The Hazas de Suerte (THE FIELDS OF LUCK)

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TEXTO DE LA MODIFICACIÖN DEL REGLAMENTO DE HAZAS DE SUERTE (Aprobado por el Pleno Extraordinario del 12 de junio de 2017).

What are the Hazas de Suerte?

They are some arable lands belonging to the neighbors of Barbate and Vejer de la Frontera. They have the consideration by law of communal property, being its administration in the hands of a group of neighbors who were elected to this effect and who constitute, along with the Municipal Corporation, the so called Council of Hazas. This Council of Hazas is the responsible for redacting a Regulation, which determines the criteria that administrate these communal territories. The village of Barbate as well as the village of Vejer own their own regulations, being ours from the year 2004. The word “haza”, according to the dictionary of the Royal Academy, registers between its meanings, that of “portion of arable land”, and it already appears this way in documents of the 10th Century. The denomination of Hazas de Suerte has its origin the the nature of its possession, as these lands are raffled every four years between the neighbors registered in each village, so the lucky winners can enjoy them for that period, by renting them out or by planting on them or even selling them.

What is the origin of the Hazas de Suerte?

The origin of the Hazas de Suerte goes back to the Castilian reconquering of these lands. Ferdinand III the Saint, in his fight against the muslims, occupied Vejer and its adjacent areas towards 1250, remaining its settlers at the border of a frontier whose limit was imposed by the Barbate River. The chronicles affirm that the king signed a Municipal Charter, or what is the same, he assigned an amount of privileges to those who wanted to repopulate the lands he had just reconquered, the lands that were left semi desert and were of great strategically importance. The rights given in that Municipal Charter were quite wide for the époque, as nobody wanted to risk their life by living in a zone threatened by continuous muslim attacks. The most risky would enjoy commonly of all the lands, water and forests, without having to obey to any lord. The first repartition was made by the division of the laboring lands in seventy and thirty aranzadas. Those of seventy, were assigned to gentlemen, neighbors who owned a certain number of mares and cows in addition to the horse for fighting against the incursion of enemies. That’s why they’re also known with the tem of cavalries. The lands of thiry aranzadas, were awarded for those who didn’t own a horse, laborers or ordinary people (these were exactly the so called Hazas). After this first concession in the 13th Century, the lands of Hazas suffered many difficulties, starting with the continuous attacks of the muslim hordes who loot the territory many times. However, once the area was pacified by the Christians, the main obstacle for the new settlers appeared with the entrance of a great gentleman, Alonso de Guzmán, later known as Guzmán el Bueno (Guzmán the good). He got some privileges from the king Ferdinand IV in return for his heroic defense of Tarifa, like the privilege of arming tunny fisheries all over Andalucía. Then, the king, in order to satisfy a debt with him, awarded him with a villa in Vejer with all its lands through a transfer. So, there was a contradiction between the first royal concession to the neighbors of Vejer, the concession of Ferdinand III and this last one, made by Ferdinand IV to Guzmán el Bueno.

When does Barbate acquire its own Hazas?

In 1938 happened the segregation of the village of Barbate from the matrix township of Vejer de la Frontera. In the resulting distribution, Barbate acquires 124 Hazas de Suerte, from the 356 existing, some of them in the municipal term of Vejer (Cantarranas, Algar and Compradizas) without counting those legally corresponding to the term. Inmediately, the new City Council created a Council of Hazas, which elaborated a Regulation for its neighbors and was published the 8th November from 1940 and that, with a little modification from 1944, has been valid for sixty four years. Between the years 1982-1984, they were expropriated by the Ministry of Defense 70,5 Hazas of Barbate, near Retín Hills, for thir use with military aims. Since then, what has been raffled actually, is a percentage of the reported interests for the money of that expropriation, following the normal proceedings in the rest.


What legal form do the Hazas de Suerte have?

The Hazas de la Suerte are possessions included in the Inventary of Goods of the Communal Corporations and they are also included in the Property Register of Barbate extended to the Neighbors of Barbate. According to the current law, “they have the consideration of communal those goods that are of public domain, its profit corresponds to all the neighbors and they are inalienable, unseizable and imprescriptible”.

Where are located the Hazas of Barbate?

The Hazas de Suerte of Barbate have been located and distributed until 1981 the following way:

Judicial district ->Nº of Hazas

  • Manzanete -> 72
  • Bujar -> 8
  • Marmosilla -> 7
  • Algar -> 20
  • Cantarranas -> 10
  • Compradizas -> 7

    TOTAL 124

In the year 1981, the Minister Counci in their meeting the 13th of July and as a suggestion of the Ministry of Defense, they decided the mandatory expropriation of some territories in the municipal term of Barbate in order to install a field of amphibious maneuvers. Within those territories, concretely in Manzanete, there were 70,5 Hazas de la Suerte, belonging to the Barbate village, so the government had to pay for the expropriation 223.741.996 of the former pesetas, which were deposited in a bank entity by the Municipal Corporation, earmarking since then, a percentage of the interests to the periodic raffle of the Hazas.

