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Abstract
Women and family groups participated significantly in early-modern Spanish emigration to Latin America between 1560 and 1620. Through an analysis of the personal correspondence contained in travel licences (Archivo General de Indias), in this paper the author studies the role of sibling relations in emigration. The relationship between brothers and sisters was a key factor in the different stages of emigration. Firstly, it sustained the transatlantic ties developed by the family groups that were divided. Secondly, the sibling tie was often behind the invitation of the wider family to emigrate from Spain. Finally, the relations between brothers and sisters were crucial in the creation of travel groups. The analysis of some case studies also shows how women made use of their direct siblings, and their siblings-in-law, in order to travel to America. The relationship between siblings thus appears as one of the fundamental mechanisms behind the high rate of female emigration at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries.
Notes
1. The conquest started in the Caribbean in 1492 and in Peru in 1531, when Francisco Pizarro encountered the Incas for the first time.
2. CitationBoyd-Bowman, “Patterns of Spanish Emigration to the Indies until 1600”. Mörner establishes the estimated number of emigrants for 1601–25 to be 111,312. From the period 1626–50, it is calculated to be 83,504. The total for both figures is nearly 200,000 emigrants. CitationMagnus Mörner, “Spanish Emigration to the New World Prior to 1810.”
3. CitationCanny, ed. Europeans on the Move; CitationJacobs, “Las Migraciones Españolas a América dentro de una Perspectiva Europea, 1500–1700.”
4. Altman, Transatlantic Ties in the Spanish Empire.
5. CitationPescador, The New World inside a Basque Village.
6. Testón and Sánchez, “Aunque no hacía nada por mí, su sombre llegaba hasta acá”.
7. CitationZúñiga, Espagnols d'outre – mer.
8. Only the travel licences approved are kept in the Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Indiferente, in files 2048–2075 and 2077–2107. These sources give the date when the letter was sent from America and when the family got the licence. This period ranged from a minimum of one to various years, sometimes a decade.
9. Díaz Trechuelo bases her analysis on the lists of passengers registered at the moment of boarding, and in the travel licences. The data of age and sex only refers to 43.2% of the emigrants in the seventeenth century. In the sixteenth century information about age was not included. Díaz Trechuelo, La Emigración Andaluza a América. Siglos XVII y XVIII.
10. In this case, the statistics were taken from about 96% of the cases, which offered sufficient data. Díaz Trechuelo, La Emigración.
11. The colonisation period started when the civil wars between conquerors ended, and the Viceregal administration settled down. In Mexico, that occurred in the 1530s, but in Peru it was delayed until the 1570s, with the arrival of Francisco Toledo.
12. CitationCavallo, “L'importanza Della ‘Famiglia Orizzontale’ Nella Storia Della Famiglia Italiana,”, 91–2, in which she explains the horizontal model in contrast to the Mediterranean family defined by Reher, characterised by vertical ties between generations.
13. Enrique Otte collected and published the correspondence contained in the travel licences to America. Most of them are concentrated in the period 1580–1600. Otte, Cartas Privadas de Emigrantes a Indias. 1540–1616. In subsequent notes, I will cite this source using the number assigned to every letter by Otte.
14. Female emigration grows throughout the sixteenth century from the low figure of 10% of the total at the beginning of the century (1492–1540). From the 1560s the female group already represents more than a quarter of the emigrant population. It reaches 28.5% in 1580, and in the last decade it reduces to 26% of the total. Those dates represent the highest female rates in the early-modern Atlantic migrations. Boyd-Bowman, “Patterns of Spanish Emigration to the Indies until 1600.”
15. Otte, Letters 484–485 (1586 and 1587). These letters are an example of the extensive correspondence between two brothers, Pedro de Nájera (Lima) and Diego González de Nájera (Cuenca, Spain), which exchanges information about joint business.
16. Altman, “A New World in the Old: Local Society and Spanish Emigration to the Indies,” 39. In her analysis of the conqueror families from Extremadura, Altman highlighted the importance of the family position in determining who would emigrate, how and when he/she would do it.
