El algodón de Motril y la industria algodonera catalana (1796 - 1856)

Abstract

At the end of the eighteenth century, the Vega de Motril, on the coast of Granada (Spain), did not have a hegemonic cultivation. The sugar cane, which had been for centuries its main crop, was in crisis because of the outdated sugar mills in which it was made and by the competition of Spanish American colonies. The blockade of the Mediterranean Sea during the Anglo-Spanish Wars of 1796-1809 and a very favourable tariff, offered the opportunity to grow cotton for the Catalan factories, which in those years struggle to get this raw material from Malta, Smyrna and other points of Levante. The new crop was present in the Vega for almost sixty years. Its growing incapacity to cope with the demand of the Catalan cotton industry, the loss of its competitive tariff advantage and an excessively expensive cultivation led to its complete disappearance.