What is said in the Regulations about the Hazas de Suerte?

The first Regulation was approved the 18th November 1940, being Agustín Varo y Varo the Mayor. The 8th May 2004, a new Regulation came into force. All the details related to the administration and to the raffle of the Hazas de Suerte belonging to the neighbors of Barbate are collected in it.

• The new Regulation is divided into five Titles, six Chapters and fifty two Articles, and a derogative disposition.
• The Title Iº specifies the laws and decrees in which the legal nature of these properties is settled.
• The Title IIº refers to the rules by which the constitution of the Council of Hazas must be governed.
• Chapter IIIº is divided itself in three chapters:
• Chapter Iº is about the formation of the General Register of Neighbors with right to enjoy the rent.
• Chapter IIº refers to the formation of the Registers of Farmers with the right to work the Hazas de Suerte.
• Chaper IIIº of this Title points out the proceedings to follow for the revision of the settlements.
• The Title IVº explains the details of the raffle and payment of rents.
• The Title Vº recollects the hunting profit of the Hazas.
• Finally, in a derogative disposition, it is void the Regulation of Hazas of 1940.
• An annex of the Regulation gathers up the location and extension of the areas that may be raffled.

What are the main legal entities gathered up in the Regulations?

The Regulation of Hazas de Suerte of Barbate gathers up a series of legal figures without which wouldn’t have been understood the system that regulates the raffle. The main ones are: the Register of the Hazas, the Register of Farmers with right to work the Hazas, the Council of Hazas, the raffle itself and the rent.

Who are connected in the Register of Inhabitants of Hazas?

In the General Register of Neighbors, better known as Register of Hazas (name with which we will refer to it in order to not to mix it up with the Municipal Register of Inhabitants) are related all the neighbors with right to be lucky winners in the raffle of the Hazas.
In 1940, once approved the first Regulation and for the opening raffle in Barbate, it was made on the basis of the Register of Vejer a Register of the Hazas the Suerte with all the household heads of this locality. To this effect, the article 1º of this Regulation said literally:

After being lucky winners of the rent of the Hazas all the neighbors appearing in the General Register created in 1856, there will be extended another one in which will figure all the neighbors who have the right to be included in it.

The Register was made again in 1960 and it is still in force. According what the Regulation orders, it must be modified every four years, having it to be finished before of each raffle. Those modifications consist in excluding of the Register to:

- Those lucky winners of any Haza.
- Those who have died without descendents
- Those who may have lost their vicinity because of being absent in the village.
- Those who haven’t lived in Barbate the two previous years to the quadrennial rectification.
- The widows who have got married for the second time with people who are included in the Register of Hazas.
- The strangers.

Who are connected in the Register of Inhabitants of Farmers?

The Register of Farmers registers to those people with right to work some Haza, who have to give credit to the Council about their condition of farmers.
By considering it in the Council of Hazas that these could be similar to a job positions, you will have initial right to work a Haza for familial unity and the possibility of another Haza more.
In regime of settlings, there will be the possibility to be part of the Register of Farmers all those neighbors who fulfill the following requirements: being farmer by your own; having the tools and the needed means for the farming of the Haza or economical means for its acquisition; not having rustic goods in property with areas superior to 30 hectares, and not to exercise industrial activities, commercial or of services different to the agriculture or cattle.

Who are the settlers?

The settler or colonist is the farmer dedicated to the farming of the Hazas de Suerte. This figure is characterized for the following:
- Should be registered in the Register of Farmers with right to work some Haza. This means that if any lucky winner would like to be a settler at the same times, should be included in this Register.
- Doesn’t need to be a lucky winner of some Haza, though if she/he fulfills the required conditions, he/she can be as any other neighbor with that right.

What is it and what is it for the Council of Hazas?

The Council of Hazas is a group of neighbors formed to be responsible of everything related to the Hazas, as it is specified in the article 2. of the Regulation, which literally says: without prejudice that its legal ownership may correspond to the City Council of Barbate, the government and the administration of the Hazas de Suerte corresponds to the Council of Hazas de Suerte.
The Council is integrated by: the Mayor, the City Councilors and the same number of neighbors of the township – the associated – who represent the economical, agricultural and social sector of the population. The president of the Council of Hazas is the Mayor and it must be formed the 30th of October next to the previous celebration of the raffle.
According to the Regulation, the position of associated member is free of charge, with a duration of four years and it is inside the responsibilities of the neighbors, just admitting the legal cause of withdrawal of the position, the established by the Law for the elected members of the Municipal Corporation.

