ZAMBO SALVITO

THE STORY BEHIND THE MYTH

INTRODUCTION
The story of Zambo Salvito is a well-known
legend that basically tells how a boy steals
and then takes his mother's ear for not
correcting him in time. A story that takes place
in the city of peace in the year 1871 where
Zambo Salvito and six of the people who
made up his band are shot.
This happened specifically in the Caja de
Agua area (a place where people went to
draw water from a well) that we know today as “Plaza Riocinio”, right in front of the
Museo Costumbrista. Only two were saved from dying thanks to a lottery where they
exchanged the death penalty for a five-year sentence. And it is precisely in the Plaza
where Zambo Salvito pulls the ear of the person who would not be his natural mother,
but rather a person, “the black Norma,” who would have adopted him when his
natural mother died.
However, this story is much broader and has chilling details that really give you
insight into this character.
DEATH OF “EL NEGRO ZACARÍAS”. -
The story of Zambo Salvito takes place in the Yungas, at a time when slaves were
treated worse than animals for being slaves and in charge of enriching the
landowners under torture, mistreatment, without food for several days and even with
babies. separated from their mothers.
The “black Zacarías”, father of Salvador who would later become Zambo Salvito,
was a slave on the “Chicaloma” hacienda where he was accused of having stolen
two baskets of coca and tortured him with whips for four hours, leaving him with his
skin. his back in bad condition. destroyed and causing death. All this torture was in
the presence of his wife “the black Rosa” and his son Salvador, who at that time was
seven years old and was fully aware of everything that was happening around him.
After this horrendous event, the “Black Rose” tells the truth about the lost coca, and
that it was the foreman who stole those two baskets and sold them. The enraged
foreman began to hit her, but on orders from the owner of the farm he stopped.
To bury the body of “black Sacarías”, his wife had to secretly dig with her own hands
at midnight, since during the day they were prohibited from doing so since they were
only dedicated to working, while Salvador sees his father's body completely
destroyed. . . And at a certain point, his mother sends him to the priest to put holy
water on the corpse so that he can go to heaven.
As soon as Salvador finds the priest and tells him his mother's order, he is offended
by telling him: "You want me to give holy water to a thief, don't even think about it."
Then the seven-year-old boy with all that final burden leaves and has to say goodbye
to his father by burying him and putting up a small cross.
The next day, the foreman arrives to tell them that by order of the owner of the farm,
the black Rosa had to leave, and that her son was going to pay everything they paid
for her and her deceased husband. They immediately tie up Salvador and take him
away. After a few hours the girl manages to escape from her and she meets her
mother who was waiting for her in a special place where they hid when the foreman
got drunk and beat everyone. It is just at that moment that her mother decides to
leave with her son, grabbing the few things she had (food and seeds) heading to the
summit to reach the city of La Paz.
ARRIVAL TO THE CITY OF PEACE. -
Salvador and his mother see the city of La Paz for the first time, a totally different
image from where they were enslaved, with two-story houses, shops, dairy farms,
etc. They were walking along the street that today is called Illampu Street. where the
San José dairy was located, one of the most famous of that time.
In the place already mentioned, the “Black Rose” observed all the people who were
selling, and thinking about how they were going to survive, she began to see the
food vendors and approached a woman with her chola clothes from La Paz who was
selling food to offer help, but is instantly rejected. However, this merchant
remembers that the girl who helped her ran away from her (because of her abuse)
and decides to replace her with the “Black Rose” telling her that in exchange for her
he would give her and her son a plate. of food and a place to sleep. in a small corner
of the kitchen.
Mother and son begin to have a peaceful life because they had safe food, they had
a safe roof, in addition to keeping the lady they worked for happy because they were
very hardworking. While Salvador was helping his mother, he met other children,
among them one named Mamani, who was also a child who lived in the dairy, and
they began to become close friends. They both attended public school. However,
the only thing they did was mess around doing pranks such as retaining the fruits
that fell in the Obrajes area. For Christmas they went to sing Christmas carols in the
Jailona area, which was precisely in the Caja de Agua.
Another black woman who was known as "Black Norma" appears at the dairy, who
sold witchcraft things and had a very bad character, who meets "Black Rose" who is
Salvador's mother and says to her: ¿How much do you charge? like her? Is she
paying? She tells him: No, he doesn't pay me anything. You will see? He knew he
was a thief.
After this conversation, “Norma Negra” offers Salvador's mother ten pesos a month,
food and a better place to sleep. She then agrees to go to work with “Norma Negra”
to sell these llama fetuses, the colored wool and many things.
DEATH OF THE BLACK ROSE AND THE BEGINNING OF SALVITO. -
As the "Black Rose" now had more free time, she no longer worked only with the
"normal black man", but could do laundry jobs in different houses to earn a little
more, with such bad luck, that because she was washing for Al Not having much
money, he began to have health problems and got pneumonia, which at that time
was fatal, and he died.
