Cadiz, the oldest urban center of the West, has always struck those who saw it for the first time, but also those who already knew her thoroughly, for its unique geographical position. [1] This town, located the extreme edge of Spain, overlooking the Atlantic coastline and soaring to the most diverse sea lanes has long been the center of world traffic, the line between civilization and different worlds, through which it entered in the report, creating a dense network trade relations. One of the main reasons
Gaditana expansion was established by the environmental conditions extremely favorable - among the best in the continent Europe - where were her ribs as end of the maritime connections with the lands overseas. [2]
course it was not only the location of the site to determine the exceptional development of Cadiz, which began with the discovery of ' America and reached its peak in the age "golden" of the eighteenth century, but the peculiarities of the place has been one of the key factors for the understanding of all phases of the history Gaditana. [3] And the sea, "the Atlantic of Cadiz "- to paraphrase the words of Chaunu on Seville - [4] became more and more, from the time of descubrimiento, the immense space through which global trade expanded, overtaking the Mediterranean as a center of trade and interest of the states with the most advanced commercial facilities. Braudel, in this regard, has shown that this fundamental change in the history of the seas and their dominance has taken place very gradually and that the Mediterranean has contributed to the "construction" of the English Atlantic. [5] The formation of more
important trade route in the western world, the Carrera de Indias, which crossed the path and return the Atlantic, the "Sea of \u200b\u200bDarkness" [6] represented almost physically the evolution of the relationship between Europe and the New world, the formation of a new Atlantic economy. Economy that would be imposed, the amount and the value of goods traded through the fleets that sailed the ocean and connecting the main ports - of which soon became part also Cadiz - who founded the system of links and international traffic [7].
The new waterway was not limited to facilitate the irradiation of sea communications to the distant places overseas, but outlined an event of great general value of innovation. In fact, the path of transatlantic traffic is not only the outward and return journey of the merchant vessels that connected the port of Veracruz with those Gaditano, Portobelo and Cartagena, but it was the concrete means through which establish economic relations between the two companies, producing considerable extent on the consequences of each. [8]
Cadiz, thanks to its special status city located at the intersection of Atlantic trade routes between East and West, between North and South, acquired the role of a major - if not the most important - trading hubs in Europe, held an economic function and, then, including financial, prominent during the English colonial domination in the Americas. In fact, "during siglo XVIII y el primer cuarto siglo XIX of, colonial hasta la Independencia, el comercio with America takes a nombre propio: Cádiz. La ciudad y su Bahía, a la sombra cases dos Siglos monopoly Sevillano, emergency a universal role in becoming a major global trading centers of the era and a major European ports. During the century reached the highest degree of planning and was a cosmopolitan city with traders, business houses and correspondents of the major European markets while the crucible of English mercantile bourgeoisie. But at the same time was the first financial center, connected not only to finance, directly or through intermediaries, the colonial trade but linked to what had to be important innovations. "[9]
Città da eccellenti popolata marinai, Pescatori Trasportatori e, perfino, corsari, è l'età with modern Cadiz, which began its ascent, first with the affirmation of the monopoly in trade with North Africa and then, with the conquest of the market for "Indies", establishing a symbiotic relationship with the Seville, which at that time represented the other side, and starting with this kind of a duopoly trade lasted about three centuries. [10]
During the first period of colonial expansion of trade, Cadiz merely act as a port of call, leaving Seville, home a thriving Burgues de negocios, the role of the commercial port: the strip of land Gaditana, then, was more favorable for the landing stop and rest, for the supply and repair of ships, but failed, partly because of the limited ability to defend itself and the difficulties of communication with the interior, to act as a terminal of ocean trades.
At this stage, Cadiz, despite the commercial monopoly of the port of Seville, gave impetus to its growth as a true metropolis of the illicit trade by establishing a network of activities "submerged" to the dissemination and distribution of contraband.
However, even in terms of trade, had to strike the hour of Cadiz, which, in the second half of the seventeenth century, began to substitute for Seville as Colonial cabecera of the market, such as "puerto y puerta de las Indias '. In this second period of rapid growth of trading activity, the bay Gaditana increasingly assumed the role of genuine 'emporium of the globe, "as described Fray Geronimo de la Concepción, [11] becoming the most" American "d Europe '. [12] Cadiz had arrived late adventure overseas, through different phases in which he had changed his own identity and commercial city had completed - through a slow but inexorable process of transformation - the historical cycle of the main European colonial market.
