Industrialization in Spain: Basque Steel and Catalan Textiles
**The Steel Industry in the Basque Country**
The Basque Country was rich in iron mines. Small factories producing soft iron (virgin iron) had been exploited for centuries in the mines of Biscay. These factories exported iron to the rest of Spain and its American colonies, but with the independence of these colonies, the Basque iron factories entered a crisis. Basque traders took advantage of this time of crisis to create new industries and replace products that had traditionally been imported. Taking advantage of the protectionist policy and the deletion of partial immunity (1841), which allowed free trade with the rest of Spain, Bilbao and San Sebastian became the delivery points for products coming from Castile and the Ebro Valley. This protectionist policy was one of the reasons supporting the commercial bourgeoisie of San Sebastian and Bilbao’s support for the liberal state and its hostility to the Carlist cause, which proposed the reinstatement of charters.
**Other Industrial and Mining Activities**
Besides the textile industry in Catalonia and the steel industry in the Basque Country, industrialization in Spain affected other sectors such as food, chemical, mechanical, and mining. As for the food industry, the mills should be noted, as well as firms producing wines and spirits, and the olive oil production process, which was fairly technical.
**The Catalan Case: The Textile Industry**
In addition to capital, labor, and technological innovation, there are two other basic conditions for the textile industry to flourish: the existence of raw materials or cheap and abundant energy sources and a good demand for tissues. In Catalonia, neither was given: cotton and coal were imported, and the Spanish market had little purchasing power. At first, it was important to create a textile industry, especially cotton, thanks to the advance of the Catalan economy over the rest of Spain. Catalonia had taken the liberty of trade with the American colonies. Exports of textiles and apparel yielded significant benefits. Indian factories, the presence of witnesses after a craft tradition and manufacturing, which can be added to the forges, mills, and tanning, clearly showed the existence of a manufacturing network. Agriculture had also been modernized and had been market-oriented.
**1832-1833: The Beginning**
Bonaventura Bonaplata, along with brothers John and Joan Vilaregut Rull, founded the society Bonaplata, Vilaregut, Rull and Company that, between 1832 and 1833, built the first factory that ran on steam. Although it was destroyed in 1835 by a popular riot and the First Carlist War (1833-1840) delayed the process of industrialization. In Sants, The Old Steam (1840), established by Joan Güell, and Espanya Industrial, built in 1849, were the first Catalan industrial heritage landmarks.
**Industrial Colonies**
The Catalan textile industry followed the English model, originally based on coal use to achieve the vapor pressure needed to move the machinery. However, from 1860, due to the high cost of coal, they found the use of waterfalls and river currents to move the turbines advantageous. Thus, many industrial colonies were created in the basins of the Ter and Llobregat rivers.
**Protectionism**
The English superiority in prices and market control forced the industry to protect Catalan production. This was done to prevent the importation of British textiles in Spain and its last colonies. This protectionism allowed the existence of the textile industry. Outside of the above, the high prices prevented it from competing with other countries in British fabrics.
**Economic Phases**
Regarding economic development in general, the sources clearly indicate a constant expansion until the end of the 1850s, followed by a period of crisis during the next decade. The causes of this crisis must be sought in the new investment opportunities, such as railway construction and the purchase of land from confiscation, and secondly, the increase in cotton prices because of the American Civil War (1861-1865). The last quarter of the century was characterized by a slow recovery that continued until 1898, the date of independence of the American colonies, which then absorbed nearly 20% of Catalan production.