17. CitationZúñiga, “Ir a Valer Más a Indias.” Zúñiga studies the tensions in the individuals' strategies within the family group in the case of the Spanish emigrants in Chile, the consequences for the settlement and the unequal prosperity of the different individuals of the family as a whole.
18. Altman, Spanish Women in the Indies, 29. The author explains these phases in the emigration with respect to marital separation. The emigration laws related to women are analysed in Ots Capdequi, Bosquejo Histórico De Los Derechos De La Mujer En La Legislación De Indias.
19. Otte, Letters 584–585. Cristóbal López Chito wrote two letters from Potosí, one in 1564 to his brother Alonso López and another in 1568 to his sister Catalina García, both of them residents in Ronda.
20. CitationTestón and Sánchez, “Solidaridades y Redes Relacionales En La Familia Castellana.”
21. Letters often contained complaints regarding the lack of news. For example, in Otte Letter 416 [Cuenca, 1580], Esteban García wrote to his brother Bartolomé García, in Seville, complaining about not receiving any news for many years.
22. Otte, Letter 93 (1585). Pedro de la Torre's letter to his brother Bartolomé de la Torre, in Madrid.
23. The continued relationship between the two brothers, one emigrated to Peru and the other remaining in Castro del Río, and the request for documents is analysed in CitationHidalgo Nuchera, Entre Castro Del Río Y Mexico.
24. Otte, Letter 424 (1558). Ortuño de Vergara, living in Peru (Moyabamba), wrote from Lima to his brother, Francisco de Vergara, in Balmaceda. This letter was included in Francisco de Vergara's licence, when he travelled to join his father in Peru (AGI, Indiferente, 2079, N. 66).
25. AGI, Indiferente, 1373, (1573–88): Don García de Alvarado, Butler of the Empress, left his properties in Peru in the hands of his brother Joan de Alvarado, who never sent him the profits, for which he wrote a letter of complaint to the king.
26. Otte, Letter 393 (1580): Alonso Martín writes to his brother, Alonso de Herrera, who was a solicitor in the Council of the Indies, putting him in charge a series of businesses and recommending to him several people whom he should help.
27. Otte, Letter 49 (1577): Andrea López de Vargas to her sisters, in Jerez de la Frontera (Cadiz, Spain).
28. Otte, Letter 583 (1564): Cristóbal López Chito to his sister Catalina García, in Ronda (Spain).
29. Otte, Letter 447 (1577): Diego de Arce's letter to his sister Gracía de Arce, in Valladolid; AGI, Indiferente, 2091, N.40, 1579: the licence of García de Arce, who went to live with his uncle.
30. Otte, Letters 451–453 (1577): Jerónimo Núñez de Andrade writes from Lima to his sister, Francisca Núñez, who lived in Talavera de la Reina (Toledo, Spain), and one to his brother-in-law, Andres Vázquez. The letter is enclosed in the licence for Juan Vázquez, who travelled to join his uncle Jerónimo Núñez (AGI, Indiferente, 2090, N.55).
31. Otte, Letter 470 (1581): Doña Juana Farfán from Lima writes to her brother, Francisco de Nava Moriano, in Seville. It is enclosed in the permit for Bartolomé de Nava Farfán, resident in Seville, who went to live with his aunt Juana Farfán. (AGI, Indiferente, 2093, N.8, 1582)
32. In the letters and the licences I have analysed, the time that occurred between the emigrant's trip and the answer to his family could take between four years in the case of merchants (to obtain the permission for the trip they could not be separated from their wives longer) and 10 years, although some took almost 20 years to write to their families.
33. The juries of ‘Bienes de Difuntos’ were established in the viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru, to make sure the profits of those who died in the Indies came to benefactors in Spain. CitationMolinie, “Bienes de Difuntos et Liens Familiaux en Espagne et en Amérique (XVIe–XVIIIe Siècles).”
34. Otte, Letter 284 (1583): Ana de Espino sent from Panamá several silver bars to her sister María de Espino, in Logroño (Spain), and she wrote to her in an emotional way and with a strong preoccupation to help her family.
