Chapter 1
Ignacio de Soto Morales was born was on 5th June 1786 in a small farming community on the outskirts of San Fernada, Cadiz, Spain. He was the fifth of seven children born to Juanita Morales and Esteban de Soto but was one of only three that survived to adulthood. He had an older brother, Tomas and a younger sister, Rosita.
Esteban de Soto was an angry and frustrated man, who blamed his own father for their misfortunes. Santos de Soto had owned a small but profitable farm on the outer reaches of El Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz. But to the dismay of his family, Santos fell in with the local squire, Don Fernando Castillo, who encouraged him in the destructive course of gambling and drinking. Santos often gambled amongst his peers and his winnings usually matched his loses but one night, during a formal dinner party at the Castillo's elegant hacienda, the prize money was larger than he had ever seen and he decided to try his luck at the card table. He started off well enough, then he had a streak of bad cards and had lost what money he had on him.
Antonia de Soto was appalled as she watched her husband desperately trying to win back what he had lost, along with the ever growing prize money. She urged him to stop but Santos just waved her off, believing that he could not lose and besides the amount was more than what he would earn in three years of harvests. With his horrified wife looking on, Santos made the fateful decision to place his own farm up as collateral and lost everything on a single draw of the cards.
In the end Castillo had won the game and therefore had won the profitable de Soto's farm. He was rather pleased by this new addition to his already large estate. He owned the adjoining land to de Soto's and he had been eyeing off the neighbouring property for some time now, it was good land on reliable water source.
It could be said that Castillo had known about de Soto's gambling problems and had encouraged him further, with a hope that he would eventually make a fatal mistake and as a result he would gain the coveted land without paying a single peso, but nothing could be proved. And even if it could be proven, it would never go beyond unpleasant whispers against Castillo. For every man was responsible for their own actions and unless he had held a gun to de Soto's head, it would just be considered bad judgement by de Soto, for he should have known better than to gamble away his lands.
Santos, Antonia and their children were forced from their farm, one week after he had lost it but to Santos, the humiliation and the disgrace of losing the farm that had been in the de Soto family for four generations, was too great and he did the only honourable action that was left to him. He left behind his widow and five children ranging in ages from fifteen to three, with Esteban the eldest.
The grieving family loaded their wagon with their possessions; they sold off the items that they couldn't bring with them and started their journey back towards Antonia de Soto's parent's home but she soon realised that her parents wouldn't be able to house another six people on top of the five other family members livng with them. She didn't want to burden her parents any further than she had to and soon found lodgings for herself and her children.
Antonia only had a limited amount of money from the sale of the larger pieces of furniture, so they were forced to find work. Esteban and his younger brother Carlos found employment on a nearby farm as labourers, while their mother and their younger sisters took in washing and sewing. The money earned was enough to pay the rent, to feed and clothed them but not much else. Antonia had to learn to sew from scratch, having been brought up in a respectable family and then married into the well-off DeSoto family, she had only learnt about the finer points of needlework and lace-making. There had been no need for sewing, of how to make clothes, they had servants to do that for her. But now she had no choice. There was no money to buy material, so she used what she had.
She came to realise just how wasteful their previous lives had been. Too many times they had tossed away a shirt or a dress after only one wear because it was not fashionable to be seen in the same thing twice. But now Antonia re-used shirts, trousers, skirts and even undergarments and once her older children outgrew them, it was passed down to the younger ones. At first, her attempts at making clothes for her younger children failed miserable but it only made her more determined to make the most of their terrible situation. Living like this was a comedown for the entire de Soto family; from going to small landowners to virtually poor peasants because of an unlucky draw of cards, was hard for them to cope with, especially for Esteban.
Esteban was angry, hurt at his father's betrayal of them. He had lived a life of relative ease, knowing that one day, the farm would be his, but now that he had to work for someone else, as a common labourer, it grated on his nerves. He didn't like it and promised himself that one day, he would regain what his father had lost.
The de Soto family settled into their new life and at first, the years passed slowly as they came to terms with their situation but Antonia urged her children to think of the future and to plan for a better life. They all could read and write as well as mathematics. She made sure that her daughters knew how to do needlepoint and lace-work and urged them all to work hard, to keep themselves respectable, to be well mannered and not to allow their misfortunes to make them bitter about life. For she knew that in order to get ahead, they had to be seen as a respectable, educated family not as ill-bred, ill-mannered peasants.