains was what he most longed for. So he returned to poaching and committing petty thefts that led him to municipal jail on several occasions.
One day he stole a shotgun from Lifa's farmhouse and returned, at the age of sixty, to the life of a bandit in the mountains until, on March 18, 1934, the Civil Guard received reports that placed Pasos Largos in the Solpalmillo cave, located in Sierra Blanquilla, in the heart of the Sierra de las Nieves. Forces of the Benemérita from Arriate, Igualeja, Serrato, El Burgo and Cuevas del Becerro besieged him and urged him to surrender or, if not, they would kill him, to which he replied: "Kill me." The shootout ended with Pasos Largos dead from two shots, one in the stomach and one in the chest. In conclusion, Pasos Largos was the last bandit to act and one of the most evil due to the kidnapping of Diego Villarejo. According to his family, it was a hard time.
#bandit #andalucia #malaga