Some people are better known by the mark they left than by their name. This is the case with Juan de Barreneche y Aguirre, a native of Lesaka, who bequeathed to his native town the funds necessary to rebuild the parish church and provide it with an extraordinary artistic ensemble. Barreneche's biography can be taken as an example of the numerous Navarrese who left different towns of the old kingdom with the intention of trying their fortune in the New World. Those who, like this Lesakarra, were successful in their endeavor rarely forgot their homeland, to which they sent remittances of money that were used to provide for their nephews and nieces, embellish their birthplace or, as in this case, the local parish church.

It is no coincidence that the first approaches to the little known figure of Juan de Barreneche came from the field of art history. It was in 1971 when Concepción García Gainza, professor of Art History, dedicated a work to the altarpieces of the church of San Martín de Tours in this town in the Cinco Villas region, where the name of the person who financed these works appeared. However, very little was known about his biography. The publication, in 1992, of correspondence of emigrants from Navarre and Guipuzcoa to America in the 18th century by Jesús María Usunáriz made it possible to know the circumstances in which the town council of Lesaka and the wealthy Indiano agreed on the donation. Subsequent programs of study, such as that of Javier Abad Viela, has allowed fill in his biography.

Juan de Barreneche y Aguirre was born in Lesaka on October 8, 1675; he was the son of Francisco de Barreneche and María Francisca de Aguirre, owners of the house of Falkezenea, which still exists today. The couple had at least two other children, named Francisco and Mariana. Two factors may help to explain why the two siblings, Juan and Francisco, left for America: on the one hand, the lack of local resources, which explains the system of sole heir prevailing in a good part of Navarre and which drove several children in each generation to look for a way to make a living in other environments where they could settle without seeing their position deteriorate; on the other hand, the recovery experienced by the Hispanic Monarchy throughout the reign of Charles II, accompanied by a renewed presence in the Atlantic and in the American territories. Having overcome the crises that had affected especially southern Europe during the seventeenth century, America was once again presented as a space full of opportunities, as opposed to the narrowness of old Europe. Since 1515 the Navarrese were also Castilians, and this fact enabled the natives of the small kingdom to travel, trade and establish themselves legally in the New World, a highly coveted privilege.

The two young Barreneche went to different parts of America: Francisco to Peru and Juan to Guatemala. We can intuit the effort involved in this journey, similar to that of many other emigrants: first of all, for those who, like the Barreneche family, came from places where only language Basque was spoken, it was necessary to learn Spanish, the only language in which literacy was available and which was necessary both for the journey and for settling in the New World.

Some data of the town of Lesaka can serve as an orientation when it comes to measuring the long road traveled from the birthplace to America. We will make use of an extraordinary document: the evaluation of goods made around 1607 in all the towns of the kingdom, which is kept in the file Real y General de Navarra. By mandate of the Cortes, all the heads of family had to declare the goods of which they were owners, both real estate - houses and lands of different types subject- and movable property - livestock -, indicating their value. For the execution of this task, a royal notary was sent to each of the towns of the kingdom; in the town of Lesaka this official was accompanied by the mayor, Juan de Garbiso. House by house, each neighbor declared everything he owned; when finished, the royal scribe required the declarant's signature . We are fortunate that for Lesaka the original document is preserved; this allows us not only to know how much property each neighbor had, but also to relate each patrimony to the level of literacy. The results are revealing: in the first decade of the XVII century, of the 140 households of which this town was composed, 36 -a quarter- had a woman as head of the family; the reason why it is them and not their husbands who declare is not always indicated: 15 of them do it because they are widows; 8, because their husband is absent; in 13 cases the reason is not given. None of them stamped their signature at the bottom of the declaration; no less illustrative is that of the 104 male heads of household only 19 signed, of which four were priests. We can therefore conclude that by 1607 - except for the clergy - only 10% of the male heads of household were able to write their name.

