Aldama, Quintero, and Blanco must have felt a deep and unbearable contradiction whenever they reflected on their lives. From birth, each could claim many of the essential traits of honorable men. In theory, all three murderers possessed the ideal masculine qualities of their era. All of them enjoyed the honorific title “don,” as did members of their families. Even for poverty-stricken Spaniards, the titles don and doña suggested status above the plebeian mob. But in 1789, in contrast to their inherited status, each of these men lived as a poor and dishonorable criminal. The escalating daily tension that they experienced between their privileged birth as white male Spaniards and their experience as outcasts ramped up in the summer and fall of that year as they struggled to find money and to defend themselves from the repercussions of their previous crimes. Finally this painful internal conflict motivated them to kill. From their point of view, only a windfall of cash could end their struggle between who they believed themselves to be and their actual existence as rogues.