What does correspond to the lucky winner with some Haza de Suerte, and when and how can she/he receive it?

In the past, the lucky winner with a Haza de Suerte had the responsibility to work on it and to get the maximum benefit from it. However, since the 19th Century, many lucky winners who don’t want to work on the Haza, because they have enough income for living or just because they work in other professions. This last one was the case of Barbate, a traditional village of fishermen. When fishing wasn’t enough, the villager from Barbate dedicated then to work on the Haza he was provided with. But in 1940, the year in which it is published the first Regulation about Hazas of our locality, nobody wasn’t interested in leaving the work in the sea for working on agriculture in the Hazas just for four years.
Consequently, the Regulation of 1940 takes from Vejer the figure of the settler or colonist, who had to figure in the Register of Farmers with Right of working on the Hazas de Suerte, in a way that if a lucky winner wasn’t included in the list, she/he couldn’t work on the Haza he had been provided with. The same does the new Regulation of 2004.
To what corresponds to the lucky winner is the rent of the Haza, that is, the receipt of a part of the produced for it and this way is expressed in the article 43 of the current Regulation:
The settled neighbor is responsible for paying the rent fixed by the Council of Hazas for the Haza he has been provided with and he has been cultivating, in the first two weeks of August of every year in which the contract is in force (...)
When the State took all the wheat produced by the country after the Civil War, the payments of the rents of the Hazas paid in kind became paid with money, which the current Regulation holds nowadays.
The steps to follow after the raffle are the following:
1. By the Presidency of the Council, it will be proceed to extend the corresponding titles that give credit to the lucky winners of being owners of the right of rent of the Haza they have been awarded during the quadrennial term in force of the raffle. These titles will be handed over in the morning of the 6th January after the raffle.
2.The import of the rents of the Hazas will be paid by the settler in the City Hall, Municipal Treasury, within the first two weeks of August every year and destined to the payment of the rest of the titular of their right to receipt.
3. From the import of the rents of the Hazas, it will be removed the five per cent of them, according to the established in the article 98 of the Regulation of Goods of the Local Entities.
The rent that the settler must pay to the lucky winner each of the following four years varies depending on the Haza, because of its high productivity (large Haza) or low (minor Haza). Between these last ones, there are expropriated Hazas from 1982.
In order to have an approximate idea, according to the decision of the Council of Hazas for the last raffle of 2008, the rents to perceive by the lucky winners were in a rate between 350-1.100€ depending on the kind of Haza.
Regarding the non-payment of the rent, the article 44 of the Regulation sets the settler in the recitals with the possibility of an administrative charge because of the non-payment of the rent of the Haza within the established due.

Who can be lucky winners of some Haza de la Suerte?

Only can be lucky winners of some Haza those who are registered in the Register of Hazas of 1960. In this year, according to the Regulation, were included all the household heads of the population who were born in it or who have been living in it for twenty uninterrupted years, which can be proved with the Neighboring Register of 1940 (loyal as it also collected the nickname of many citizens of Barbate).
As a consequence of the raffles and the produced exclusions, the Register of Hazas will be drafted once everybody has owned a Haza, that is, when nobody appears in the register, a new one will be drafted. This means that the lucky winners of some Haza regarding the old Register could repeat their luck with a new Register.

When and where are raffled the Hazas de Suerte?

The raffle of Hazas takes palces once every four years, the 25th December in the backyard of the City Hall. As the first raffle took place the 15th December of 1940, the year in which the Regulation was approved, the raffle of the year 2012 will be the nineteenth and will be celebrated in Barbate.


Some considerations of the new Regulation

After seventy four years, it was clear that the new Regulation from 1940 was obsolete. The social transformations experimented for our society and those happened in the Hazas, made necessary a full revision. For instance, according to the old Regulation, the lucky winners had to announce themselves publically through a town crier or that one quarter of the associated had to chose between the farmers who owned two or more yokes. .
Vejer understood the necessity to modify its Regulation, which accomplished in 2000. Barbate did the same, and our Regulation is almost the same as that of Vejer. As a novelty, both include the creation of two committees: The Scrutinity Committee and the Commission on Human Settlements. Both figures try to speed up the labor of the Council of Hazas.
It will take successive raffles in order to verify the effectiveness of the new Regulation, bearing in mind that the Council of Hazas, a body that owns all the competences in terms of the Hazas and which is thoroughly legalized to make just as much punctual modifications as it deems appropriate.

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