Salvador, all sad, thought that the black norm was going to vote for him, but she tells
him no and that now it would be like her son asking him not to call her madam but
mom. It was there that she changed his name and told him: Your name is very ugly,
I don't like Salvador. I will call you from today Salvito. And the boy accepts.
The black norm throughout her life that she had totally resented, had a tremendous
hatred towards whites and mixed race people, so much so that she began to channel
all this hatred towards Salvador. I told him that he always had to remember that the
man who had your father killed was a white man and the man who whipped and
tortured him was a mixed race, so he began to have the same resentment and hatred
towards those people and changing his mind about one to another. bit.
The black Norma realized that Salvito could no longer help her like her mother did,
so she got him another job as a tailor's assistant, located in the Plaza de Riosinio,
where the tailor was a total miser, so much so that he could not I won't help her. She
fed him, but she gave him water with stale bread, telling him it was tea. The boy
began to feel very hungry and realized that the tailor did not give him anything
because he did not have any, but because he did not want to give him anything.
The idea of wanting to have a lot of money to eat everything he wanted begins to
appear in Salvito's mind. And at the same time, “Norma Negra” began to have
competition in the market with other ladies and her sales began to decrease, so
much so that one day when she had to mend Salvito's clothes, there were no
threads.
The next day, when the boy goes to the tailor, he takes some thimbles, some
needles, white thread, black thread and takes them to the black woman, telling her
that she found them there. The new mother received him with great joy and told him
that He will bring her everything she finds. Then the next day Salvito saw two pieces
of cloth and also stole them to give them to his new mother and in response she told
him that she would sell them and buy many things.
The tailor realizes that there are not two pieces of cloth left and he asks Salvito and
of course he flatly refuses, then the man begins to hit him and while he was making
them the boy remembered how his father died and stabs him with the scissors.
stomach. The tailor dies immediately and Salvito grabs fabrics and everything he
can carry and escapes.
When he arrives he tells her everything that had happened and the black ruler calms
him down and tells him that early the next day tomorrow he must go to the police
and tell them that Mr. Sastre won't open the door for him to go with him. Let them
see the body and no one would suspect him. of him because he is the one who
denounces.
Salvito does everything that the black Norma told him and the crime went
unpunished. Since then, the boy begins a life as a criminal, so much so that today
he is remembered as one of the cruelest murderers that the city of La Paz has ever
had.
ATROCIOUS CRIMES. -
In “Chuquiago” a gang of five, including Salvito, caused constant terror by robbing
stores, houses, etc. until after the crime, the police begin to want to catch them.
That's when this band decides to head to the Yungas.
On the way to Los Yungas they began to assault all the travelers who passed by,
leading to a massacre and a long list of aberrant crimes committed by a gang of nine
members, including Salvito, who lived in a natural cave.
There were so many crimes that they committed that in the trial that took place, one
of the gang members was declaring crime after crime for three hours, each crime
was more terrifying than the other.
One of these crimes by this gang was when they attacked a man who had a lot of
money and frequented the San José dairy and decided to go to Los Yungas to buy
coca, coffee, seeds, etc. along with his assistant and his mule. And it turns out that
neither the Lord, nor the mules, nor his assistant ever reached the Yungas. One day
they see the mules arrive alone with the suitcases, and when they want to see the
contents of the suitcases they find the man and the assistant completely beaten and
dismembered.
Due to the physical characteristics that Salvito had, it is said that he had loves
everywhere in the Yungas, because although for the people of the city he was a
serial killer, for the blacks he was like a kind of savior because he avenged them all.
. the mistreatment that the mestizos and the whites gave them.
As time went by, the crimes increased even more, so much so that people were even
afraid to pass through the road to Yunga because almost no one passed by alive.
The only ones who managed to save themselves were because Salvito and his
henchmen were sleeping or were drunk or had gone somewhere else.
They stole so much that the day they found Zambo Salvito and his gang distributed
large quantities of rice, flour, etc., to homes in the city of La Paz, supplying them for
several months.
Another atrocious crime was committed against the owner of the “Chicaloma” ranch.
Well, after the horrendous crimes they committed, it was learned that Salvito was
the son of “El negro Zacacrías” and they decided to catch him on his behalf since
the police could not and kill him with their weapons.
Thus, the slaves of this farm and the owner and his foreman were armed on the way
to Los Yungas, but as soon as the slaves arrived, upon seeing Salvito, they fled,
leaving the owner and the foreman alone. That's when they start to be attacked by
this gang. They cut off the foreman's ears and made him pass the mules, causing
his death, and they sewed the owner's mouth shut and killed him in the same way
that Zambo Salvito's father died. With this action Salvito fulfilled revenge for the
death of his father.