35. Otte, Letter 263 (1613): Diego Jaime de la Peña writes from Guatemala to his niece Doña María de Cabrera, Manuel López's wife, in Seville, and invited her to travel with her whole family.
36. Otte, Letters 330–331 (1575): Francisco del Barco wrote from Cartagena (today in Colombia) to his brothers and father-in-law, who lived in Las Casas de Millán (Cáceres, Spain).
37. Otte, Letter 590 (1576): Pedro Valero writes to his mother, Catalina Martínez, who lived in La Gartera (Toledo, Spain).
38. Otte, Letters 56–57 (1574): Beatriz de Cavallar and her husband, Melchor Valdelomar, wrote from Mexico to her father, Lorenzo Martínez de Cavallar, in Fuentes de León (Badajoz, Spain). They told him that his daughter reached Veracruz sick and almost dying, and that only after several years, being already prosperous and having new descendents, they had dared to write to him, not having done it before because of all the misfortunes they suffered.
39. Altman, “A New World in the Old: Local Society and Spanish Emigration to the Indies.” Altman says that, although this argument is often repeated, it still is true, since the main objective emigration was to prosper. CitationSánchez Alonso, Las Causas de la Emigración Española. Sánchez explains, from an economic point of view, the way in which the prosperity of a close person, for example a brother, was a common factor in the emigration.
40. Otte, Letter 590 (1576).
41. Otte, Letter 610 (1614): Don Pedro de Alarcón sent from Oruro (today in Bolivia) a letter to his sister, Ana de Alarcón, who lived in Toledo (Spain).
42. Díaz Trechuelo, in her analysis of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, demonstrates not only the radical decline in emigration after the first half of the seventeenth century, but also the change in its composition, towards a large majority of young and single men. Díaz Trechuelo, La Emigración Andaluza a América. Siglos XVII y XVIII. Also Márquez, in her study of the emigration in the eighteenth century, confirms the high number of single young men who travelled, tied to the activities in the merchants' family homes. CitationMárquez Macías, La Emigración Española a América: 1765–1824.
43. This phenomenon is explained by Lockhart using the correspondence published by Otte. CitationLockhart, “Letters and People to Spain.” The call for the nephews as a result of the need for an heir is explained by CitationTestón and Sánchez, “Para Hacer La Raya Enviamos Un Sobrino.”
44. Otte, Letter 70 (1576): Antonio Farfán writes to his sister Catalina Farfán. To persuade his nephew, he expressed his willingness to pay for his trip through a merchant dealer in Mexico whom he trusted, and to whom he writes, so that he would give a credit to his sister of up to 30,000 maravedíes for the passage, promising to pay it in Mexico or Seville.
45. Otte, Letters 164–165 (1574): Tomás de la Plaza, dean of Tlaxcala (Mexico), wrote to his sister and brother-in-law in Albuquerque (Badajoz, Spain), in order to send him a nephew. Also in Letter 591 (1577), the bachelor Francisco de la Calzada requested his sister to send him a nephew so that he can help him in his business and take care of him in his remaining years.
46. Otte, Letter 273 (1572): Francisca Hernández writes from Panamá to her niece, Maria de Barrera, in El Pedroso (Seville, Spain).
47. AGI, Indiferente, 2085, N.2 (1575). In Otte, Letters 615 to 618, she writes directly to her niece, encouraging her to obtain information about how rich they are in Chile. The invitation encourages the trip of her niece and family.
48. Otte, Letter 413 (1587): Rodrigo de Salinas, from Pasto (Colombia), writes to his mother Doña Leonor Pérez, who lives in Seville (Spain).
49. Otte, Letters 256–257 (1598): Francisco López de Salazar wrote to his sister, Doña Inés de Salazar, in Talavera de la Reina (Toledo, Spain), asking her to meet him in Trinidad de Sonsonate (El Salvador). Ida Altman has highlighted the importance of people coming from the same town in her study about relationships between Brihuega (Spain) and Puebla (Mexico). CitationAltman, Transatlantic Ties in the Spanish Empire.
