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Updated: June 11, 2025
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Casper Rumple, De Valls Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78 "I will be, providin' the good Lord spare me, 79 years old the first day of January. I was born in Lawrence County, South Carolina. The Big road was the dividing line between that and Edgefield County. My mother belonged to John Griffin. His wife named Rebecca. My father was a Irishman.
"For four hundred and fifty years we have had the water of baptism on our pates," Captain Valls continued in loud tones, "and yet we are still the accursed, the reprobates, as before the conversion. Isn't that queer? The Chuetas! Look out for them! Bad people! In Majorca there are two Catholicisms one for our people, and another for the rest."
"Father Garau was the one in charge of the conversion of Rafael Valls, 'a man of some letters, but one in whom the devil inspired an immeasurable pride, impelling him to curse those who condemned him to death, and refusing to reconcile himself with the Church. But, as the Jesuit said, such boastfulness, the work of the Evil One, fails in the presence of danger, and cannot compare to the serenity of the priest who exhorts the criminal.
This happened every Sunday, and in this unceasing weekly torment fathers died, sons grew into manhood, begetting new Chuetas destined to public contumely. A few families gathered together to flee from this degrading slavery. They met in an orchard near the sea wall, and were counselled and guided by one Rafael Valls, a valorous man of great culture.
It was one of his most loyal friends, Captain Pablo Valls. Pablo Valls was known throughout all Palma. When he seated himself on the terrace of a café on the Paseo del Borne a compact circle of listeners would form around him, smiling at his forceful gestures and at his loud voice, which was ever incapable of discreet tones. "I am a Chueta, and what of that? A Jew of the Jews!
For a good reason they dwelt apart, on this bit of ground isolated by the sea. But Valls soon recovered his good humor, and, like all men who have knocked about the world, he could not resist the invitation to relate his past. Febrer, another vagabond like himself, enjoyed listening to him.
When Jaime got into bed three hours after midnight, he fancied he saw in the obscurity of his dormitory the faces of Captain Valls and Toni Clapés. They seemed to be speaking to him as they had been doing the afternoon before. "I oppose it," repeated the seaman with an ironic laugh. "Don't do it," counseled the smuggler with a grave gesture.
"An absurdity for them and an absurdity for you," declared Valls. "Have you forgotten where you live? You can be my friend, the friend of the Chueta, Pablo Valls, he whom you see in the café, in the Casino, and whom folks consider half crazy, but as for marrying a woman of my family!" The sailor laughed as he thought of this union.
But Margalida, as if she felt threatened by a danger, freed her hands, fleeing from the room. "Good!" said the captain. "You'll kiss each other before very long when I'm not around." Valls declared himself in favor of this union. Did Febrer love her? Then go ahead. This was more logical than the marriage with his niece for her father's millions. Margalida was a fine woman.
Then his thoughts turned to Pablo Valls, so merry and generous, the superior of nearly every other friend Jaime possessed on the island, but Pablo had lived little in Majorca; he had traveled widely; he was not like those of his race, working stationary like automatons in the same posture for centuries, reproducing themselves in their cowardice, lacking courage and unity to compel respect.
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