Forced to flee to France after bloodbath
Salvador Torrents (1885-1951),
a dedicated anarchist, fled from Spain to France from his hometown , Mataroa , in Catalania , following the crackdown after the bloody July 1909 uprising in
Barcelona , called the Tragic
Week . What began as a one day strike against sending conscript troops to
an unpopular war in Morocco exploded into a week of bloody fighting
in which rampaging masses took out their pent up anger not only on the government and religious
institutions, the latter seen as allies of the rich , land owners and aristocracy.
By Peter Simon
Corpses were dug up , clergy were killed , about 50
churches, monasteries and convents were burned down in an orgy of ferocity like the sacking of the Aztec empire by the Spanish Conquistadors. A marked man because of his known views ,Torrents, like so many, fled to France.
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| Martyr Ferrer |
As a young
man he had
joined Juventud Republicana , hoping to see the overthrow of the
monarchy and social , economic and political reforms to improve the lot of dirt poor Catalan residents.
Later, with some ex republicans , he became
a member of an anarchist group . A person who had a major impact on Salvador and his actions throughout his life was
the rationalist education reformer , Francisco Ferrer .
Education , said Ferrer , would play a central role in the creation of a revolutionary society ; he wrote a book , The Modern School, and schools
were set
up for working class people teaching basic literacy , literature , natural science and Darwinism . His ideas were picked up overseas and a school based on his concept was started in New York.
In France, Torrents, without money and papers , struggled
, mixed with other Spanish refugees and while
there word came through that Francesco Ferrer and others blamed for the
Barcelona uprising were lined up and shot .
Torrents’ daughter , born in
Spain, while he was in France , was
named Paz Universal( Peace Universal ), in honour of Ferrer's daughter, Paz , whose father was executed
a few days before her birth .
In the Salvador Torrents papers in Special Collections , Eddie Koiki Mabo library, James Cook
University, Townsville, there are numerous French
postcards. Although damaged , a 1910 real photo postcard, below, from Toulouse shows a group of apparent
working men, who could have been from a factory where he worked in Lyon , about to have a party, below, one holding a duck or a rabbit , bottles visible.
There are several coloured mass produced postcards which portray well dressed family groups, one with musical instruments ... perhaps appealing to Torrent’s idealised desire for families, having experienced the extreme poverty, religious superstition , oppression of the masses and ignorance in Spain, where half the adult population could not read and the arrival of the first train was called the work of the Devil by clerics.
Australia is mentioned several times in postcards. A surprise postcard shows an airship, a dirigible , over the bridge at Saint Cloud, which could either be the Republique or one of the airships built by Brazilian pioneer aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, said to have made the first truly successful airship flight from the Aero Club de France field at Parc Saint Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than 30 minutes.Keenly interested in modern technical and scientific inventions, the airship would have attracted Salvador's attention
After several years in Paris, Torrents went back to Spain to see his family, his daughter for the first time , but found it impossible to get work , so he returned to France. With the outbreak of war he was shocked by the response of the French socialists , so set sail in 1915 for Australia seeking a new life, the fare advanced by a Spanish friend in Melbourne.
Like Don Quixote of inspirational fame , he took with him a Sancho Panza-like faithful friend from Mataroa, Juan Jordana, who over the decades would become involved with him in many adventures in this far away country. Jordana and Torrents had lodged together when they worked in a factory . NEXT: First impressions of Australia and the Spanish connection with the Northern Territory and North Queensland.
