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In
Málaga there was also an Irish colony - among other foreign
communities - involved in wholesale trading. This was much
more important in the second half of the eighteenth century
than in the post-Napoleonic period, when Spaniards - many of
them from outside the region - took over the trade. Aurora Gámez
and Begoña Villar have studied the careers of these
merchants. They were frequently grouped into ‘mixed’
companies, that is to say formed of foreigners and native
Spaniards, even though the same foreigners had lived a long
time in the country and had children who could be considered
fully Spanish.
One
Irishman stands out from the others. Juan Murphy, a native of
Waterford, formed part of Málaga’s wealthy merchant class
from at least 1776. The family established branches of his
company in Veracruz (Mexico), Cádiz and London, trading
actively with cities both in Europe and in the Americas. He
was also a ship-owner, a landowner, and of course an hidalgo
(nobleman). Juan Galvey, from Carrick-on-Suir in County
Tipperary, is an example of those who used marriage to open up
paths for advancement in business. His first marriage was to
Andrea de Gand y Vittermont, member of a Flemish family
settled between Cádiz and Seville. The O´Briens, who married
into the French Arboré family that had settled in those
cities, continued in the same line of business as the others,
while the Quilty family established sporadic relationships
with merchants from Seville.
The
beginning of commercial relations between the Canary Islands
and Great Britain dates from the sixteenth century, with the
export of sweet malmsey
wine for the English court. The Irish colonies that grew from
this maintained close links with those based in the Andalusian
ports already mentioned; families such as White, Walsh,
Colgan, and Fitzgerald had a long history in the Canaries
(Guimerá Ravina 1985: 49-48, 58).
Irish
merchants in Seville: An initial sketch
In
spite of a slowdown in its commercial activity, it could be
said that Seville continued to enjoy significant traffic, as
its strategic position some ninety kilometres from the sea
provided merchants with the opportunity to trade deep inland
and supply the demand both of the former metropolis and of
many locations in the interior. In addition, the fertile
flatlands of the Guadalquivir River plain and surrounding
areas continued to supply abundant oil and citrus fruit;
these, together with wool, were exported by river. Spanish
trade with England in the eighteenth century had a bipolar
character, the two poles being the Cantabrian region and
Andalusia. The southern region was prominent in the export of
citrus fruit and products derived from grapes. Within this
framework, and bearing in mind the freight registries of the
different Andalusian ports, Seville had a clear edge in
exports, both at regional and national levels.
As
regards citrus fruit exports, García Fernández believes that
part of the produce of the Guadalquivir river plain region was
probably exported from the port of Sanlúcar, or from Cádiz
itself, to avail of the superior harbour facilities that these
ports offered. Nevertheless, she argues for the growth of the
hinterland of Cádiz as a base for the mass export of citrus
fruit. This supplanted the traditional export centres -
Seville and Málaga - and came to supply 40% of the citrus to
be sold (García Fernández 2006: 291-294). However, although
we have no comprehensive data, we consider – in line with Álvarez
Pantoja (2000: 25) - that a large part of these exports came
from the region around Seville, since, as García Fernández
herself points out, it is a complicated undertaking to
ascertain the initial point of origin of the goods sent out
through the ports. This leads us to believe that, if in 1786
Seville reached the highest production figures for the entire
century (550,750 units - García Fernández: 294), it could
hardly have been secondary to other ports, at least when it
came to goods produced.
Around
the middle of the eighteenth century the largest group of
foreign merchants in Seville were the French, although the
Flemish were better represented in the city’s trade, where
they were more prominent than in other cities such as Cádiz.
The
establishment in Seville of these trading colonies that traded
from the maritime ports had its rationale in the specific kind
of activities they were involved in. They were nearer to the
products they exported - citrus, wool, oil - and from
Seville it was easy to distribute what was imported -
manufactured products, iron, fish - towards the interior of
Andalusia and Extremadura. This pattern can be confirmed by
studying promissory notes in favour of these merchants, which
yield information about advances of merchandise that were
being offered in exchange for a delayed payment date. As the
market was extremely fragile, since capacity for consumption
in rural society depended on good harvests, indebtedness
frequently tied the retailer to his supplier. The latter could
not demand payment without bringing his debtor to bankruptcy,
not just because it would make it even more difficult to
recover the full debt owed, but also because in the future he
would be left without any customer in the town in question.
Their behaviour with suppliers was bound by similar
parameters.
We
have already mentioned the interest in wool which
traditionally impelled relations between Castile and England. ‘My
father’s business was fairly prosperous. It consisted of
exporting agricultural produce such as fruit and wool to
England,’ wrote
José Blanco White in his autobiography. The wool was
essentially bought in Extremadura, though wool nearer at hand
in the province of Seville was not overlooked.
Oil
was another product which they dealt in, since it was used in
the process of washing raw wool. The Macores (Macorish)
family, during the second half of the eighteenth century, is
most noteworthy in this respect. By the end of the century and
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Diego and Patricio
Wiseman, relatives of Cardinal Wiseman, were the biggest
buyers among the Irish. On 5 January 1803, for example, they
ordered the purchase ‘from whomever can supply 15,000
arrobas of oil, to be stored in parts of the city or its
surroundings or in any other place until such time as we order
that by paid carriage and at our expense and with the
corresponding documents it be delivered out of town to the
warehouses we have in the Carreteria or to any other places
suitable to us’.
Soap is derived from oil, and Seville’s soap factories were
the most important in Europe. They formed part of the monopoly
of the Dukes of Alcalá. As Alonso Morgado wrote in the
sixteenth century, ‘Seville also supplies many parts of
Spain, the Americas, Flanders and England with this white
soap’.
Even more than wool and oil, the
export of citrus fruit was probably the most typical activity
of Irishmen in the region of Seville. The export of bitter
oranges to England dates from the thirteenth century, and is
better documented from the fifteenth century onwards. These
were used both for making marmalade as well as in medicine and
perfumes. The trade was so extensive that the fruit became
known as the ‘Seville orange’ or bigarade.
There were already some attempts to cultivate the fruit in
England, anticipating the orangeries
of the eighteenth century. In 1595 some orange trees were
introduced into Surrey by the Carews of Beddington. These were
destroyed in the big freezes of 1739-40. There are many
references to this trade in the eighteenth century. Although
some Flemish and Frenchmen were involved, since the entire
trade was orientated towards the North Atlantic and the
Baltic, there is no doubt that it was the British - Irish or
English - who dominated the market. This covered not just
oranges, but also lemons, the juice of both fruits as well as
their dried rinds. Sweet oranges, or chinas, as they were then known in Seville, had been brought from
India by the Portuguese at the start of the sixteenth century.
They quickly reached Seville, although it is difficult to
establish at what stage they began to be exported. The first
references we find are to those exported in 1757 by Patricio
Harper and Company. This advances by some forty years the
earliest reports of this that we have had up to now, which
referred to Majorca.
This trade left a great effect on the Seville landscape, since citrus
cultivation required orchards of trees where previously
pomegranates had dominated. At the same time, orange groves
were added in places where olive trees were in cultivation,
sometimes surpassing the olives in economic value. Citrus
plantations were laid out not only in the capital and
surrounding district, but also all along the banks of the
Guadalquivir, from whence the fruit could be easily marketed.
Cultivation spread well out into the countryside (there is
documentation available about sales of citrus in Marchena) and
the mountains around Cádiz (Villamartín). |
