Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Francesco Guidi-Bruscoli
(Università di Firenze)
Susana Mateus (CIDEHUS - UÉvora)
Send message to Convenors
- Location:
- Bloco 1, Sala 0.06
- Start time:
- 14 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This interdisciplinary panel focuses on short- and long-term migration towards European, Asian, African or American oceanic port-cities, in the 15th-17th centuries. It includes comparative analyses and specific case studies both from the point of view of the migrants and of the host cities.
Long Abstract:
The rise of 'global history' has entailed an increasing attention on the role of port cities and on the long-range movement of people and goods, as well as on cultural exchanges. Although the theme is not new, many recent projects have contributed with new lights and new methodologies, thus setting the ground for continuous discussion. This panel will seek to address the question of the impact that migration had on late-medieval and early modern port-cities, and in turn the ways in which migrants and migrant communities themselves have been affected by their 'host' cities. Papers can address the push and pull factors that led to migration towards Oceanic port cities, as well as the strategies migrants adopted in order to survive and assimilate.
Port-cities can be looked at as a place of long-term migration, as a place of temporary settlement, or as a spring-board for further relocation. Paper proposals should focus on migration towards European, Asian, African or American destinations, in the period c. 1400-1700 both from the point of view of the migrants and from the point of view of the host-city.
This is intended as an interdisciplinary panel, and therefore the convenors encourage paper submissions on aspects including - but not limited to - linguistic and cultural exchanges, religious debate, social and legal regulations, places and urban development.
We encourage papers presenting a comparative perspective and specific case studies of individual or groups of travellers/migrants, as well as analyses of the attractiveness of specific towns.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Joana Sequeira (CHAM-UNL, CITCEM-UP) Ana Clarinda Cardoso (CHAM/FCSH-UNL)
Paper short abstract:
In 1457, the Pisan merchant Michele da Colle left his hometown and travelled to the Iberian Peninsula, where he would stay until 1475, first living in Valencia and then in Lisbon. In this paper, we examine his business activities and life experience during this period.
Paper long abstract:
Michele da Colle, a merchant-banker from the company group Salviati of Pisa, settled in Lisbon between 1462 and 1475. However, before arriving in Portugal, he lived for about 5 years in Valencia. This stay was important not only for the formation of this young merchant, but also for the establishment of commercial and financial links with the most prominent merchants settled in Valencia, like the Cambini agents.
Our main sources are the two account books (a ledger and a diary) that Michele produced between 1462 and 1463 when he was in Lisbon. We will also consider some of the ledgers from another Salviati company (Francesco di Nerone), which provides us with information about the years he lived in the city of Valencia. Portuguese documents about his presence are scant, but they will also be considered.
In this paper, we examine Michele's choice of markets and how he managed to articulate his business interests between these two cities. Moreover, we attempt to reconstitute his route between Valencia and Lisbon, which included somestrategic stops in cities like Seville, Cadiz and Tavira. In addition, we identify the commercial and financial interests offered both by Valencia and Lisbon, and the type of network he established and his integration strategies in the Portuguese society. His commercial records also provide insight on the material and cultural exchanges between Italy and the Iberian Peninsula during this period. A special attention is given to the exchange letters traded between Lisbon, Valencia, Barcelona, Pisa, Rome and Florence.
Benedetta Maria Crivelli (Bocconi University)
Paper short abstract:
Focusing on the products exchanged between Milanese enterprises set up in Venice and their agents settled in the port of Lisbon I explain how merchants used financial instruments to organize trade circuits and to what extent their economic connections were articulated within new spaces.
Paper long abstract:
During the 16th century, the maritime expansion triggered connections among distant territories developing international trade. A transnational approach, focused on the dynamics of markets generated from the mobility of both traders and commodities, allowed to gauge commerce in its repetitive and concrete dimension. Moreover, since the expansion of overseas markets, ocean seaports developed economic policies of attraction of foreign merchants.
