Research project
Dutch guest workers in 18th century Spain. The Leiden-Guadalajara migration circuit
From 1717 onwards, many Dutch textile workers emigrated to Spain, recruited in the Netherlands through Spanish intermediary agents and diplomatic staff. Bourbon Spain wanted to strengthen its economy by founding royal factories and was in desperate need for skilled foreign labour. This example of labour migration includes all the positive and negative elements of today’s experiences with migrant workers, making it a perfect historical mirror for discussing migration in the present-day Netherlands. The research project combines the analysis of the working of this international migration circuit with a specific focus on the level of agency of these early modern guest workers.
- Duration
- 2025 - 2030
- Contact
- Raymond Fagel
- Funding
-
NWO
The emigration of these almost completely unknown and forgotten Dutch ‘guest workers’ strongly contrasts with the dominant idea of the Netherlands as a country of immigration (Obdeijn and Schrover 2008). Long before Dutch migrants tried their luck in the United States, Australia, New-Zealand or Canada, groups of textile workers travelled to the interior of the Iberian Peninsula, often taking their families with them. This example of labour migration includes all the positive and negative elements of today’s experiences with migrant workers, making it a perfect historical mirror for discussing migration in the present-day Netherlands. For example, the workers themselves describe how in the beginning the Spanish population threw stones at them, much like the xenophobic reception the first mediterranean guest workers in the Netherlands received in the 1960’s and 70’s (Adolf 2012, 132-133; Van Os 2006).
The research project combines the analysis of the working of this international migration circuit with a specific focus on the level of agency of these early modern guest workers. The migrants had to take decisions and organise their own migrant trajectories on three different levels. While the system was clearly dominated by state and city governments, these migrants had to interact simultaneously with different intermediaries in the Netherlands and in Spain, and they had to adjust to the unknown culture and society of the host country. As most of the emigrants came from Leiden and the factory in Guadalajara their main destiny, it is viable to speak of the Leiden-Guadalajara migration circuit. Descendants from several Leiden families are still living in Guadalajara, like the Van der Meer family that is now going by the name of Bandermer.
PhD thesis
Dutch guest workers in 18th century Spain. The Leiden-Guadalajara migration circuit
In the years after the War of the Spanish Succession the newly anointed Bourbons under Philip the V wanted to strengthen the Spanish economy. To this end the crown started a project of industrialization, in particular by founding royal factories. However, though they had the money to finance these ventures, Spain lacked skilled workers to man the factories. In my PhD thesis, under the supervision of Dr. Raymond Fagel and Dr. Ariadne Schmidt I explore the case of the Royal Cloth Factory of Guadalajara, which saw the migration of hundreds of workers, mostly from Leiden and the Dutch Republic, but also from other states from across Western Europe between 1718 and 1750.
Specifically, I aim to study how the development international labour market demands empowered these textile factory workers from the Netherlands, Flanders, the Holy Roman Empire, France, Ireland and even Sweden to become highly mobile. I also investigate the conditions that prompted their migration, the forms this migration took, its duration and of course, the diverging paths of integration and how their actions display their power to decide over their lives as foreigners in XVIII century Spain.