50. AGI, Indiferente, 2106, N. 33 and 37, (1605).
51. AGI, Indiferente, 2098, N. 91, Contratación, 5232, N. 84 and Contratación, 5232, N. 88. Cartagena was on the Caribbean coast of the Viceroyalty of Peru; it is now in Colombia.
52. AGI, Indiferente, 2104, N. 40.
53. AGI, Indiferente, 2106, N. 33.
54. Otte, Letters 281–282 (1580 and 1581): Hernando de Soto, from Panamá, writes to his sister, Beatriz de Zapata, in the Spanish court.
55. Otte, Letter 126 (1594). Juan Moreno writes from Mexico to his brother–in-law Antonio Rodríguez, in Segura de Extremadura (Spain).
56. Altman, “Spanish Women in the Indies,” 34.
57. Otte, Letters 437–438 (1570 and 1572): Alonso Hernández, from Lima (Peru), writes to Sebastián Hernandez, in Santa Olalla (Spain).
58. Otte, Letters 439–442, (1571 and 1575). The licence is contained in AGI; Indiferente, 2087 N. 125 (1575). They travelled in 1578 (AGI; Pasajeros, L.6, E. 1159).
59. Otte, Letters 36–37 (1572 and 1574): Juana Bautista writes to her sister, Mariana de Santillán, in Seville (Spain).
60. Otte, Letter 40 (1572): Segundo Martínez writes from Mexico to his father, Domingo Martínez, who lives in Seville. In the correspondence the recommendation that women should travel in the company of a man who can be trusted often appears.
61. Otte, Letter 476 (1583): the tailor Robert Burt wrote to his wife from Lima, Ana Franca, and recommended that she contact Beltrán de Polanco, who has travelled to Toledo (Spain) to pick up one of his sisters.
62. Otte, Letter 342 (1584): Pedro Díaz writes to his sister, Elvira Díaz, in Seville.
63. CitationAltman, “A New World in the Old: Local Society and Spanish Emigration to the Indies,” 38.
64. CitationDíaz Trechuelo, La Emigración Andaluza a América.
65. CitationOts Capdequi, Bosquejo Histórico.
66. Otte, Letter 207 (1572): the friar Andrés de Arroyo wrote from Mixteca (Mexico) to Juan Hernández, in Alcaraz (Albacete, Spain).
67. Otte, Letter 425 (1558): Sebastián Carrera wrote to his wife in Seville. The letter is contained in the licence for María Sánchez; AGI, Indiferente, 2080, N. 31 (1560).
68. CitationAngel, Spanish Women in the New World: The Transmission of a Model Polity to New Spain, 1521–1570, 43. Angel also uses the correspondence to talk about protection between siblings as a key factor for the travel of women.
69. Otte, Letters 173–174 (1581): Sebastián de Pliego wrote to one of his brothers, and also to his wife. This case has been analysed and translated in CitationLockhart and Otte, Letters and People of the Spanish Indies.
70. Otte, Letters 313–314 (1589): the ones finally in the trip were: the wife, Luisa de la Vega with the nephew, four children (two girls and two boys) between the ages of seven and 13 years, and two female servants (AGI, Indiferente, 2099, N. 1, 1591).
71. Otte, Letter 73 (1577): letter from María Díaz to her daughter, Inéz Díaz, in Seville.
72. Otte, Letter 299 (1594): letter from Leonor López de León to her sister Luisa de León, in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid, Spain).
73. Otte, Letter 594 (1578): letter of Francisco de Paredes, from Potosí (Peru), to his cousin Juan Díaz, in Madrid (Spain).
74. CitationAltman, “Spanish Women in the Indies: Transatlantic Migration in the Early Modern Period,” 30–40. Altman mentions in this article the difficulty of really proving the women's participation in making the decision to emigrate, although, based on her analysis of the emigration between Brihuega (Spain) and Puebla (Mexico), deducts that women had a decisive role in emigration, economically and with their family links.
75. Otte, Letters 506A–508C, (1594 and 1595): the letters collected here circulated among Lima, Trigueros (Huelva), Zafra (Badajoz), Ciudad Real and Seville. This correspondence is contained in AGI, Indiferente, 2102, N. 161, Licence of Juan Ramírez de Aguilera, neighbour of Trigueros, with his wife and children (1595).
