Fuente Ovejuna was tiny town in Spain. We first read about it in Mr. Pleli’s Spanish class right here at St. Helena High. It was a play written by Lope de Vega.

Based on a true story, it concerned the plight of a small village which had been taken over by the evil Gomez de Guzman, Comandador of the order of Calatrava. The year was 1476. Ferdinand and Isabella—yes they of 1492 fame—were battling King Alfonso of Portugal who was heading north into Aragon and Castille. Alfonso was repulsed at the battle of Ciudad Real, in the same year that the events in Fuente Ovejuna took place.

Gomez e de Guzman was a bully. He and his henchmen were taking liberties with the local women. With the exception of a couple stand up guys Mengo, who was flayed with a whip and, Ponderosa, Laurencia’s lover, the townfolk were afraid to stand up and do anything.

After Guzman’s goons abused Laurencia, she berates the men folk: “You call yourselves true men? You are all tame sheep. Fuente Ovejuna means the fount where sheep drink—and now I see the reason. Cowards…….No, you are craven rabbits, mice and hares. You are not Spaniards, but barbarian slaves. Yes, you are hens to suffer that your women by brutal force should be enjoyed by others. …as for you, you chickenhearted Nancy-boys and sissies, spinning-wheel gossips and effeminate cowards, we (the women) will throw stones at you and have you dressed in petticoats and crinolines and bonnets with rouge and pansy faces!”

Tough chick. OK. Not too politically correct, but it was written over 500 years ago. Times were different. The point is she wanted the villagers to stand up and act like men and defend the honor of their women.

Well, as chance would have it, the men took her lead, stood up, acted like men, and offed the evil Guzman and a few of his henchmen.

Trouble is, Ferdinand and Isabella had to do something about it. So they sent down an “Inquisitor” who joyfully put 10 year old boys, adults, women and old men on the rack. He tortured 300 of them to find out who killed de Guzman.

The answer? To a man, woman and child, the villagers responded “Fuente Ovejuna lo hizo.” “Fuente Ovejuna did it.”

Not one individual ratted out the noble avengers. “The village did it,” they said.

What caused an entire village to band together and to the right thing—at great personal sacrifice and pain to many?

It’s my guess, it’s because deep down inside, people are pretty good. They are decent. They long to do the right thing. Sure. We have all the vices. We are all capable of breaking all the commandments—of doing the most horrendous deeds. We are “human,” after all.

Our history is replete with atrocities—forget Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao genocide in Rwanda. It’s easy to understand maniacal tyrants.

We little people are capable of committing “petty evils” like the Salem Witch Trials, Red-baiting in the 20’s, McCarthyism in the 50’s. From Hester Pryne’s Scarlet letter in the North, to Ku Klux Klan lynching’s in the south, as communities we have the capacity to “act like sheep,” and allow the unspeakable to happen. Often, the bad folk among us dominate—for a time.

But most people, be they Iraqis, Chileans, Chinese, Britain’s or Rwandans, are pretty decent folk. The want to do the right thing. Americans top that list.

Absent law and competing for resources, people may act like savage beasts. Something about survival of the fittest. William Golding captured that exquisitely in Lord of the Flies.

But given half a chance, Man can rise to glorious heights.

We, who can turn our backs so that an Auschwitz can be built, can also suffer inhuman privations in the deepest of winters, under murderous enemy attacks to liberate one.

That is our genius. Edmond Burke said that the only thing necessary for evil to exist is for “good men to do nothing.” And from Fuente Ovejuna to St. Helena, good men have remained silent when only a word might have prevented some form of minor (or major) evil from taking place.

Yet, somehow we right ourselves. Maybe it takes a duel. An old fashioned punch in the snoot. A march down Main St. or just a trip to the polls. Good men eventually do good things. It’s just that sometimes we need strong women to lead us.