Asturias - History Lab

La Concha de Artedo Beach (Cudillero, Asturias) in 1786

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

With the analysis of coastal projects aimed at optimising the natural conditions of the ports, we can see the efforts to adapt these characteristics to those of 18th century vessels. In the case of La Concha de Artedo, a technically simple project was carried out, but it even established the plan of a city, since, due to the characteristics of the orography and the terrain, the Cantabrian Ocean would be the main adversary.
Although many projects were never executed due to lack of time and means, they serve as a very close theoretical approximation of the Crown’s awareness of the importance of an excellent network of ports in a country like Spain, with an overseas empire to maintain and ports in a poor state of conservation and operation. It would be in the 19th century when state financing and the new steam and dredging machines would allow these plans of the previous century to be put into practice.

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Evolution of consanguineous marriages over the total in Asturias between 1701 and 1900

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:36 +0000

As can be seen in the graph, the author compiles the sacramental marriage certificates to establish the number of marriages by blood that took place in Asturias through the study of the degrees of filiation of the spouses. The graph shows how this type of marriage increases during the 18th century, decreases at the beginning of the 19th century and increases again from 1871 onwards, reaching its maximum at the end of the century. The growth trend of consanguineous marriages is similar in other parts of Spain and Catholic Europe.

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Evolution of consanguineous marriages according to the degree of kinship in Asturias (1701-1900)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:36 +0000

Consanguineous marriages have different degrees according to their kinship. At the beginning of the 18th century, marriages between more distant degrees were the most common within this filiation; however, the historical evolution in Asturias shows how at the end of the 19th century there was a rapprochement between marriages of higher and lower degrees of kinship. Although the number of marriages between blood relations decreased, the number of marriages of higher kinship, 1st and 2nd, increased.

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Rates of population growth in the Cantabrian regions (1528-1827)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:31 +0000

The demographic pressure experienced from the 16th century onwards in the north of the peninsula led to a change in agricultural behaviour, more based on collective communal lands than on direct exploitation. The agrarian reality in Asturias seems to indicate that they turned their backs on the sea and focused on inland lands, establishing a more dispersed agrarian economy that led to a marked increase in population, but with a notable temporal and, above all, territorial diversity.
As can be seen in the resource, between 1528 and 1827 there was a notable demographic increase in all the Asturian councils analysed, although with some setbacks such as those experienced in Proaza in 1591 or the even greater one recorded in Grado in 1631. The diversity of territorial behaviour is very present, with the mountain areas showing higher levels of growth than the valleys and coastal areas. On the other hand, from 1631 onwards, the interior continued with its growth rates, but it was the coastal areas and the nearby valleys that considerably increased the rate of growth.

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Population trends in Northern Spain (1600-1857)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:13 +0000

The territory included in the conceptualisation of northern Spain is, for the author, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and Navarre; some 63,500 km2 which in the mid-19th century was home to almost 22% of the population of peninsular Spain. The resource deals with the demographic evolution of this territory between 1600 and 1857. Divided into maritime and inland areas, the population in the maritime north (Pontevedra, La Coruña, Asturias, Cantabria, Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa) was larger in 1600 than the inland territories (Orense, Lugo, Álava and Navarre), with a territory/population size ratio giving a similar density: 20.8 inhabitants per square kilometre in the coastal provinces, and 20.2 inhabitants per square kilometre in the inland provinces, exceeding the Spanish average of 15. The two and a half centuries of demographic evolution meant that the maritime north gained up to 225% more inhabitants, while the interior gained less: 85%. As a result, the coastal density increased to 62.9 inhabitants/km2, 3 times more than in 1600; a much lower figure than the growth of Orense, Lugo, Álava and Navarre, which reached 37.4. In short, the development of the maritime provinces, tripling their population, elevated them to the regions with the highest densities in Spain, while the interior grew slightly below the national average.

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Neighbourhood of 1683, original data and reconstruction

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:40 +0000

In 1683, by order of Charles II, the Vecindario was published, which counted the inhabitants of the Crown of Castile in order to establish a more up-to-date tax system that would allow for more efficient revenue for the Royal Treasury. Who were considered to be inhabitants? Family units were counted as neighbours, so the data does not reflect the number of inhabitants. In order to obtain the total population, the author applies an average coefficient based on the size of the family. The resource shows this demographic data in column “F”, giving a total population of 4,786,882. By region, the North Atlantic coast, Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria had 1,416,200 inhabitants, the largest population, followed by Andalusia (1,117,880) and Castile and Leon (1,087,202). At the provincial level, Seville, Granada and Toledo were the most inhabited areas with 316,800, 304,100 and 241,240 inhabitants respectively. Of all the regions and provinces, Galicia stands out with 950,000 inhabitants, a significant number in relation to the size and type of population. In contrast, the most depopulated territories were Zamora (39,120), Toro (47,576) and Córdoba (65,480). From 1683 to 1753, the years of the Ensenada Cadastre, the general trend continued; although the population increased in all areas, the imbalances were similar.

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