« The ‘natural’ rights of settlers: Steven Sarson, ‘”When They Left Their Native Land, and Setled in America”: The Fairfax County Resolves, the Origins of Colonies and Empire, and the American Revolution’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 115, 2, 2026, pp. 31-49
More subaltern settlers? Fernando Tavares Pimenta, ‘The Madeiran Diaspora in Southern Angola: The Chicoronho Community of the Huíla Highlands (1884-1974)’, Portuguese Studies Review, 2025 »

Subaltern settlers? Eduard Gargallo, Jordi Sant, ‘A Central Periphery: Catalan Settlers and the Economy of Spanish Guinea (1778-1968)’, Historia Contemporánea, 81, 2026, pp. 405-438

08Jun26

Abstract: With this paper we present an analysis of a group of white settlers almost completely neglected by historiography, the Catalans that migrated to Spanish Guinea (present-day Guinea Ecuatorial). We highlight how in spite of being rarely involved directly in the administration of the territory, Catalans were determinant to its economic evolution. Through a constant and systematic lobbying in both Guinea and Madrid, Catalan individuals, companies and institutions managed to influence the colonial policies of the Spanish government and to control the production and export of the main Guinean crop, cocoa. For a long period, Barcelona was the capital of a small empire in Equatorial Africa, and a national minority in the metropole became crucial in a colonial territory. Our study wishes to contribute to the knowledge of Guinean history and to the understanding of the diverse European communities settled in Africa.


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