Gaditana The city, in the whole of its history, especially the modern and contemporary art, has been modeled the activity and maritime trade, so as to support several times, that Cadiz has always been what was his business. Or that since the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth, Cadiz has lived and thrived because of its position in American business. Or, again, that the singularity of Cadiz in all its three thousand years of history stems from the fact that one of the few English cities (if not only) in which the mercantile function predominated exclusively. Or, finally, that the two eminently geographical facts that have encouraged the development of Cadiz were the maritime and insular character and its location in one of the great crossroads of the world community [13].
This reaffirmed link between geographical and commercial traffic between the sea, navigation and exchange activities, is the thread to resume their proper perspective in order to reconstruct the events that made flights of Cadiz a case of unprecedented growth, expansion and enrichment, which occurred in the absence of natural resources and endogenous factors that have characterized capitalist development of Europe's most advanced areas. In fact, location and other environmental features of the center Gaditano have characterized the evolution from the beginning, requiring the creation of an economy to a single dimension [14].
Cadiz, free primary activities with the exception of fishing and a secondary sector limited to a few initiatives craft, had made the trade, "el norte y la guía de todo on quehacer economy." And the dominance of the merchant had made its effects felt on all aspects of city life: urban and sull'assetto on construction, the varied composition of the population, the specificity of a social structure so elementary, the lack of a dialectic between the city and the countryside, culture and societal attitudes.
The city grew according to the canons Cartesian, rigid geometry of straight lines, hardly softened by the grace and creativity in Andalusia, was characterized by a housing vertically by long and dense streets that intersect each other in search of the outlet to the sea and the buildings where they were gathered together the store, warehouse, home of the trader and the turret to scan the horizon, awaiting the arrival of ships and merchandise. [15]
The population was composed in large part by foreigners, in the city in order to give impetus to commercial activities, social stratification, then, was not particularly articulate, based on a common mercantile middle class with average income levels, economic structure, trade polarized Finally, in the absence of significant agriculture and industry, did not favor the emergence of the phenomena of dialectic and social conflict, its more complex reality.
Other aspects of city life, as the fervor and cultural associations - Cadiz was a great example of maturity and intellectual dynamism, with its three theaters, libraries, scientific institutions, the variety of cafes and clubs, botanical gardens -, or, as the animation of the streets and paseos, sophistication and luxury of the clothes, the opening in the presence, language and customs of foreigners, showed that the environment Gaditano had been influenced and shaped by cosmopolitan merchant from contamination of cultures and civilizations, typical of a city in which prevailed in an absolute sense, trade [16].
The loss of the colonial possessions overseas involved in the third decade of the nineteenth century, the vertical fall of the exchange and the final scaling of Cadiz as a mercantile city par excellence, pushing the edge of the development process and forcing it into a European worsening state of prostration. [17]
The character of the commerce was rapidly transforming: the importance of the port Gaditano was limited to the objectives of internal traffic and links with the Canary Islands. Was reduced, ie, the distribution function and exchange of the city to an extension of the market purely regional and local levels.
Cadiz, private its communications with the overseas territories, no longer the Atlantic and the colonies, without that mix that made her unique and great, screws gradually in a spiral of decline and inertia, entering the darkest period of his life of the last four centuries.
The cycle of extraordinary and unrepeatable historical events of the "mercantile capital of Europe", and was called, was closed. And Cadiz, sentenced to a heavy late against major production areas in Europe and to an isolation more evident than in the processes of trade liberalization, while not giving up hope of a return to the splendor of the "golden age", he continued to watch with nostalgia to the period of his success and supremacy. This feeling so strong pervaded even those who were passing through the bay Gaditana and could pick up some traits of a city, who lived his decline with an apparent attitude of detachment [18].
[1] "I went down below deck to seize the telescope, and when I went I saw Cadiz. The first impression I had was to question whether or not a city, then laughed, then I turned to my fellow travelers with the air of those who claim that the reassurances that he has not deceived. Cadiz seems an island of chalk. It is a large white spot in the sea without a shade dark, without a point black, without a shadow, a white clear and pure as a virgin snow-covered hill that stands upon a sky blue color of beryl and in the midst of a vast plain flooded. A long, thin strip of land links it to the mainland, all other parties is washed by the sea as a ship about to sail, no longer restrained to the shore by a chain. " So I made the image Edmondo De Amicis, in his impressions of a trip to Spain (E. De Amicis, Spain, Florence, G. Barbera Editore, 1928, pp. 378-379).