We must not leave aside that this criminal gang was captured thanks to another
atrocious crime, one of the many that he committed. This is Tomás, a teacher at the
Sucre school in the city of La Paz, a man of good character, for which he was very
loved, who was married and had a couple of servants.
This teacher, owner of a farm in Los Yungas, decides to go to his ranch wearing a
vicuña scarf with his name that his servant had made and armed for him because of
how dangerous that road was known to be. But the Lord never arrived at his farm,
they began to find out what had happened, but they found nothing and assumed that
Salvito's gang had trapped and murdered him.
One day, when this professor's maid was going shopping at the market on Ayacucho
Street, she saw an Indian selling a beautiful gold ring, and around her neck he had
a scarf very similar to the one Mr. Tomás had. He begins to chase the girl and
observes that she was staying in the third patio of the “Tambo Quirquincho” with
another person. That's when he goes to the police and takes them to the place where
the suspects were staying and they manage to arrest him.
After incessant hours of interrogation about the handkerchief, the subject began to
tell what happened, he mentioned that he was walking along the Los Yungas trail,
they grabbed him and beat Salvito's gang and since he had nothing they could rob
him. They made him work for them. Thus, one day he saw how they attacked Tomás
and killed him with one blow and that at the moment of throwing the body into the
void he realized that the handkerchief was very beautiful and that he was sad that
the handkerchief was lost when he threw it away. he. to the vacuum. So, this guy
grabs the scarf, throws it away, and I start wearing it.
This man ended up giving all the information to the police about how they carried out
the robberies and what they had done. Thus, many people, including officers,
civilians and the entire town, headed towards the Zambo Salvito cave to arrest him
and exercise justice.
THE END OF “ZAMBO SALVITO”. -
As soon as they arrived at the place where these crimes constantly occurred, they
saw that there was nothing and thought it was an ambush. However, the detained
subject insisted that they were there and after entering the Zambo Salvito cave they
saw that the entire gang was completely asleep due to excess alcoholic beverages.
Salvito slept next to a cholita with whom he had spent the night.
They were all so lost that they didn't notice anything at all and, in fact, were very
easy to catch. They woke up Salvito and the cholita began to scream more in terror
than because they were taking him away and began to direct them to the “city of La
Paz.”
After catching them, they took them to testify and tortured them to make them talk.
They all ended up confessing to the crimes except Salvito, he was the only one who
did not open his mouth despite the beatings and whippings he received. They had a
trial with one of the best lawyers of the time to defend the criminals.
On the day of the trial they begin to testify in front of the entire crowd, and he tells
one of them what his crime was and he answers: I killed an entire family, I killed the
father by throwing a rock at him and broke his skull, I also raped the mother and I
cut her throat, and she killed the two-year-old child by suffocating him by stepping
on his neck because she was sorry to leave the child without parents.
At that moment all the people began to shout and demand the death penalty,
immediately the lawyer who had to defend them stood up and told them, I also
demanded the death penalty. This death sentence that was to be carried out 48
hours after the trial was rushed and carried out where seven of the gang of nine
criminals were shot because two of them, by drawing lots, exchanged their sentence.
At the moment when they were about to shoot Zambo Salvito, who was tied up, a
black woman came out of one of those streets shouting: ¡my son! my son! Don't do
it, he's my son! Turns out she was the black Norma who reappeared so long ago.
“Zambo Salvito” upon seeing her, confirms that she is her mother and calls more
people to come to her because he wanted to tell them a secret.
Thus, the entire crowd remained in complete silence to listen to the secret that
Salvito was going to tell his mother. The black Norma places her ear at the level of
Saldito's lips and he takes advantage of it to grab it with his teeth and tear off the
entire lobe. So much so that she begins to scream, she begins to cry, the blood
begins to flow enormously and what he does is spit and begins to scream at her
saying that it is his fault that I am going through this, you made me go through this
because I didn't you corrected me. Over time it is your fault and now you also live
the consequences.
He went through what he had to go through and finally they tied him up and shot
Zambo Salvito, the most famous thief in the history of Bolivia, but also the cruelest,
the most bloodthirsty and the one who committed countless crimes that have never
been counted.
ANNEXES. –
Bibliography:
https://fmbolivia.com.bo/24/10/2018/zambo-salvito-el-forajido-que-aterrorizo-
a-la-paz/
https://GsBdOvsRI9A?si=obi1oQ3vA7-Jr7CU
https://zambitoapp.goo.gl/vhdqeSeFxQfR6UAY6
https://www.bolivia.com/tecnologia/paranormal/difunden-un-audio-donde-
supuestamente-se-escucha-al-sambo-salvito-404362
https://www.paginasiete.bo/cultura-LSPS86973