The Education of a child was costly in time and money, not only because of the outlay involved in this instruction, but also because during the time that the training was prolonged, the child did not work. The Education was not limited to learning to read, write and do some bookkeeping: it was necessary to polish one's manners, to know how to move in refined environments. The decision to prepare one of the children for a degree program outside the community of origin had to be taken early, and aspects such as the natural inclination towards programs of study would certainly be taken into consideration. The example of Lesaka allows us to intuit that literacy and instruction can only partly be explained by the level of wealth of a family, since among the largest estates in the town we find neighbors who do not know how to sign; on the other hand, households with average levels of wealth did have access to that valuable instrument of promotion that was literacy. There is therefore a margin for free decision on the destiny of the children.

The data of the Falkezenea house are not easy to identify in the documentation. We do not know how Juan de Barreneche had been perfectly instructed in the Castilian language ; nor through what connections he was able to establish himself in Cadiz, where he resided at the beginning of 1706; nor how he had the necessary resources to buy from the king, at the end of 1704, the mayoralty of Escuintla, in Guatemala, for a period of five years. Thanks to works such as those of Francisco Andujar, we now know the intense venality that was practiced by the Crown, particularly during the most decisive years of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713). The pressing need that Philip V had for economic resources to win the war that confronted him with the Archduke Charles promoted the sale of positions and offices in the Peninsula as well as in the Indies; it was not an exclusive phenomenon of the Hispanic Monarchy: for example in France venality reached much greater proportions. We can deduce that Barreneche obtained the aforementioned mayor's office through the disbursement of a large sum of money. When he took it over, it was held by another person, whose mandate expired in April 1708; until that date, Barreneche could not enter his jurisdiction within a radius of 50 leagues. In February 1706 the lesakarra was already in Cadiz, ready to embark together with two servants: Pedro de Dolarea, native of Arizkun, 29 years old, and Martin de Arguiñarena, native of Amaiur/Maya, 19 years old. Before embarking, the two young men from Baztan had to prove, with witness statements, just like their master, that they were old Christians and also unmarried. Having obtained the licence, the three traveled to Guatemala and on the indicated date Barreneche began the performance of his position during the five years granted by Felipe V. His annual salary was 331 pesos and 2 reales, but as was customary he had to pay half of it to submit as average anata, the name of the tax levied on public offices granted by the Crown. When his mandate ended, in 1714 he was succeeded as mayor by his servant Pedro de Dolarea, which leads us to think that in a certain way Barreneche continued to control the mayor's office of Escuintla, while he himself took over that of the city of Sololá, also in Guatemala. In 1729 the lesakarra would be mayor of Guatemala City, where he had established himself. All these positions allowed him to collect tributes from the governed towns, although in 1716 he complained that some of the towns were decadent and he had not been able to collect the tributes, which he supplied with his own money.

However, the most lucrative activity was trade. Central America was the place of production of raw materials that were highly valued in Europe and could not be obtained anywhere else; this was the case of dyes. These substances, which today are obtained from chemical processes, were extracted from plants, such as indigo, or from parasites, such as cochineal. The dyes were used to dye quality fabrics, such as those worn by the privileged European classes in the Ancien Régime; they were rare and costly to extract and transport, and their trade provided substantial profits. They were not only sent to Europe: we know that in 1730 Barreneche sent a consignment of indigo to Lima, where he probably had his brother as contact ; he also had correspondents in Cadiz, port of entrance in the Peninsula. Another of the products highly valued in the Old World was cocoa, and Barreneche also exported it. The Atlantic trade was very sensitive to the war situation, and thus we know that at the end of his life the Lesakarre longed for peace, because between 1739 and 1748 Spain and England faced each other in the War of the Seat or Jenkins' Ear, status which negatively affected the economic activity.