[2] The coasts of the Gulf of Cadiz are extraordinary conditions - which can be compared only those of the south-eastern coast of Portugal - for a sailing transocean navigazione. In particolare, nei mesi da maggio ad ottobre, il vento di prealisio rende il viaggio verso estremamente favorevole Canarie him.
[3] La descrizione che ne fa García-Baquero Mostra Tutta Evidenza happiness in work contraddizione un'ubicazione (asientamento) and a disposizione sfavorevole assai (situation) propizia estremamente della città: "The geographical features of the site on which up the city can not be more adverse. Lack of agriculture, due to the geological nature of the soil, water shortages, tendency to isolation, impossibility of growth, are the traits that characterize the place where the city sits. (...) Cadiz is not a product of their settlement, but its situation. In fact, limited in the horizontal plane, compressed in the perimeter walls, a prisoner of the sea, Cadiz was a city that could not survive by itself. But precisely the same sea that opened imprisoned him in return, a wealth of possibilities. According to the peculiarities of Braudel gives the peninsulas, their relative isolation from the masses is balanced by its unlimited opening to the sea. Cadiz could not be an exception. Was born with a compelling and commercial maritime vocation. (...) Without agriculture or industry, lacks the most necessary for life, Cadiz will depend closely, throughout their history, their only source of livelihood: the sea "(A. García-Baquero González, colonial and revolutionary wars Commerce. The economic decline following Cádiz American emancipation, Sevilla, Escuela de Estudios Hispano-American, 1972, p. 29).
[4] See H. Chaunu, P. Chaunu, Séville et l'Atlantique (1504-1650), 12 voll., Paris, SEVP, 1955-1960.
[5] Braudel, intitolando a paragrafo Civiltà della sua operates its e imperi del Mediterraneo "Parecchi Atlantici" Riley: "L'Atlantic Secolo XVI è l'associazione, the coesistenza più or meno perfect for many spaces in part self-employed. (...) How will these oceans bring to life the head of the Mediterranean, and in what way it works through their wide open spaces? The traditional story presented in the past all these oceans, collectively, as the number one enemy of the Inland Sea, as the space had subjugated the wider area of \u200b\u200bsmall size. This means simplifying things. Exaggeration for exaggeration, it would be better to say that the Mediterranean has long dominated its huge neighbor and that its decline can be explained, among other things, the fact that this domain was less than one day. (...) Throughout the sixteenth century, it is not that universe abandoned and impoverished that the journeys of Columbus and Vasco de Gama would suddenly ruined. Instead, it builds and rebuilds the Atlantic and project their own images in the Iberian New World. (...) The small Mediterranean in the heart of the immense space that surrounds it, is living up to the 1600 economy, agile, dominant. The big story has not dropped precipitously at the beginning of the century, with arms and baggage. The retreat will ring true, for it until later '(F. Braudel, Civilization and empires of the Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II, Torino, Einaudi, 1976, vol. I, pp. 229-231 and p. 236; and . orig. La Mediterranée et le Monde Méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II, Paris, Librairie Armand Colin, 1949).
[6] was questa l'espressione with quale gli arabi indicavano l'Atlantic Ocean.
[7] Cf LN McAlister, Dalla alla Scoperta conquest. Spagna e Portogallo nel Mondo Nuovo 1492-1700, Bologna, il Mulino, 1992 310 and pp. 609-617, ed. orig. Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
[8] See J. Fontana, Foreword, in A. García-Baquero González, Cádiz and the Atlantic (1717-1778). English colonial trade under the monopoly of Cadiz, Cadiz, Diputación Provincial de Cádiz, 1988, Volume I, p. XVIII.
[9] AM Bernal, The financing of the Carrera de Indias (1492-1824). Money and credit in English colonial trade with America, Sevilla, Fundación El Monte, 1992, p. 294.
