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The Capitán Enrique Sanchez Monasterio (sometimes called 'Monastario' or 'Monastorio') is the main antagonist of the very first arc of Disney's Zorro "Zorro vs. Monasterio".
He's a brutal and power-hungry soldier, whose goal is to become the richest man of Spanish California. He bribes the Licenciado Piña, a crooked lawyer, to help him by making his atrocities appear legal to the governor. In order to stop him, Don Diego de la Vega, the son of one of the most important cattle barons of California, makes himself look like an inoffensive student and takes the alias of "Zorro" to fight him during nighttime.
He's played by Britt Lomond, who was also supposed to be the actor for Don Diego.
Biography[]
Monasterio began one year before Don Diego de la Vega's return to California to tax abusively rancheros and to enslave indians to get rich. This dictatorship causes Don Alejandro de la Vega to send a letter to his son telling him that he needs his help, while the captain of the boat back to Los Angeles enlights him on the specificity of the help required.
Shortly before Don Diego's arrival, Don Igniacio Torres, who had sent a letter to the governer to warn him about Monasterio's ruling, got his letter intercepted by the Comandante's soldiers. Monasterio got Licenciado Piña to accuse Torres of treason to have him imprisoned.
When Diego arrived at Los Angeles, he put on his fake smile to greet him, and gets fooled by his "innofensive man of books" facade. He tells Piña about his plan to get rid of Torres and catches Bernardo spying on him, but releases him when Sgt. Demetrio Lopez Garcia, who mistakenly believes that Bernardo is deaf, tells him that Bernardo couldn't have heard him. Bernardo warns Diego about Monasterio and Piña's plan, who decides to call himself "Zorro" to fight him.
At night, Monasterio orders Piña to let Torres go on account of an exoneration, so that he could legally shoot Torres for "escaping the jail". But Zorro intervenes and locks Piña, quickly followed by Monasterio himself who tried to fight Zorro.
Monasterio puts a price on Torres and Zorro's head, and investigates on the latter's identity. Thanks to Don Diego playing the fool with Monasterio's mock costume and his swordmanship, he gets cleared of all suspicion, said suspicions falling on one of Don Diego's servants, Benito. Due to Benito's, Don Diego's and Benito's young friend Pepito's contestations, he decides to fight Benito so that he could prove he's not Zorro. The plan goes wrong as Monasterio, despite him getting the upper hand on Benito, is still convinced that Benito is Zorro ; but thankfully, Zorro arrives to clear Benito's name.
Later, an Indian snitches Torres' hideout: Don Nacho is hiding in the mission of San Gabriel. Unfortunately for the Comandante, a law states that arresting a man in a sanctuary is forbidden. He then decides to blackmail Torres by torturing Padre Felipe's staff, and then by fabricating an Indian attack to circle the church and make Torres starve to death. Zorro manages to respectively free the Indians and make Monasterio's soldiers flee.
Unfortunately, Don Nacho can't bring himself to go safely to Monterey without wishing one last goodbye to his family. Monasterio and his escort, who were passing by, suspect Torres to have returned home. The Comandante orders the hacienda to be circled and searched while he tries with great difficulty to flirt with Elena Torres. Don Diego manages to discreetly sabotage both his advances to Elena and his search, but the saddled horse Monasterio had seen in the entrance earlier had proven Monasterio that Torres is indeed in the hancienda. He decides then to maintain the circling of the house, which leads Don Diego and Bernardo to stun him, tie him to a bed, steal his uniform and make Torres out to him so that he could escape to Monterey. Sergeant Garcia notices too late the imposture and frees Monasterio, who angrily claim that he stayed tied for several hours. He suspects Don Diego to have aided Torres' escape, but changes his mind upon discovering him and Bernardo, bound and gagged (probably by Donna Luisa and Elena) in the cave.
Following this failure, the Comandante decides to set a trap against Zorro by imprisoning Donna Luisa and Elena and refusing to feed them or give them water. Benito attemps twice to free them but gets caught and condemned to get hanged by Monasterio. Zorro saves Benito in extremis and defeats Monasterio by dropping him off a scaffolding. A little time after, while Licenciado Piña writes a report claiming the guilt of the two ladies, Don Alejandro orders him to let them see the prisoners. He decides to let him in, letting them inform him that the Comandante has been lenient towards them. However, he also secretly ordered a corporal to spy on them, and then pretending to be drunk and to accidentally reveal that Luisa and Elena got coerced into saying that. As a result, the meeting of landowners Alejandro was attending turns into a bunch of revolted people, who want to rush to save Luisa and Elena. Despite Diego's attempts to cool them down, they insist on the fact that they can't let Luisa and Elena being 'tortured'. Monasterio gets informed on good the results of his trick, and plans to set a trap for the landowners. Zorro intervenes and tries to lure the soldiers away by teasing the pride of Monasterio and Sgt. Garcia, but neither of them yeilds ; Monasterio orders half of the soldiers to stay, and Sgt. Garcia returns to the barracks instead of chasing Zorro. Zorro follows them and warns the landowners of the ambush, but his father, who has already entered, gets shot by Monasterio. Zorro rescues him, heals him as best he can, and brings him to safety.
Wanting to be sure that Don Diego won't try to save his father, he puts Sgt. Garcia and two soldiers to watch him. He finds Alejandro who get out of his hideout, and decides to fight him alone. Diego, who has bribed his wardens thanks to Bernardo and a few bottles of wine, puts on his costume and comes to the rescue. After a fight with Monasterio, Don Nacho and an escort of soldiers arrive and order Monasterio to leave Don Alejandro alone. Zorro escapes, and Monasterio returns to the de la Vegas' hacienda, only to discover that his wardens got drunk and started singing songs criticising him. Don Diego comes just in time not to be suspected of being Zorro, and Monasterio, furious about losing his grip on Don Alejandro, goes back to the barracks.
