Rizal's father, Don Francisco, was a friend of the owners of the Kalamba estate. He was intimate, too, with the manager in charge of the plantation. Frequently, important visitors came to the plantation house. Then the manager asked Don Francisco for whatever he, the manager, needed. He very often asked for a turkey, and Don Francisco gladly gave it to him. The poultry yard at young Rizal's house was always full of turkeys because Don Francisco was a fancier of these fowls.
But one season there came some epidemic and almost all the turkeys died. Only a few pairs, which were being kept for breeding, were left. Just at this time the manager one day sent for the customary turkey. Naturally Don Francisco had to tell the messenger that he had no turkeys to spare, because the greater part of them had died. This reply made the manager furiously angry. He wound up his abuse by saying, “You will pay for this in the end!” A few days later Don Francisco received a note from the manager, saying that he was going to raise the rent on the land which Rizal's family occupied. He said the rent would be one-third more than Don Francisco was then paying.
The reason for this decision was clear. It was because Don Francisco had refused to give the manager the turkey. The proof of this was that no other tenant received any such notice.
Don Francisco paid this increase on the day set, without a single word of protest, being among the first to pay. But after a few months, there came another note. In it the manager gave notice that the rent would be doubled. This, he said, was because Don Francisco was growing rich from the rented land where he had installed machinery for making sugar.
Rizal's father could not pay this price. Then he was summoned to appear in court; and finally the alcalde ordered him to leave the land. So he lost his houses and machinery, all because of a turkey.
Source: Rizal's Own Story of His Life