Explore "Commoners from Socorro (1781)" by Pablo Neruda on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was Manuela Beltrán (when she broke the oppressor's banns and cried, "Down with the despots") who scattered the new grain over our land.
It was in New Granada, town of Socorro. The commoners shook the viceroyalty in a precursory eclipse.
They united against the state commissaries, against stained privilege, they raised petitions of the people's rights, united with firearms and stones, minutemen and women, the people, order and fury, marching on Bogotá and its highborn.
Then the Archbishop stepped down.
"You'll have all your rights,
I promise you in the name of God."
The people assembled in the plaza.
And the Archbishop celebrated a mass and swore an oath.
He was righteous justice.
"Put down your firearms, repair to your homes," he pronounced.
The commoners surrendered their arms. In Bogotá they feted the Archbishop, celebrated his betrayal, his perjury, in the perfidious mass, and they denied bread and rights.
They executed the leaders, distributed the recently decapitated heads among the towns, with the Prelate's blessings and dances in the Viceroyalty.
O first, heavy seeds cast to the regions, you'll remain, blind statues, incubating the insurrection of spikes in the hostile night.