[10] Infatti, come è stato osservato: "If the first Seville and Cadiz, timidly at first and splendid fullness after they became key interpretations of the world - in the historical and economic - was precisely because to what happened in 1492. And that - the discovery of a New World - (...) had a key role. (...) But (...) no reason to speak of a symbiotic port Sevilla-Cádiz, Sanlúcar involving (at the mouth of the river of Seville) and Puerto de Santa María (In the Bay of Cadiz). If Cádiz Sevilla was preferred over two centuries Sevilla and Cadiz on for one, it was political and strategic reasons, but the pieces were placed in such a way that the dual port would be for a period of more than 300 years the main stem of the Old world in its relations with the New, and to some extent, in itself, a mixture of worlds as well "(JL Comellas, Seville, Cadiz and America. The transfer and trafficking, Málaga, Editorial Arguval, 1992, p. 21 and p. 16).
[11] See G. de la Concepción, the Orb Emporium. Cadiz illustrated investigation of their former greatness, runs contest of General Rule of Spain, Amsterdam, Joan Press Bus, 1690.
[12] "Cadiz is built on the most important commercial center and dynamic of the English coast and in the true link between all the commercial and maritime Europe on one side and the vast American continent on the other, concentrating and channeling, as was said in a French commercial memory of the time, "tous les échanges qui constituent le grand commerce that ces deux parties du globe between elles font '" (A. García-Baquero González, Cádiz as General Answers Cadastre of Ensenada, in Cadiz 1753, Madrid, Tabapress, 1990, pp. 15-16).
[13] Cf A. Domínguez Ortiz, La bourgeoisie Cadiz and trade in India since the mid-seventeenth century to the relocation of the House of Trade, in the bourgeois merchants of Cadiz (1650-1868), Cádiz, Instituto de Estudios Gaditanos, 1976, J. Gómez Crespo, Cádiz maritime importance, especially in the commercial and military, in literary Boards Cádiz, 1942-1945, Cadiz, Cerón and Library Facilities Cervantes, 1946, p. 197.
[14] Come sintetizzato has acute Ramos Santana: "The position and characteristics of Cadiz - a rocky islet located at the mouth of the Mediterranean, the maritime route has exerted more influence in history man - conditioned from the very moment of its founding mythic time path of the old city of Hercules. Since then, Cádiz was tied to navigation and trade. A bond that was strengthening over the centuries to become the main seal and practically only after the discovery and conquest of America "(A. Ramos Santana, Introduction, in D. Conte Domecq, Boat Signs, Cadiz, Ingrasa and Diario de Cádiz, 1992, p. 11).
[15] I Quartieri di Cadice, corso nel Secolo XVIII, if ai canoni svilupparono in conformità cartesiani. Purtuttavia if trattava urban modello di tutto a peculiar where the streets were "almost" straight, the street corners were "almost at ninety degrees, the squares were" almost "square: this design was the result of the creativity of Andalusia, which could give sweetness and originality, even application apparently rigid principles.
[16] See JA Fernández de los Heros, Discursos sobre el comercio, Madrid, Imprenta de Antonio Espinosa, 1790.
[17] In fact, the prosperity of Cadiz depended almost exclusively on its business, which, in turn, was based on relations with the colonies overseas. Given this close relationship, any interruption of the Atlantic shipping lanes, and relations with the U.S. territories reflected heavily on the performance of commercial activities Gaditana.
[18] De Amicis makes good this new atmosphere of the city: "In truth, I was far from imagining that she was so cheerful and smiling this terrible and unfortunate Cadiz, burned by the English in the sixteenth century, bombed at the end of eighteenth, devastated by plague, and then host the fleet of Trafalgar, home of the revolutionary junta during the War of Independence, the scene of horrific carnage in the revolution of 1820, French-target bombs in 1823 and forerunner of the revolution that the cantilever from the throne Bourbons, and always restless and turbulent and first of all to launch the cry of battle. Of many events and struggles of so many cannon balls that are not nailed to the walls, as on all other tracks of the past is the inexorable destruction brush, of a white veil covering all shame. (...) But time has done worse than take away from Cadiz monuments of old, took the trade and riches, after Spain lost its possessions in America, and now lies there inert Cadiz on his rock lonely, waiting in vain for a thousand ships, which were decked with flags and festive day to cause her the tribute of the new world "(E. De Amicis, Spain, cit., pp. 381-382).
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