Starting from this consideration, my research focuses on the products exchanged between Milanese enterprises set up in Venice and their agents settled in the port of Lisbon. It focuses on Lisbon, one of the main seaport of the multi-territorial Spanish empire, involved in a zone of interconnection between Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean. By the analysis of the socio-economic relations of the traders involved in these routes, I investigate the impact of exchange of goods on the building of economic space. As merchants controlled the economic resources through the access to credit, financial tools are as well considered to analyze the links between commerce of goods and the supply of credit. These connections can define competitions among merchants' groups but also allowed to experiment new alliances and synergies.
The empirical evidence - such as notarial records - casts new light on socio-economic relations by which agents build new bounded spaces that integrated local, regional and global markets. I explain how, breaking up cultural and geo-political frontiers, merchants used financial instruments to organize trade circuits and to what extent their economic connections were articulated within new spaces to create stable markets.
Susana Mateus (CIDEHUS - UÉvora)
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is to analyse the patterns of migration of some New Christian families between Lisbon and Goa between the 16th and 17th centuries. We will focus on the motives that encouraged the decision to migrate, as well as the different choices made by these families.
Paper long abstract:
The so-called Sephardic Diaspora led to the dispersion of Portuguese New Christians throughout several geographies and led to the family disarticulation of those members that came to establish themselves in different cities. One of the destinations of choice for this migration of New Christians was the territories of the Iberian Empires.
In this paper we will follow the migratory trail of some Lisbon New Christian families to the city of Goa, capital of the Estado da Índia at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century.
In order to establish the main patterns of this migration we'll considerer the following vectors of analysis: the duration of the stay in the city of destination; the motive for migration; the bounds entertained with the city of origin; the role the inquisitorial persecution played in these migrations or, oppositely, the one played by commerce.
We will use a wide array of sources, from administrative documents to travel reports. Nonetheless, we'll focus on those sources produced by the Holy Office. Despite the distance and the Oceans that lay in-between the Inquisition in Portugal maintained a very strict surveillance over the New Christians that relocated to the Empire. The presence of Portuguese New Christians in Asia deeply concerned Portuguese authorities that feared the spread of unorthodox practices of a Judaic nature. Thus, this migratory flow was frequently the cornerstone of a debate that often led to unsuccessful attempts to quash this movement.
Ana Teresa Hilário (CHAM)
Paper short abstract:
The Portuguese power in the Indian Ocean has always been based on a careful network of fortresses and the State of India only existed thanks to the men who were constantly going from Portugal to these region, to represent their king there. It was these men who allowed Portugal to dominate the ocean.
Paper long abstract:
It was a demonstrated relevance of the strengths of the Indian and his officers to the maintenance of Portuguese power in the Indian Ocean that led us to try to understand how the captain's selection process was managed during years of conflict and insecurity like those who were contemporaries of the reign of Philip II of Portugal. The task of appointing these officers was considered at the time one of the most important things to the administration of the portuguese overseas space.
In fact, we can say that if Portugal was able to dominated the waters of the Indian Ocean for centuries, it owes to the network of factories that has never stopped growing since the reign of King Manuel I. And, consequently, the role that was played by the men who were being named as captains of these fortresses.
Based on Andreia Martins de Carvalho's study of the Indian captains in the time of Nuno da Cunha, and applying to the ten years of the Council of India (1604-1614) the same topics of analysis that were used by the historian in his work, we could find a series of continuities and ruptures associated with the process of choosing the fortress captains between the reign of King John III to Philip III and relate them closely to the continuities and ruptures of the empire that these men served.
Beatrice Nicolini (Catholic University, Milan)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will open the discussion on the Baloch people from South Central Asia and their role in the Persian Gulf region and East Africa during the eighteenth century.
Paper long abstract:
This paper aims to focus on more than one littoral and more than one region, with the object of analyzing different perspectives both chronologically and methodologically. It should be noted at the outset that ethnocentric views-especially Eurocentric ones-have informed numerous studies for a long time, and sometimes still do. In this regard, most of western oriented strategic studies and analysis on the role of Baluchistan and of their people throughout history did focus on external menaces, interests and priorities.