Mallorca - History Lab

Seasonality of work by sex. S’Estorell, 1658-1673

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

The demand for agricultural wage labour was highly seasonal, limiting the possibilities of converting it into a regular source of income. The development of agrarian capitalism contributed to this, which led to a productive specialisation in which the participation of women was lower than in the manufacturing and service sectors. The s’Estorell estate was located in the parish of Binissalem, at the foot of the Tramontana mountain range, and was the largest estate in the municipality and one of the ten most profitable on the island, with a valuation of 52,000 pounds according to the land registry of 1685. It covered 520 hectares, occupying the Almandrá valley up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. The work roles assigned to men and women could be broken when the concurrence of different work demands for different tasks in the same season demanded it. From September to January, female and child labour was absorbed in its entirety by the carob harvest (September) and later for the olive harvest (October-January). Once the olive season was over, women joined in January or February the spring weeding for cereals, generally in April and May. On the other hand, the men’s work began in August with the clearing of the olive groves (August-October) and continued from November to January with the digging of the olive trees, which was interspersed with the digging of the wheat fields. In February they began pruning the olive trees (February-April) and then grafting the olive trees (May). In summer, the demand for agricultural labour was concentrated on harvesting, although some labour was also assigned to forestry activities such as charcoal production. Seasonality was, however, a notable anomaly. Around 44% of the working days were contributed by labourers and 56% by day labourers. Female labour accounted for 75% of the working days, male labourers for 17% and child labour was absent, at least in the account books.

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Evolution of the population of Palma de Mallorca (1478-1746)

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

Demographic changes and population trends show a clear tendency towards a general increase in population during the Modern Age. This process can be divided into 3 phases, one of stagnation (1478-1573), another of increase with respect to the beginning of modernity (1573-1600), and finally the maintenance phase with cycles of ups and downs caused by subsistence, climatic and epidemiological crises (1600-1746). The dynamics of Palma de Mallorca were in tune with those of the island. It is calculated that the population of Palma was, in 1503, 30% of the total; a figure that was maintained with small variations during the 16th and 17th centuries (in 1695 it fell to 24% of the total). Consequently, the Mallorcan rural environment was very important, so much so that the population density of the island was among the highest in the Crown of Aragon and Castile at the end of the 16th century.

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Main products of the Mallorcan maritime trade (1451-1464)

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

Thanks to the insurance contracts of Mallorca’s maritime trade, it is possible to offer statistical tables of Mallorcan exports, as well as to study the differentiated value of each type of product.
By examining the insurances of the notary Miquel Boix, a total of 1,008 insurance contracts between 1451 and 1464 can be clarified, most of them centred on 1457 and the two final years, 1463 and 1464. With regard to the origin of the goods, 613 of them had Mallorca as their point of departure and 196 had Mallorca as their destination, with the rest being distributed nationally between Menorca and Ibiza. All in all, the total of the 1,008 contracts amount to 68,391.1 pounds, of which almost 300 contracts belong to the fabric trade. The rest of the goods in terms of their proportion are oil, leather, ship’s hulls, wax and wool.

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Evolution of tithes during the 16th century in Majorca

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:25 +0000

In order to sustain the population growth in Mallorca in the 16th century, it was necessary to accompany it with an increase in agricultural production, which was accompanied by an increase in the prices of the species and the rent of the land, with a progressive revaluation of agricultural products.
A study of the tithes reveals the uneven evolution of crops throughout this century, with grain as the island’s main crop, but sometimes being insufficient for the island’s growing demand, and therefore having to resort to imports.
The agricultural aspect of Mallorca continued to grow thanks to the expansion of cultivated areas, often to the detriment of pastures and livestock, and more specifically in the first half of the 16th century. The areas where the population grew the most were the island’s cereal-growing areas par excellence, actively participating in the extensive agriculture carried out during these years.

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Number of people and days of work contracted in S’Estorell, between 1658-1659 and 1672-1673.