Following those events, Sgt. Espinosa, who was in charge of Torres' escort, puts him and Don Alejandro in jail, and gives to the Comandante orders from the governor stating that they have to be judged the 14th, and that Judge Vasca, an honest and fair judge from Monterey, has to be this day in Los Angeles. Monasterio has a plan for the two defendants: postponing Vasca's arrival on the account of a party in his honour so that Piña could replace him, judge them and execute them. Don Diego, dreading the trick, secretly escorts Vasca and manages to substract him to Garcia and his soldiers' surveillance. Vasca doesn't arrive on time for the trial, but Zorro threatens Piña into saying "not guilty" during the trial, to Monasterio's rage. When he tries to overturn the verdict, Vasca arrives, and the Capitán tells him that the verdict has been rendered already, while hypocritically stating that he "pride[s] [him]self on the justice dispensed under [his] command".
Following Torres' exoneration, Monasterio's goal changes completely. He henceforth only focuses on capturing Zorro. After trying to chase him by falsely kicking Garcia out of the army, which had only resulted in him falling into a tar pit, he meets Carlos Martinez, a villainous and very skilled fencer whose mustache and lower face look similar to Zorro's. After killing a man during a duel for a maiden, Monasterio arrests him and blackmails him into acting like Zorro to frame him for the robbing of several citizens. However, Don Alejandro obviously refuses to come, and Bernardo got wind of Monasterio's intentions. Don Diego decides to go to the party instead so that he could understand what Monasterio's up to, and manages to stop Martinez. When Monasterio gets questioned about Martinez having escaped, he puts the blame on Sgt. Garcia and throws Martinez back in jail.
In the following episode, Monasterio makes it look like to everyone, including Don Diego, that he killed Martinez due to another escape. Actually, he plans on framing Zorro again, this time for the theft of a crown in a church, a crime for which even Martinez was reluctant about. Don Diego, to find the culprit, plants fake gems around to make it look like Martinez is trying to dispose of the crown, and therefore takes risks into being caught and revealing Monasterio's guilt. Piña suggests to the Comandante that Martinez had betrayed him, and the furious Capitán attempts to murder his mercenary. But Martinez, who was not trusting Monasterio, ambushes him and wounds his hand. Don Diego, who was watching the whole scene, has to prevent Martinez from escaping. He disarms him, and Monasterio kills him while he was trying to flee. Don Diego requests insistently Monasterio to clear Zorro's name upon recovering the crown, and the Comandante puts once again the blame on Sgt. Garcia for Martinez's "escape". When Monasterio questions Don Diego on how he managed to defeat Martinez, Diego says he counted on luck, but Monasterio is skeptical about that, and decides to review every report on Zorro.
After doing so, and no matter how absurd Sgt. Garcia finds this conclusion, the Comandante knows that Don Diego de la Vega is Zorro, due to the young man always being in the vicinity of Zorro's acts, and him and Zorro never both appearing at the same time. The latter, initially forlorn about his unmasking, is relieved when he hears about the viceroy of Spain's arrival. Monasterio laughs at this relief and decides to free every single prisoner on a drink of wine, and orders every citizen to greet the viceroy as politely as they could. The viceroy and his daughter Constancia are suspicious of Monasterio's behaviour which totally contrasts with the accusations that made them come but give him the benefit of the doubt. After a ceremony, Monasterio announces that he captured Zorro, but the viceroy has a hard time believing that one of his friends is a renegade. Having no define evidence, Monasterio calls up for some witnesses to back his claims up. The only one to do so is Licenciado Piña, which only makes the viceroy more suspicious. Diego begs the viceroy to bring Monasterio and Garcia out of the room, which he does. After a quick and amusing discussion between the two officers about a possible marriage between the Capitán and the viceroy's daughter, Monasterio comes back and the viceroy asks him to tell him if he's 100% sure of the man in the costume being Zorro, and to look at him clearly. The Comandante, impatient, insists on reaffirming his accusation, only to discover that Diego has switched his place with a soldier. He then tries to talk about the Martinez incident but Diego convinces the audience that Monasterio is out of his mind. Furious, Monasterio challenges Don Diego, defeats him, and threatens him into confessing that he's Zorro. Bernardo comes in extremis to save Don Diego by acting like Zorro, and the viceroy arrests both Monasterio and Piña for their crimes.
Monasterio's fate is unknown. Given Spanish laws at that time, he would most likely be broken from his rank, imprisoned or maybe sentenced to death.
Trivia[]
- Enrique Sanchez Monasterio is often labeled as one of the best villains in Disney's Zorro. The most often outlined flaw is the fact that he only appears in 13 episodes, therefore the same length as magistrate Carlos Galindo and half of the whole Eagle arc, despite him being the reason why Don Diego became Zorro.
- Britt Lomond was one of the two runner-ups for the role of Zorro. Due to his exceptional fencing skills, Walter Disney decided to keep them both for the series and give him the role of the villain.
- During their fights, Guy Williams and Britt Lomond had unblunted swords. Despite that, the latter received nothing more than a non serious injury on the eyelid, and the former came out unharmed.
- Comandante Monasterio is used to calling Sgt. Garcia "baboso", meaning "slug" in Spanish. In the Spanish dub however, every baboso is replaced with "estúpido" or "imbécil".
 Villains
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