Inmigración - History Lab

Annual series of immigration entries of African slaves in Matanzas, 1755-1810

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:48 +0000

At the end of the seventeenth century, the island of Cuba underwent a series of institutional transformations that resulted in a reformulation of the colonial pact between the local elites and the crown. This series of changes affected the structure of property ownership, agricultural production and the growth and composition of the population, making the island the world’s leading colonial sugar producer. Until the 17th century, the weight of the sugar economy in the province was minimal. The jurisdiction had five mills in 1778 and eight in 1792, producing 1.5% of the island’s total sugar. The migration calculation, through the registration data, shows a very low immigration of slaves. The reasons for this are that the expansion of the agricultural frontier was from Havana towards Matanzas, which means that, if there was immigration, it should have been in this direction, and that the mobility of the slave depended on his owner, so it is expected that the slave population remained in Matanzas with their masters at the time of the sugar expansion. The flow of slave imports in the second half of the 18th century increased tenfold and was marked by strong oscillations. The largest inflows corresponded to an international context of internal transformations that made it possible to increase the black labour force through the slave trade in three periods. In the first period (1775-1785), slave imports seemed to be more sporadic and dependent on external events, such as the British invasion of 1762 and the American War of Independence. During the second period (1785-1795), there was a change in the trend towards a regular increase in forced immigration, and the effect of the French Revolution in Saint Domingue in 1791 led to a smaller influx of slaves. The growth of the curve coincided with medium-term internal transformations, such as the liberation of the slave trade (1789-1798), the application of duties favourable to production, alcabalas or tithes on sugar, coffee, indigo, cotton and the stimulation of the sugar trade, such as the increase in tariffs for free trade between Spain and the Indies. The last period, from 1795-1810, saw a stabilisation of the massive influx of slaves.

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Irish in Bizkaia between 1150-1850 through the sacramental certificates

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

The good trade relations between Ireland and Biscay, based on fishing activity, meant that Irish immigration to Biscay began to gain importance from 1600 onwards. The connection between the two territories was reinforced decades later when the Hispanic Monarchy supported the Irish cause against England; this dynamic led to the settlement of Irish exiles in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, in the mid-17th century, there was an increase in the number of Irish baptisms registered in Biscay caused, according to the author, by the English army’s occupation of Ireland between 1649 and 1653. Many Irish nobles were stripped of their property and expelled from their lands due to their Catholic religious status and sought to settle in the commercial ports of their usual networks. At the end of the 17th century, the level of births and marriages fell due to the policy of appeasement shown by James II. After the loss of the throne of the last English Catholic monarch, the 18th century saw the great Irish migration to Biscay.

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Foreigners in Spain (1791)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:52 +0000

During the Ancien Régime, the more or less abundant sources of information on population movements – and therefore the most frequently used – were the parish registers, mainly of marriages, where the origins of the spouses and, more rarely, of their parents, are usually indicated. In this sense, migrations could take place on the basis of different casuistry: ordinary migrations (seasonal, temporary movements, attraction to urban centres), colonial migrations, forced migrations (repopulation, exile…) or other types of phenomena (nomadism, pilgrimages, tourism or wandering). In general terms, however, Hispanic migratory movements can be classified as follows: internal migrations, emigrations and immigrations from abroad. Within the first field, we find the traditional and constant migrations in the Ancien Régime, where the human surplus left the countryside for the city, or the seasonal migrations of reapers/vineyard workers. In the second section, two events stand out: the departure to the New Continent and the expulsion of the Moors in 1609. Finally, the third section, unlike the internal migrations and the departures abroad, has a growing intensity in the contemporary period. It should be noted that the pace of immigration was not constant throughout the Modern Age, as from 1620 onwards a process of decline began in the migratory cycle. However, in the 18th century, the Gallic influx into Spain persisted, albeit at a weaker rate. In Malaga, in the period 1766-1800, there was a clear predominance of people from the Pyrenean and pre-Pyrenean areas. During this century, the transformations experienced in the labour spectrum accentuated the urban character of immigration.

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Activities of French immigrants in Saragossa (17th-18th centuries)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:33 +0000

Immigration to Spain is not a current phenomenon. During the Ancien Régime, numerous people of other nationalities emigrated to Spain in search of new opportunities and social advancement. The specific case of this resource refers to the trades that the French settled in Saragossa in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to the marriage records, 104 French settlers were counted in Saragossa. Of these, 84 worked as “employees”; 16 as “self-employed”; and 4 in an unknown employment situation. Of the 84 contracted, 21 were bakers, a much higher number than any other trade, followed by 8 labourers, 6 weavers and 5 servants. But the high disposition in the baker’s trade was not accompanied by a promotion in this sector, as only 1 was a master baker. Finally, there may have been cases in which immigrants sought shortcuts to social advancement outside the law, as in the case of Juan Sarto, a Frenchman who forged documents from the University of Zaragoza and parish books to pass himself off as Aragonese.

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The Germanías in Valencia

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:27:48 +0000

This is a lecture by Professor of Modern History Ricardo García Cárcel, who first presents an excellent historiographical review of Las Germanías before moving on to the presentation of such controversial figures as El Encubierto de Valencia (The Undercover of Valencia). Professor García Cárcel also raises the question of the inferiority of the Germanías with respect to the Communities of Castile and the differences between the two conflicts. In the intervention, the numerous clichés between revolutionary and conflictive individuals, whose movement took Guillem Sorolla as its leader, and an apparently legitimate and consolidated nobility are made clear. The Germanías were a confrontation against the nobility on the part of the common people. They took place between 1519 and 1523 in Valencia and Mallorca, and their background was administrative corruption and tensions among the peasantry, which led to protests against the civil service. In the first place, they started from legality, even inserting themselves into local politics, and their main objective, as the professor rightly points out, was to stop the interference of Italian merchants in local Valencian trade. Moreover, the strength of the agermanado movement was sufficiently important for its echoes to reach the kingdom of Mallorca, where there was also a social revolt with different nuances to that of Valencia. However, to what extent did the tension between the agermanados and the nobles reach its peak? And what were the consequences of the subsequent repression? All these questions are addressed with great acuity in this dissertation.

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