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:02 +0000

The demand for agricultural wage labour was highly seasonal, limiting the possibilities of converting it into a regular source of income. The development of agrarian capitalism contributed to this, which led to a productive specialisation in which the participation of women was lower than in the manufacturing and service sectors. The S’Estorell estate was located in the parish of Binissalem, at the foot of the Tramontana mountain range, and was the largest estate in the municipality and one of the ten most profitable on the island, with a valuation of 52,000 pounds according to the land registry of 1685. It covered 520 hectares, occupying the valley of Almandrá up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. For the exploitation of the estate, a fixed and daily labour force was hired, where the choice of workers was in the hands of the owner and the administrator, who relied on information provided by people they trusted in the nearby villages. This type of agreement was made through women who organised the gangs in the villages, while for the different tasks, contracts were made through the intermediary of foremen. Other matters, such as harvesting contracts, were offered to the highest bidder in the town square. On average, 29 labourers were hired each year, working 148 days: this accounted for 22% of the people hired and 40% of the working days. These labourers carried out a wide variety of tasks: ploughing fields, working in vineyards and orchards, making oil and tending livestock.

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Contractual modalities of the labour force in S’Estorell, 1658-1673, 1674-1675 and 1677-1680

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:02 +0000

The demand for agricultural wage labour was highly seasonal, limiting the possibilities of converting it into a regular source of income. The development of agrarian capitalism contributed to this, which led to a productive specialisation in which the participation of women was lower than in the manufacturing and service sectors. The S’Estorell estate was located in the parish of Binissalem, at the foot of the Tramontana mountain range, and was the largest estate in the municipality and one of the ten most profitable on the island, with a valuation of 52,000 pounds according to the land registry of 1685. It covered 520 hectares, occupying the Almandrá valley up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. The labour contracts for day labourers took on different modalities according to technical and social considerations through different contractual modalities: piecework, daily contracts or day labour. The daily wage contract was clearly the dominant type of contract for all work: 81% of expenditure and 88% of working days were spent on skilled work (grafting olives or pruning vines) or unskilled work (olive picking, digging, etc.). Monthly contracting represented 3.4% of expenditure and 3.9% of total wages. This modality consisted of giving a team of labourers the task of digging or digging for a few months, whose salary was equivalent to that of a farm labourer (35-40 salaries per month). However, the account books do not specify whether they were provided with food. On the other hand, piece-rate contracts represented 15.7% of the expenditure and 6.3% of the number of working days, where women are rarely hired in this modality: 0.1% in terms of expenditure and number of working days. Finally, daily contracts were predominant, while piecework contracts accounted for a small proportion of the number of persons and wages contracted.

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Distribution of day labourers by work and sex. S’Estorell, 1658-1673, 1674-1675 and 1677-1680

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:02 +0000

The demand for agricultural wage labour was highly seasonal, limiting the possibilities of converting it into a regular source of income. The development of agrarian capitalism contributed to this, which led to a productive specialisation in which the participation of women was lower than in the manufacturing and service sectors. The S’Estorell estate was located in the parish of Binissalem, at the foot of the Tramontana mountain range, and was the largest estate in the municipality and one of the ten most profitable on the island, with a valuation of 52,000 pounds according to the land registry of 1685. It covered 520 hectares, occupying the valley of Almandrá up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. The olive grove absorbed practically 90% of the daily wage labour, followed at a great distance by the cultivation of cereals (6.8%) and work in orchards or vineyards (1.8%). These tasks were carried out 69.8% by women, 20.5% by adult men and 9.75% by children. In this sense, the feminisation of day labour was very high, although unevenly distributed between tasks and crops. Female and child labour was almost entirely devoted to olive and carob harvesting, with hardly any participation in soil maintenance work. The male labour force, however, was hired for the more specialised work in the canopy of the olive groves and to plough carob trees, but also for unskilled work in the olive groves, such as weeding. In the harvest, however, female workers accounted for half of the workforce, although in a smaller proportion in terms of the number of days worked (44%).

The post Distribution of day labourers by work and sex. S’Estorell, 1658-1673, 1674-1675 and 1677-1680 first appeared on History Lab.