76. Otte, Letters 456–457. María de Córdoba wrote to her sister from Lima (1578), and later to her cousin from Potosí (1585). They are contained in AGI, Indiferente, 2099, N. 149, (1591), Licence for Juan de Haro Pachecho, who is going to join his wife, María de Córdoba, in Peru.
77. AGI, Indiferente, 2084, N. 69 (1570): licence to travel for Melchor de Villagómez, with his wife Ana de Córdoba, who are going to Lima. The passenger record is in AGI, Pasajeros, L.5 E.2949.
78. Otte, Letter 455 (1577): Juan de Córdoba to his brother. This letter was submitted by Juan de Haro for the travel permission to Peru. (AGI, Indiferente, 2099, N. 149).
79. Otte, Letter 456 (1578): Doña María de Córdoba, from Lima to her sister in Spain, complaining that she could not yet travel to Tucuman, a town in the south of the Viceroyalty of Peru (today in the north of Argentina).
80. Don Juan de Haro travelled to Lima to be reunited with his wife in 1592, as shown on his permission to travel (AGI, Contratación, 5237, N. 2, R. 31) issued by the Casa de la Contratación, and his passenger record (AGI, Pasajeros, L.7, E. 2178).
81. Her husband, Don Juan de Haro Pacheco, declares it in his licence. He explains that he wants to join his wife, Doña María de Cordoba, “whose current name is Luisa de Rojas” (AGI, Indiferente, 2099, N. 149, Page 11). In an obligation deed made in Lima in 1595, she signs as Doña Luisa de Rojas in her own handwriting, and her act is valid by her husband, who signs as Don Pedro de Haro Pacheco. In the transaction she promises to pay the merchant Simón López the total amount of 500 pesos, guaranteeing it with several houses she has in her possession. (Archivo General de la Nación del Perú, Notary Pedro González Contreras, Legajo 137 6-9 [F. 41)], Fol. 1242 v-1244 v).
82. Otte, Letters 615–618 (1557): Isabel Mondragón sent a letter to her brother Domingo Mondragón, held in AGI, Indiferente, 2085, N. 2, 1575.
83. Otte, Letter 378 (1565): Catalina Álvarez, in Mariquita (Colombia), to her brother García Martín, in Villamayor. She told him that she was married to Antón de Palma, a conqueror, and she is now a lady with servants, but has no children with her husband. She put all her hopes in her siblings to contact her son.
84. Otte, Letter 243 (1580): Pedro de Salcedo, from Santiago (Chile), wrote to his brother-in-law, Juan Martínez, in Alcalá de Henares (Spain).
85. Otte, Letter 634 (1588): Doña Beatriz de Contreras wrote to Ana de San Pablo who was a nun in the Santo Domingo convent in Madrid (Spain).
86. CitationTestón and Sánchez, “Mujeres Abandonadas, Mujeres Olvidadas.” Looking at the correspondence contained in the Inquisitorial procedures of bigamy in Mexico, siblings of abandoned women in Spain often appear. They act in their names to claim for the reparation of the damage caused and support them. This correspondence has been published by the same authors in: Citation El Hilo Que Une: Las Relaciones Epistolares En El Viejo y El Nuevo Mundo (Siglos XVI-XVIII) .
87. Lockhart and Lavrin mention in their chapters of Historia de América Latina, (Bethell, 1990), the relation between the bilateral inheritance system in Spain in the early modern age and the emigration to America. Furthermore, in the case of the Spanish transatlantic emigrations in the modern age, Blanca Sánchez explains how this inheritance system supported the finance of the Atlantic trip, and the women's journey. CitationSánchez Alonso, “Those Who Left and Those Who Stayed Behind: Explaining Emigration from the Regions of Spain, 1880–1914.”
88. The Iberian judicial system offered more independence for women than the Anglo-Saxon one; CitationRosen, “Women and Property across Colonial America: A Comparison of Legal Systems in New Mexico and New York.”
89. CitationGauderman, Women's Lives in Colonial Quito: Gender, Law, and Economy in Spanish America.