Hello and welcome to the history page. This week we will carry on with
our examination of sharecropping as it was practiced in Ibiza prior to
the advent of tourism. Given the huge social and political importance of
agrarian matters in the years leading up to the civil war, Ibiza’s
particular modus operandi in this regard is indeed crucial to our
understanding of why the island became one of Spain’s anti-republican
strongholds. We have already ascertained that public sentiment in Ibiza
was rooted firmly in the conservative camp for the simple reason that
most of the island’s farmers lived in reasonable contentedness and thus
had no particular wish to reform traditional folkways. Unlike other
areas in Spain, where the landed oligarchy’s indifference to the plight
of the peasantry often amounted to outright cruelty, in Ibiza the
oligarchy dealt quite fairly with the pagesos who sharecropped
their land, following the mores that over the course of centuries had
come to form part of the local legal code.
Sea-Bound Isolation Promotes Fair Farming
Purely practical considerations no doubt accounted for the difference in
agrarian conditions between Ibiza and the Spanish mainland. Until quite
recently, islanders held the cultivation of land as nothing short of
sacred; for, rich and poor alike understood all too well that starvation
lurked as an ever present danger should food supplies run out. The
annals of Ibicenco history are rife with instances in which such
shortages did occur. Death certificates from the 17th
century, for example, frequently cited starvation as the cause of death,
with the illnesses connected to malnutrition following closely behind.
Your Wheat or Your Life
Further confirming the precariousness of island life is a series of
reports dating back to the 1640s. They tell of a ship which, due to a
sea storm, was forced to seek safe harbour in Ibiza. Bound for Granada,
the vessel was laden with hundreds of kilos of wheat. When the governor
caught wind of the precious cargo, he ordered the entire hold to be
unloaded and its life-giving contents distributed amongst the people.
Although he must have known there would be hell to pay, hunger obeys no
man’s law. Sure enough, when the empty ship returned to Barcelona and
reported the wheat-snatching incident, the island was brought to trial
for the unauthorized confiscation, whence ensued a long, drawn-out legal
battle the end result of which was that Ibiza was finally made to pay
for the wheat, but at a reduced rate.
To Every Thing There Is a Season
Another interesting lawsuit, tried in 1714, tells yet again of the
lenience which was characteristically granted to islanders in dire
straits. This case involved a small landowner, Bernat Bufí, who due to
personal debts was forced to auction off his only finca. The
wealthy new owner, Antonio Martí, made a verbal agreement with Bufí,
allowing him to stay on as the mayoral of the farmstead he had just
lost. However, subsequent disagreements between the two men (largely
influenced by Bufí’s bossy wife, so the story goes) eventually caused
Martí to renege on his offer. The case was brought before the
magistrates who ruled in favour of Martí: the mayoral was ordered to
vacate the premises within 15 day’s time, though naturally he was
entitled to monetary compensation for the work and improvements he had
done on the farm. Bufí appealed the ruling and ultimately won on the
grounds that:
"It is the usage and custom in [Ibiza] that during the month of
Christmas the mayoral or peasant who
lives in the house of another … is told that on the forthcoming Day of
St. John he must leave where he is
because the owner wants the house or estate to be vacated. The eviction
notice is given with time so that all can find a remedy, because it is
in June that folk leave one place and enter another … but in the month
of August, when all have found their dwelling for that year and cannot
leave until the coming year, it is a grave thing, lacking in fairness
and very inhumane, to force a poor man … with many debts to leave in
suddenness."
1937: The Dominicans vs. Francisco Planells
Another instance of legal action between landlord and sharecropper
occurred during the civil war. In this case, the landlord was the
Dominican Order which owned several country estates in Ibiza. These good
friars had entrusted the running of one of their fincas to
Francisco Planells whom they took to court in 1937 on the allegation
that Planells had failed to pay them their rightful share in the sale of
two horses. As we learned in last week's instalment, the mayoral
was responsible for purchasing his own beasts of burden - which were
considered his private property - while the landlord was entitled to one
third of any brood born to the utility animals kept on the farm.
Therefore, when Planells sold the horses in question to his brother,
Juan, the mendicant brothers demanded a third of the proceeds from the
sale. In his defence, Planells argued that one of the horses had worked
on the farm but had never sired any offspring on it, for which reason
the landlords had no legal claim to any profit generated by its sale.
Regarding the second, younger horse, Planells claimed that it had always
slept and fed on a neighbouring farm, and had therefore consumed none of
the produce from the Dominican's estate. Ergo, it was deemed that he
owed them nothing.
New-Fangled Ways Eschewed
We
can see from the foregoing that, although life in Ibiza was harsh and
lean, island peasants were at least afforded the benefits of basic human
decency and respect for their important contribution to society. It is
not surprising, then, that the agrarian reforms so boldly advocated by
the Azaña administration met with little or no enthusiasm in Ibiza. In
his article La figura agraria del mayo*, Ibicenco
barrister, Bernardo Cardona, confirms that the peculiar brand of
sharecropping that was practised in Ibiza "was so deeply rooted that
it resisted the obvious advantages that were made available to tenant
farmers and sharecroppers via the laws of Rustic Leasing, which dated
from 1935 - 1940 and guaranteed longer leases, the right to extend
leases ... as well as the possibility of eventually purchasing the
property. Despite the fact that the law of '35 allowed sharecropping
contracts to be entered in the Property Register, the book set aside for
this purpose was never once used in
Ibiza."
Closing
So
end our ruminations for today. Join us next week when we will finally
enter wartime proper with the initial Republican capture of Ibiza in
August of 1936. Until then.
*
Published in Missèr, Revista del Ilustre Colegio de Abogados
de
Baleares, Num. 54, July 2002, pages 32 and
33. |