Wage ratios between labourers and the gender gap in the estates of S’Estorell and Son Costa (1658-1680)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:02 +0000

In recent years, there has been an extensive historiographical debate on women’s participation in rural professional markets and on the wage gap between men and women before 1800. At the same time, there is also no consensus on the wage share of farm household income. However, wage studies have shown that women were paid significantly less than men for the same work. This gap persisted throughout the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, although it narrowed moderately during periods of intense labour demand. The S’Estorell estate was located in the parish of Binissalem, at the foot of the Tramontana mountain range, and was the largest estate in the municipality and one of the ten most profitable on the island, with a valuation of 52,000 pounds according to the land registry of 1685. It covered 520 hectares, occupying the valley of Almandrá up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. In the mid-17th century, on the Safortesa estate, salaries were paid in cash, in current money or in kind when they were of a mixed nature. In some years, wages were paid in kind, in wheat at the request of the labourers. Payments for extra work were recorded separately from the agreed wage. On the other hand, the tasks of grafting and pruning were considered the most skilled, as both were paid with a mixed wage consisting of a monetary wage and a supplement in kind called companatge (condumio), consisting of a casserole with vegetables, accompanied by salted fish or cheese, wine, oil and bread. The master was paid 6-8 salaries a day, depending on the type of tree; his assistants received 4 salaries a day. The cost of companatge was 1.5 sueldos/day in the above-mentioned years. In the middle years of the 17th century, pruning was not as important as it became in later periods, when the olive trees were mature and their yield depended on more energetic pruning. The wage in this case was 51% lower than for grafting and 29-39% higher than for digging the roots. However, the range of women’s wages was narrower: seasonal workers received a mixed monthly wage, part in money and part in oil, plus other supplements such as accommodation, firewood, water and transport to and from their residence to the farm. The wage for picking olives was 20% higher than the one for digging in the pedios. In short, the wage gap for similar work (digging cereals) in the highlands and plains was still very high, with women’s wages representing less than 40% of men’s, figures very similar to those of the mid-16th century.

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Exports through the Port of Palma de Mallorca, 1720-1768

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:57 +0000

The investments of the small merchants, aimed at forming manufacturing infrastructures, had a direct impact on the guild workforce and certain segments of the peasantry. However, the Enlightenment philosophy planned a type of manufacturing to be encouraged: the model of popular industry. This was to fulfil a dual function: not to modify the relations of production and to prevent the concentration of workers in order to avoid unitary channelling. The period 1720-1760 was the period that revolved around the development of craftsmanship, as its consolidation was manifested by the clear predisposition of the Mallorcan ilustrados to encourage textile activities. On the other hand, there was a preference for coarse manufactures, goods with low opportunity costs, as they were made at the end of the day in the fields and, in certain cases, during the same day. Between 1794 and 1820, the specialisation in wine-growing led to the existence of carob trees, fig trees, fruit trees… Almonds and derivatives of wine-growing, mainly eau-de-vie, were marketed.

The post Exports through the Port of Palma de Mallorca, 1720-1768 first appeared on History Lab.

Population of Palma de Mallorca according to the Floridablanca Census (1787)

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

During the last third of the 18th century, the Spanish Bourbon administration was concerned on successive occasions to ascertain, for demographic purposes, the number of inhabitants living throughout the national territory. The Censuses of Aranda (1768-69), Floridablanca (1787) and Godoy (1797) provided population figures classified by age, sex and marital status. The 1787 Census was compiled by the State administration, using the data transmitted by the Intendencias, the corregimientos and the municipalities. The Mallorcan population, classified by age, sex and status, amounted to 134,790 souls on that date, to which should be added, following the criteria of the Census, the institutional and community population, which totalled 2,478 people. However, at that time, Palma had a population of 34,073 inhabitants, to which another 2,047 living in communities were added, giving a total of 36,120, representing 26.28% of the total demographic contingent: one out of every four Mallorcans lived in the capital.

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