In January of 1731, the regiment of Lesaka -what today we call the city council- had begun the renovation of the local parish church, dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. It was necessary to build a new nave, since the old one threatened ruin; the remodeling was of great importance and they calculated that they needed 18,000 pesos to pay the stonemasons, a large amount of money that they did not have. Aware of the success that had accompanied the trajectory of several of their fellow countrymen, they decided to write to them, asking them financial aid. In the case of Barreneche, the letter took a year to reach his hands; according to his own testimony, he received it at a time that was not very propitious for generosity. These were years of tension for Atlantic trade, on which his fortune depended to a great extent, due to the rivalry with England, a power that threatened the Hispanic monopoly in America. Don Juan, who was about 60 years old, stated in his reply to the letter, in March 1732, that he had already been "retired from trade for some time, both because of the calamitous times and [feeling] already tired, and because of the great blows that in the last eight years have undermined the little wealth he had". Nevertheless, in his reply, in March 1732, he promised to send 5,000 pesos; in exchange, Barreneche requested the foundation of a chaplaincy of sung masses every Saturday at the altar of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores. In this letter, the Indian also stated that he would have gladly contributed a larger sum so that the work would be finished as soon as possible, but the adversities in commerce for the moment prevented him from doing so, although he wished to recover in order to "apply it in my beloved country for something that would be to the greater honor and glory of God".

Seven months later, Barreneche's letter arrived in Lesaka. The reaction was of "unspeakable joy"; the mayor acknowledged that he had promoted the rebuilding of the church with funds "very tenuous, but secured in the Divine commiseration". The mayor recalled that "immediately after it was read in the town council, I ordered that it be published throughout the town and that the bells be rung for joy. From which bizarre action most or all of the town burst into tears of tenderness [...] it is inexplicable for me to be able to refer in any terms I wish [...] the great love that all my individuals, great and small, have conceived of your mercy". The same day the letter was written, the celebration of the masses had begun, with the participation of Mariana, Barreneche's sister.

Don Juan later planned to found a convent and a high school, but these plans did not come to fruition. The funds destined for these purposes ended up swelling the donation for the parish of Lesaka. The Indiano followed through correspondence everything related to the employment of his donations, although he never saw the result, as he died in Guatemala in 1752.

Barreneche, along with Juan Fermín de Aycinena and Juan Bautista de Irisarri from Baztan, who was born as Don Juan de Bortziriak/Cinco Villas, was the richest man in Guatemala in the 18th century. The volume of the fortune treasured by Barreneche is known thanks to his will, granted on August 12, 1748 in Guatemala. Don Juan declared that he owned 358,956 pesos, of which 35,016 pesos were in Spain, 71,400 in Peru, 146,440 in New Spain and 106,100 in his possession. In his will he named his own soul as his heir; he had never married or had children. In her last will she had present the poor of the hospital of San Juan de Dios in Guatemala City, where there were about one hundred beds occupied. He put 3,530 pesos in census, and with the revenues he ordered that 13 pesos be distributed each week to each one of the sick, in addition to one real every Saturday. That same year he ordered that more than 100,000 pesos should go to the town of Lesaka, among them 7,000 pesos for his poor relatives and 7,500 more for the Hospital of Pamplona, the Casa de Misericordia, the high school de Huérfanos de la Doctrina of that same city, among other institutions. Likewise, 4,000 pesos were destined for the interior decoration of the parish of Lesaka, later increased when other foundations were frustrated. It was with these funds that the excellent altarpieces were commissioned, as well as, after 1754, the extraordinary images that adorn it, in particular the Immaculate Conception and Saint Martin, the work of Luis Salvador Carmona, as Concepción García Gainza demonstrated. This sculptor, one of the best of the Spanish 18th century, had worked from 1746 onwards for the Royal Congregation of San Fermín de los Navarros in Madrid, which grouped the most select of the Navarrese community in the Court. In total, as this researcher proved, 20,000 pesos were allocated for the adornment of the church. The church of San Martín de Tours in Lesaka constitutes a magnificent exponent of Rococo art; a visible mark left to posterity by Juan de Barreneche y Aguirre, who participated fully in what Julio Caro Baroja called the "Navarrese hour of the 18th century".